I'm sure this is an easy yes or no, but I'm new at this: Is it possible to use a tiff or jpeg or BMP as a background image in bryce? Do you need to convert it to a sky? If so how?

Hi, no need to convert to a sky, simply select "open Image" on your Bryce file menu, the find your background and thats it , good luck. Hawkfyr

I'm a little unclear on this. When I open the image it appears on the screen until I change the angle (or do anything else actually) and then the image just disappears. What I'm trying to do is use a space shot of the earth as a backdrop for an animation, but I can't figure out what to do. Any other ideas? Or did I misunderstand? Thanks.

I'll be damned ..Your right, I just tried it hmmm.. well one possible workaround I did was to create a 2d square, and map the image onto it. you might have to play with the scaleing on it but I'll be damned If I can figger out why just opening the image wont work,....good luck and let me know how it's working out okay? thanxzalot Hawkfyr

Just got my answer from metacreations, and it doesn't look good for my plight. Oh, well. Here's the text from their answer to my case: "There is no real way to place an image as a background in Bryce. You can try placing the image on a 2D plane that fills your background or try mapping it on other types of objects for a similar effect. However, you will not get the sun or moon to show infront of this object and this limits its usefulness. It is also possible to get odd shines or reflections off the plane based on the lighting situation in your scene and due to there actually being an object there to hold the background scene."

Hmm... yeah it doesnt sound good.. y'no You can make some really great space scenes in bryce yourself ,there are plenty of tutorials (theres actually a good one on the bryce cd itself) or on the content cd if you have bryce 4, you may very well be able to make one better than the image your trying to import. copy and patse this url into your browser to see a quicky one I did. http://www.geocities.com/hawkfyr/space.html or go here for my website http://www.geocities.com/hawkfyr/index.html Good luck arabinowitz Hawkfyr