How can you make the sky come over the planet instead of having the planet in the atmosphere? The sky presets for the infinite planes or volumes wouldn't do the image justice. So, are there special settings? Drac

Not really, but a good fake is to turn off the cloud texture and add one or two infinite planes with cloud texture on them. You can place the planets behind the planes.

You can also mask the sky out and render your scene and your planets in different images. Then you go to your favourite 2D-app open the planet-image. Add a layer with only the sky (wich you can do with your mask) on top of it. Then you can fiddle with the layer-options, like putting it to overlay or screen mode. This way you can accurately create the exact effect you are looking for and you don't have to make lot's of test-renders in bryce. When you've got the planets and the sky right you add another layer with the whole (planetless) scene with only the sky masked away and put this layer all the way on top. And you have your image with the planets behind the sky.

thank you both for your help

No problem. Can you send me a message when your image is finished?

Attached Link: http://protem.groovy.net/Untitled.jpg

actually, it's almost finished. any comments or ideas would be appreciated :)

Oh! Thanx for uploading it. It looks nice already. But since you asked, here is what I'd change: I'd make the lighting a bit more Mystical. With dark places in the background or actually, try to make the whole background a lot darker/mysterious. It feels like it should be a more horror-style lighting, that leaves a lot to the imagination of the people who look at the image.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=100148&Start=1&Artist=Cheers&ByArtist=Yes

Just one suggestion, that I use in both Cinema and Vue is to make the planet slightly transparent. The imaged linked to, shows this technique with the planet placed in front of the infinate sky plane within the scene. I'm sure the similiar results can be achieved in Bryce, without too much post processing ;o) Hope that helps, Cheers

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=186014

The moon in the above pic was acheived in Bryce by simply using a haze setting of 21 and the size of the moon is 1500 units. The moon is about 6000 units from the camera.

Attached Link: http://www.geocities.com/stevensanvito/cresntut.html

Wow! Beautiful pic, Cheers. I've got a tut for doing a similar effect at my site. Don't know if it's the same technique that you used. I used a gradiant alpha map in the transparancy channel to make half the planet invisible. Steve S.

thanks a lot steven, all of you for that matter for the help. :)