Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com

Probably a good thing. If a company diversifies too much they can't spend enough time on their bread and butter apps to keep them going properly. Spreading themselves too thin. The end result will be all products languishing behind their competitors and killing their cash flow on product upgrades etc. Also, what more can they do to improve Bryce and if they could do something, will it give them return on their investment, meaning will the loyalist return to using Bryce or will they jump to Vue or something. Eovia probably knows something about this when they took over Carrara but Carrara was still rather young and immensly expandable. Bryce is fairly mature and I would figure somewhat more difficult to expand on. Eovia may not be in the position to spend millions or go in debt to puchase the product. And Bryce my have a loyal following but it's a declining user base. In my opinion, very risky to buy. I'm a bit surprised with DAZ3D buying it as I see them being a smaller company than Eovia but maybe they have their reasons or my perception is way off. I.E. snap up the bryce rendering engine or techniques, importing code etc. Who knows.

Eovia dont need it because it already have similiar Bryce functions in Carrara. If Eovia is buying Vue to put in Carrara then it would upgrade good investment. I am laffin at Daz a bit on their new 3D app. I am still on side with Poser. I think Bryce will die unless daz sell it to someone else who have good resources to upgrade the script.

Daz's product is in it's first generation so it has some ways to go to be up to par with Poser. However Poser has a history for being buggy and it's general reputation and that of the company that programmed it or updated it is not that stellar. Those who have become tired of Poser may just be annoyed enough to try Daz and stick it out. Daz currently holds a good reputation with the community and so people may just give them time and a chance. I don't think Eovia will buy Vue either. Vue seems to have a strong following and I don't see that company giving up control. Unless I'm missing some insider information or 'rumours'. :) I'd like to see Carrara work closer with these other products but personally, Eovia would probably be better off to augment Carrara themselves with the features it lacks in the areas of interest that these other product seem to excell in. This way they keep adding functionality to the product and ensure it's longevity. Vue, Bryce, Mojoworld (etc.) do have some abilities that Carrara has trouble with so there is still some attraction in using these other products. Although I have no arguments to back that statement up but for those who have used them, they would fight for them. I see Carrara still behind compared to other products so Eovia has enough on their own plate with enhancements to Carrara and Amapi to keep them busy for quite a few years to come.

im surprised as well.i never thought that a company like daz would buy bryce.lets wait and see what they are doing with it.

Zekaric, Yes Poser have some bad reputation when it had major renderer bug. It was programmed by contractor who made the Firefly. For several reason I still like Poser is posing and motion scripts and library to store it in, and dymanics life like clothing/hair. I think CuriousLabs will upgrade skin dymanics in next version. Poser really need to re-write entire renderer engine. It is not easy because they would have to re-create matrices string. I never liked the way lights coordinate. So what the heck since I got TransXposer and I am able to control everything better in Carrara. Carrara is kinda behind in modeling technique with other 3D app. Eovia own Amapi and it is advanced modeling. I think they will upgrade some in Carrara and probably they will offer plug in Amapi inteferes in it.

Actually this is a positive event. I am uncertain as to how much DAZ supports the Mac, but Corel officially is killing all it's Mac products one by one. I just hope that they sell Painter before killing it for the Mac. Although I would suspect that as far as Painter goes, it has more of a Mac following, but I could be wrong. I guess this means that their is at least a glimmer of hope to see Bryce come back on the Mac.
I don't agree with the statement that Bryce if already very mature, it's rendering is super slow. They could work in optimizing it better and speeding it up a bit. Doing any kind of animation is commercially is not possible because it takes to much time. This area of it could be greatly improved. It should have better exporting capabilities too.

You missed the point whole lot here. This is Carrara forum and it already have similiar Bryce functions in it. It is something that Eovia aren't worried about but they are worrying about tree control like Vue has with wind effect and advanced terrain modeling with super shaders.

Thanks for the link steama. I know of a lot of Byrce people that will be happy. I agree that it is a shame that Eovia didn't get it first, but DAZ has always been good to me; I'm comfortable with the idea and I think that the userbase will grow as I feel a lot of others will be comfortable with it too. Both Corel and Adobe it seems have been making users uncomfortable with higher prices, restricting SDKS, and shelfing or restricting development on graphics products that once had much larger user bases. I hope Byyce finds a permanent home with DAZ. I use both Carrara and Bryce, and if nothing else they build upon each other in terms of the knowledge I get from one I can sometimes use in the other; I hope they both have a long and henceforth happy future. - TJ

I am laffin my stomach out on this one

Perhaps you should see a gastroenterologist.

