This is an image of a die set I am having made. I thought I would pull the cad file into bryce and do a realistic render. The objects and table top are 3D. The press in the background is a 2D photo. Everything is inside a sphere with the same photo mapped on it and about 16 lights. I've drawn a line where the bryce horizon cuts across the photo plain. The surface above seems to be darker than the surface below this line no matter what settings I click. How do I turn this off?

i had a similar problem before, so i'd like to hear the solution as well

Does the photo in the background have some transparency to it? If it does it looks like the ground plain is showing through. You could delete the ground plane or get rid of the transparency.

if there is any reflectivity in your scene you will have to allow for the presence (or lack of) of things behind the observer/camera.

I have this problem when I use light probes. I turn the atmosphere off. Then I click on that neon blue and change it to either black or white. Maybe that will help? AS

And, if you're not using your infinite plane, which you shouldn't in interior scenes, make sure it is deleted. AS

The photo in the background and the sphere has diffusion 60 ambience 40 using the image for both. Refraction is 100 (air) because I didn't touch it. Everything else is zero. Tried turning on, off, cast shadows, receive shadows, self shadows, and blend transparency. The infinite plane is deleted. Atmosphere is off Black didn't help. White Didn't help. Tried mapping to a cube instead of a 2D surface with no luck. I'm using premium render. Went in and turned off all four optics settings one at a time with no effect. Oop's, I feel stupid. I had used square lights at first when I had the spheres pointed up in an attempt to create the effect of florescent tube reflections. Even though the flat wall was below these it still had an effect on the surface. I deleted all square lights and replaced them with radial lights. Everything looks real, (Except the table texture). I've noticed I have a lot better luck using objects with the ambience cranked way up than actual lights if I want to simulate visible bulbs.

Is this for a punch press?

Maybe group everything [I mean everything - objects, lights, camera - everything] together. Now rotate the whole thing down 90 degrees. Voi-la! No horizon there!

It's just for stamping out hollow spheres. The punching is done elswhere. Changing the lights from square spots to radial lights seems to have fixed everything. I had cast and recieve shadows off, and the angle from the lights to the 2D backdrop was high enough that the shadow should have passed above the backdrop. It still somehow made a difference. I used square spotlights in my christmas scene. The light didn't pick up the stained glass colors even though it was loaded into the volume channel. It also didn't pick up the shape of the window when I had cast shadows selected for the walls. I wound up applying as a gel and putting up pine trees so you could not see the tops of the windows were square instead of curved. Special bryce lights have special quirks. Someday I'll figure them out.

tell me about it. I've been known to do the 'rotate the horizon outta here' bit meself..;) If only I had the time to play with it..;)