Hi i am just a newbie in using bryce. When i visit rendrosity i often visit the bryce gallery and i see A LOT of beautiful pictures. Could any one tell me which is the best way to master bryce or hou you mastered bryce yourselfes?? And how long it took you to master it? I know a lot of questions but i am really curious. THanx

The first month, I banged my head against the wall several times after hours of frustration, the second month was much the same...only a little less frequently...the third month, I took a class. ;c)

Well.... I started using Bryce 3D. I did a lot of playing around with it at first. I searched yahoo for Bryce... found some tutorials and then found renderosity. I joined Renderosity in January of 2001. I tried some tutorials... and did a lot of lurking here in the Bryce forum. I soaked in a lot of info and tried things on my own that I had seen here in the Bryce Forum. Finally got up enough nerve to post a WIP. That is when I discovered that people here want to help others learn how to use this great program. I have learned a lot of things through the Bryce Forum and have a lot to learn yet. There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of Brycers much much better than I am and I learn something new from them all the time.

To start to master Bryce... - Do tutorials - Read the threads here in the Bryce Forum - Ask questions here in the Bryce Forum - Get Susan Kitchens book.... Real World Bryce 4 (The Bryce Bible). All it doesn't cover is the Tree Lab, and Metaballs. That is what I would say about how to learn and master Bryce.

I thought we were still learning! LOL! Sort of like life..never ends..continues..on and on..and then..comes other lessons tagged onto that..like what is art, poser, ethics, etc, etc, etc. My ex hubby wanted to learn bryce..so he got it home.. installed it on the comp. I started playing the fool with it. He never learnt it..I sorta hogged the comp day and nite. It's like golf ..you can really really love it, or hate it with all yr heart..no in betweens..and if you love it..you become addicted. No rehab centres for either, btw..be warned. LOL. Start by trial and error..fiddle with this button, that button, click, push, whatever. Never mind if you crash..you can start back again..till u like something you made. Experiment. As Swade says..ask..no question is too silly or simple or dumb to ask out here.. even such as "how do I strangle bryce?" the real world bryce book is your bible, your ticket.. (ahem, besides this forum). Then there are tutorials all over the web. like everything you learn..practice makes perfect. So is your will to learn, and whether you are happy doing what you are doing.

3 years later I still go back & read the tutorials & forum threads. Each time you feel as if you've accomplished something new someone has discovered another technique. Mostly....just adopt yourself a Bryce family and You'll never run out of resources for learning. This is an excellent Group of people. Welcome!

Click, click, click, cli-...CRASH...Ahhhh, I lost everything! Click, click, save, click, backup, click, render.... (Then about 2-3 months afterwards I finally opened my manual) I learned most everything I know here in the forums and in all the tutorials absolutely everywhere. Cut my teeth in our monthly Challenge. Then when I thought I knew a LOT...I purchased "Real World Bryce 4", and discovered I didn't know jack. It's the Bryce bible. AgentSmith

I started out with a free version of Bryce 3d, and just messed around doing the usual stuff spheres over water etc. Then I was shown renderosity by a friend. I couldn't believe the stuff I was seeing in the Bryce gallery, and thought I'd never get the hang of it. The next step was to follow a load of tutorials I found on the web which helps you come to grips with many of the basic functions. I started to post stuff here nothing amazing as you can see from above, but just kept working on different ideas and having fun in doing so. Then I decided to concentrate on a particular genre which was sci-fi as it gave me something to focus on. From there I became more involved here at renderosity and picked up lots of ideas and got help with certain techniques. My advice is for you to always ask for help with stuff in the forum, take part in the monthly challenges, and keep at it. Also always look at your work with a critics eye, what can I do to improve etc but most of all,enjoy it!

-Lots of practise <---------------------
-Tutorials, some of them yes, many I found utterly confusing in the beginning.
-Manual and my "Real World Bryce 4" book only recently I opened (as English is not my native language, only once I knew the program a little I knew what they were talking about in the book and found out as AS said, I don't know nothing).
-What helped me a lot where free Br4-files people offered and those on the Bryce book CD, where I could move things, change textures, replace object with my own etc. Learned and learning a lot from that.

My first image was a glass sphere above a waterplane :-)

I started with a free copy of Bryce 2 back in 1875. (Full version, but put watermarks over the pictures) Started creating chrome spheres over flat oceans (Looks like we all do that then), and just played with it. Left it alone for about 100 years and came back to it when I discovered a artists website. Then found a grown up site (this one) and have learnt more through this crowd than any reading of tutorials and manuals. The amazing thing, I still discover things I didn't know each and every week.

had always been fiddling with the 3d element of my work package Autocad, then there was this free version on Bryce on 3d world magazine, read the tut, thought hah looks easy, found out it was, bought the full-on version 4 and never looked back, but leaned the most here, by listening and watching others WIP's. there's no substitute for these guys..... should come with a government health warning tho.