Last time I was checked and he said that I am perfectly fine. Why Bryce? if Eovia already have similiar interferes like Bryce so why bother? Give me a good reason why Eovia should buy Bryce? Why not Vue? Was it the only reason why you think Eovia should buy Bryce is just to own a license of it? [scoffs] --License Vs Investment/Marketing-- Own a license of an open software cost alot of money. Plus attorney fee and some other fees. What investment are worth with Bryce's alogrithms to implement in Carrara? Nothing because Carrara already have it. So why bother Bryce? Let it die or let other dumbbell own it and they may try to develop it in any way they like. I am programmer and I have been in many variety areas with softwares.

I use both Bryce 5 and Carrara 3 and find them both useful.

I hope Bryce's new home does it right. It is a good tool. I only wish Carrara (with all it is) could produce an atmosphere, sky or landscape like Bryce 5 can. Carrara 3 just can't touch Bryce 5 in landscapes and especially skies.

Sure you can do landscapes and skies in Carrara 3 but it is not as good as Bryce 5 is at these things (nor as easy).

Message edited on: 06/23/2004 22:41

It is very easily to make library in Carrara and Eovia still dont need license to get Bryce in. Ask Eovia for this implementation. If library is not what you were talking about maybe you had some limitation to use Carrara's similiar Bryce interferes. Give it some time and you will get used to it.

I am thinking maybe Eovia should make separated interferes for each environment 1. Modeling 2. Posing 3. Landscaping 4. Atmosphere 5. Renderer So it would be alot easy to select tools you want to see and use for specific environment in the scene. It is to reduce clutter interferes and easy to select tools.

Programmer eh? I've been trying to get a redistributable of MSVCP71D.DLL as I have a Photoshop filter which needs it but as I'm not sure which filter it is I can't just go to their site and request it. Nvidea had a MSVCP71.DLL redistributable release at their site for one of their free PS Filters which I was able to DL but not the MSVCP71D.DLL. As I only have MSVC 6, I can't get it from my own redistributables. Without trying to insult anyone, Bryce terrains (which BTW are exportable) kick C2's terrains butts tenfold and are a lot more versitile. I've compared the two and I wouldn't say it if it weren't true - I don't have C3 to compare it to but I'd wager they are still better in Bryce; Don't think I said absolutely whether Eovia should buy Bryce or not simply that I personally would prefer them buying it to DAZ. steama, I agree 100 percent. There are things that Carrara does very well, but skys and terrains aren't some of them. (LOL my H.S. english teacher just rolled over in her grave) - TJ

Did you register developer partnership with Adobe? They listed prices for tech support or some service for developer distributors. If you did, you should receive SDK with license and it should tell you what dll can be distributed or you would have to re-module DLL like almost any developer did.

Actually That is a Microsoft MSVC C++ redistributable DLL. It has nothing to do with Adobe.

The way I see it is this: Bryce is a very good program for people who like it, and like everything else, not so good for people who don't. The only reason for Eovia to buy it would be to buy its' user base, which I perceive is pretty large. However, I am not entirely sure that Eovia hasn't already bitten off more than they can chew with all the new plugins, Amapi, and Carrara in development.

-"I am thinking maybe Eovia should make separated interferes for each environment"

Sorry, but I very much disagree on this one. The reason that Bryce is pretty much a landscape renderer is that it was split up like this, and becomes more specific instead of general. I am all for separating different general tasks, but in the current interface I only use Assembly, Modeling, and Render rooms, Animation is pretty much useless. I can model terrain without trepidation in the modeling room, and I can edit the atmosphere easily enough from the assembly room. I fail to see the need for either to move. As for posing, I think it is easier to pose objects if you can see what's around them, so the Assembly room works just fine for that.

One room that I could see adding would be a morph room, which would allow you to control not how the morph object currently looks (that would be done in the assembly room), but the collection, naming, and modeling (by linking to the model room) of all of the child morph objects-- and therefore keep them from needlessly littering the assembly room. Of course they would need to add the morphing features to make any sense of the room, which I hope they do.

