Thanks folks! And hi to you Dan and Hubert! Good to hear from you. How old is that avatar pic now Dan? ;-) Thanks for that link Dan, so funny how these things co-incide the way they do sometimes. I've just posted over there. I never liked the name 'bloops' but it summed up something about them I guess. I seem to remember some pretty mixed reactions to them ;-)

Thanks Guys! I imported the PGM as an object . . . but it still has steps where i want it to be smooth! ;-( I need to play with this some more coz it sure as hell looks smooth in Photoshop. best to you all, J ps another disappointing thing is that the non documented ME trick ( command - alt click on the picture buton ) that brings up the DTE and lets you make a terrain out of it's contents, is subject to stepping, so I guess it brings the DTE stuff in as a picture. . . the thing is I'm sure I've had smooth terrrains both from MJW and the DTE before. . oh well.

I tried saving from Pshop as a PGM earlier as I had a vague memory that PGM was significant, but I couldn't get Bryce to 'see' it. You can't use the clipboard for 16 bit stuff it seems. . . Maybe the file i saved wasn't greyscale. i shall fiddle with this further. thanks for that ;-) j ( on a mac g5 osx3 )

Any smooth curves on terrains derived from images show steps where they should be smooth, or rather where i would like them to be smooth. As an experiment try a render of a sphere with default grey mat on a grey default ground from above. Save the image and bring it in to the TE to drive a terrain. The curve of the sphere will be stepped no matter what res terrain you try. bsmooth sorts this for it's own constructions which come in v smooth but not for imported images so Am not sure how to proceed, I was hoping to import some groovy Mojoworld terrains into Bryce as greyscale images. it exports at any res you like, but they get stepped to hell. . . sigh. . . J

But Corel didn't know what the hell to DO with bryce. Look at the image on the B5 box for instance! Most of us could have done better than that! The code is now very old and needs rewriting from the ground up, which is what Mo Musgrave was doing when they sacked him and everybody else at Metacreations. Scott, I support what you are doing and wish you all the luck in the world, but get Bryce out of Corel's hands! I agree with Dan Whiteside, get Brian Wagner involved. If anybody needs input about the DTE or somebody to do some cool presets you know where i am ;-) I do wonder whether the petition etc might not have been counter productive, i mean, if you want to get Bryce cheap and get it into the hands of those who know it and care about it you don't tell Corel how great it is and how loyal a community there is etc do you? Oh well, it does sound like you've stirred up a lot of interest and discussion Scott, well done ;-)

Just south of Cambridge, England

You're welcome Stefano ;-) Glad you find them useful. cheers, Jonathan

Attached Link: http://www.j.b.allen.btinternet.co.uk/bigsite/tagtut1.html

Hi Doc, and there's me saying 'Mo doesn't have time to mess with this Bryce problem. . . " ha ha, at least I get something to laugh about ;-( Obviously I'm one million percent behind you if and when you get Bryce, I'd beta test for ya, you bet! Corel will have to get 'realistic' about the price eventually won't they? this is good news in that it offers a fair degree of hope. let us know how to put money into this. I don't a have a lot right now, but will help as much as is 'sensible' seeing as Bryce and MJW are a big part of my life.

Kind of figured this might be coming. Sad. Remember all the discussions about who would buy Bryce when MC self destructed? here we go again. . . Maybe Bryce is a bit creaky under the hood code wise, it is quite old and maybe it would have cost too much to bring properly up to date. (that never stopped Microsoft though did it?) i still love it for its possibilities and its interface. Not to mention the great community round this app. i have so many email friends and aquaintances worldwide simply because of Bryce. I think the community would still exist without a new Bryce but without new purchasers it would get a bit insular perhaps? Eric Wenger would make it mac only if he got it in all probablity, not that he's that interested. Mo Musgrave has got quite enough to do right now as it is with MJW. Dunno, Eovia ? They bought Carrara. I think Corel blew it with B5 not offering quite enough in the way of new features, at least ones that those with slow computers could use, and then the market went into freefall and bryce didn't fit in to any corperate plan any more. Sad sad sad. . . . I'm still making mats though as long as anyone wants them. . . ;-) Jonathan

Hi Clay, Nothing to nit pick about now you got rid of the snow and water. Nice but not as interesting as before. Lovely sky btw. cheers, Jonathan

great Clay! the water got me thinking. . . the snow line goes right down to the edge of the water. The edge of the snow hasn't melted where it hits the water, which i think it would ( god knows how you get it to do that in bryce mind you, probably by superimposing the same terrain on top of itself and booleaning the first one or something. . . ). I reckon if the water was frozen the snow as is would be OK, but then, if the water was frozen, it would be less perturbed and there may even be a scattering of snow on top of the ice. So maybe more ice and knock the bump on the water back a bit? nit picking i know and possibly inaccurate as snow is not a big part of life in the south east of England where I am, but at your level of expertise the details are important, innit? ;-) cheers, Jonathan

Glad it worked for you. probably better to chop off the top a bit too. gets a bit lumpy up there doesn't it? cheers, Jonathan

Many bryce presets have their own variations on existing textures in them and often completely different ones that you haven't seen in the Texture Library. When you see one you like, save it! I don't know why it does this but unless you save your texture variations they stay associated with the material but don't appear in the library. i guess the preset makers didn't bother to save many of their texture tweaks. Bryce draws on 'existing' textures too though. I don't know where bryce keeps them in the meantime mind you. cheers, Jonathan

count me in, I use bryce to combine and 'disrupt' fractals so I put my images in the bryce gallery but a fractal gallery would be nice. Shame Ultra fractal is PC only though. . . cheers, Jonathan