I'm wondering how you people who do larger than screen size images work in those images. I know how to get the larger than standard size render, what I'd like to know is your techniques for working with them. Do you zoom out, place things then zoom back in and work on the details or well I don't know, how do you find it easiest to work in them and get around in them? Thanks, Angela

Good question, inquiring minds want to know......

Up until recently I used to work and render at 800x600. The last couple of pics Ive worked at the smaller default size and havent found it much more difficult as I zoom in and out and work just one one area at a time. I had Bryce for about 6 months before I even found the zoom buttons which is why I used the larger size for ease of use. Conversly, Ive now started rendering at 1200x900. Only found out how to do that the other day. :o) Whats this thing called a manual? Good read, is it? LOL

I'm not following the question here. I work normally with a small screen (640x480) while I set everything up, and then change to the actual rendering size last thing before rendering.

Phantast, I thought of that as a possibility after I posted my question. It seems like a reasonable way to do it. So you work in default size then when done change it to a bigger size to save. And this gives the image better details right? I mean you can see the stuff better and they look good. I've found that when I zoom in on something and render it - it looks horrible. Thanks I think I may try this way with this challenge if I can get it looking right! Ang

I have my monitor at 1280x1024 and I set my wireview to 1100 pixels wide or 900 pixels high when working. If I have a nice pov I write the settings down somewhere or I give the user cam the settings I want to keep. If I need to do some close-up work I change to a nice working pov with the director cam. I center the cam to the selection when I like to move around things. Then at the final render I set up the res I like. I always make sure I have plenty of detail in the textures or on the models when I work on a scene that's going to be high-res, so it still looks good if I zoom in. I also like to model objects in an empty scene so I can get a nice detailed view. When I make big models I even split them up in several parts. I can always puzzle everything together later. For postwork I use the zooming options all the time to zoom in on the important area's or zoom out for a good overview.

If you work at a bigger scale then you have to work harder. I've always rendered my work at about 1200x900 or somewhere around there. Basically, YES, you do have more to fill in because the screen is bigger, therefore there's more information to feed Bryce. Of course, if you work on a 800x600 resolution, if you render to file at 1600x1200 I think that Bryce will simply stretch out the image. Like right now I have 1400x1050 resolution on my laptop. So I decreased it to 1024 and noticed that Bryce (I had it running) DID in fact decrease the size of the render window. Working at a higher resolution doesn't imply that you can be sloppy texture wise though. A higher res image will be a bigger render for Bryce, because it has more to render. At the same time, an 800x600 render will blow anyone's mind if it's made by someone with talent. That's pretty much what it boils down to. The world in a grain of sand :) Drac

I like big pics, tend to render at 1024 if possible, but even with a 21" monitor, I tend to have parts of the screen not accessible (which is why a lot of my pics are so dull at the bottom..;). Bryce just fills out whatever textures and skies past the point of visibility, but these suggestions sound intruiging..thanks.

ok, this is probably a stoopid question, but oh well. . . i've always built my scenes with the bryce default window size of 540x405, then rendered to disk at 1024x768. is there really a difference in final picture quality in doing it that way, as opposed to setting the bryce window to 1024x768 and rendering on screen?

I usually do my assemby at 800x600 or so then decide render it at larger scales. Personally I don't go higher than 1024x768 cuz most people only have 17" monitors. I find scrolling from side to side an inconvenience. I like to see the whole composition in one screen if possible rather than see small details.

I render anywhere between 600 and 6000 pixels :)

I do my composition on a small screen (800 x 600) so I can see the basic shapes all at once. Then I change to my final render size (usually 1024 x 768) and do the final tweaking of textures, etc. so that the image will look its best at full size. When the render screen is showing, I use the hand in the lower right of the screen to move about the off-screen parts of the image, plop-rendering to test parts of the image that need work on the textures, etc.-rendering at the final res (usually 64 rpp premium). Then I do my final render when I'm happy with all that. I don't render to disk because that doesn't allow you to save a partial render and finish it later. I'm paranoid about losing a bunch of render time to power outages (we have them too often in the boonies where I live.

Answer to darkpoodle - no difference at all. IMO the advantage of working with a relatively small working window is that test renders are a lot quicker. I usually render to 800x600 because that's the size I post at (will fit on anyone's monitor in one go). But I find setting up at the smaller size means the work goes a little quicker.

I usually work around 640x480, or 800x600. Like said above, helps speed up test renders, then I Render to Disk at whatever size and DPI I want.. Usually no smaller now than 1500x?...