EMC

EMC you missed the point. A lot of new advanced tools and nice interferes could have been made for specific environment; Landscape, Atmosphere, Modeling, Render, and Posing. So it would be easy to visualize and less clutter interfere and easy to use. This also can be used to reduce use of file import and export function. I think Eovia and customers might want to have Poser 5 and Amapi windows added in it with new tabs next to the names I listed. Lightwave and Studio Max is full of clutter and too confusing and time consuming. I agree with you on one thing is with the modeling room is useless and all modeling techiques could have been done within the assembly room. That is what I was trying to say. Please check my wish list in 'Too early for Carrara 4 Wishlist?' thread.

Waldo I disagree with you that Lightwave is full of clutter. Lightwave 8 has one of the cleanest and easiest INTERFACES (notice the spelling) around.

Steama

Message edited on: 06/24/2004 09:32

I havent tried Lightwave 8 No need to be offensive on my spelling or my grammar skill. I may be very good in other areas with my disability. Thank you I was only trying to preserve Carrara's investment. What I suggested is the possibility for Carrara to be able to get Bryce, Vue, or other 3D application inside Carrara to be able to complete tasks more rapidly. It is very possible to share the polygona, texture map by using shared data in runtime memory.

I didn't say that the modeling room was useless, I said the animation room was. I find the modeling room very useful, and I have had people who use programs like 3d Studio Max comment on the fact that this one small interface concept is very, very nice. It allows you to separate logically different tasks. Why would you want to have all your other models around when you are edit one of them. This concept is easier for beginners to grasp too: I put together a scene in one place, I edit individual components in another. The modeling room is just a container for all tasks having to do with modeling. Adding more tabs to the top window, would just make the interface more confusing to the majority of people. I don't think the workspace should be spread across many specific "rooms". I do admit that the way these rooms are handled, however, could be better. What I could see is this: Lump the basic concepts: modeling, rendering, assembling, into these general categories. Then have sub categories under that: Modeling->Vertex, Modeling->Spline, Modeling->Tree, Modeling->Terrain... Have the ability in the assembling room to double click on any model and jump into its' native editing environment, and add the ability to select specific types of models to edit from the modeling "sub-rooms". That, I think, would be the most intelligent way of doing it. EMC

Quick sidetrack, Re: "I've been trying to get a redistributable of MSVCP71D.DLL" Sounds like someone got you the debug version of the filter. "MSVCP71D.DLL" is a debug runtime library, and not legally redistributable. I would get in contact with whomever made/distributed the plugin and get the right version.

Yes what you suggested is most intelligent way. How about Tabs Scene -Modeling --Vertex Editor --Spline Editor --Tree Editor --Terrain Editor --Dynamics Editor (clothing and hair?) --Morph Targets Editor -Posing --Bones --Posing Library --Motion Editor --Morph Targets Library and Apply -Atmosphere --GI editor with preview --Sky Editor --Haze Editor -Landscaping --Plant/Tree Library --Wind Effect Editor --Clutter Editor --Leaf Editor -Render --Settings --Multiple CPU/Network Management New Tabs that shares polygons/texture map/shaders/environment in runtime memory to put in Carrara's scene for render -Bryce -Vue -Poser 6 -Amapi -Deep Paint 3D -ZBrush Carrara would have to provide shared memory SDK to outside developers who want to implement their core software in it.

Sorry Waldo for pointing out the spelling of interfaces. I just thought you may like to know. I think you have a lot of good points to share. I did not mean to offend you at all. Sorry Steama

I still think posing should happen in the main scene room, but I think it would be a good idea to have a rigging room, so you could set up models for animation without a lot of visual garbage from the scene they are in. EMC

Good point. The Idea I posted is only AirWare. It can be worked out what you described

Maybe the tabs I described only change the interfaces and the scene stays?

