I recently called Corel about Bryce's future and I couldn't get any clear answers, but I did get the impression that Bryce may never be updated. I hope that's not the case, and I do wish that Corel realized the awesome potential of this program. It just makes me mad to see Bryce so neglected. Does anyone have any concrete info about Bryce's future at all?

From previous posts here no-one seems to have any definite info on the future of Bryce. The main problem is that Corel is either keeping things very close to their chest or they have nothing in mind for Bryce's future. I think someone from Corel should come in here and take a look at what people have to say about their product and perhaps that would encourage them to work on an upgrade for it. Just my 2 pennies worth. Catlin

Did anyone tell Corel this forum exists? The Bryster

You going to send them an invite Chris, :)

Yeah, about that...from what I have learned; Corel did make and start a Bryce 6 beta testing program. That was about a year ago. Corel will be updating a slew of their products throughout this year, but I wouldn't hold my breath that Bryce will be one of them. (but, there is always blind hope, lol) Corel has been hurting and will be trying to get themselves back into the black fiancially this year, and I would (hopefully) assume, that if they do, Bryce beta testing will continue once again. But, if so, we are still looking at a long stretch, most likely. AgentSmith

RING RING!! Corel: Hello, Corel Corp. Brycian: Hi, blah blah blah Bryce Upgrade. (Corel employee covers reciever with hand, "It's one of those!") Corel: As soon as blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, we'll let you know. Brycian: Cool, thank you very much! Corel: Your'e welcome.(CLICK) Brycian: :| ....?

Catlin: Yeh right! We all going to meet at my house and get this thing sorted out. Maybe we could hold em to ransom..... The Bryster

Hmm, someone else once told me not to hold my breath waiting for a bryce update, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Agentsmith either. Wish I could remember who though.

And another thing; a program like Bryce should really be owned by a small, dedicated company that concentrates solely on Bryce. It doesn't seem right that it's owned by a big, scattered company with no clear goal in mind. Just makes me mad, I tell you.

Maybe we should do a email bombing compaign to someone in marketing over at Corels to let them know they have a following here interested in Bryce 6 and should take heed. Anyone have an email address to someone of meaningful stature from Corel that could bring some pressure to bare?

If I were a rich man, da da da da dum da da, I would buy Bryce and Poser, da da da da dum da da, I would buy Carrara and all the MetaC stuff too, da da da da da dum dum, if I were a rich man...

The good news for Corel, is that many PC makers are now including their software instead of Microsloth...The bad news for Bryce is this will probably push Corel further into the office application market, and further from the Bryce market.. Where's Meta Creations when ya need em? Anybody got a few million so we can buy it and run Bryce our selves?

Might be easier to politic Adobe into buying Bryce off of Corel. At least they update regularly.

"Anyone have an email address to someone of meaningful stature from Corel that could bring some pressure to bare?" I've got an e-mail adress to someone meaningfull at corels bryce-departement. I'm not sure I corel would like me to post that here. I think they don't want to be mailbombed. Anyway, it's the e-mail adress of Conan Hunter. (Program Manager of Bryce)

OK, that's it, I'm going to corporate, CEO if possible, and believe me I can do it, Program Mgr?, just somebody to brush you off, Corel needs a heads up on Bryce...Bryce will have it's day...and I'm not talking e-mail either, a physical visit to Corel's Offices....:|

"and I'm not talking e-mail either, a physical visit to Corel's Offices....:|" ... where you will speak softly and carry a big stick, Zhann? :-)

Go for it, Zhann!! My philosophy = Walk softly and carry a Uzi!

Be sure to use leadfree bullets though. That's less harmfull for the environment. :P

Funny, funny people..............lol :) My first read of the day and you got me laughing, and Rayraz give us the address or Zhann'z gonna visit you too. Catlin

Okay. But Promise me not to mailbomb Conan. Here's the adress: conan.hunter@corel.com So far I send him 2 e-mails and he never replied. However I never got an error message telling me that the e-mail adress didn't exist. I got the e-mail from Richard Solomon from the Corel licensing program.

