Creating Terrains

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You can create terrains in several ways. You can let the editor do all the work of generating a terrain based on a series of algorithms, you can use the editor's painting tools to create a custom image, or you can import an image into the editor.

When you generate a terrain, you use the Terrain Editor's Elevation tools, which include dozens of effects optimized for the purpose of heightening realism in Bryce terrains.

When you paint a terrain you use the editor's grayscale paintbrush to paint a topographical image. The image is then converted to a terrain object.

You can also create a terrain by importing a picture into the editor. The picture is converted to grayscale and used to generate altitude values.

Creating Landscapes

When you're planning the shape of your terrain, keep in mind the kind of landscape you want to create. You don't have to create all the land in your scene as a single terrain. You can create complex landscapes by combining several terrain objects.

Before creating terrain objects, plan out the entire map of your landscape. Then you'll be able to see where different terrain objects might be combined to create a single land mass.

If you have more terrains in your scene, you'll have a bigger scale for the environment. This gives you more resolution and a more realistic-looking effect.

Pay attention to where the camera is positioned in the scene. Terrains that are closer to the camera need to be more detailed than those off in the distance.

Animation and Terrain Editing

You can record the process of creating a terrain into an animation using the Animation controls. Refer to "Animating" for more on animating terrains. Some of the Elevation tools can produce unpredictable results when they're animated, so you may want to experiment with animating elevations before you create your final terrain.

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