Hmm...a thought on the original topic... Way back when (back when I started using 3D) "Meatcreations" had the suite; Poser for figure content and posing, Ray Dream for modelling, Bryce for landscape and final render. They didn't work together all that smoothly, but they were all in one place, from one company, and were at least grudgingly compatible. It appears that DAZ is now trying to re-create that holy trinity. They will have D/S for the content and posing application, Shade for the serious modelling, and now Bryce as the landscape generator and final render room. (Hey, Bryce may be slow, but so is Firefly -- and the Bryce engine is more powerful). They've certainly upped the ante on our friends at Eovia by making their own "Transporter" (aka Turbo), and for a quarter of the price. On the other hand, Metacreations crashed and burned. I think that was their fault, a complete mis-reading of the market (they as much as said there was no future in 3D and put everything they had into a single proprietary system for web environments). But is the market there for a similar suite now? Back ten years or so the Bryce community would have killed for this kind of support by a Poser-related company. These days the options are different. I think I can see a restaging of what defines the "semi-pro" and "amatuer" ranges; in the latter, the big guys like Max have been coming down sharply in price and are discovering more dedicated amatuers willing to spend the time (or at least the money) on a proffessional-level ap. In the beginner market, I foresee more and more extremely cheap/shareware/free applications that are easier to use than Poser but have even fewer options; true "push-button" applications for creating stereotyped content. I've watched similar happen to 2D art programs and MIDI/sampling software and I see no reason why 3D should not follow. So where do mid-range products fit in to this schema? I do not know the market well enough to say anything. If I were DAZ and could afford the engineers I'd make DAZ Studio nothing but an animation-wrangling application; set-up room for rigging new characters, dedicated animation toolset, a simple and robust real-time preview system/test render engine, and very good import/export options. Bryce stands as their best current option as the final render platform, the photo studio. What they really need to do to make it acceptable to a larger user base is to cut the render times...to offer hybrid renders, especially for animations. Bryce's problem is that it ray-traces the whole scene at a high resolution and that's gotta take time. A hybrid engine could allow it to use pre-generated shadow maps, baked textures, and so forth to speed up the renders at an acceptable sacrifice in quality. Also, Bryce's speed becomes less of an issue as CPU clock rates go up and up! With Shade for the modeller DAZ can hope to capture people who would otherwise shy at the idea of buying all their content from DAZ. But if they can offer that content -- and as they continue to give away D/S and put Bryce5 and Turbo at fire-sale prices -- they can really make their business model that of giving away the hardware then selling the software that will run on it. I expect an EXPLOSION of content in the DAZ pages in the near future, and some aggressive attempts to find new brokerage. Yow. I'll have to come back to Carrara in another post! (I'm not a professional. These are just the thoughts of someone who has been involved in the Bryce and Poser communities for over a decade).

So. I don't think Eovia is in the "holy trinity" business. They are staging Carrara as a low-mid range ap; more function than Wings but less price than Cinema4D. It is also after that other holy grail (what, more religious imagery?) of the do-all-things application. For at least a few more years there will continue to be a lacunae called the full animatable character. That is to say; someone wanting a human-like figure to pose and animate is today faced with either purchase of pre-made material (for which Curious and DAZ own the market), or going through the learning curve and the expended time of making their own. What I imagine within the next five years is more streamlining and automation of the character-creation tasks; automated rigging, new paradigms of polygon distortion, optimized modelling application, pre-generated "blanks" -- and don't forget the greater and greater capacity of modern machines and the end of low-polygon, highly-optimized mesh creation. Already we can see character creation coming within reach of the experienced amatuer, and no longer the provence of the experienced pro. It is very strange to me. What a large part of the 3d community seems to be is virtual amatuer photographers, taking snapshots to show to each other. There are people generating posters, book art, t-shirts, commercial advertisements, animations, game content, but these are all a minority. And most of these latter, full-time, users can afford the big-name applications. I simply can't see that paradigm staying forever. At some point some dam is going to burst and what is now the Poser/Bryce user will be moving into making short films or on-line virtual worlds or something else we can't currently imagine. So where should Eovia go? In the short term, a partnership with a Poser content provider would make sense, as would partnership with an application with dedicated terrain-generation tools (Mojoworld, anyone?) Personally, I think an integration of Amapi and Carrara would be very exciting; to have the Amapi modellers show up as a special window within the Carrara application so access to those tools was as easy as drag and drop. (I think Waldo was making suggestions in this direction). But the next horizon is to sever the Poser connection. Give Carrara a dedicated posing room with their own version of the base functionality of Poser/DAZ Studio, and give the Carrara/Amapi user new suites of tools towards faster and easier creation of unique models. My feeling is that the super-heavy DAZ figures and the increasingly specialized mechanics of Poser are moving more and more in the direction of a closed shop; into a set of figures that only work well within the software of these companies. I think, further, that the central model of Poser; the bone-and-morph mesh deformation, the clothing as anciliarry figure, have grown creaky indeed. What I would like to see in the future is not more plowing of this ancient field but newer and more effective ways of generating and dealing with figure content in the context of a 3D image or animation.

