Fractal Formations
All versions of Bryce
(or Colourmaps made easy)
 (Screenshots are from the Windows version of Bryce4)
I've had many requests asking how to map fractal images onto their respective terrains.
What follows is the method I have used to create all of the Fractal images on 'Bryce Landshapes'.
This is very much a beginners Tutorial and consequently experienced Brycers may find it somewhat oversimplified.
 
fig1 fig2
Fig1 shows the image we are going to create. This is the final render, it consists of a single Terrain object made from a fractal (fig2), the same fractal image is then used as the Terrain's material. This ensures the colours line up with the contours of the fractal Terrain. The example also includes some added highlights and bump mapping and another trick or two for a little more interest. Some parts of this tutorial are similar to the 'Starting from Scratch and '3D Skies' Tutorials, the techniques involved are similar so don't despair if you begin to think you've seen it all before. The Fractal images used here are unique to this Tutorial and don't appear anywhere else on the site .
You can download a 512x512byte version of fig2 by shift-clicking here.
Important: Because the original .BMP image was a huge 789k Bytes, for download reasons I've had to save it in JPEG format which brings it down to a more respectable 47k. If you are using Bryce2 or 3D then you will have to convert this back to a .BMP file using a Paint editing or similar program before you can use it. However Bryce4 will import JPEG's directly but for this tutorial I'll assume we are all using .BMP's.
Lets get started...............  
Start with a default scene and referring to fig3 click 'Create Terrain' icon (1) which will generate a random Terrain.The scene is being viewed from the Directors chair, that's ok for now, I find it easier using the Trackball in this mode.
 fig3
We also have a default groundplane in the scene which we won't need (shown here in blue), remove it by clicking on it (2) to select it then hit the delete key. Now lets replace this random Terrain with our own Fractal version.
Still referring to fig3, with the Terrain selected
( Red ) click on the 'E' (3) to enter the Terrain Editor.
Fig4 shows the Terrain Editor opening screen. First we want to increase the resolution of the Terrain - this will prevent it looking too blocky or pixelated. Click on the grid icon (2) and from the drop down menu select 512. This will give a reasonable tradeoff between resolution and speed/memory requirements. Now to replace this terrain with the Fractal one click the 'Picture' button (1). fig4

fig5

Take a while to compare the grey image in the Terrain Editor with the original colour one (fig2) and you should be able to see which colours will be the peaks and which the valleys. If you can develop a knack of 'seeing' this in flat colour images it will help when experimenting with your own pictures.		 From the file selection window choose the image you want (bob6.bmp in this example) and then click 'Open' where you'll return to the Terrain Editor now showing the Fractal Terrain (fig5).

Important: Bryce prefers a square image ie 256x256, 512x512 etc. You can use different formats such as 640x480 , 800x600 but they will appear squashed on one axis.

There are a few areas in this example where rapid colour changes cause the Terrain to become very spikey. You might wish to take advantage of this, but for this exercise I'm going to smooth them out, easily done by clicking the 'Smoothing' button (1), once or twice or for extra smoothing click and whilst still holding the mouse button down drag to the right. You should be able to see the effect of this in both the top down view and the 3D view. Notice how Bryce has discarded the colour information and is using only the greyscale values to set the height. Black areas become valleys and white areas become mountain peaks with the various shades of grey falling somewhere inbetween.
Click the OK tick to exit the Terrain Editor and return to the Scene editor.

The Terrain will appear higher than your current viewpoint, use the trackball and a combination of the the other positioning/zoom controls to get a better view. Render the scene and you should see something like fig6 a plain grey 3D fractal terrain.

note: Bryce4 differs and applies the material 'Mediterrainean Hills'

 fig6
   
Onto Part2 - Adding the colour.