Ok I've sent him an email. No shouting and quite civilized, just asking for info on whats happening with Corel and the future of Bryce. So off you go children set those keyboards rattling and let him know we exist. Catlin

Having been a C-level software executive for a few years I'll throw in my two cents for clarity of thought. Product managers, program managers, licensing people, they all care about their product because it is their livelyhood. UNfortunately they rarely have much weight when it comes to deciding what gets built next. At the end of the day Corel's decision will be based on what they think they can make out of the additional sales of an upgrade AND whether or not the development effort reflects who they want to be as a company. SO....if you're going to try to convince them to keep Bryce alive and well, you need to get some insight into what they are thinking they want to be, look up their annual report for example, press releases etc...and make your pitch based on future sales potential and on their corporate direction rather than on how neat we all think the program is. The 3d modeling market is becoming more and more saturated with a variety of products. Maya is the high end favorite, they win there. You'll have to be able to show where Bryce fits into a competetive landscape that now even includes a free ware offering. As a public company Corel's sales info is public information. Find it, compare it to the competition if you can, build a case for market position which includes their stated corporate direction...and you have a chance of making them listen.

Speaking of business numbers and economic justification for Bryce, I'll bet there is more Bryce users than all of Lightwave, Maya, 3DMax, Rhino, WorldBuilder and Cinema4 users put together. But correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, 3DSmax has a very broad userbase to. Okay, 50% has an illegal copy, but they are user non the less.

3DSmax has a large gaming user base. Maya is the new front runner for video/movies which is taking the place of LW. Vue and Bryce are battling for landscape modeling.

Agree with Claymor about using a business oriented sales pitch. Gotta talk to someone about this. Also means when they make an upgrade, you can't complain too much about price unless its buggy.

Bryce, in its present form, may be geared towards landscaping but the main point is that it already has a lot of users, regardless of what they use it for. It's this enormous user base that gives it greater economic potential than any one of those other expensive programs.

Has anyone actually gone to the Corel forums? I know there's a bunch out there, I was using Corel Draw 8 years before I got Bryce (Corel Dream will make you appreciate Bryce all the more..;). I know they've also got some business forums.
I wonder how much of the Bryce team has been 'assimilated' by Corel. It's possible that some of those guys have been sent to Draw, or..sob..even Word Perfect...;) Considering how many Bryce pics are out there, maybe we should let them know what Bryce is capable of..Corel, not Bryce..;)I'm still on the sharp endo of the learning curve vis-a-vis Bryce, but would be interested if they'd say something...

Ok, so a quick look at their fourth quarter financials for 2002 shows that they took a big hit in the graphics segment of their business in 2002...grnated it was only the second worst sector and not first. Their 2001 annual reposrt seems to indicate a focus on enterprise licensing, ie:large corporations, content manegement solutions, and solutions for what they call the creative professional.(2002 was not on the site yet) Potentially good news? Not necessarily. They call Bryce a grpahics tool and do not include it in the financial reporting of what they call the creative professional line of their business. Based on one quick glance I can't say I see Bryce being in the fore front of their strategy for 2003. The most recent annual report available on their site, 2001, shows a significant reduction in operating costs...ie: they either got realy really good at what they do or they canned some people...most likely from the teams with the least connection to their strategy. Prove it is a tool for high end creative professionals, prove a significant market WILLING TO SPEND MONEY...and they might listen. Otherwise I'd say we'll be enjoying 5 for quite some time. Unless of course they continue to lose money in graphics at which point they might sell it.

Can get some funds if we can prove that Bryce is a deterrent to terrorism.

Well the worst part of it all is that They are totally directing it towards mac, At one point they said that it would be Mac ONLY. But even though this may change, you know it will be completely optimized for a mac... =/ Just like nearly every other program is optimized for a pentium... Amd just gets screwed on every deal.