I understand your point of view. But you and some others seem that they missed my point. Carrara is Studio and can be used as window application that intergates with all other core 3D applications by sharing polygons, texture map, environment, background and other things altogether in the scene and animate it! This idea is to eliminate use of file import/export function and to eliminate any conflicts in this process.

DAZ have long way to catch up with algorithms I may require for my projects.

I'm not enough of a programmer to see how that would be accomplished. I WAS imagining something like Carrara and Amapi (to name one anciliary) be open and running at the same time and changes made within Amapi to be reflected immediately within Carrara -- even to have the Amapi interface appear as a "window" within the same metaphor as the existing rooms of Carrara. I have not tried Transposer yet but I seem to be hearing that it will update the data in the Carrara window whenever the data in the Poser window is altered. Perhaps there is a "refresh scene" button. I've been spending the week doing the Poser dance here; moving files from Carrara to UVmapper to Poser plus PhotoShop textures. I would have rather fewer grey hairs if I could just "press a button" and cause the work in one application to be updated in the connected applications. So I fully understand the utility of this! I suspect, however, that it would be less of a programming chore to run some functional modules of Amapi as a plug-in; as in the metaphor of the current Metaballs monitor, which since it first appeared in Ray Dream has all the appearance of being a seperate sub-application with it's own GUI, that is connected only tenuously with the main application.

as a user all i really want out of these applications is for them to be easy for me to use. I like Poser and i like the idea of being able to create characters and animate them, but its the backgrounds and scenery that dont work as well in Poser for me...this is from somebody that just wants to create and make the things in his head a reality...overall i have to say it is a nifty prospect that i can do things today i wasnt able to do 5 or 6 years ago with the software and products... it would be cool if Carrara had some presets for skeletons, maybe this is a dumb idea, but..like i create a figure and name the parts like 'ankle, wrist, head' and there are already some preset definitions and parameters for that and all i have to do is tweak them to make them do what i want... The modeling is good, but my problem seems to be selecting exactly what i want in the vertex modeler..i do like Amorphiums idea of having a blob or shape and giving me some tools and letting me sculpt it..its a bit more intuitive for me...tho it doesnt come close to what C can do in my opinion...but its a nice modeler... Bryce was just over my head so much of the time with all the settings and options..but the fact i can get it for like 40.00 at DAZ now is an incentive to pick it back up..will it import ok into C if i create a landscape or will we need something like Transposer?

Amorphium, eh? I've used it a little. For certain sorts of detailing I like it a bunch (especially for "distressing" an otherwise too clean model). I might suggest something interesting for you to try, todd; try setting up a cube or other primitive in Carrara's vertex room and turning SubD to a setting of 1 or 2. What you'll get is what I like to think of as a super-metaball; a blob with control handles. See if pulling at those points while subD is on turns out more intuitive for you. The trick to most 3d modelling seems to be the same as the trick to Quake -- smooth and assured NAVIGATION. If you can get to where you don't think about interacting with the cameras but simply swoop around the object, turning it and examining it from different angles, then you are half-way there.

i cant play Quake..lol..i get motion sick..;)...thanks for the suggestion..ill give it a try... Amorphium was fun to play with, but i definitely like C and am getting much more out of it..im using it and Flash to create some short animations ive been wanting to do... personally when i render i dont shoot for the photorealism..i prefer the lines and color..and the photorealism is never quite right..not yet, so it just looks off...Poser is coming a long way in terms of quality..it would be nice if there was some sort of real time union between Poser and C...or, i hate to say, whatever programs to get the best of all worlds...

