Hi, folks. Don't mind my lurking in on AS and others playing with shapes and DTE. @ AS, your Leeloo image in handing on the wall in my spare bedroom along with stuff from Phil Drawbridge and Joe Vinton. Keep on Brycing Burpee.

Question 1: Are you back!!! This is classic A.S. stuff.

Question 2: I know you have a real job. I also know there is only 24 hours in a day in the universe. So, how do you do all this? Do you have some sort of time software zipper to get 36 hours work and sleep in one terrestrial day?

Interesting thread.  I am wondering out loud, why?  Fans of Bryce are fans of Bryce and will always be so; but what reason is there to show someone what can be done if it is no longer supported and being improved? 

I remind you that Brycetech published a CD years ago that showcased images and included tutorials. Maybe he can share some insight if he can be found.

Follow up.  Checking "boolean as solid" in edit mesh box did the trick.  Agent Smith has forgotten more about Bryce than I will ever be able to learn.

Tks, AS.  I will try that tomorrow.  I smoothed the import in "edit mesh" but may have overlooked the check box.  Yessir, Bobbly, I knew that about attributes.  Sculptris is a simplified ( free?) zbrush type modeler. 

I experimented further.  The same thing happens if you convert a boolean group to a single mesh.  

Willie wakes up from dream. He now is grumpy at Pumeco.

What?   Don't fool this old man.  It isn't nice to fool old Bryce lovers.  Do I really see long evenings and sleepless nights staring at a computer screen in my future again?  Is this for real?

I think the death bell has already tolled.  Why would a new user want Bryce?  With some google research, anyone first entering the CG world would recognize the rendering gap has closed and yes Terragen would be a cost effective front runner.  It would take more than the easy to learn interface to sway me if I were a first time buyer.  

If making a product free, or nearly so, didn't flood the world with Brycers, what else is there that could attract a "wave of new users".  If a savy buyer were to investigate they would find the newest releases were buggy and for every new feature added an older feature was lost to bugs and crashes.   Just search this forum for that information.  

I love my Bryce but I also understand it has died a painful death and ressurection spells don't seem to work.  Sorry if that is not your opinion but I have shed my last tear over this.

Thanks for answering that Bobby.  Did you try to add displacement prior to converting?

Wonder what displacement on a metaball will do?  I see a crash coming for sure.

He is risen.

Nice one ThunderStone.  As you can see the default number of bounces on a reflection is 6 (see the black plane marking the 6th reflection in TS's doors render).  This number can be increased within the render options menu.  

Simply put the camera in front of the first mirror instead of behind it.  The camera is invisible in the scene.  If you are wanting to have some scenery behind the first mirror, why not render a separate scene and mask out the mirror portion there and layer it in post work.  

 The original is 8000 X 6400 pixels but I am now experimenting with various post work approaches on reduced size copies to see what I can do to enhance it.  I wish I had some of you other Brycer's modelling skills but I pretty sure I can add a lot of detail with PhotoShop.  

Ultimately I hope to have it printed on metal as a four panel cluster display. 

BTW..., 2 terrains, an old model I booleaned, and 2d backdrop from Hubble telescope site, 4 radial lights.

My graphics machine is still XP.  Why change something that is rock solid stable?  I'll try that trick after this long render.

Aaand maybe a lesson to be learned is: "If it is an older Bryce version file it might be best to open and modifiy it in the older version unless you are trying to access a newer feature like  instancing.   Hmm   a lot to ponder and too much to remember.  Thanks AS for all the info.