Well the worst part of it all is that They are totally directing it towards mac, At one point they said that it would be Mac ONLY. But even though this may change, you know it will be completely optimized for a mac... < You know a comment like that would piss off Mac users. My first Bryce rendering was on a Mac and most of my pictures are done on a Mac. So lets reduce the anti-mac comments. There are Bryce users that use PCs and Macs, we are going to need their help. Its pretty simple, we need to send the right message to the right folks at Corel. Anything else is not going to work. Tell Corel, you have a product with a large and enthusiastic following. When you upgrade, we will buy your product. This has been the nth thread that is about Corel and Bryce. The last Corel/Bryce thread was filled with people worrying about Bryce and they were talking about emailing folks. If you want someone to send an email or snail mail letter, sign me up. Lets do something and stop these Corel worries about Bryce threads. Preaching to the choir is great but we need to get the word out.

Attached Link: http://www.nasdaq.com

Revenue from Graphics Solutions (formerly Creative Products) decreased by 10.2% from fiscal 2001 largely due to the lack of market acceptance of Mac OS X. There was a decrease in revenue for products that we had developed for this operating software: Painter and Bryce. There was also a $6.6 million decrease in revenue from legacy consumer application products that were not actively marketed during fiscal 2002. However, these declines were offset by a $6.3 million increase in revenues that resulted from products acquired from Micrografx, such as Corel DESIGNER and Picture Publisher. Revenue from Graphic Solutions products is expected to remain relatively consistent in fiscal 2003 with a small decrease overall as certain unprofitable product lines are dropped. *************************** http://secfilings.nasdaq.com/filingFrameset.asp?FileName=0000890640%2D03%2D000002%2Etxt&FilePath=%5C2003%5C02%5C18%5C&CoName=COREL+CORP&FormType=10%2DK&RcvdDate=2%2F18%2F2003&pdf=

Corel has announced an upcoming new version of Painter (8), in Spring of 2003.

I think I said this once ditw as far as corel is concerned BT

Uhhh... Somebody needs to talk Corel into giving up Bryce and then talk JASC into buying it. Then the next thing is hunting down the people that originally were involved at MetaCreations, and seeing if there could be an offer worthwhile enough... Somebody might know how to knock the dust off of those hidden functions, and documentation development should be decent considering JASC's reputation. Then we could have a nice program running for about $100 that's actually updated. A renderer for the common man. (Which would compliment PSP, the 2D prog of the masses.)
Of course something like this would never happen in reality. But one could at least dream, right?

I don't think you're too far off really...based on the turn Corel seems to be taking, Bryce really doesn't fit into their sweet spot AND it would make sense to sell off that business unit in order to bolster the others. I don't know if JASC is the buyer...but I don't think it is all that far fetched to see them be willing to sell it.

I work 20 min away for Corel's Office building in Ottawa, Ontario Canada, and yet it took me 6 weeks for my copy of Bryce 5 to be delivered. Anyway...bryce is a very good tool, I actually conviced the High School I'm at to buy 5 copies for their computer design course. They love. All the students that have taken the course love it. There is a market for Bryce. I'm working on a computer game and creating 90% of the enviroments (3/4 isometric view) in Bryce. I would love to see an update. Perhaps we can start a letter writing campain or something. Not emails, but physical letter. I doubt that they could ignore hundreds of letters. Just my two cents. :)

"talk JASC into buying it" ... "Then we could have a nice program running for about $100 that's actually updated." I wouldn't be to sure about that. I haven't seen a mayor update of PSP in years. Can you give a realistic argument to why JASC would update Bryce often and still keep the price as low as $100? I'm not taking you down immediately, but I would like to know the reasoning behind it.

