Both my Mobo and CPU temps seem to be well inside limits during render. Problem is that it always happens during the night when I'm not around to check, but I'm sure that only Bryce shuts down, without any error messages logged in the Event Viewer. I changed Bryce's priority to Above Normal to see what happens. As a last resort I will render only winter scenes to keep my cpu cool :-) Fernando

Thanks Catlin! I was to post a pic today, but Bryce5 keeps shutting down in the middle of a disk render, without any error message. I cant figure why, because I have plenty of swap file, 1Gb of RAM, and the Bryces file is just a bit over 100Mb. Im going to enable DrWatson and try to figure this out. Any ideas? Fernando

Sorry Zhann, I never got the time to do a full tut, although many people asked me for it after that pic. Its all Bryce 3D Clouds. There's no other tricks for doing that, except the ones I mentioned above, and LOTS of patience. Try a Bryce's forum search under my aka in 3DCommune, to see if my minitutorial about cloud artifacts is still there. I am returning to 3D after a long time away and trying to remember how to work with Bryce again. I hope to be posting soon. Fernando

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=66445&Start=1&Sectionid=0&filter_genre_id=0&Form.Sea

As Aldaron said, make them positive and group. Grouping for itself doesnt solve all the problems. Experiment also with Fuzzy Factor & Quality. I discussed this subject in 3DCommune Bryces forum a long time ago, is sequence to my pic "The Monastery" (see link).

Fernando

Perhaps it would be wise if we start a poll to query how many people here would join in. This poll could also include some contribution levels in US$, like $10 to $25, $26 to $50, etc.

I believe I will always use Bryce, but I said the same thing about VistaPro4, and now I can't even remember where I placed those 2 CDs. Shame on Corel! Fernando

I like the idea and would be very happy to spare US$100 to help Pandromeda buy Bryce from Corel. Fernando

Pakled, that would be good - do you have any news? The last reliable info i've got about Bryce6 was from Conan in 11/5/2001 (see Spotlight). After that, not even a whisper. Fernando

I agree with Phantast. Just enabling export for Bryce objects would be enough and quite feasible. Want to model something more complex, go to Rhino or Max. Im comparing Bryce with the WB3.5 demo. Except for texturing, WB is a killer, and I believe that is the way Bryce should go: instance rendering, fluid and wind dinamics. That is, if Corel ever gets to Bryce 6. Fernando

Oops! I just realized that Rayraz already posted that link.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=950770

I posted a method that is quite good for medium range and flybies and dont increase the file size - see the link above. If you dont have Leveller, feel free to copy the included height map. You may cut&paste parts of it to assemble a new terrain with the forest shape you want. The terrain rendered in the pic was scaled up in Y to adjust the trees height. It is also possible to do the same thing in PhotoShop. Use the paintbrush in slightly different sizes, to fill a small area with around 30 dots. Keep them closely packed, but not touching each other. Import the map to Bryce, scale it up and do a test render. If the resulting tree shape is not right, return to Photoshop, select only the dots and adjust the contrast to get the right shape. When youre done, clone them with the stamp tool to fill your forest area in the height map. Fernando

Attached Link: http://www.iaw.on.ca/~jspirko/models2.htm

The only ones I know - never tried them. Hope it helps.

Fernando

Thanks Aldaron, My problem whith this method is that it creates "trees" all over the terrain. It is almost impossible to get rid of the unwanted ones with that awful Bryce's brush in a large map. Another con: I use a fast slope combine to apply the foliage texture exclusively to the "trees" and the grass texture to the ground, so I need very smooth tree bumps. Fernando

Acuos,

One of the problems with Bryce is that exotic interface. The original developers were more concerned with aesthetic than with functionality. That's one of the reasons why there are so many shortcuts, mostly undocumented.
Another one is that Bryce is a closed package. Can you imagine how many new plug-ins would exist now if it was open like Terragen?

What concernes me more is the absence of the usual rumors that always precede a new release, or of new wish lists around the forums.

Fernando

Hi AgentSmith,

I know its confusing, thats why I said that it took me a long time to understand the problem. To complicate things, English is not my native language :-)
Let me try to explain it in a more organized way:

1- Bryce's Terrain Editor always generates 16 bit maps with 65536 gray levels for the height of all terrains, no matter if they are native or imported, 256 x 256 bit or planetary resolution. The native maps render without noticeable steps or edges. Imported maps are another matter.

2- Since the human eye cannot distinguish much more than 256 levels of gray, all paint program tools and filters are designed to work with 8 bit resolution and are unable to edit a 16 bit gray map. PhotoShop can create and save 16 bit gray scale files, but the usual editing tools and filters are disabled in this mode, and Bryce wontt read those files. So 8 bit resolution is OK for the eyes, but it's lousy when used for height.

3- The other editable formats available for export/import are standard RGB color formats like BMP, TIF and JPG, that use 3 color channels with 8 bits each = 24 bits of color. The problem here is that we work with grays, not with color.

4- Some programs can record and recover the height info, combining 2 or 3 color channels to get 16 or 24 bit height info. Since neither PhotoShop nor Bryce can't do that, all RGB 3 color channels will end up with identical 8 bit 256 gray levels. You may check that looking into the PhotoShop Channels.

5- When importing those RGB map files, Bryce will have only 256 height data info to work with. So it makes a stepping conversion and theoretically the final 16 bit resolution terrain should have 256 height steps, where each step stands for 256 higher resolution levels. It's difficult to measure this, because the final renders always show some extra noise, as you may see in the picture above.

6- The only practical way to interchange terrain maps with Bryce in its full native resolution seems to be the PGM file import/export ( File Menu or Terrain Editor Export ). This format has one single 16 bit channel accepting 65536 gray levels. But how to edit PGM map files?

Unfortunately Bryces manual says nothing about this (and about other important stuff). The info here comes from my research on this subject and please correct me if I'm wrong.

The majority of height field editor programs I checked work only with RGB files. Wilbur reads PGM but doesnt write to it. Up to now only Leveller does the whole trick. I also found that we can use P3dO Explorer to open PGM maps.

For most landscapes scenes this terracing effect is of no importance. However, when modeling detailed objects with lattices, or for doing camera closeups in imported terrains, the only way to get rid of the steps is to apply global smoothing and loose relief details, since its almost impossible to apply local smoothing in large terrains using the Terrain Editor paint brush.

I believe that this subject is very important to improve our brycing and I would be glad to have some feedback from you all.

Fernando