Methinks it's Madmax's shadow technique? 6 minutes with nice soft shadows, and just running at the default setting... Hmm?

Right.... We could go on for days about the benefits of other programs. We are artists, these programs are our brushes and canvasses. Some tips for the last two newbies : When selecting objects in Bryce, there are many options to make life more manageable. I created a 5,000+ object castle starring families (for texturing purposes mainly) and that little, oft-missed key on your keyboard : The CTRL key. If you don't have one on your keyboard, I suggest upgrading to keyboard 2.0. It rocks, makes selecting ANYTHING in Bryce a snap, no matter how complex a scene you've managed to create. Combine that with the shift key and BOOM! Positioning stuff in Bryce is much easier with a good 3D card, like the Oxygen Labs VX1, but I admit I wish it had collision detection or something equally preposterous... Naming objects is important, like Lyrra said, but between families and the Control key, one can manage anything in the universe. If one were so inclined.

Another great technique with the stock rain mat is to place it on an infinite plain, then tilt the plain up and face it towards the camera (track object). Then mess with the mat's frequency until it produces good close-looking results. Lastly, duplicate this plain several times and spread them farther and farther from the camera. I have found this to yield fair results, and the moral "higher ground" of keeping it all in Bryce feels damn good, too.

Actually, you could do all of those things in Bryce 4. But Bryce 5's lab is much cooler, more game-like and more fun. That's what puts Bryce a step ahead for me, we just call it Bryce Tournament around the workplace. I'm not sure about the tracking for the lighting in Bryce 4, I mean I don't think you can track an object's hot point or anything. But one can always make a tiny dummy sphere, set to hidden, and place said sphere where needed. If one were so inclined.

There's a great workaround, go for a non-proprietary system and some Oxygen Labs stuff. Then you can render fast enough not to need Network Rendering. Just a thought...

The reasons exist, although they don't make up for Corel's lack of foresight with Bryce 5. Fools. So much potential wasted, I'd like to see them incorporate morphing and whatnot myself. Anyway, there is a third party utility called Poly Trans, which is the Riptide of the 3D world. It will convert any format to any other one, not just the most popular ones but like 30 different file types. I'm not sure yet if they have a .br4 or .br5 conversion, but if anyone does it's them. The "reason" is simple, it's all about roots. Bryce was originally just a plug in for making quick landscapes and skies in Photoshop, KPT Bryce. I don't think they intended to turn it into a studio platform, but dammit they should! They could charge more, it would still be worth it for some of us, perhaps make a Bryce 5 Studio version like they did with Ray Dream and Carrara... Maybe I've been informative... (goes to smoke)

Pros : Metaballs, more render features, more sky options, and OF COURSE, the Tree Lab! Cons : STILL doesn't support morphing, and STILL won't let you export other than terrains. I could be wrong, but those two things alone make me hesitant. I can break off pretty good trees anyway, and I've already got Amorphium (Biospheres). I say go for it, Bryce is cheap compared to the so-called Big Dawgs. But don't expect it to change the world!

Great little tutorial, man... I only used the Bryce 5 demo, and I am curious about metaballs. They remind me of Bispheres, a 'la Amorphium, but can you change the energy on Metaballs? How do you do that...?

Hey Chris, first of the stock palm trees use an alpha channel to describe the leaves onto spheres, that is why there are artifacts. Try downloading a better tree to eliminate the problems, or if you have Bryce 5 try the Tree Lab. The trunks just need to be retextured, but when you do it try turning the ambience down in the material editor. One trick to obtaining realism is to set the ambience for every texture you use to the same value, it keeps objects from glowing-out the shadows. Good luck....

Yes, in the Material Editor, for each channel on the right side, there is a tab called mapping mode. It will let you switch the texture's orientation in about 20 different ways, from World Space to Object Space and on down. I've found these options to be extremely helpful in my Castle Darkmoor, as some of the negatives are cylinders and thus needed to be mapped differently than the squares (in that case I Spherically mapped the cylinders...)

Another option is to change the backgrouns color in Poser to a color not in the character's textures at all, then go into Photoshop. Go to Select, then pick Color range. It is a little better than the magic wand at gaining clean edges, although the .TIFF or .PSD exports are still superior... This works in After Effects as well, and is more like a true blue screen than the magic wand technique.

Hey Chris, you bring up many valid points, but I'm not for either, because I've only used Bryce (2,3D,4,5). I wanted to give some pointers, if I might help.... When selecting iobjects in Bryce, if you hold down CTRL it will bring up a list of the object piled up where you are clicking, and also the use of families for texturing quantities separately of their groups comes in handy. An all-Bryce castle scene I've been working on for the past year would be impossible to manage without families, or the "show as box" option... Just some pointers.

Hey Kid, Your art is just that, art. I am not trying to criticize, and I apologize if you feel my comment from Clerks offended you, it was really pointed back at myself. I believe that YOU believe you have a good technique, but I've been doing this stuff for a while, and no single technique will save me from myself, or my lack of motivation. Let art be art, that's why we come here, right? Oh yeah, and that money thing, too. Peace favor your sword, kid, I wish no quarrel, only a sharing of techniques. Would that I had one of my own to share with you.....