The Create Palette holds all of the objects you put into your Bryce scene, such as ground planes, sky planes, terrain objects, primitive shapes (spheres, cubes, cones, etc.), light sources and Pict images imported as objects. Clicking on any of these Create Palette icons causes the corresponding wireframe to appear in your scene.

This is where it all begins with Bryce. Here, you add objects into your scene and begin building your world. It should be stressed that Bryce is not a modeler in the strict sense of the term. However, with features such as Terrain Editing and Boolean Rendering, Bryce goes far beyond its previous definition of "landscape generator."

The term primitives refers to crude, geometric shapes that are the building blocks of all large, complex scenes. The primitives included with Bryce are Sphere, Torus (the technical term for a doughnut), Cylinder, Cube, Pyramid, Cone, Disc, and Square. By clicking on any of these primitive icons, the corresponding wireframe appears in your scene. From here, you can resize, reposition or rotate the object to your heart's content.

Of the primitives listed above, the Sphere, Cylinder, Cube, Pyramid and Cone all have alternate primitive icons in the Create Palette. The purpose of these alternate primitives is twofold:

1. Often the first thing one does upon creating a new cube is to elongate it (perhaps to use as a pillar), or upon creating a new sphere is to "squash" it (lots of UFO's came from the original Bryce). These alternate primitives have been created to accommodate some of the first editing operations one does with a new primitive.
2. Objects respond differently to textures from the Bryce materials engine according to their orientation, due to the options a user has with texture mapping. For example, textures mapped to a cylinder turned on its side will respond differently to the cylinder primitive already laying down.

At the base of the Create Palette title is an pop-down menu that provides a graphic preset list of Boolean objects among others. Picking any one of these preset objects will drop it into your scene, and you can resume editing it as you would any other object.

Infinite planes are not primitives in the traditional sense of the term. They appear in your scene file as finite wireframe squares (in other words, they appear to have a stopping point when viewed in wireframe mode) lying flat. What they represent, however, is an infinitely stretching field that extends in every direction. This is among Bryce's most unique features, as it rids designers of the typical tedium of concealing Columbus' horizon. While all infinite planes are technically identical, Bryce breaks them up into three basic categories (literally land, sea and air) for the ease of creation.

Ground -- The Infinite Ground Plane appears in a new scene file, as this is typically your first action, and is fixed to a virtual "ground level."

Water -- A water plane has a pre-assigned water texture (randomly picked from the water presets) rather than a solid texture. Like all materials, this water texture is fully editable. A water plane is not automatically inserted into a scene.

Cloud -- Like the Infinite Water Plane, the Infinite Cloud Plane must be actively assigned to a scene file. However, it does not appear at ground level, and has a cloud texture, rather than a rock or water texture, assigned to it. Using a Cloud Plane in addition to an environment model allows you to create low cloud planes that "sweep" over the view of the user.

The Terrain Object, our technophile term for 'mountain,' is one of the core elements in Bryce. A Terrain Object is an organic, mountainous shape that is created via a 'random default.' When you create a Terrain Object from the Create Palette, you create an object generated randomly with fractal noise. Bryce then does a bit of post-processing (to make your terrain look more natural) before it pops the terrain onto your screen.

The Symmetrical Lattice is best described as a "Siamese Terrain Object." In other words, it is exactly like an organic mountain object with one major addition: it has an exact, mirror replica of itself fused at its base. So, rather than a mountain that ends abruptly in a flat square, a replica of that mountain tapers off the opposite side. This is a powerful addition to the Terrain Object that will be noticeable when using the Terrain Editor. At this point, Bryce will encroach on the realm of modeling, though in a non-traditional sense.

If we need to tell you what a rock is, you probably need to pack up your computer and get outside for a bit. In a nutshell, creating rocks with this icon generates random, organic rock shapes that you can assign materials to and position throughout your scene.

You can import a Pict image and place it into your scene as a free-floating object. In other words, you needn't map a Pict image onto a surface to make it visible in your scene. By placing a Pict into your scene as an object, you retain the proper proportions of your Pict -- there is no distortion from squeezing it into the dimensions of a square. Further, you can include an alpha channel, to clip out a background and thus add people, trees, and other elements to your scene.

In Bryce, most of the lighting in your scene is provided by either the sun or the moon. However, you can add additional light sources to create a variety of lighting effects, like adding headlights to a car, or creating the glare of a distant city.

Radial Diffuse Light works just like bulb or candle light. Light emits from a centerpoint, and travels outward in every direction. This is handy for creating effects such as hanging lanterns, light bulbs, celestial bodies, etc.

Spotlights are just what you expect. They have a point from which the light emits, but they travel in a specific direction. Bryce provides both the standard Circular Spotlight, much like you would see in a live theater, as well as a Square Spotlight, that works like a slide projector.

Parallel Projection Lights work like Square Spotlights, with one physical property that doesn't exist in the real world: The light rays they project do not diffuse as they travel. Instead, Parallel Projection Lights emit rays that are parallel to one another. The spot that strikes your scene will be exactly as big as the source projecting it.

System Requirements for --
Windows: Windows� 98, Windows 2000, or Windows NT� (Service Pack 6 or higher) or Windows ME, Pentium� processor (or compatible processor), 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended), 100 MB hard disk space, 24-bit color display, CD drive, VGA monitor, mouse or tablet