1. can you change the brush shape to be square, v-shaped...? 2. is there a numeric value for the height gauge to set your brush, instead of based on the grade between black and white ( hope you know what I mean ) hope you can help...

As far as I know, what you see is what you get. One basic brush shape with a size, edge softness, flux control, and a shader scale to determine height. There are also some behavior options for the brush. But...You can import a grayscale from an image editing app. like Photoshop.

yeah, but its not the same..sometimes scale goes out of whack when you do this....if only it had Adobe type brushes in the terrain editor..oh wouldn't that be nice!

Try 512 X 512 pixels, ( should keep everything proportioned right ) you can up the resolution after it's loaded in Bryce.

I do all my terrains in 1024x1024, using Corel photopaint and a copy of Vistapro for the initial fractal generations, which gives me much better control over details in my landscape and allows me to do all sorts of custom shaping. As I do most of my terrains in 512x512 min resolution, and more often at 1024x1024 resolution (which is the only way to get really good looking terrain features), this works well, and it can always be sampled at a lower resolution if you don't need the fine stuff. As long as you import a greyscale at 512x512 or 1024x1024, the scale should not get screwed up.

Thanks Allen9 - I've always liked your fractal terrains...