So, we finally have a possible dream come true. For those who wished that Bryce and Poser would merge, there is an alternative now. Granted, MetaC didn't quite get this done for us before it broke up, DAZ seems to be well on the road. DAZ has purchased Bryce from Corel and has released a plugin for their DAZ models. Only good can come from this. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks about this new deal? EricofSD Senior Technical Editor The Renderosity Interactive Magazine http://www.daz3d.com/newsletter/daz/newsletter6_24_04.html http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel2/Products/Home&pid=1047022702299

Not much, I use Vue.

Search the forum for "bryce" and you'll find many opinions on it already. And I'm a Vue user also :/

Vue user here, who just bought Bryce. Not nearly as nice as Vue IMHO!!

Well I used to use Bryce, but then switched to Vue. I like Vue allot better. But I believe this is the best thing that could happen for Bryce users. It gives Bryce a stronger future and it will make it allot easier to bring figures into it.

I think it's great. Because I could never get my Poser characters to come into Bryce without a long and painful process, I got Vue which imports pz3 files in a snap, and they render beautifully. Bryce and Vue have different looks and both have good and bad sides to them, so it would be great to be able to use both programs to render my Poser folks in. I just got the plug-in, and it's downloading as I write this, so I can't wait to try it. One question: it says it needs the most current version of DAZ|Studio. How do I know if that's the version I have? I guess I'll just try it and see if it works. Melanie

I have read many posts that say you have to bring Poser stuff (and NOT Poser 5 or pro) into Daz Studio (that takes an hour on my system to load anything) and then move it into Bryce. Not an option for me - and once poser stuff is in Daz studio forget ever getting it out for use in Poser. I am buying Vue when I scrape up the dollars.

melanie, if you haven't dl'd DS within the last week, you're not curent. It's up to 0_9_2_0.

thanks..good ta know..

From my understanding Bryce has been severely neglected. So to compare it to another program is rather unfair. With DAZ acquiring Bryce, I think it (potentially) has a very bright future. I think with DAZs primary source of income is Poser content, they will be working hard on interoperability between Poser, D|S and Bryce. I am sure that other aspects of Bryce will be advanced as well but getting interoperability will allow Bryce users to buy DAZs (and in tern other Poser creators) content.

I'm delighted to hear this. Since I first got Bryce it has changed hands at least twice. I was totally disgusted when Metacreations dropped it, not knowing where to find support for upgrades, etc. Then Corel took over, I got B5, I had started with 4, then the upgrades, etc. Now with B5, I heard many rumors about Bryce going commercial, etc. Now that it's in DAZ's capable hands, I hope it stays put and goes into real development.

In all honesty watching Daz do this is a bit odd to me. Daz buys Bryce. Okay. However they also sell Vue standard and Pro, as well as Digital Elements World Builder. VuePro and World Builder being more in the Pro market for importing and animation. Bryce has been neglected, pretty much even by its origianl creators, they have moved on to other things, newer ideas and techknowlogies. Bryce has been religated to the hobbiest market place. I see a cash cow for Daz with a relativly inexpensive appliction for hobbiests and maybe Daz can sway some to use their free Daz Studio as well as purchase some Daz content. This is Daz's goal, as they have stated. The Poser community is rather small and isolated. Bringing in new blood to a market that is saturated seems logical and Daz has made statements for the past year of that being thier goal. A strategy of bring in more of the Pro market, somehow I fail to see how Bryce has anything to do with that. Daz is a small company with Poser market as their bread and butter. 25 people working hard on supporting content for poser. With Daz Studio, and now Bryce this small company is going to have some restructuring, growing pains, and changes. What I really see is a diversion of thier interests and focus away from the core business that they have established. Poser content. I am not talking about brokers, brokers come and go, sell at different stores. Over the past year there have been many examples of this. Dodger, Anton, Silvermage studios, and now Lady Littlefox working for RuntimeDna. The Core of Daz that produces models, software, inovation is now working on 3 different things, diversified. Bryce, Poser content, Daz Studio. I hope that Daz can pull it off. However with the lack of support for thier latest releases, the horse, Mike 3, Beta builds of Daz Studio, now having Bryce in the mix would trouble me greatly if I were interested in Bryce, or a Bryce user, as well as being a Poser user and not interested in Bryce. What Daz says, and what Daz does in the past year has been a rocky road. Hopefully Daz doesn't forget who has put the bread on thier table instead of looking for the next sugardaddy.

Attached Link: http://digitaldreams.bbay.com/picture.htm

I think Bryce could be a great thing for DAZ, and for Poser-dom in general, but it needs a lot of work. The interface _has_ to be changed to a more industry standard one if they ever expect to attact new users. I started out with Bryce 2, but I never actually used it, because I couldn't understand the interface. In all modesty, I'm no software dummy, I've used dozens of graphic orented software programs on PCs, Macs and SG workstations, and I've taught computer software at the Community-College level, I've never ever seen a program as hard to learn as Bryce. I eventually bought Bryce 4 (after seeing what it could do) and sat down and did the tutorials and whatnot to go through the painful learning process so, O.K., I can use it myself, but it wasn't easy. Bryce also has no proper preview mode, it has a wireframe mode in which that sometimes difficult to see what you are doing, so what you wind up doing is doing lots of low-res and partial renders to see how things look- very time wasting. DAZ already has a DAZ Studio import plugin, and they should really have a direct Poser 4 /Propack import pluging too, but what the program really needs is the ability of running DS and/or Poser 4 ProPack inside Bryce, do you can adjust a bend or whatnot with out going through the rigamorole of exporting again. I'd guess they will stay away from Poser 5 support, I could surely understand that, and it wouldn't bother me. Without some or all of the above changes I don't see the DAZ ownership of Bryce being all that useful, other than it will keep the program from fading away. There are some of my Bryce renders at the link- I haven't done any in quite a while, though.

