It may be simple but I can't figure it out. How can I model wire/rope/tenacle type things in Bryce. Example: make a 3D lasso flying out of a cowboy's hand in a bryce scene. I've downloaded Wings but have never started in it. Still too much to learn in Bryce. This is for a WIP that I'm stuck on.

use smartpipe or make your own by multireplcating a metaball on a path or one cylinder/sphere/metaball at a time or with a wire terrain. Or some other ways, the following post will probably explain how it's easier to do outside of Bryce, ignore it. Some one with more time should be along shortly to explain all this in more detail.

(the bold words would make good forum searches although I just made up the wire terrain thing, no idea what it should be called.)

its easier and renders faster. but listen to the rendergod and stay oblivious :P

It's only easier and faster if you know the software. Although other programs may be able to do it easier and faster, the question was how to do it in Bryce. Heck postwork it in, can't beat that for speed or ease, but it completely misses the point. here look, create a symmetrical latice and enter edit mode. Select a resolution that will work for you, and click on 'new' to clear the map. Now paint in a lasso shape, be sure it bulges a little at the knot. Exit the Terrain lab and check your lasso. If it's way too spikey, scale it down on the y axis. Go ahead and scale/move it into rough size/position. now go back into the terrain lab and clean up the problems you see. or create a sphere and place it at the cowboy's hand. Now advance the frame, and move the sphere out a little. Continue advancing the frame and moving the sphere until you've traced your lasso shape. When you have your 'lasso' traced out, hit alt+P to create the pathe as a seperate object. You may now delete the sphere (make sure the path is it's own object FIRST.) Create a metaball, or sphere or cylinder, or whatever (yes you can use the original sphere if you want.) In that objects Attributes, under 'linking' parent it to your lasso path and select 'constrain to path'. When you close the Attributes, the object will jump to the beginning of the path. Just for fun reopen the attributes and adjust the position next to the constrained option, see how the object will follow the path? Neat huh, now stop playing around and set the position back to 0. now to multi-replicate. Shift+Alt+D is the key board shortcut, but it's also in the menu somewhere. The two options we want to change are 'quantity' and 'x offset', really just guessing. I'd start the quantity at 100 depending on the length/thickness or the rope. And start the x offset at 0.1 then play with those numbers until right. There may be extra copies of the object at the end of the path if there are, delete then to save your render speed. If you find that you need to adjust the path (should have said this sooner, but it still works) select the path, you may need to lock your objects, and you should see the control points appear as little blue boxes, drag them into the right spot. That's really it, now I'm going to randomly insert some paragraphs into that mess. or, Search the forum and freestuff for 'smartpipe' which is a damn fine example of the above ramblings in action. hell, hit DAZ. They've probably got a cheap lasso. I don't know how easy it would be to do in wings, not that hard I think, even without an extrude command. You could take a squashed cylinder, scrunch it alittle in the XZ axises, tack on a squished, streched cube with sone kinks in its length. inset the top and bottom face of the cylinder and bridge them. Then just smooth it a few times. Lost myself back there somewhere, now I'm pissed off, drunk, and confused. xenic101 {answerdiety}

Good work, Xenic! A LOT of work. But good explanation...

I had tried the terrain editor thing already and wasn't happy with results because although I could freehand the curves of the lattice along two axis, I couldn't reason out a way to warp it over the third axis (like maybe map the lattice over another terrain) Does that make sense? Anyway, I'll google smart pipes or play with metaballs this evening after work. Nothing is ever easy is it? Thanks all.

I still think it would be a great feature for Bryce6 to be able to create a metaball type thing and "freehand pathing" it through 3D space by moving mouse while rolling scroll button at same time.

Smartpipe by MadMax br5