Interesting that you set the lights close to the ground... Any particular reason?!?
-With no shadows being cast, it almost doesn't matter at what height they are at, but I normally just as habit, put the radials at the same height as the objects in front of the camera.
-In this case, grouping all the objects together, they are collectivelly at a Y value of 56, so that's the height I put the radials at.
-I suppose the habit of doing that is just time saving, in case I want to turn the shadows back on, and/or want to turn the radials into spots, and pan them for a specific look.
-All this taking into account the lights are a cheap fake to fill in some light to simulate bounced light from the walls and such. (If i turned the shadow casting back on, and the radials were higher, the light would not hit the walls as the ceiling would cast a shadow)

Do simple black/white images make good hdr maps?
-Yeah, they are used when you want a lighting scheme but not wash your scene out with the HDRI's color. (some of them are quite color saturated and can change the color of your textures to sometimes an undesirable amount)) Most commercial/retail HDRI's you buy these days come with a greyscale version of each .hdr

I also thought that for Bryce, hdr maps had to look like spheres in order for Bryce to use them
-Nope, apparently as long as its a sqaure image that has been saved (through HDRShop) as a "angular" or "mirrorball" .hdr, Bryce will be able open and use it. So basically, you can turn most images into a useable .hdr (they will not have the dynamic range of a real .hdr, but still, it can be done)
-The only reason this .hdr of mine doesn't look circular, is because the "sphere" part of the image is black.

is the the distortion necessary?
-No, but the resulting .hdr will not be seamless, but if that attribute doesn't happen to show up in your render, then technically, it doesn't truly matter. ;o)

AND, how comes yours isnt warped like in a spherical motion?!? Its "flat"?!? Howd you do that?
-Because yes, I just created it a a flat image in Photoshop, using that tutorial at the bottom of our "HDRI's for Bryce 6" page. See the tutorial HERE.

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