I started with Vue, (ducks head), and then I saw some beautiful abstracts done in Bryce, and just had to have the app. Then I asked in here what books to buy and Real'World'Bryce was at the top of everyone's list, so I bought it, then I studied every tutorial I could on Bryce, and read all the threads here, watched everyone's wips, took lots of notes....the other thing was the Bryce gallery, going through there too. There were a few people who's work I really admired and I like their style, so I set about learning everything I could about the way they set things up, asked questions, studied their galleries. And asked alot of questions of everyone here and practice, practice, practice....another good way I guess would be take RWB book, start at the beginning and try everything out, when you hit a snag ask in here, there are brains for the pickin' here, and everyone is helpful...

Yep, I started with Bryce 2 as well, and those were the days when there simply weren't the great online resources that there are now. I learnt a lot more after I got an internet connection. Before that it was trial and (mostly) error. The problem with 3D applications in general is that they are so full of features that it is hard for the newcomer to distinguish between things that are really basic and important which you must understand, and things you only need very occasionally and can ignore until you need them. Bryce is full of controls, many of which I never use, or use only very seldom. It took me a long while to learn which things are vital. I'm working on some tutorials right now which I hope will guide new users to pick up in a couple of hours what it took me several years to pick up, in terms of basic techniques.

Still learning actually. My best advice, play with it, have fun, that's what it is all about after all. Ask lots of questions, it's a good crowd in here and you'll get help when you need it.

Simple! Find a pic you like and copy it! (I've been doing that for years - ask anybody) Seriously, if you copy someone else's work - something simple to start with - maybe by Draculaz or Catlin ;-) - you'll find you learn on the 'fly'. The more difficult stuff like DTE will come later. Don't be afraid to post your wips here for comments. This family will help you beyond your wildest dreams......

I am another one started with Bryce 2, got it free as a mag cover disc, and no manual, just some tuts in the mag. Deserted for poser at one stage, but once I got on line and found this place I came back, and now only use poser to put people and things in my bryce images.

Another Bryce 2 starter here. . . .but still learning ! It is not learning Bryce itself that will help you to improve. You should learn traditional composition techniques and the other principles that form the basis of excellent artwork. In this way you can use the sum total of your experiences into each new image and to solve the many problems that you may encounter. . . . .and post questions in this forum frequently! : )

Back in 2001..I had a job that had large amounts of sitting and staring at the screen..went looking for wallpaper, found a site 'The Ultimate Sci-Fi and Fantasy Link List' or something like that..1,000 web sites, started through them one by one (told ya I had a lot of free time on my hands)..and started noticing the stuff I liked the most was in Bryce..and that every other site had a link to 'rosity. Joined Rosity in December of that year, and as soon as my tax refund came in, I went crazy and got both Bryce and Poser.. After half an hour, I came up with this..the first Bryce pic (well not really, this is what it looked like, but I didn't save my pic..lost in the conversion from nu-be to Pakled..;) Veterans of the Bryce forum can tell you I haven't improved all that much..;) I discovered Free Stuff (go to Freestuff..download lots, repeat as necessary) under the Bryce category. Materials make up for a lot of fumbling at first..and outright deception later..;) Then under the 'top 15' web sites, I discovered it's more like 1500..went to all those sites..(still had oodles of free time, is this a great country or what?..;), found even more mats (have about 900 so far), objects, tutorials.. then found the Bryce forum here, used to be so serious, and saved my smart mouth for the Poser forum..;) but that's all behind me.. welcome to the club..you have a tool that will take you as far as you want to go with it..I've seen some jaw-dropping stuff done with it..but I'm not there yet.. (head-smacking is more like it..;)

That picture is surprisingly like on of my first Bryce pictures when I started learning Bryce last year. When I got Bryce I installed it and was pretty much clueless to begin using it. I bought a book, but learned some from it even if I later found it not to be the best book. I?m still learning, I?m planning to buy that book somebody here was talking about as soon as I can.

Produced endless mirrored spheres over water, and then endless photo planes mirrored in water, then attended Bryce Camp, got blown away by what could be done and freaked out by how much there was to learn, started producing more complex boolean models, attended another Bryce Camp and this time had some intelligent questions to ask and learned a lot more, real Susan Kitchen's book cover to cover, started writing my own book on Bryce, came here to Renderosity and discovered I still have tons to learn and am still learning. Rule number 134, never ask an attorney a question unless you are prepared for a run-on sentence.

once you have their money, you never give it back
-1st rule of acquisition...;)

Luckily not all of us are Ferengi.

You wouldn't know it from most of my work, but looking at the thread so far it looks like I might have been learning Bryce the longest (note I said "learning," in the present tense; people who have used it for a much shorter period of time have taught me a lot). I bought KPT Bryce 1.0 when it first came out as a Mac-only version. Ah, the days of rendering a chrome ball over water on a 20 MHz (yes, twenty) Mac IIsi with 17 whopping megs of RAM. My learning method has mostly been 10 years or so of scattershot experimentation. Maybe I should check out that "Real World Bryce" book! :)