Hello everyone. I just took the plunge yesterday and purchased Bryce 5.0. I purchased it because of the renderer (I mostly use Poser and almost everyone I talk to raves about the Bryce renderer), but I am very impressed with the program itself. I find that I can make good scenes quickly as long as I don't use grass. A quick search through the archives shows that grass has always been a problem with Bryce. A strange thing to be lacking in a landscape renderer. My question is this, what are the best work-arounds, tricks, and techniques to squeeze decent looking closeup blades of grass out of Bryce?

very nice grass ken!

thank ya:)

Well, that just great! So are you going to show us how or what? :)

lol-sorry :) the forground grass is the freesample available from http://www.marlinstudios.com/ in the tree'foliage section. Its a 2D Pict using the alpha channel. same is in the background only scaled bigger. The other grass' are from http://www.3dplants.com . I just used them in sections starting with a low front, midsize middle section, and then the higher grass in the back to add depth to the image.

:)

Awesome image. This is the kind of grass I was looking for. I don't think that 2d picts work well with animations, do they?

KenS, Thanks for the links! The Marlin grass clipping rocks. By the way 3D Cafe has a good selection of 3D vegetation models. And they have all the plants from 3D Plants.com there too. Are there any other links to any 2D grass & vegetation maps?, the Marlin ones are great but very expensive. These could be the secret to more realistic scenes in Bryce without make the filesize huge. kaom

www.gardenhose.com

Forget the grass...I love the mushrooms! Metaballs? Spit

FYI Vikings before battle, the priests would eat the amanitas, also known as woodpecker from mars, and as the alkoloids didn't completly metabolise, the urine was collected and passed to the warriors - kid you not.

Siberian shamans used to do the same thing. Here in Colorado we get some huge ones, I'm not going to say as to whether I've eaten them or not though.....Hmmm.Mmmmmm............. They must be heated to be effective, Muscimol(the active- ingredient) also used to be used as a potion to kill fly's. Hence the name Fly Agaric. It's closest cousin is the Panther Amanita mushroom,which will kill you if you eat it. Don't ask me why I know so much about mushrooms, cause I won't tell.LOL kaom

as for the mushrooms, they are a 3dmesh I made awhile back and are available on my site in the plants section, also, the texture used for the caps is in the bryce textures/organic section, apty named amanta muscaria for which is was designed for. Chemical Studios for those that dont know already ;) as for more grass textures, Im currently in the works on a new Bryce cd, which will have alot of grass clips, as well as other choice foliage and tons of high rez phototextures in .mat/.obp format. Ken ps. the whole cd will be much cheaper than any of the Marlin cd's and from personal opinion-much better textures :)

Go ask Alice I think she will know.

KenS, Let us know when you have the CD ready, I'll buy it in a second. The Marlin stuff really does look incredible, I've seen his stuff sale in 3D magazines before, but unfortunaely they are a little too pricey for me right now. I hope your CD is much more affordable, you'll sell a ton of them if they are. kaom

The cd should run about $50, like my previous 2 cd's

Check out PlantStudio. It can make 3D grass as well as many other plants. http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/order.htm

Thanksfor poiting out PlantStudio, I'd forgotten about it. The prices is right too. It looks like it could help bring some life into Bryce for a reasonable price, looks like something to buy. thanks, kaom

I think I just ended my vegetation woes in Bryce. Thanks you again Peggy Walters for recommending Plant Studio. I just went and got it, and to say the least; I'm utterly impressed. I recommend this to everyone working with Bryce, it's amazing, and a fraction of the price of XFrog. The vegetaion this little program can make looks really good in Bryce. And it exports in all the file formats we need. I give it 5 stars, check it out, you won't regret it. kaom