Well... As far as I know... PSP 7 came out about 2 years after 6. When it came out, it was priced around a reasonable $99, which was the same price that 6 was when it was new. Word is now they're beta testing PSP 8 already. Updates aren't always happening as fast as some competitors, but if the program has few bugs to begin with. Honestly, if they keep in line with the pricing strategy (new version same price as old, and discounts for upgrade) then it can't be a bad thing. Also from my experience with JASC's PSP6 the manuals and help menus actually tell you things about the software. In fact, the help menu is useful to the point you don't really need the manual. I don't know if you noticed, but there are many things left out of Corel's Bryce manual (probably why this forum is so popular.) And the help menu isn't of much use (which is why most Brycers have that dog-eared manual lying around nearby - if not various website printouts and Susan Kitchen's book.) If Jasc somehow got Bryce, I would assume that the documentation and help menus would be one of the biggest and foremost things to fix. Assuming the critical nature of such an investmet, I'd also guess that they would review the program code and do something to make it more stable and robust. (You know, things like "internal error: Bryce failed because of conflict with Bryce", etc... Has Corel done anything about this yet?) Also if Bryce were priced at a budget level, it should be profitable as it would be available to more hobbyists. I dunno if you noticed, but usually software below $100 is on the shelves where you can look at it. Therefore, it gets more exposure. It wouldn't be hidden in the glass cabinet with the pricey stuff that would be in direct competition. It seems this strategy would work well for sales of a 3D application, PSP obviously proved it can work in the 2D market. Well, to put it this way. JASC has no major 3D program as far as I know. Their 2D software is priced and geared towards the home user. By obtaining Bryce, it would make perfect sense in the way that the company could enter the 3D market. And IF they had an pricing/marketing policy for 3D that was the same as 2D - then the 3D program market would truely enter the hobbyist price range (you know, beginners and the curious. If you're getting started and live on a modest budget would you rather pay $90 or $300+ ?) I would think of this as a potential win/win situation. Since currently there isn't much in decent 3D rendering/modeling software for less than $300 (excluding pirated stuff and crippled/watered trialware.) To round it up is I'm saying, company C has a product that they don't care about because it's not "competitive" in the market (high end) that they're catering to. Company C sees it as "why should I improve the product when it's not doing good in the market I'm interested in." Company C is caught in a loop, since they lack the vision either make their program better or try catering to a different market. Company J would benefit from such a product because it covers an an area (3D) of their market (entry level) which they don't yet serve. Company J would be competive in their market with company C's product. Since it would do well for them, they would see that investments are made to improve the product. For another anology, I'll put it in "car terms"... Cadillac was trying to sell a car called the Cimmaron in the mid 1980's. It was a complete dud for them. However, the same car was quite successful for Chevrolet - if you didn't know - it's the Cavalier. In this case, the product was still owned by the same company - but the divisions trying to sell the same product served entirely different markets. An obvious example of a decent product, yet a market mismatch. I dunno if this makes enough sense. I don't even come close to having a degree in marketing or economics, but that's the best way I could put it.

I don't know if I'd like to wait 2 years for an update every time (although corel does that too with bryce it seems). But for $100 you can't expect much more updates than that for a program wich is as complicated as bryce. The coding of a program like bryce seems a lot more difficult than the coding of a program like PSP. I mean have you ever tried to program an engine that shows a wireframe of a model? It's a hell to make it efficient and fast. But making a photoshop filter or making a program that supports layers is easier. If Jasc can and does buy Bryce and makes it $100 and gives it a mayor update every 2 years then it's probably a great oppertunity for bryce. Small updates every 2 years would at least not be sufficient for me.

But Rayraz, at this point we're not even sure that Corel will update Bryce at all! Going back to our hypothetical company j, if they buy out Bryce from company c, it would be lot, stock and barrel, including the source code for the program. I would think that a company that would even consider in the first place to do a buy out would be willing to invest something into it in order to get more out of it in returns. Theyll have to hire, if they dont already have, capable programmers to study the source code, make necessary changes to it and add routines that will take it to the next level. Guess what Im saying is that they wont have to start from scratch to develop an already existing program. And following the above stated logic, bringing the program into the proper market scope might prove profitable for them.

