I recently purchased Bryce 6.1 so that I can use it's excellent terrain editor to generate high quality terrain maps for Vue. But, sadly, when I try and export the maps from the terrain editor, it doesn't work. If I export as .tif then Bryce crashes. If I export as .png then it creates a QT .mov file which when opened is a virtual QT movie-- not what I had in mind.

Here's what I'm doing: I create a terrain, 1024x1024, click on the little triangle at topRight of the terrain canvas and choose 'Export Image.' My only 2 choices are PNG and TIF.

I'm on WinXP, Dual Core with 2GB RAM. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong or is this just a bug?

Also, I notice I can export as PGM but how do I convert PGM to TIF 16-bit? I searched the forums and found a link to Tiff 2 PGM  -> Tiffer015.zip in the Bryce backroom, but it's dead, and in fact I don't even think there is a Bryce backroom. Anyone know where I can get this utility?

Thanks in advance,
Chipp

Greetings!  I don't seem to have problem with mine. No crash with either .tiff or .png, or pgm. I do have a free image viewer, XnView that can save .tiff to or from .pgm with no problem.   http://www.xnview.com or http://www.xnview.org 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the help. I did finally locate Tiff 2 PGM and tried it out. It turns out Vue just can't handle the 16-bit terrains nearly as nicely as Bryce. I did a few tests and Bryce's terrains far outshined anything Vue could do, even though Vue's renderer is IMO vastly better (not to mention faster).

I was looking to model 'terrain objects' like computer monitors etc.. Bryce can certainly handle it much better than Vue.

Thanks for the feedback on the crashing. I wonder why mine crashes?

...don't let the Vue folks know..;) There was a program called tiffer that did something like this, did a beta on it, but don't remember if it got released or not. The owner used to post in the Bryce forum.

Hmmm, that would be der Bikermouse. He was the one who programmed it. He released it as a freebie. Not sure where to find it now. Probably AS knows.

Yep, I found it at Bikermouse's old website:
http://www.angelfire.com/droid/bikermouse/page2.html

Danamo,
Ich bin eine Americaner! 
However, if you know the words to the song that "In Extremo" plays in chapter two of Gothic One I'd be in your debt.
**
chippwalters,**
You also might want to try converting 8 bit images using tiffer.  I had limited success doing that, but Agent Smith is expert at making true 16 bit images in photoshop for use in Bryce.  

Lol, I know you are American. The "der" just slipped in there because it was late, or early depending on your point of view. The song that In Extremo plays in Gothic 1 is actually from an old Swedish folk tune that became in German the song "Herr Mannelig". It is also BTW available on their album "Verehrt und Angespien". Do you want the original German version lyrics, or the English translation?

Make sure to use a image viewer on your tiff's right before you take them into Vue, just to verify that they are still 16-bit. I use;

Irfanview viewer which will say "Original Colors - 65536 (16 BitsPerPixel)"
www.irfanview.com

Thumbsplus which calls them "16(Gray)"

If for any reason, they aren't 16-bit or are converted to 8-bit for some reason, you'll know why they look like crud in Vue.

Also obviously, if you are creating "Terrains" in say Photoshop you need to make sure you are working in (specifically) Grayscale - 16-bit.

And YES...what's up with B6.1's Terrain Image exporter??!! It just doesn't work, period. Try to export a .tif, it crashes. try to export a .png, and lookslike it worked, but after checking, a png file is never really created. (and those .mov files should not be created)

Hmph....bug reporting time...sorry about that folks.

I just want to thank all of you for your help in getting me to figure out how to properly create 16-bit terrain maps in Bryce. It turns out they CAN be imported into Vue. I need to do more tests to see if they can match Bryce's resolution, but for now this is what I've figured out:

Yeah, Windows has always been incapable of copying 16-bit images to the clipboard. Not sure about 64-bit versions of the OS and/or Vista.

danamo,
 both please! Thank you!

Well, thanks to the help I've gotten here, I'm able to successfully transfer my 16-bit TIFF files to Vue.
Here's a couple pics of a 16-bit 512x512 terrain. Under 1800 polys.

I built it mostly in Photoshop with the help of altTerrainBuilder

Whhheeww that's a sweet bit of terrain modelling.

I wouldn't have dreamed of not traditionally modelling an object like that!

nice job!

Damn fine terrain modeling!!

Thanks for the compliment. Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I was among the first, if not the first to try this sort of thing out years ago with Bryce. I had a beta of the first Bryce and sent Kai the top image shown here of an ATAT created entirely of terrains. He said he never thought of using them like that. Since then I've always been interested in modeling with them. More can be found out at:

www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/altTerrainBuilder/UsingTerrainstoModel.htm