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• Terrain Editor

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— Bryce Tips: Terrain Editor —

Picture Options

On the left column of the Editing Tools under the Elevation tab, there is a Picture button that has several options, depending on which key is held down when clicked on it.

• Simply clicking on the botton opens the Open dialogue of the operating system and an image file can be loaded.
   
• Holding down the [Ctrl] key when clicking on the button opens the Picture Room (Leo) and a picture from there can be selected or a new one imported that can be used as 8 bit (not 16 bit) terrain.
   
• Holding down the key combination [Ctrl][Alt] or [Alt Gr] and clicking on the button opens the Deep Texture Editor (DTE) and a texture can be used as 8 bit (not 16 bit) terrain. The same can be accomplished without clicking on the button with this key combination: [Ctrl][o]. In the DTE Colour (C), Alpha (A) and Bump (B) can be used, each one results in a different terrain. The best choice is, however, Alpha only.

Inhibit Randomnes

If terrains must be tiled, klick on Fractal until an appropriate terrain pattern is found. Then, the randomness must be disabled. Click on the arrow right of Fractal to open the options.

Near the end of the list are the three options Random Extent, Random Position and Random Character. Usually, the drop-down menu has to be opened trice to disable each one of the three options. If the drop-down is open, it is easier to hold down the [Shift] key and click on any of the three options. This will deselect all three options at the same time. To re-enable all three together, go about it the same way.

Drawing and Manipulating the Preview

Drawing
If the mouse pointer is in the Terrain Canvas and the [Shift] key is held down, the cursor becomes an eyedropper. The grey value — the terrain height — at this point is shown with the tiny red dot in the Level of the Brush Control. When the key is released, this value is assigned to the brush.

The [Alt] key inverts the grey value of the brush. Is the brush 75% white, it gets 25% white, i.e. darker, while the [Alt] key is held down. If the brush is 40% white, holding down the [Alt] key brightens the brush to 60% white.

Manipulating the preview
With the mouse pointer in the preview and the left mouse button down, the preview is rotated horizontally when the mouse is moved left and right, and rotated vertically (tilted) when the mouse is moved foreward and back.

If the [Ctrl] key is additionally held down, the preview rotates the same way horizontally; but when the mouse is moved fore- and backwards, the terrain in the preview gets higher or lower only in Bryce 5. In the versions 5.5 - 7, the terrain is zoomed in and out when the mouse is moved foreward and back.

Holding down the [Alt] key, the terrain in the preview for Bryce 5 can be zoomed in and out. The behaviour for versions 5.5 - 7 is different: here, the terrain in the preview is scaled in such a way that it fits in the preview.

Holding down the [Shift] key rotates the terrain in the preview automatically.

The key combination [Ctrl][Alt] or [Alt Gr] does for Bryce 5 the same as [Alt] for versions 5.5 - 7 but nothing in tese versions.