Greetings! -- I would like to be able to do some compositing work with the 2D terrain maps in a different application (such as Photoshop). Using blending modes & layers to get different effects and more precision than I can seem to muster up in Bryce alone.     However, as I am sure you are aware, importing a Photoshop image as a terrain map yields extremely pixelated results. I shall demonstrate with the images here.     The top image shows a basic Bryce terrain and rendering.     The second image shows the bad jaggies that the 2D image gets when it comes out of Photoshop. The process I used to get here was this: with the terrain from the top image, I went into the Bryce terrain editor, selected "Pictures", copied the 2D map in the first box. Switched over to Photoshop, made a new document the size of this image (2048 pixels) and 8-bit grayscale. Pasted the clipboard 2D map into photoshop. Flattened my file. Made no additional changes to it. Saved it as a TIF file. Went back to the terrain editor in Bryce, then the "Pictures" and selected load in the first 2D box. Copied that box after it had loaded, selected the 2nd box and did paste. Then click apply. When I went into my main Bryce window and rendered it, the 2nd image is what I got.      I know I have seen this addressed here in the past, but it's been awhile and I thought maybe with Bryce 6 and other recent developments there might be a new and better way to deal with this.      What is a good way to add custom, hand-drawn features to Bryce 2D terrains OUTSIDE of Bryce and get them back in smoothly? -- Jeff in Arkansas

the steps are 8-bit artifacts.  if you can work in 16-bit, you'll have less of a problem, but even then I believe it'll want an extra tap on the smoothing button...  it's not Bryce's fault that you lose data when editing the terrain in an app other than Bryce.

indeed, the staircasing effect is because you're using only 8-bits per channel or for greyscale, and in all likelihood you're not using them all in the full range either, i.e. not from totally black (lowest) to totally white (highest). One way to reduce the intensity of that problem is to spread the range of your terrain elevation map's greyscale image across the whole range from 0 to 255 as allowed for an 8-bit value.

Project Dogwaffle has a tool for that, called 'Dynamic Range' in the Image menu. I'm sure Photoshop and other imaging tools have similar capabilities.

It's even better if you can paint in 16-bit per channel precision. Some tools (including Bryce I think) can then load this type of image. Not sure which imaging tool to recommend for that, but I'm assuming Photoshop has at least a plugin for it.

-Philip
www.thebest3d.com

I had thought of the 16-bit version as well. I must be doing something wrong. When I save a file as a 16-bit grayscale in TIF format, it will load into Bryce in the terrain editor but doesn't seem to make any visible difference. I read in the the Photoshop help files that PS can do HDR images in 32-bit but unfortunately when I try to load them into Bryce I get this error: "An unexpected error has occurred (generic failure)"
   Tell me more about Dogwaffle, please?

if you're using Bryce 5 you could use this
http://www.angelfire.com/droid/bikermouse/page2.html
You'll still need some help on the PS end though.

Bryce 6 has better ability to use 16 bit greyscale images, though. In which case I'll just lerk and learn.

What versions of each program you are using would be of help.

or just call it 'open pit mining'..;)  Maybe if you do the Photoshop after the Bryce render?..I dunno, I have the Gimp instead...good luck tho...

Quote -
   Tell me more about Dogwaffle, please?

Dogwaffle, aka 'Project Dogwaffle', is a paint and animation program for PC.

See here in general:

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle

There are a bunch of reviews there too, and even a freeware version (which may have that 'dynamic range' thing in the Image menu, if I recall. It was called the 'Buffer' menu then (as in image buffer).

There are also several versions to choose from on the commercial versions, such as PD Pro 3.5, v4 (the latest, at http://www.thebest3d.com/pdpro ) and PD Particles (http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp) which doesn't have that dynamic range feature because we position PD Particles as a companion to whatever else you're using, i.e. it's meant for painting ith natural media brushes and particle brushes, and also focuses a little on painting and handling the Alpha channel, but the rest is left to the others, like layers, filters, animations...

oh and there's also a lite version of PD Pro based on around 3.5, called PD Artist - http://www.thebest3d.com/pda

Feel free to ask me or ping me outside of this if you have further questions on Dogwaffle. Unfortunately there's no forum at rosity dedicated to it. There's one at yahoogroups.com/group/dogwaffle and a few other places but the yahoo one is the main place.

-Philip

PS: PD Pro is on sale this month.

PPS: in the current issue of PC Pro magazine there should be a review of PD in Tom Arah's column. I don't know which page though and which exact isue, Febr or March. I think March.