Can someone tell me why the colors of textures applied to an object chang when I use the starfield sky preset? And how do I use this preset without effecting the colors and possibly lighting of my final render? thanks

Ahh. Well you see the starfield is a sky preset. It has it's own sky color, light color etc. Since the scene is effect by the sun and atmospheric values. The colors of the objects and landscape change. It though there was a option to turn off affected by sky somewhere. Since I do not use Bryce very much any more maybe some one else can elaborate. But what is happening is not your fault, it is just the way Bryce does things. Another thing I hope the improve in B5.

There is one thing you can do. You can use a material called real starfield or something like that. It used to be available here as a free down load. It maps a starfield to a huge sphere in which all of you objects sit. This is independent of the sky settings and will not effect lighting or color. It also creates a much nicer sky than the built in starfield preset. I have created my own as well and I think I can mail it to you if you wish.

Yup it is still there just do a search in Bryce free stuff for accurate starfield. or starfield. The one you want is done by Wolf

Thanks for the replies. Been fooling around with the star field you suggested, it's really cool.