Everything you want to know is already explained on the Eovia website. The Carrara section: http://www.eovia.com/carrara/product_intro_car.jsp The Amapi section: http://www.eovia.com/amapi/product_intro_am.jsp

Yes, your original coarse of action did seem the best for what you waned to do.

Vectorstyle will not export image/texture maps. You're right, that would defeat the purpose of it being a "vector" utility. Vectorstyle also will not export procedural shaders. So the mixer in the color chanel is also out. Since UV mapper relies on texture maps it is also not going to work. Vectorstyle will export your model with a only a single solid color even if you have assigned it more than one. You can achieve various shades of that single color if the model is hit with lights. If the object is say, blue the areas hit with the lights would be a lighter blue.

Attached Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Carrara/files/Dof_Plugin/Dof.zip

The sharpen tool is the seventh tool down from the top, on the left. It's in with blur and smudge. Hold down that button to pop the hidden tools out. You can also cycle through them using SHIFT+R (on Mac. probably the same on Win but I'm not sure) Sharpen looks like a triangle. I'm assuming this is the sharpen tool you are talking about as it's the only one that can be applied with a brush. It only sharpens however, giving the pixels a harder less aliased edge. It does not affect contrast.

If Corel doesn't take Bryce seriously they should sell it to someone who does. ...the original developer... The original developer MetaCreations, which was actually MetaTools when they released the first version, "KPT Bryce"clearly has no interest in further development of Bryce.

If you want to go beyond just black and white and add the color to it like you have in the photo above, after you have gotten it to black and white using the methods mentioned (and of those two the first one will give you better results) Do this: IMAGE-->ADJUST-->HUE/SATURATION Check the COLORIZE BOX (and preview) and start moving the sliders around until you get what you want. You could also make the image a duotone and add the color that way but this way will be easier.

FYI: Bryce Canyon is in Utah.

I followd your steps exactly and it worked. (I am using C2.1 though) I did get a dialogue asking me if I wanted sweep or envelope. I used an illustrator file. Try using an illustrator file and when you save it, make sure you save it as a low version number (I chose 4.0). Carrara will not recognize files from higher versions (7, 8, 9, 10). I'm not sure if this is your problem but give it a try. If all else fails, do it in Carrara. A 90 degree line should not be that hard to draw in Carrara. Why knock yourself unecessarily importing things that dont have to be imported in the first place? Also, if you're trying to create a pipeline, make sure you set the extrusion method to "pipeline". You hadn't mentioned that you did that in your steps.

The DOF controls are kinda screwey. If you're tired of messing around with them try G-buffer distance map, they can work pretty effectively in some cases. It will add a grayscale depth map to your image that will be stored in an alpha channel (white is far away from camera, black is near and gray shades are inbetween). When you open the image in Photoshop load the distance channel and add a blur or a gaussian blur. You may have to add it more than once to to get the desired amount of bluring. What's pretty cool is that you can also invert the map to reverse the effects if you want to.

Quite cool. Any chance we can get a look at one of the shader trees used to make those procedurals?

Attached Link: http://www.dpreview.com

What you are describing is translucency which is different than transparency. Carrara unfortunately does not have the ability to make objects translucent.