Hi, I'm very new to Bryce and I want to create a river. I can see that I could make one by putting terrain objects over the entire landscape and make sure the lowest points form a long, winding area, then add a water plane. However, that sounds tedious and difficult, plus I wouldn't be able to have it flow down a mountain.
Then I got a suggestion to use metaballs: put them half-submerged where I want the river and give them a water texture and make them positive, Boolean-wise. Then put a large rectangle over them at ground level, make it negative, and group them all. But I found there's no water inside the metaballs, so to speak, just the gray stuff. So that didn't work, unless I'm doing it wrong. Help! Thanks, Willow

maybe, since you have them all grouped together, you could add the material to the entire group.

have you checked the tutorials section on this site,I am sure there is one on how to create a river somewhere. http://www.bmacleod.com/bgframesfolder/frlibright.html Jen de la cruz has a good one on above link for creating river valleys, hope it helps.

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If you want to make a river "flow down a mountain" you might want to check out previous posts about waterfalls in this forum. There are a couple not too far down from this post. BTW, welcome to Brycedom! :^)

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mmmm I don't think you can use metaballs for boolean objects. You have to make a negative metaball. I think you hold the shift key down while selecting a metaball to get a negative one to interact with a regular one. I could be wrong as I don't work with metaballs very much. Cie

I usually create a terrain and edit it drawing a river shape then I turn it upside down and make it negative (boolean wise), make the ground plane positive and group the two together, now you have a deep crack in the ground, create a water plane and put it just below the surface and you should have a river. I hope I have made this clear and that it helps you. Chris.

Hi, Big Hoovie, Lindans, tjohn, Cie, and Chris --thanks so much for your suggestions. I have a lot to try now. I've sent a few of you e-mails with questions. Thanks again, Willow

Aye, if you want it flowing down a mountain, try using a terrain as the water, although Chris's idea is awesome too! Make sure to set the water terrain to "Solid" in the Terrain Editor... With this method you can change the terrain over time (keyframe it) and create the illusion of flow...