Project Powell

Bryce renders terrain images using greyscale to height maps (G2H), where black and white represent the lowest and highest elevations, respectively. The two black and white images below are examples.

I downloaded DEM files (Digital Elevation Model) from the USGS website. Each file depicted a 1°by 1° piece of the United States. Due to curvature of the Earth, and the necessary squashing flat of it, these pieces would not line up in Bryce. I had to bring thirty of these into Photoshop and composite them into one big G2H. Back in Bryce, it became Project Powell, my first big geographical image. It represents, approximately, a 6° by 5° chunk of the Earth, about 300 miles wide!

Note: the colors in these images only mimic the actual landscapes out there: it’s all a convenient illusion. They’re carefully adjusted Bryce materials, showing lighter tones in the lower regions, often deserts, through brown and green in the higher elevations. Getting these materials and textures correct is critical to making the images work visually. Also, there is definitely vertical exaggeration; my guess is that everything is about twice its normal height.