I actually have a bryce group on msn and I've had a help post that has me a little stumped.The message reads "Im on Win XP-Pro and using Bryce for 18 months or so now. Recently I added some new models in OBJ format into IMPORTED OBJECTS SECTION..........also some into USERS! This took me quite some time as I had a lot to import, however at one stage my PC froze on a rather large file! When I went back to IMPORTED OBJECTS it showed nothing there at all, just small black windows....even the pre installed obj were not showing!!! Im wondering how I can get these back!!? I did do a windows sytem restore but no luck there! Im very hesitant to reinstall Bryce all over again if there is another way to resolve this." Has anyone else encountered this problem?Copying the rogue file and importing it into a new bryce directory doesn't work.

I have encountered this problem too many times. It usually means your object library files are corrupted and your library is gone. If you are lucky there's a .tmp file left wich might work if you rename it to a .obp but usually black windows mean that the file is gone. I advise every bryce user to regularly backup the object, sky, material and other libraries.

There was a suggestion last time someone asked this, and I don't have XP, so I can't remember what it was exactly, but it's something WinXP has that repairs corrupt files. Try searching in the forum archives.

A restore won't handle this and will probably reset all your windows settings. The MS-knowledge base doesn't have enough reports on this for XP. After my last go around with this situation... I load the models, the go to the bryce dir where they are kept and make a copy of that dir structure to somewhere safe. Good luck and let us know if you come up with anything else.

It is better to import the model, texture it and then just save the scene (minus the ground plane) and merge it with whatever project you are working on. Library files get corrupted too easily especially with the USER section and when you have a lot of stuff saved there. As for the guy this happened to, sorry to say he probably lost everything and will have to start over.

You will need to delete your user obp file from your Bryce folder, then reimport your objs. This happens to me OFTEN on WIN98SE with Bryce 5. Everytime I import an obj and make it an obp I save out the newly created obp onto a cd. I use the obp user library to hold the models that I am currently working with and when I am done I delete the user obp freeing up my library for my next project.

The safest way is to keep a decent backup of your library files, upgrading it at least once a month, more often if you use to download and/or create many new model. This will prevent you from any loss of data. I know it's quite obvious, but...

Yup, been there with skies, lost the complete library, and the restore will only mess thing up more, the Byrce credo is save, save, save, somewhere other than the Bryce folder.

What is the source of the problem, though. I've always been perplexed, since nothing like this has ever happened to me. Maybe it's because I keep my hard drives regularly defragmented? Don't know.

I had the same thing happen to me when I was working on a large project. I was able to find the temp file and rename it and got back a lot of what I had. It took me 2 tries, though. What is the easiest way to find the right temp file is to do a search for all files "modified" or "created" in the period of time the corruption happened. You have to delete the corrupt file and then rename the temp file "...obp". Good luck. Diane

AS, it looks like how this happens is that Bryce is writing the obp file and the computer crashes. Bryce can't finish writing the file, so the file's corrupt. I know that Bryce writes temp files(it also does that with animations, it used to "unexpectedly quit" for me every time it finished rendering one.). I also know that a PC crashes at the tip of a hat, and one of the main reasons are running mildly corrupt files, just corrupt enough that the computer can't tell that it's corrupt until it tries to run it. Everything leads to corrupt files, doesn't it? Regular defragging the HD would fix this(but so would buying a Mac!!).

Thank you for all the replies which I duly forwarded as well as reccomending the group.After trying a few of the option the said Viewpoint member settled on the re-install Bryce Option and has weathered the storm on lost files.I for one religeously back up everything but when you do Sci-Fi sceens it's amasing how much space you can take up with models.

.... the the library and bryce auto creates it next time you run it. i had this in bryce 4 and 5 using win 98 SE. apparently the problem doesn't happen on macs.... but there you go.