Yes thats a great help thanks alot :-). The tank track tut should help me with the footprints, and I've more or less got the kind of scree slope I need, at least from a distance. Now I just need to figure out a way to blend the cracked clay into the mud of the lake, I guess if the mud was at a lower altitude I could just use a mixed material and tweak the influence of altitude until it looked right, would that work?

Will.