Computer Graphics Haven

This image looks like it might have been painted but it was actually generated in the 3-D landscape program Bryce 5.0. I created this image not long after I first bought the program while I was just playing around. I think it might have taken me 10 or 15 minutes to create.

I started with an infinite plain and added a snowy texture. Then I picked out a sunny sky setting with just a few clouds and added a terrain object. I clicked quite a few buttons when I was playing around in the terrain editor so I couldn’t tell you exactly which sequence of buttons I clicked to create that terrain object but I do recall painting a large solid circle in the middle of the terrain object and then trying out various terrain editor controls including the erosion control until I got the result above. I then added a snowy texture to the terrain object and added a cloud object which I placed at the peak of my mountain. (There’s a tiny tree object too but I doubt most people even notice it since it’s so small)

Once I had my scene set up in a satisfactory manner I started playing with the Rendering controls and discovered an option under the Premium rendering called True Ambiance. This option combined with the Soft Shadows and Blurry Transmissions options is what helped create the painterly look.