Ok... does any one know the story behind that very magic number: 20.48 what is the significance? and is there any way at all to change it? I did a search and couldn't find anything. So does anyone know? I am quite perplexed. If you don't know where the number came form... make an object and go to atributes and there it is.

20.48 is a Bryce unit and no, ther eis no way to change it. That makes reference to the squares that you see on your basic plane when you open a blank world in Bryce. You can move objects through incriments for precision using the shift and alt key in combination with the arrow keys and the pageup/down keys. It's one fo those things you just have to get used to.

it can be halved 10.24,5.12 etc

OK, so.........I was wrong. (bows head, walks away, hits head on wall, repeatedly)

how would you go about halfing it to 10.24 or whichever?

dunno...but itr makes sense, as it's the typical powers of 2: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096.....

why must it be by powers of 2 instead of say... 1 by 1 by 1. When I am trying to make some models where accuracy is key... it is really quite annoying to have to change the size and position to be more "normal." It seems like such a trivial thing. Why did metacreations/corel go with powers of 2 instead of just by ones. It seems like it would only add difficulty to both using bryce and programming it.

20.48 is called a Bryce unity. All objects are created at 20.48 cubed bryce units except terrains which are created at 4 time the x/z dimensions. This is simply the default size setting for Bryce so that when you select "unscale" in one of the menus on the edit pallette the object will snap back to this default size. You can change the unity setting for this session of Bryce( when you exit Bryce it gets reset) by changing your object, go to attributes, click the little triangle next to absolute coordinates and select set as unity. Now when you unscale the object will snap back to your modified size and shape. There is a whole chapter in "Real World Bryce" on the coordinate system, chapter 6 to be exact. What reason would you want to change it (actually there's no way to change it, all objects created are at this size)? The halving explained above is simply hitting the divide key on the keypad (/), you can double your object by hitting the multiply key (*).

hmmm... very interesting... this certainly does give me new insight into brycean units of measure. But i think the question still remains as to why infact they chose 20.48 instead of say 21.87 (a power of 3 divided by 100). personally, had i been the on making bryce... i would have the default size be 10X10X10. makes more sense to me. oh well

"In the year 25 25..." I think that the scheme you are looking at has more to do with a mindset of image resolution. For example, if my final render in Bryce is going to be 1024 wide, I'll use a jpg mat that's 1024 wide. Once I'm in that mindset, the units which use that scheme are easy to think about. As opposed to translating to a different scheme. Imagine measureing a house in square feet and the wall height in meters. Takes too much brain power to translate. Does this make sense?

PS, programmers tend to dance to a different drum.

The reason is as madmax stated. Notice that 2048 is 20.48. It all has to do with computer one's and zero's. they could have just as easily used 1024(10.24) or 4096(40.96) but chose 2048 (20.48). As Susan Kitchen says, "It's like wondering why there are 12 inches in a foot...Once you live in the real world it makes sense. Or at least you get used to it." :)

Because bryce is not a precise architectural program, it makes more sense to use a number scheme more graphics artists are used to than to have to use a simple 1x1 tile. The unit "1" would be excatly the same as "20.48" anyway, so why should it matter?

A the powers of 2 they are my favourite numbers. 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096,8192,16384,32768,65536,13172,262144,524288,1048576,2097152,4096304,8338608,16777216,33554432,67108864,134217728,268435456,536870912,1073741824. And now I don't know them without calculating anymore. It took me 15 minutes to learn this list. It's easy up to 33554432, but then it gets harder because your brain doesn't like the large numbers.

YOU MISBELIEVING!!! 20.48 is the number of GOD!!!!!!

Mispelling? Peculiar members? LOL