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Ok a little summary:

We have our black & white  image 1024 X 1024
Our color image 1024 X 1024
One terrain humming bird shape with a slight clip applied at a size of 512 X 512

Lets continue on our quest.

Step 3 Applying the texture to the terrain and more importantly getting it to line up.

First thing to check is the mesh size that Vue has assigned to it and turn our terrain so it's upright and facing the camera.
 
 

Notice it's 0.5y and 0.5y ? Keep that in mind because we know that the texture scale number of 5.68 will work as long as we adjust the color picture down a bit in size. Right now it's 1024 X 1024 and that size is too big for 5.68, We would need to set the scale to half that value to continue using that size. (2.84) We are just simply going to adjust that in the material editor. This spot shown above is called the numerics tab in Vue. Use this spot to adjust the orientation of your mesh and size works best. Don't go dragging your mesh in strange directions, fixing that up here is way more precise. You have not even 1 pixel to spare to get this texture to line up properly so remember where this spot is if something goes wrong. Oh BTW save your project now just in case. The next part gets a little trickier.
Oh also notice the Z number I turned it down to 1 here so that our bird is not so fat. After all he's still got to fly right?

Ok right click on the default terrain texture sphere vue has given our bird and click edit. That of course will open up the material editor.

First off click on Mapped Picture the browse to our little color birdie picture and import it.
Next change the world standard setting to be Object standard like that is shown on the top right hand side.
Picture scale... Ah remember our picture is twice the size it's suppose to be so adjust that right here right now. -.5x and -.5y will guarantee that the 5.68 will work
perfect. Next set the Offset. Now remember 1/2 of 1024 is 512. Ya I know we adjusted the picture size in the last step, It don't matter it's all based on the original.
So if you don't want 4 corners showing on his little body change these offset numbers to 512x and 512y

Oversampling to None
Mapping Automatic works just fine

Got it? Last and by far the most important step

Step 4 adjusting the texture scale so it will work perfect on his little body.

Notice the scale? That's where we set the stretch amount. Now since we already resized his skin in the material editor he's just like a regular old 512 X 512 image
now so we know from past experience the 5.68 is the one to use. So set that right there now. Why is the sphere black? Good question.
After rendering this little fellow a few times it becomes apparent that there is always a 1 pixel default boarder around his little body. That's because of the Z direction that our mesh has. The more z the more our little guy will look like a cookie instead of a bird. Well there is a way to fix that up so that goes away and that's to color all the white in the original image to black, that way that little edge disappears and makes him blend better. Now if it's a white bird? Ya get the idea. You could also color the underlying terrain so that it's not default tan. What ever works for ya.

Is that your final render?

Ok now the only other thing you need to know is what to do with different sizes of images and terrain's. Well I worked that all out for you already.

Here is a little chart of usable sizes to get ya going.

  64 = 0.71
  128 = 1.42
  256 = 2.84
  512 = 5.68
  1024 = 11.36
  2048 = 22.72
  4096 = 45.44
  8192 = 90.88

  Lets just say it's not metric....

  Carve them numbers in the back of yer book.

Notice that they're proportional too each other? As the terrain size doubles so does the scale number. Therefor remember if you use some size other than double
well then you'll have to do a bit of math but it will still work out.

All these numbers assume that your world terrain size is 0.5x and 0.5y if not adjust these numbers accordingly. It's also assumes that your art is also these sizes.
Again if it's not well you can take care of that in the material editor just like we did on this sample.

But what happens if I make it some weird size?

Not a problem:

Remember cause now that we know the Magic number any size can be calculated easily.

  512      500
  ---   =  ---
  5.68      x

  x = 5.54 so if you had a texture 500 X 500 you would use 5.54 for the scale factor. Also say you resize your terrain for some reason, remember that 5.68 is
  based on a .5x and .5y

  .5      .7
  ---  = ---
  5.68     x

  x = 7.95 cool ay? That would be your scale factor if you resized your terrain to .7x .7y Carve that in the back of your book too. The nice thing about this magic
  number is that your offset will always be exactly half of you original texture so if it's 500 X 500 then your offset will be 250x 250y Makes it simple.

Hello? Ya lost me. I took one look at them formulas and forgot even my name...

Well it's a easy as I can make em You all remember basic algebra now right? Solve for x? Neither do I.. Use this method instead.

Just look at the above examples and substitute your numbers in and with a calculator it's just a simple multiply and divide to get the numbers you seek.

Here is the formula in letters:

   a1        a2
  ---   =  ---
  s1        s x

Lets say the a stands for art size and s stands for scale factor.

a1 is the original size and a2 is the size we are trying to solve for.
s1 is our original scale factor and sx is the number we need to know.

so ya simplify it right?

That gives you  (s1 X a2) divided by a1 = sx the number we seek.

Remember the brackets come first.

(5.68 X 500 ) = 2840 divided by 512 = 5.54. Simple? Can't get any easier than that. So I did one for ya and with that you can simply substitute numbers
and figure out any size by yourself. Works every time.

Who said computer art was nothing but math?

Will they fix that or is it a bug?  I do not know but we can work around it easily. You already got your bird and if you don't like math then try to sticking to the
numbers that I already worked out for you. Remember it's all relative, you can't change one thing without effecting something else. With the formula you can just enter
the numbers and figure out what the scale factor should be for any art / world size / mesh size there is. Piece of cake !

You can download all the sample textures complete with pre made mesh right here ! 2.16 Meg

Notice I added bump to the little fellow. That because remember we gave the fluvial one little hit so he don't look like a porcupine?
Well doing that also costs a bit of the feather detail but you can get it back with a bit of bump. I also adjusted the ambient so his colors are a little brighter.
Go ahead knock yourself out. Play with the settings and see what you can come up with.

Have fun

Your Pal

The Mighty Pete
 

Footnote:

             How did this project get started in the first place you ask? Well I was approached by Tradivoro on the Renderosity Vue forum with the question directed at me could I figure out what was the problem with Vue 4 and why did this idea with pictures he had did not work properly. The original post can be read right here, But be forewarned the pages got spammed with working pictures so that thread is huge. Don't go there unless you have to. Anyway eventually I figured out how to get them mapped properly in Vue 4 but because by that time the thread had become so huge Tradivoro suggested maybe a tutorial would be a better idea. So I wrote one up then sent him off the link to proof read it. After which he sent me a link to the original Bryce Tutorial by Michael Jed. I guess Tradivoro tried to find the link for the original thread but could find the web site. He discovered later that he actually had a bookmark to it and sent it to me. I went and had a look at it and to my amazement the original Humming Bird pictures where there. Bonus... I stopped my final render and downloaded the original art. With the originals I was able to see what the problem was with the set I had. The ones I had are the ones I download off the forum. They had been compressed too much in jpg format for this kind of use. I took the new originals and made a new set that are almost Vue 4 perfect and made a new humming bird mesh and started the final render back up so it's a good thing I got to go see the original tutorial in that you guys now get to download these new fixed up images. So thanks goes out to Michael Jed for the art and the work he has done for the Bryce community which has in a long about way brought the same idea now to the Vue community. Have fun with your new rediscovered tutorial.

Is that your final render?

No it isn't, that is located right here. Enjoy.