Hello, Question: if I wanted to write my name in some Bryce sand, what would be a good way to do it realistically? I just had a fab idea, but I need to be able to write in the sand to make it really shine. Thanks, Daniel daniel@danielchicago.com

Daniel, One way...select create terrain. Click on the E and in the editor, lower the terrain. Drag the level indicator down (you'll have to experiment with this setting). Set flow to 2 or 3 dots, set hard to almost soft or fuzzy. Lastly select 256 in the grid section. Then simply write w/ pen/tablet or mouse. Don't forget about the Undo botton Assign a material texture (sand) and render. Hope this helps. - Art -

You can also use a greyscale engraving method, which works wonders. The above is an option too (I believe greyscales work a bit better though - call me crazy) Two methods Boolean engraving: 1)Create a new file in a image editor and make the background black. 2) choose the desired font and make sure the text is a hard white color. 3) once you get the desired effect, Save, Open bryce and select the sand model, and make it's attributes positive. 4) Now create a terrain and edit it. In the terrain editor, select the 'picture' tab and make sure to load the picture in the box third from the left. (Make sure the middle one is white) Drag the Clipping bracket up from the bottom so that no unwanted background lettering shows.When the background turns red..that is what is clipped in the bottom of the terrain. Keep an eye on the terrain preview when you do this. If you drag the top of the control it will clip the top of the terrain. Then click the vertical arrow pointing down, located right below the grid tab and select solid. 5) Exit the TE and set it's attribs to negative. Then position it so that it intersects the terrain. Group the two and it will cut the object. Direct engraving: For this option for engraving, you will need an image editor. With the terrain editor open for your model... press "Ctrl + C". Doing this will copy the terrain's grayscale into RAM. You can now open your image editor and paste it as a new file. Now type the text you want, in the desired font, then 1)Copy the whole image 2)Open Bryce 3)Create a Lattice 4)Select "E" 5)Press Ctrl + V Good Luck! -Matt

Whoops, I meant the middle box :|

Very cool, thanks. I will give both of these methods a try and see which one works best for me. (Mind you, Bryce and I don't alway see you to eye, so I may be back soon with even more questions!!!!! Daniel daniel@danielchicago.com

Daniel - if you have a scanner, scan a REAL signature in and then use that as the image DigitalArtist describes (Black background, white text). This will save some time in editing text (ok, so scanning a image eats up that time...) and will give a hell of an acurate signature. And this method also works really well in snow - add a material at the botom of the signature that's yellow! (ok.... I'm leaving.. stop sneering...)