I've always disliked professing my own ignorance, but I hear a lot of you talking about rendering in such and such a program. What are the programs? How do they work? Which is the best? What's the difference? I've just come up against the new idea of rendering in something besides Bryce and I'm curious.

I model only in Bryce. It probably shows, but I'm doing this for fun rather than anything else. But, PC-Format magazine in the UK has a free full copy of Realsoft 3D 4.2 on the cover disk this month. SO I bought that. Wee bit complicated GUI though. I'm gonna have to break down and RTFM. It's not a program I've heard of, but the screen shots look quite impressitive.

Most rendering packages go hand in hand with an expensive 3d application (2000 dollars or so.) Leading the pack is Maya (www.alias.com), followed by softimage XSI, 3d studio max, lightwave 3d, Cinema 4d, and a few others. All of these applications have their own advanced rendering engine (way faster and more options than the bryce renderer), but there are add-on renderers you can get: Mental Ray renderer: An add-on for the 3d appications Maya, Lightwave, 3d studio max, and others. It specializes in fast global illumination and caustics. Also totes "physcially correct" light behavior in respect to materials. This is one of the renderers used by dreamworks and ILM. http://www.mentalimages.com/4_1_motion_pictures/index.html V-ray renderer: for 3d studio max, a subsurface scattering, caustics, and global illumination renderer. http://www.vrayrender.com/gallery/ Brazil R/S rendere: another for 3dmax, similiar to v-ray www.splutterfish.com G2 render: for lightwave 3d, smiliar to v-ray and brazil for 3dsmax http://www.worley.com/G2/g2_main.html#startit Renderman: Developed by Pixar, supposedly the "best" renderer around. Works with Maya, used in Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc. Not available to the general public (unless you got oooooodless of $$$)

I actually use Bryce for my assembling and rendering. I use external apps for modeling, such as Carrara, Maya etc etc. There are some advanced render features available in Bryce, at the cost of speed, such as Depth of Field, Soft Shadows, Blurry Reflections. One must remember, Bryce is a FULL raytracing renderer, which attributes its slow speed. Its colculating everying, except maybe the more advanced Global Illumination and Radiosty - although if you are creative enough you can acheive a simulated 'fake' radiosity using carefully placed lights. Just my $0.02 Scott

The bryce renderer is much under rated on quality of output, it can do some great work although it's slow (as Scott said it's due to full raytracing). When it comes down to final ouput though, the renderer helps, but it's the artist that counts, poor lighting and textures will still produce a poor image even if you spent 10000 on XSI and all it's plugins. Some things need to be faked in the bryce world that renderman et al can do, but that said without using raytrace materials, the reflections on some of those apps are pants you need to either reflection map an object or use raytrace materials that then put the render time back up. I'd say make a choice of render engine and then learn how to get the best out of it..... Like others here, I often import models into Bryceand render in bryce, that said I also export terrains from bryce to Max and render in Max as well, depends on what I'm doing.

Friamento. Muchas gracias, all. And one more quick question..... Cloth. I don't see much in the way of cloth concerning bryce. I've come across some jpeg mats, but they don't amount to much once they're in the scene.

Well, there's a few clothlike mats out there, but not a whole lot..I've used tigerskins, wall textures, etc. Most mats are not very 'bumpy', but by no means all are that way. Organic mats are sometimes hard to find. I had a linklist up, but it's already gone over the horizon. Try going to lunariad.com, or wolfie's den..dang, don't have my list with me. There is a way to convert jpegs into mats, haven't had much success with it yet, but I have a short attention span..;) If you want to go that way, look for a site called Textures by Tuesday. hope that helps.

I think it will. My biggest problem currently is creating a persian rug. Every time I find a good jpeg and put it into my scene, it goes pixelated on me. Any ideas there?

Hi there. I have had some decent luck with rugs and carpets in Bryce. What i do is first create the shape of the rug in a spline modeler, carrara is best for me. I give the rug a soft rounded edge, and then import it into Bryce, where I texture it with the image map. I also apply a fine sandy texture with the bump turned up. If u like, send me the JPG of teh rug you like the most, and I will do a little tutorial for you. Cheers Scott