Attached Link: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1337143&uid=766163&members=1

Hi, I stumbled into a problem creating a flyby animation over a large terrain that must have some woods. I've tried everything, textures, flipboard trees mixed with 3D ones, Bryce spiked terrain, and nothing worked well. As a last resort, I decided to try some Leveller filters, and finally I found one method that produced the best results so far - see the quick and dirt example image I did in the above link. The trick (using Leveller): * Make one 1024x1024 flat terrain * Make an irregular selection with the Lasso tool * Apply the bubble filter to the selection, set to about 6500 intercepting bubbles with sizes from 60 to 100% of the desired pixel size. * Create one 1024x1024 smooth fractal terrain * Combine both terrains using Combine>Add * Export to Bryce as PGM * Apply Verdant Hills material and render From that camera distance, only the borders of the forest seems to need some improvement. In my project I'll add some lower and sparse 3D trees/bushes to soften the border. Perhaps there is some Photoshop filter with similar results that I don't know about, and in that case the blend could be done through layers operations. Feel free to DL the JPG map and try it for yourself. What do you think? Fernando

Nice problem solving Fernando. I really like the bump mat with the bubbles filter.

Looks excellent, good idea. You could use 3D or Bryce trees for the border & get the best of both worlds...

You can get almost the same thing in Bryce.

The terrain on the left

1. Edit terrain, click new
2. Click mounds once (the ore times you click the more trees you get.
3. Click height, basic and slope noise.

The terrain on the right is the same without the noise.

Thanks Aldaron, My problem whith this method is that it creates "trees" all over the terrain. It is almost impossible to get rid of the unwanted ones with that awful Bryce's brush in a large map. Another con: I use a fast slope combine to apply the foliage texture exclusively to the "trees" and the grass texture to the ground, so I need very smooth tree bumps. Fernando

NICE work on your trees, nandus. But, they look a tad to organized, not random enough. While this could actually exsist in the real world, it's one of those things that if you do it in 3D, it seems to stick out as a "being 3D". This was done in Bryce, I'm able to control the trees exactly how I want.

Just use a second terrain for the grass/island.

The top one is as explained above.

The bottom are spikes (1 click), smooth, raised.

Use the small brush and make it hard then select the lowest height setting to erase the "trees" you don't want. Then clip the terrain at the bottom using the clipping tool.

First image: 2024 resolution basic. Second image: 2024 with areas brushed away. Third image: subsampled to 1024 resolution. Ok, here's my take, all in bryce: Create a new terrain. Set it to 512 or 1024 resolution. Paint whatever terrain you want. Duplicate it once. Move the resulting terrain a little more than 1.5 Bryce units down from the first one. Enter the terrain editor for the new terrain. Increase the resolution to 2048 (if you have a sufficient amount or RAM) or to 1024 (if you have less than 400 mb of RAM) Clip the terrain a little bit on the bottom. Drag basic noise until it looks like you have just applied a strong depth of field. (not too strong) Click slope noise 3 times. Click height noise until your "trees" are as tall as you want them. Exit the terrain editor. Apply a green material to the spikey terrain, and a mountainy material to the first terrain. Do a test render. If the trees are too tall, sink the terrain down further until you have them where you want them. Now you can apply effects to the trees. Use the regular brush to clear areas. (strong stroke to erase completely, light stroke to thin out areas) You an also use the other filters: gassian edges, square edges, etc.) Use the mounds effect to create bunched tree areas. Sawtooth for ski trails or logging paths. Drag subcontours to the left to create a really dense forest. FYI, Hold down space while clicking an effect to paint with that effect on the canvas.