You're right about the fact that we're not sure if Corl will updata at all, but if bryce is to be sold then it would better be sold to a company wich can quarantee the userbase that they will produce sufficient updates. If the program get's sold and then slowly bleeds to death you're not getting any better of it than leaving it at Corel and not getting any updates. I am not saying that JASC can't make a good bryceversion, but if a company c has a product and doesn't do anything with it (for any reason) and a company j buys it from company c then the product will only benefit from the trade if company j does any better than company c. And to get a product like bryce running well in the market you can't just drop prices, because one day that is not going to be enough. One day the users will eventually want good updates. Updating a program like Bryce takes more people and work than updating a program like PSP. Therefore updating it will be more expensive and selling it at prices as low as $100 could result in the program not being very (or even not) profitable anymore. Most important for bryce at the moment is an update. And most of the serious bryce addicts/users who are willing to buy a Bryce update will rather pay $300 for a good update than $100 for a program wich is barely updated. A pricetag of $100 would be great, but you need to be sure it doesn't compromise the quality of the program. And I'm afraid that is exactly what will happen if bryce get's sold to a company that's aiming at the ultra-low-budget market.

Corl = Corel updata = update

I've been with Bryce since its inception into the PC market, even followed it around when it was strickly Mac, a $100 update, in my opinion, for a more stable, more robust Bryce, faster with a few extra added goodies is a fair deal to me. A $300 update, well, isn't a version update, it's a whole new middle market program release, and although I very much enjoy Bryce, I would have to think twice about paying that kind of money for an update, especially if the program is earmarked with bugs.

You all wanted to know what is happening at corel and what the future of Bryce may be. Well I sent Conan Hunter two emails, the second one telling him of this thread. I sent the second one this morning and here is his reply:- "Warning, be prepared for a shock" Hi Catlin-- Sigh What can I say? I'm not doing Bryce anymore; I'm in Corel's New Ventures group developing new technologies that have nothing to do with 3D... I've even lost my Renderosity login, it's been so long. In fact, nobody is now in charge of Bryce, or working on it. It's on "hold" as far as any work being done on the product. I don't think it's much of an executive topic, either. There's not much more I can tell you from Corel's standpoint; I'm sorry. For myself, I could speak bravely about the state of the technology economy and Corel getting its house in order, and I could go on about the eternal conundrum of Bryce not fitting into a nice tidy demographic for marketing's requirements, and I could even talk about the challenge of splitting Bryce into a professional art package and a kid's version (which was my long-term goal), but, you know, all I can really say is: I miss Bryce, I miss the technology, I miss the art, I miss the community, and I miss all the insanely cool people I got to work with while I was in Bryce's driver seat, and there's nothing I can do about the state of affairs right now but vent a little here and there and deal with all the incoming calls and emails like this I have endured for almost a year with a heavy sigh. No, I don't look into the forums any more, I stay away from the sites; it's kinda painful for me; even if Corel were to begin work on a new version of Bryce, it would in all likelihood be without me, since I am now fully committed to other projects. --Conan, signing off

I think I'll post this reply in a new thread as well so that people will get to see it if they missed this thread. Catlin

Damn.

:(((((( Maybe we should contact JASC then, to see if they would buy Bryce. It's better than absolutely nothing.

I've got an even better idea now... (I'm coming up with some crazy stuff again.)

Drum roll please

What IF... (note the big IF) The software users owned the program? No, not just the permission to use a single copy which you paid for. I mean, what if somehow everyone owned the licence... Which would make it public domain. Effectively changing it from proprietary to open source? To do this, somebody trustworthy would have to start something like "Bryce.org", where donations are towards purchasing the licence from Corel. The idea would be to foster the further development of a program that's currently languishing in their possesion. Now that would even be cooler than trying to work it into the hands of just one company that's better suited to the program. And if it were open source, it could be developed by multiple companies. Kinda like Linux is with its OS. But I dunno how well something like that could work for a graphics program. Maybe I'm just trippin' tho. ;)

Hmmm...