I'm asking for help here because I currently have a massive project on hand and I need to render in Bryce some key scenes for a project I'm calling "The Prometheus Project"

This is the story of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods to give to humans - with a twist.

For it I need 5 or 6 scenes:

1. Nero's Rome
2. Medieval London - The Great Fire of London
3. London during the WW2 Blitz
4. Bush fire in the Australian Bush
5. and possibly something to do with the Matrix (not so sure of this one)
6. A Dark World in a Starry Sky

Now I've already asked over in the Wings3D forum for help with the architecture, for London and Rome - looking at a simple street scene for each, so if anyone here can help with that, great.
But I also need help with the Australian outback scene, for that I was thinking landscape, red rocks, sandy land, scrub, dry looking trees, and grass, dry and tall grass.

But grass is notoriously difficult in Bryce because of the huge polys... isn't it?  Would such a scene be possible do you think?

Must be quick to create too, cos we only have a few weeks for this project and I need these backgrounds as soon as possible, to put together with the green-screened animation - which someone else is doing (I hope) right now.

Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated.

Try this tutorial by Flak. It will enable you to get loads of grass without the high poly count.
http://www.digital-wasteland.com/tut_lgf.html

My scene looks like this now... so far.

Anyone have any idea how to make a terrain look like Ayres Rock?

(I'm also not too happy with the front line of the grasses, looks awful being dead straight like that but I'm not sure how to disguise that)

Your going to need more advanced help then i can supply.
sorry

There's a web site out there that has a lot of ruined buildings. The theme is Warhawks 40k (big robot-looking soldiers). Go to Daz 3d's freepository and do a search on WH40k. There's a whole mess of the stuff, but one of the sites has at least 3 ruined buildings( long list of sites. May be tedious, though).

Ed Baumgarten might have some buildings at baument.com.

I think Blacksmith 3d has medieval buildings.

I remember a very old (Poser 3) site that has some Roman stuff. Check freebies here.

Matrix; should be some stuff out there. I remember a tutorial to make the robots, but I can't remember where.

Hope these vague pointers help...;)

Is this commercial or just for fun?
There are lots of Google sketchup models of the Temple of Jupiter, Pantheon, etc. Rhino can import export. But you can't use many of these commercially.

Here's a good shape library. Lot's of high rez like a bust of Nero, statue of Neptune.
http://shapes.aim-at-shape.net/viewmodels.php?page=1

Free meshes and more low rez buildings here. The index has a text search.
http://www-c.inria.fr/gamma/download/

Roddluc2001 has some midevil market and half timber buildings.
http://www.rodluc.com/download.htm

Wonderful!  One of those links led to - as you said - some ruined buildings, exactly what I needed.

That and Clay's fire is pretty much all I need for the foreground, now I just need a dome and a spire or two for the background...  That gives me at least a quick first draft for WW2.  Thanks very much for that.

Next it'll be the medieval, now I do happen to live in (as a home town, not right now) a town with some medieval buildings, and fortunately I had to sense last time I was home to take some decent photos of one at least of those buildings, so I can do one foreground building myself from that, but a street needs more than one building, so don't stop sending me references, or links to useable models, I need to get something quick to show to teammates, then I can model as much myself as I have time for, those will be foreground if I can get them good enough.

Will look at blacksmith3d and baument, thanks. 

Not sure what "an old poser3 site" would be or how to find it.  But will look in freebies here - again, I have looked already but not necessarily for that specifically, after spending almost all one day searching, your brain (and eyes) get sort of punch-drunk.

If only I wasn't searching and modeling and rendering so much I might have time to look at the matrix and then maybe discover what Gaz was on about - but I'll see him tomorrow - I'll have to ask for clarification.

Thanks pakled, a great deal of help there, brilliant.

Electroglyph,

It's not for fun and it's not commercial either, this is for a university course project - one of 3 we have to do in about 4 weeks...
:b_unbelievable:
The RodLuc site looks like it could be useful, thanks.  I'll look more closely at the other links in a mo, thanks for those.

Orbital,

What can I say but wow!  I love those masks, I'm off to try them out right now.  I got those brushes from the link you posted, they sound great too, but I haven't unzipped them yet, however....

I have got the above so far on the Bushfire scene:

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1817902

It's not Bryce, but you're welcome to use it.

Thanks Paul, but I need to make it myself as I don't yet know what angles we will decide on and we may want the background animated anyway.

Not the starry sky so much, but the scene with the dark world in it.  I may not have the concept for this shot quite right, anyway.  You see it all depends what people say when they see these backgrounds.

Thanks for the offer though.

Matrix titles font http://simplythebest.net/fonts/fonts/matrix.html
Matrix machine code font http://www.thescifiworld.net/downloads/fonts/matrix_code_nfi.ttf

PhilC had a neo trenchcoat for poser 6 but I guess you don't need that for backgrounds.

Dear Orbital,

Dear sweet, helpful, Orbital!  Those masks are great, I'd love to know how to make such a thing myself.

Thank you so much for making them for me, they look very useful, I'm just off to try them out now............

Oh the rock, yes please!  Definitely!

Gotta dash, late for a lecture.

here's a link to a roman city scene in bryce- you should check out this guys portfolio, he;s got some good stuff
http://www.sharecg.com/v/29679/3D-Model/old-roman-cty_bryce-and-OBJ
good luck!

It's simple really, all i did was download those brushes. I opened up a new document in photoshop with a black background, then just painted on top with the brush colour set to white. Save as jpeg then did as Flak did in that tutorial.
Regards the Rock IM me your e-mail address and I'll send it over!

Thanks alymac,  that guy seems to be pretty prolific with his room models, which is hateful when I think how long it's taken me to create mine.

Some of the models seem to have a problem displaying in Bryce - a good many poser made models seem to have the same glitch, I think.  Something to do with a lack of hard edges or no tiny bevels on corners, if I'm right, but my goodness what a lot of models!

Phew! 

Thanks for the link.

Attached Link: http://artcomp1.tripod .com

Attached Link: http://artcomp1.tripod.com

Attached Link: http://artcomp1.tripod.com