1- Is it possible to let's say crack a bolean object in half? Example, a wine glass cracked at an angle above the base with a rigid crack. Yet keep bot halves 2- How do you make an object NOT cast shadows? 3- How do you get the secodary menus up in the terrain editor, clipping etc. Thanks in advance. -Robert McCarthy-

1- take a box (or whatever your want to cut ou of the glass) place it over a wineglass at one of the areas you want to be separate. Make the box negative and the wineglass positive. Now group them and you have got one of your wineglass-pieces. Now clone the group and change the box of this second group to intersect. Now you should have the other piece of your wineglass to. There are two important things to remember: 1. Never place any neutral objects in your boolean groups, otherwise you might get unwanted results, like negatives that don't want cut other objects. 2. If you use imported models set them to 'solid when boolean rendering'. You can set that in the little menu that you get when you select the imported object and click on the little 'e'-button.

2- go to the material editor and at the top right of the screen there is a little triangle. If you click on it you get a little menu where you can set the following shadow-options: self-shadow, receive shadows, cast shadows. It you set the cast shadow setting of than the object will not cast shadows.

I'm not on my bryce-station so I can't check the answer to the third question. I don't know everything without looking at bryce first. Also the little triangle from my 2nd message is not to the far right. It's still left of the procedurals.

Ok, here is where the light/shadow thing plays in, I was attempting to make a scene somewhat like something I saw in a tutorial on brycetech - the explosion/wall tutorial. I added a burning object but it is casting a shadow on the wall, I want it to appear like it is closer to the viewer ad not as close to the wall. I could move all the objects or resize them but I think it would degrate the quality. Perhaps a picture wouldhelp you. Here is what I have so far.

When I make the stoplight "not cast shadows," it works for the wall... but... the stoplight is a blaring yellow it becomes a real eyesore.

Well, I'll try.

Question 3). Open terrain editor and click on the small notebook-like icon in the upper right corner of the terrain preview. You'll get clipping brackets etc.

Closer etc. I don't exactly understand. Why don't you move it in X/Z/Y axis? Just the light?

Glaring Yellow. Play with Diffusion and Ambience in the Material Editor. The blue dots must be right beside the names of the categories, not in one of the texture places to the right. See the picture.

Thanks, the reason I am not moving it is bryce works better with larget objects, rendering etc. If I move it, I will have to resize it, I could redo the camera etc I suppose. And enlarge the entire scene

Attached Link: http://petersharpe.com/Tutorial2.htm

Peter Sharpe has a tutorial on making a broken glass with Booleans - I've tried it and it works. Maybe you could adapt it to what you need. Good luck.

Sorry, I'm dense and don't understand. The light is supposed to be attached to the wall? Is that what you're saying? Otherwise, if it's flung out by the explosion, I don't see why it couldn't be closer to the current camera and the viewer. The rest of the scene would stay the same. Yes, it would change the focus of the pic, but that wouldn't be a bad thing, I think.

This damn image is 1948 objects... I need to work on cutting it down some... Perhaps I should take a lot of the smaller fire spheres and add them as one larger sphere... Just wondering, would metaballs be better for explosions since they do seamless textures.. At least you probably would not get that overlapping look right?

Volumetric materials do not apply to metaballs, terrains or lattice. I wish they did. And if I'm wrong, please tell me how. Depending on the density of the fireballs, making many into one could help. It mostly depends on the detail you'll lose. I like the way you've wrapped fire around the falling stones. The problem I find is the overlapping edges of the smoke spheres are interacting with one another and you are getting some sharp edges. The fire spheres bland pretty well.

I don't know about metaballs, but set your terrain or lattice to solid and they should take a volume material just fine. Arleen

Some volume materials do work with metaballs. Clouds don't but try clay volumetric fire, they blend very nicely. You have to experiment on what materials do and which don't work.

I stand corrected on the terrains and lattices and I thank you. I just did some experimenting w/ metaballs and it seems to be hit or miss as to whether they will accept a volume material. Preset intersteller nebula doesn't work, but the nebula does. Clay's volumetric fire works, but Luna (additive) will not render as additive. There seems to be no logic as to how metaballs will or will not accept special materials.

Yeah, this is my Own Volume Material, so I will have to see. Thanks for the advice though. I will certainly try that. Also will it help if I decrease the scale of the smoke volume? That way it would be less of a flat area.