I have been working on and off on dense forests in Bryce for almost a year and am about to throw my hands up in defeat. I have practically memorized JBAs tutorial but I am just not creating the effect I want. I duplicate trees until I am blue in the face, turn off the atmosphere and light the scene myself.. and I still hate the results. Then I see Laurie S's work and I get really discouraged. ;)

Does anyone have any links to a tutorial other than JBAs that might help me out? And, could anyone who has done a dense forest image or two give me an idea of how many objects they use? Maybe I am just not using enough objects.

I haven't even GOTTEN to vegetation on the forest floor yet.. still trying to get the silly trees to look right. ;)

Any help is deeply appreciated.

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Hmm, I would have to dig to find the last one I bothered saving. ;) I will look for some.

This was done in Bryce 4.

Ya could just make sure that theres definately trees covering the whole of the horizon

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It shouldn't be necessary to make hundreds of trees, should it? My machine gets upset when I have 50 trees, and I have a 1.7 GHz with 256 MB of RAM. ;) Alley, I read that, and I have tried some variations on it in the past, but unfortunately it doesn't allow me to do the dappled lighting I want. Or, if it does, I am too stupid to know how to do it right.

If all you want is "dappled lighting" you can add some lights with a dapple filter of your own creation. Sometimes with 3D apps you just have to "fake it" rather than expect the virtual world to behave like the real one. As far as RAM goes, I let Bryce5 play with 600MBs, but then I have 896 MB installed. The technique I was showing you at least allows you to use 2D faces for the "deep" part and real trees, that may dapple light, in the foreground. Believe it or not light does pass through the transparent parts of the 2D faces and casts shadows.

Wow, amazing. I will definitely have to play with this technique some more. Is it better to create the foreground scene first and then do the 2D faces last?

You can do it either way, it doesn't much matter. I like to work my foreground first then fill in what I need in the background. Some experimentation is required to get the right combination of effects but it will save you a whole lot of RAM.

err .. hello s. There are only about 20 trees in total in the back of my image I think..and I have them scattered .. also I use a darker sky but still day and add a light up front ... I am writing a tut on this .. but it will be a while .. would it help to have a "from the top view " In Bryce? I could take a pic of it an upload if you want. If you have any specific questions I would be happy to answer...? I do leave spaces in my tree line .. the trick is to manipulate the haze so it is only at the back so to speak . I learned the trick from the book "Real World Bryce"... Sorry I only just found this thread..

ahha, Hi Laurie =) A top down view would be wonderful. I have Real World Bryce and have read it a zillion times, but my attempts at using haze to block out the far background haven't been too good (it always seems to overtake the image and make the whole thing green or grey or yellow or whatever). I would gladly devour any tutorial you write about making your forests. =) (In the meantime I have been playing with 2D faces.. it's not bad, but I need much more practice I think.)

just a thought, what about creating several cubes which are scattered and rotated to create differing reflections and with a high reflective material and use the illusion of reflection to create multiple trees? it's about illusion.

reflections = render time. I suppose you could "do it with mirrors" but the ray tracing cost would be horrendous.

I have been fighting this forest issue off and on for almost as long..... so now I know ..I should look at this forum more often for answers...I learn really cool stuff every time I look!! Thanks all for the info.

Wow, it's a lot less complicated than what I keep trying to do. If I understand it right, you have mixed "fake trees" (just trunks using JBA's tutorial) with metaball trees from Bryce 5. Thanks Laurie. =)

Hi there .. yes I mix them .. not metaball trees though .. but they would work I guess.. I just pick any old tree that works g .. yup my motto is KISS ;-)

Actually, I read at the Corel site that the trees in Bryce 5 are all metaballs, but I could be mis-remembering. Thanks again Laurie.