"Sounds like someone got you the debug version of the filter." jnelso99, I did enough checking last night to find out that Microsoft starting with .NET, has quit supporting giving out loose copys of the runtime libraries even with the .net application libraries in msupdate, but as far as I can tell, although it is frowned upon it does not seem to be illegal to distribute them with a debug version of the application at least not yet; that does seem to be a misconception, though. I also found that the libraries should go with the application folder and never with the windows system folder and it is the programmers responsibility to ensure that the proper copies of the libraries are included in the project file. If I ever find out which plugin made with MSVC 7.1 is the culpret I will be sure to contact the vender and let them know about it. In the meantime every time I open up P.S. I get this stupid MSVCP71D.DLL error - ah well what can ya do? Thanks for the concern - I'll solve the mystery of which plugin it is when I have time: a search by date might narrow it down as an older plugin would not have the .net libraries. Thanks again, - TJ

I dont think Eovia missed out at all on Bryce. They really do have their hands full making Carrara and Amapi the respected successes that they deserve to be. Having a third quite distinctly different product would just be confusing to the buyer. I think Eovia will move in the direction of making the Amapi Carrara combination a complete 3D suite with great modelling and rendering tools. They can inmplement all of that Bryce/Vue stuff into the interface and produce a package that is better then both because it is usable for more then just landscapes. What I would like to see is an alternative to Photoshop that integrates fully into the 3D design workflow. Anyone who knows Painter well, knows that with some enhancements it could be a serious contender with PS as the 3D Texture creator of choice. If Eovia bought Painter from Corel and improved on the tool set, and fixed the bugs, they could capture a serious segment of the 3D amateur/profession market no problems.

I doubt that they will ever want Amapi and Carrara combination into one. I spoke to them about it and they have very good reason to keep them separated.

On Painter, I have to agree 100% with your assessment. At one point Metacretions had Detailer, which was a specific Painter package for 3D that showed a lot of promise. I liked it a lot because it was based on on Painter a lot, so if you knew Painter you kind of knew Detailer. Then they messed up with the second version, Painter 3D. It was a good idea, very badly implemented. I just don't know what Metacreations was thinking when they divested their company from all the wonderful programs they had. Poser, Bryce, Carrara, Painter, Painter 3D, Canoma and all the other plug-ins for Photoshop. At one point I thought they would integrated all there software packages in to a killer 3D suite. Unfortunately all these packages are being developed separately and independently from one another, this integration will only come as a advanced 3D format, if all these companies decide to go that route. At least Carrara speaks to Poser, somewhat. I have also noticed that Bryce 5 is being offered for $50. At that price is hard to resist. I did not want to buy it before when it was on Corel's flaky hands, but now I think I will pick it up. As anybody used it on a Mac? Is it good?

Pinklet I would pick Vue over Bryce. I own both copy of it. I have Susanna plug in for Bryce long time ago. It imports animated Poser in it. I still choose Vue over Bryce because of render and some of other cool features; Realatic wind effect on trees/plants, vegations, advanced terrain editor, advanced shaders, and it can import Poser/dynamic hair & clothing! Daz have long way to catch Bryce up wityh VUE unless they are going to drive Bryce into different direction. What direction will it go? Vue is mostly organic. I contacted with Vue team on a special effect I would like them to implement and I think they will put it in next version. I will have my $$ ready to upgrade VUE. LOL let Bryce die with Daz. If you want cheaper software that mean you will get some limitations. The price is good and cheap as long as if it works for you and your projects. I think MetaCreations gave up on those awesome apps is because of staff and support management problem. It can be very stressful and is too much to handle in a small company. Adobe had alot of outside developers to do the job and they have all budget worked out for them. Microsoft maintain separated divisions for each products they sold. It is reasonable for Metacreations to give up on them and sold 1 by 1 to each professional company who they think they can handle. I only can handle about 1/10 of the core 3D software with well memorized scripts.

I like that thought; of Eovia going in a completely different direction from the Poser/Content people (and their increasingly push-button model), and adding a paint program to their line-up. Then they'd be one-stop-shopping for a different breed of 3D artist.

Bryce was my first app together with Vue,i liked them both but i dont use them anymore.bryce is great but the render times are heavy and Vue crashed often on my windows 2000 computer and so i sold it.now im using terragen and mojoworld.if i need very good and realistic skies in carrara then i render them in terragen and use the image as backround in carrara and i can make hdri files in terragen.mojoworld is really cool cause i can make a whole planet. now im thinking about using bryce again and buying vue professional because of the great new features that vue has.

Vue fixed alot of bugs and I am able to use VUE with high number of polygons now. They have been very serious developing with Vue because they have been making good $$ from it.