I did a printscreen and some small pics-all of the same image. Instead of using a 'flat plane', I made a terrain and smoothed it in terrain editor and then using the edit size, stretched it out in all directions and used it for the valley. I made 3 terrains (didn't even use terrain editor) and stretched them in various ways and rotated them, like I explained--moving them around from the top view to make a valley of sorts. I used this basic image and added hot air balloons, changed the sky 3x--one with lots of haze for distance. I changed the terrain material in 2 (also leaned the balloon in two) so you see how different the same image can look just changing materials and sky. In the printscreen I circled those tools I've mentioned before. I also circled the RAYSPRAY. It is very very useful to me--you select it, hold down the left button and move it over the area you want to spot render. You can control the size of the spray and the shape with the 1,2,3,etc. buttons (see manual). It helps me to see what's happening w/o rendering all. Also--see the render buttons--there is a 'quick prevue render' that is helpful. Hope this helps. Diane

Hi Diane, Nice (helpfull) screenshot,BTW where can I find the Hot air balloons? Thanks Hawkfyr

Well, several months ago someone else used them and I searched all over the place for them. I found several but don't have readmes for any of them. However, I think maybe Fasttraxx mentioned just recently that he had hotair balloons on his page. If not, let me know. BTW, I just grabbed some of the misc. (I think) materials in Bryce and applied them cylindrically--reduced size in one of them, but they aren't bad textures at that for balloons--oh, and I think I used a strange wood texture and reduced the size tremendously for the basket since I didn't have time to look for a 'basket' texture (altho' Ikyoto's tatami texture would have worked, thinking about it now) G. Diane B

Thanks Diane, After I posted here I went to FT's site and got the balloon. Your balloon looks fatter,I like it, did you scale it, or is it a different balloon altogether? BTW I had fun with the different textures and mapping modes. Thanks Hawkfyr