Hi, I'm kinda new here, and I've been working with Bryce 5 off and on for about a year(sadly, cause I'm not that great), and I've been needing to know: How do you export a bryce 5 file as a .obj file for use in Poser or related software? It's got the export option on the file menu, but it's always shaded. Is there any way to export my 3D objects, vehicles and the like as .obj files?

Sorry but most objects can't be exported, you can only export terrains/lattices.

oh, that figures..... oh well, I'll have to get a new editor then. at least I can use bryce to import all my work and animate it(I'm most used to Bryce's animation system and overall interface, so that'd work best for me), since I know how to import stuff very well. Anyone know of another program that works well with Poser 4?

You can export models out of bryce exept when they are made from bryce primitives. If you import models you can export them. here how it go's. 1 Select the mesh you want to export. 2 Click the e buton next to the objects bounding box. the edit mesh dialog appears. 3 Click command(mac)/ctrl+d(pc). the save dialog apppears. 4 Choose a location and filename for the object. This is not my discovery but it says so in the bryce manual.

The ability to export Bryce models is a common wish. But having this feature is of limited value. Many (most?) Bryce models are made with a collection of multiple primitives or terrains to which one applies various techniques such as boolean operations, etc. But the resulting model is actually what you see in that confusing wireframe mode. The desired result that you see once rendered is just that- a visual trickery of rendering. So unless you actually want a model consisting of various intersecting primitives there is little point in exporting it. If you do need to create models that can be used in applications other than Bryce (though it works well with Bryce) you might want to consider Wings3D (http://www.wings3d.com/). It's considerably more powerful and sophisticated than would appear at first glance. It also enjoys the advantage of being FREE! There is an active user group at http://pub161.ezboard.com/bnendowingsmirai - Jack

the inability to directly export .obj .3ds is one thing about Bryce that puts me off. but it can be done, open the object (hilight it)with the list to the right hit the E so that you are bringing up the smoothing tool but at this point do a Ctrl-D and this will bring up export dialog box pick the format and where to send it just like other programs from there on. now you havethe model to use in another program.

Aye, but Bryce doesn't export it's primitives, Reddog. That technique only works on imported models. But, since you imported it already, it's nearly useless... On the same note, exporting primitives from Bryce is also nearly useless. Bryce uses filter-style Boolean methods, as opposed to real mathematical Booleans. Meaning, it doesn't actually affect the poly count. The "cut" parts aren't reall "cut" at all, merely hidden. Wings is the best way to go for free, give it a whirl!

Wings doesn't have booleans either, but it's still a great program. I do most of my modelling in Wings.

I'll try to get Wings downloaded soon, sounds like it'll help a lot, but truly what I should be doing is getting 3d max since I'll need it for college anyway.

of course I guess I could make the character in Poser then put the armor or whatever on him/her in Bryce. Good uses could be cars, Ride Armors(a la megaman), sci-fi battle armor, etc... that I could still do my way, since I could do the assembly in Bryce rather than Poser, animation would just be a tid harder.

If you want booleans try truespace - last I heard version 3 was still free. It is neither as intuitive nor quite as easy to use as wings but it is just as good in it's own right once you get used to it's more difficult interface. Also gmax (descreet), but since microsoft's now infamous worm patch, some of the maxscripts which made it useful to me haven't worked right even with microsoft's so called temporary correction to the patch. marbleclay and metasequoia also have their fans. I think the links to these programs are on the header of the modeling forum except for gmax which a google of keyword gmax should locate. If you can't find the links let me know and I'll go root around for 'em a little later. - TJ

Truespace is a good proggie, it's one of the one's I used early on, but I would recommend doing a back order of one of the mags such as 3d world which had Cinema 4d ver6 (full product) on the cover CD. That said if you've got to get max for uni then bite the bullet, Max is one cool piece of software, I'll see you in the Max forum at some point in the future :-) (although Max here is a bit dead, consider 3dbuzz, 3dcafe or 3dluvr for good Max Tuts.)

Another goodin is Amapi ver 4.15 and ver 5.15 are supposedly free too.

wow, thanks for the info guys, I forgot how expensive Max is, but I think i'll likely have to just go buy it. It'd solve a lot of problems for me that way. In the meantime, I might go get wings and/or truespace. Also, my rendering computer most likely wont be used online, ever, so I stand less chance of needing the worm patch(my plan is to finish my new computer, for rendering, and then build a cheapo net computer with a decent sized hard drive, so I can download anything I need there, scan it, and only send the safe stuff on to my render computer via cd)

Sorry for doubleposting, but there wasn't a Truespace link, do you happen to have one?

there used to be a version at Bahkter, I believe, but I'm not sure if that was V1 or V3..you can do a web search; some sites will host older versions of software. Also, you can look for these 3 magazines; Digit, Computer Art, 3d World, which will have things like Truespace, Cinema 4d (could be handy), and other full packages, for about US$15. You can make armour for Poser characters in Wings 3d, but the scale differential makes it challenging..;) Truespace can do amazing things, once you figure out the user inteface (I haven't..;) Stop by the Modeling Forum here, and in the masthead (title), you'll see links to several of the mentioned programs, mostly free. Good luck.

You can get the free TrueSpace 3.2 directly from the publisher here: http://forms.caligari.com/forms/ts3all_free.html - Jack

Thanks! I hate looking stuff up unless I have to. BTW before you fork out $3500.00 US you might check out GMAX (a FREE version made by the same company who puts out MAX) it should meet your needs at least at first especially if you can still get the export as wavefront object maxscript to work with it.

ok, I might try that as well, but the problem I've been runnin into is that I have 56k and one phone line, thus downloading most of these programs are a problem, I'll just about have to buy. I've already got and played a little with Wings, I haven't quite got the hang of it yet though. Truespace is about 23 megabytes, so that's a tid impossible for me to get right now. Anywho, thanks, and I'll try to see what I can do before saving a few years to afford Max...

I'm on 56k. gmax takes a while to dl at 20-30 meg something like that; hard to schedule, but not impossible.

Max is worth the buy...Its alot easier to get the hang of then say Maya or Lightwave. If you do get it, Id be happy to help you figure out a few things to start you out. If you need to get it, I say get it as soon as possible...get a headstart for your college. Also, check out journeyed.com for student discounts. 3d max 6 with character studio and reactor for like $650...thats a helluva deal.

wings is about 2 meg, shouldn't be that hard even on a modem (boy do I remember that,I started out at 1200 baud..;) good luck.