Hello everybody. My name is Piotr and this is my first post in here but not last  I need a litle help with sky in Bryce. I haveBryce 5. I saw in couple of works a nice sky. This was a photo which was used as a sky. And I have question.Maybe someone know how to create something like this?? Maybe you have a tutorial how to use photo as a sky. I will be very gratefull if somebody want to help me.
This is my email adress if necesary: raiden1983@gmail.com

P.S. Sorry for my english but my native language is polish

Hi raiden,
I've used my own photos on a primitive, I think the one with Leonardo's man or maybe a flattened box. I don't have bryce where I am right now. If no one else can give you better information, I will try later tonight or tomorrow to better describe what I do. I know that in the Material lab there is always a dot I have to fill in order for the photo to look right. Again, I'll check back later to see if anyone else comes up with better info for you.
Ang

Agent Smith is your man. It's a specialty of his. He used to have some free ones somewhere around here.

Hi raiden..    take your favorite sky hoto and place it in a file somewhere were you can find it....

• open Bryce up.. Click on Create and click on a 2D surface... (top menu)
• click on edit  (on top) and click on the 2D surface... now make it big! with the resize function.
• click on Create again..  and click on the *create 2D object .. * thats the little gold statute of Micheal Angelo... 
• Now you are in the *Pictures' * UGI... click on one of the empty grey button spaces and you'll get a file browser...
• Find your picture and click open  ..   and your sky will appear on that grey spot..
• press the *check mark *  (bottom right) and the sky photo should now be on your 2D surface...
• Render an see what you have to do to fool the camera by positioning it correctly..

Let me know if it made sense.... to you...

Oh yes... you might want to turn off the Atmosphere it could help...   there are also neutral skies you can use as background lighting for your photo sky composition....

Here is a photo sky I used in Bryce.. the sky you see is a long rectangle I made from a 2D surface.. I positioned the camera so it does not see the naked sides....

Big thanks Tom. This help me very much.Thanks a lot :):)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=843

Here is another approach from a tutorial at renderosity.  see link

.... a few more tips.

Before adding your sky photo to the 2D plane, set the plane to a nice bright material (one of the simple and fast, like red, green, or blue work nicely.)

Make sure the 2D plane is perpendicular to the camera.  As you move it back to get it behind the other objects in your scene, that bright color is easier to see.  You want the 2D plane to cover all the open sky area, but be as small as possible to accomplish that. 

When you get the plane positioned, you can not change from the bright texture to the photo.

Even with the atmosphere off, the sun position is very important -- not just for your scene shadows, but for how bright your sky photo looks.

Some objects may cast shadows to your sky photo.  Select those objects and turn off the "cast shadows" if you want to avoid that.

This same procedure can be used to make "camera filters" or to simulate something like rain.  Here you would bring the plane up to the front and use transparency.

I like to make scenes without post processing, so I made my signature/copyright into a 2d plane object, which I can add to the render.

Thanks for all yours help.I'll try it all :):)

Here's an example of one I have done. I made the 2D plane for the sky have lots of ambience and made it 20% transparent and had back lighting to simulate the sun. I made the Bryce sky plain black for this and has another light near the camera to create some scattered light effect.

I use the 2D imported background sky technique quite a lot and I thought I would share some of my own findings with you.  You do not have to switch shadows off per object if you uncheck cast, receive, and self shadows on the 2D plane itself.

As Jfike said previously; you can also use a sky, or rain, or snow etc. 2D pic as a "camera filter", or scrim( theatrical set design term) if you make it semi-transparent and position it in front of background objects or terrains. Here I've painted a sky and mist background in PS and imported it as a 2D background. I just added a "marble" to the transparency channel, and put it in front of a background hill terrain.

I added a couple of background hill terrains on the left to complete the near and foreground, and added some trees to finish it off. I deleted the ground plane(seldom use one) and used a plain blue background sky preset and adjusted the sun and background pic transparency to blend everything together. I'm not against postwork, but I didn't add any to this pic. Good luck, and happy rendering. Dan

Thanks for all of you.
I found tut about sky in Bryce.This is link: www.geocities.com/asperen290573/tutorials/tutorial6.html
ANd this is what I get after read this tut:  www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

One other point with using an image for a sky: the horizon may look wrong.  With the Bryce sky you can adjust have, cloud height, fog, etc.  Using a image, you have to simulate that.

I didn't put much time in this and it shows.  However, with some tweaking it should look decent enough.

Anyway, what I attempted was to position a cube that stretches across the horizon and intersects the 2D plane and the ground (or water) plane.  I then used a volume material to try to get the haze look.

The great thing about Bryce is the many different ways one can get some pretty good effects.