I would like to be able to make a realistic looking pyramid right down to the perfect texture, but can't seem to find a tutorial on how to go about doing this. Does anyone know of a site, or can someone tell me how to do this?

I second that motion for a tut on this. It would take too long just to make the individual blocks and smooth them, texture them etc. I tried posterizing a pryamid shaped terrain in bryce, but didnt quite work out for me : ( I wanted to do this for making a 'stargate' themed picture I've had floating around in my mind for awhile..

I pass the motion now we iust need to find somone to do it. I have tried several times and everything I came up with looked like it belonged in a scene with Joe Camel.

Maybe you could posterize it in Photoshop. Or just reduce the color depth. Just thinking out loud. Rubycon

I don't know of a tutorial, but I played around with it for a few minutes and this is what I got. I don't know if it will be good enough for what you want, but this seems like it might be a good method: - create a height map for the pyramid in an image editing program using gradients. don't blur it or smooth it or anything. mine's kinda sloppy, which is why there's that weird shadow on the corner - save the image and import it into the bryce terrain editor at whatever resolution for the detail you want. - click subplateaus once or twice the material should probably be something kinda sandy looking, but you should look at pictures and play around until you get something that looks realistic. if you want you can duplicate the terrain, raise it slightly, reapply the original gradient image without the subplateaus and clip off the bottom with another terrain generated from the fractals so it has an uneven bottom edge to simulate the part at the top of the pyramid where the top layer hasn't been worn off by the sand. I didn't try that to see how it looks, though.

Wow! That's pretty convincing.

thats pretty good. Im thinking maybe a quick posterize might add some more 'square' detail... im gonna go try this now

I did a quick test using the Gradient Fill tool in PhotoPaint. I had the Steps set to about 80. That looked pretty good. Didn't need any posterizing. I'm not sure how many courses of stones the actual pyramids have. Must be hundreds. Don't forget to set the terrains Grid pretty high (512, or 1024).
FYI, the sides of the pyramids slope at 51 degrees, which means the height is about 62% of the width. They were originally covered with a smooth veneer of white stone. The pyramid of Khafre still has some of that veneer on the top of it.

Rubycon

Bryce can create a perfect pyramid height map by way of doing an altitude render on a pyramid primitive in top view. Such a render, when done in a square format, can be loaded straight into the terrain editor. Using techniques similar to those suggested by haloedrain above but on a 4096x4096 terrain, can result in a fairly realistic looking ancient pyramid.

This is by far the best looking pyramid I have ever seen!! Could someone write a tutorial for this? I use Photoshop 6.01 and Bryce 5.

There's no need for Photoshop in this; my effort was done entirely in Bryce in about five minutes. There's no texture, all the detail is in the terrain mesh. I'll look into writing something up, but time is short. Meanwhile, all the information you need is here in this thread and in the manual. Once you're more adept with Bryce, it'll make sense and seem easy.

I hadn't thought of using bryce to create the height map for the pyramid, thank you for the tip. Changing the resolution for 1024 to 4096 also seems to make a huge difference on the detail. I try to avoid such a high resolution because my computer has difficulty handling it, but in this case it seems necessary. I'd create a tutorial, but I don't have the webspace, and time is short here, too. But here's an extra note about creating the top of the pyramid where the top layer of stone has not been worn off: - duplicate the terrain of the lower part of the pyramid - go to the terrain editor and load the original gradient (you can also lower the resolution down to 1024 if you want) - use the clipping bracket to cut off the bottom of the pyramid until just a bit lower than where you want the top stone to begin - get a soft, medium-sized brush at the lowest height setting and paint an uneven line along where the red and white part of the image meet (this creates an uneven edge to where the top stones end) - click the check. Since the subplateaus moved the gradient of the first terrain to the side, the second terrain won't be aligned correctly. Go to top view, move it by tenths and hundredths til it looks even, and raise it just until you can't see the terrain underneath anymore. if you have any more questions, just ask

Now you are ready for Mummies day. Thanks for the tip.