An excellent way to make your life easier, is to spend a little money on Monsoon's Earthernware materials for Vue. (You can find them on my web site at www.expandingwave.com, or at 3DCommune, I believe. (Not sure whether they're here at Renderosity or not.) Even though I make my own terrain mixes with the Texturemaker program (which Monsoon also used, I suspect), I often use his textures for quick-and-dirty scene-making. I got my money's worth out of Monsoon's landscape textures ages ago: its been a great investment!