Attached Link: http://www.bryceanworlds.com/pages/tips_tricks.html

This is pretty much my first post (in terms of a query) here so please be gentle - I am feeling like a bit of a dunce. Anyway, my confused question is - is anybody able to get the tutorial explained in the above link to work properly?? I have tried every possible way of using the 'subcontours' command (and even the 'subplateau' command) and tried subtle texture transmissions and am yet to accomplish even a remotely comparable result as to what Necati's tutorial explains. Am I just being an incredible dunce and missing something entirely obvious?? Any advice would be greatfully appreciated because I have a few scenes where being able to create such incredibly detailed terrain would be just the solution I need. Many thanks, Bhanshee

im presuming you could get the subcontours button to work, the only thing i can think of is you havnt duplicated the terrain. its like poking the second terrain through the first - works also with spikes and mounds.

Hmmm ... well when I use the subcontours button it actually reduces and lowers the terrain by an enourmous amount and would require a lot of fiddly resizing and repositioning to show through the original terrain - something which I assumed the above tutorial was aiming at reducing (ie. no need to resize etc.). Hmmm ... maybe I should send an email directly to Necati to see what I might be doing wrong.

I tried this, too.....Even raising the res in the terrain editor and increasing the frequency of the material, I just couldn't get that 'real' look. Thought it might be the textures, but I only bother to download the most realistic-looking ones...maybe it's my standards for 'really real' ones that are at fault! Any suggestions for sources of high-quality ones like the ones he uses??

i,m not sure that wasn't the point - that instead of using the maximum ABC mix poke the second terrain through the first hence applying a new texture. having said that i tried this with sub contours and indeed it does lower the terrain

Drag the subcontours button to the left 0n your duplicated terrain and I think you get the effect he was going for maybe? You then have to shorten the y axis a tad .. and I did rotate the whole terrain ever so slightly .. but in general I managed to get the effect.. oh I also increased the resolution and made the terrain solid before I duplicated it. My self I am afraid I found the tut very confusing overall.. I gleamed the general idea but I think to get the most out of this you REALLY have to understand the DTE and how materials , textures and components interact .. the whole thing gives me a huge headache ;-)

Thank you for the replies. I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems with the technique. Laurie I too eventually came to the conclusion that there was more to getting those uber-realistic terrains, that probably needed some deeper knowledge of the DTE and textures (possibly different transparent components or something? I dunno grin). But thanks very much for the tips, I will go try your suggestions. Patricia I'm probably not the one to ask about textures. I am still pretty much stuck with the ones that came with Bryce. I would be interested in seeing where you get the realistic textures you have gotten so far. I am sorely lacking in anything too convincing above Bryce's defaults.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=170469&Start=1&Artist=Allen9&ByArtist=Yes

Look in the Bryce Free Stuff. Folks like Frank Allen are constantly posting great terrain materials. There's LOTS of them. One of the important things in getting mountains to look like real rock formations is using the Erosion button properly. First, when you create a terrain, or import a greyscale, leave it at the default 128x128 grid and hit the erosion button a couple of times. ALSO, hit the "slope noise" button a couple of times. Next, increase the grid size to 256 and repeat, then do it again with grid at 512, and then resize the grid one last time to the maximum of 1024 (Yeah it's big, but if you want good looking terrain details, you have to have enough points on the grid for it to work with) and hit the erosion button and the slope noise button once more. Note: the "size" of the erosion features change depending on the size of the grid you are using. Hitting 'erode' at 128 grid size puts in features that are much larger, in relation to the whole terrain, while doing it at 1024 puts in finer detail erosion. Experiment with this. Believe me, the combination of the erosion button and the slope noise, done at the different sizes, can really improve a mountain. I'm putting together a tutorial on this, with illustrations, and will be posting it sometime in the near future. Check the link to my latest pic. The mountains were created using this technique.

Thank you very much for that excellent advice Allen. I shall experiment with your ideas and see what happens. I really look forward to seeing the tutorial when you've finished it. Also, I love your image, it is wonderfully beautiful and serene.

Allen9, I can't thank you enough!! I just tried your method and it worked like a charm =:^)