3d relief mapping [Bryce/ Fractal Terrains / Google Earth]

[ravells]

Here is my first effort at 3d mapping.

Requires:

Profantasy's fractal terrains
Bryce 5.5
Google Earth
Photshop / PSP

Procedure:

1. Make a planar terrain in Fractal Terrains to your liking
2. View it using the bump shader and save the image (image 1).
3. Fire up Bryce and import the saved image as a new terrain.
4. Fire up Google Earth and find a nice looking terrain (zoom in to the detail you require) and capture the image to PSP/PS making sure it's the same dimensions as image 1.
5. Save the terrain image (image 2) as a jpeg and use it as texture map in Bryce.
6. To get the cutaway effect on the terrain, I intersected a cube with the terrain in Bryce using booleans.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to how the overall appearance of the image could be improved.

Kind Regards

ravells