I agree that there should be a way to bring Poser directly into Bryce. At least, opening a pz3 directly into Bryce as you can with Vue. I've tried to import Stephanie with hair and clothes into Bryce form D|S and I crashed because of memory. That doesn't happen when I bring pz3 files into Vue. Anyway, it would be handy-dandy if we could repose figures right in Bryce.

I like the tree editor in Bryce (Vue doesn't have that) and some of the materials are nicer in Bryce than in Vue, plus the materials editor in Bryce is a whole lot more user friendly than Vue's, and there are a lot more textures in Bryce (there's virtually no wood textures in Vue).

I like the realism and the lighting of Vue, but objects are much easier to move around in Bryce. I'm one of the very few people who does like the Bryce interface (maybe even the only one LOL), so I'm perfectly happy with that just as it is.

I'm really pleased that Bryce has become a member of the DAZ family. :) BTW, Nickelshield, thanks, I did download the latest version of DAZ Studio and now it works fine.

Melanie

Message edited on: 06/26/2004 21:05

I think it's funny that one of the things that makes Bryce Bryce is it's interface, and that it isn't standard. Lots of people want to change that and make it more functional in thier opinion however it was created for a reason, there was a purposful intent to make bryce the way it is. Making it more functional as an application, speedyer renderer and additional functions to make it work better is logical, but changing it to make it something else, wouldn't be the same thing. Kai Krause et al didn't just do things on a whim, and the popularity of Bryce, Poser and all the fractal, metatool, metacreations graphic tools reflected that. I own World Builder 3.2. Trust me you do not want to see bryce ripped and turned into that, $400 application sits on my shelf unused.

You're welcome melanie. I wish you well with it.

Well, I have the turbo and studio installed. Seems that an export is very long indeed when there is a high poly count (mil dragon/v3). Also, I'm not getting transmaps. They still have to be manually done. Anyone else having these experiences?

I echo what sirkrite had to say above. Bryce 4 was my very first 3d program. But then I got a glimpse of Vue and the images that could be created and brought it. I really prefer Vue, but was not pleased with how long it took CL and Eon to come to terms on Vue being able to import Poser 5 .pz3's. So when DAZ picked up Bryce5 and made it available to platinum club members for $42 bucks, I snatched it up! I think I paid $199 for Bryce 4 about 4 years ago :) It will give me another alternative, should CL and Eon ever decide to start "playing games" again. Melanie, I agree with you on the quality of the materials in Bryce. That is one thing Bryce has over Vue. However, I do prefer the material editing in Vue. As for the Bryce Tree generator, Daz could do away with that and probably improve the program. I say that because the trees created in Bryce are not that good and slow down rendering even more. Vue doesn't have a tree generator, but Eon provided an excellent vegetation library and the ability to purchase more direct. DAZ should do the same with Bryce. Maybe cut a deal with the Xfrog folks and make a good library of tress for Bryce and let the user focus on building the environment as opposed to all of it's component parts. I don't mind the Bryce interface. Both Vue and Bryce have pros and cons where that's concerned. The two things that Vue can currently do way better than Bryce are volmetric atomosphere's and rendering. It's not even a close comparison. I'm hoping DAZ will work to change that :)

"...should CL and Eon ever decide to start "playing games" again..." Note that a large amount of cash from e-frontier did sorta find it's way int E-on's hands a short while before e-frontier completed the merger with CL. The Bryce interface can be adapted, but the visual look and feel of it shouls stay the same. The reason is that it is easier for new users (ie. folks new to 3D as a whole, not new users of bryce) to get into it than it is for them to grasp any sort of industry standard, which, thus far, is either lightwave-esque (which scares the pants off folks), Rhnio-esque (which is all command based with a few strange buttons all over the place), or utterly invisible (mouse driven, with click for this and click for that to see menus). When a person who has never used a 3d prog before looks a the elements on the screen in bryce, they get a good idea of what those things do just by looking at them. That's why the interface is what makes Bryce, Bryce. Vue, Terragen, Wordlbuilder, et al all tend to follow a differnet paradigm: accessibility to someone who is familiar with 3d programs. And, indeed, once you are familiar with them, you can use them better, and they seem to help out. Wether DAZ can do anyting with Bryce or ot remains to be seen. There is too much else going on there and not enough information to really make accurate assessments.

Hmm... my memory might be fading but I recall Bryce's material editor to be a nightmare to figure out. Cryptic colored dots and all... Vue's was so much easier to learn: everything on tabs, labeled and with percent sliders. Plus a real-time updated view of your changes.

Same with the terrain editors. With Bryce you had to paint on a greyscale-to-height map and hope you got what you wanted. With Vue, you paint directly on the terrain and see what you're getting.

As for the tree editor...you don't need one in Vue. With Vue, you select a palm tree and you get a palm tree. Select it again and you get a totally different palm tree. Same with all their plants--no two are exactly the same--just like real life. With Bryce, you get the same exact plants over and over.

I agree with Mr Burton: Bryce is a pain to learn & use. I said this before: I used Bryce for a year before I found Vue. Inside a week, I could do things in Vue that I could never figure out in Bryce ... and that's after reading the 1000-plus page Real World Bryce.

There are many other advantages of Vue over Bryce, but I don't want to turn this into a "Vue vs Bryce" thread... Or has that happened already?

Message edited on: 06/27/2004 08:27

Jackson, That will happen anytime a discussion like this starts. Some people like this, some like that- and we're off!! As far as trees in bryce, there are pre-sets, don't like them- change them. From what I've been reading, with Vue you have to BUY additional packages for vegetation. Since I don't have Vue I don't know if the stuff can be altererd or not. I don't think I've ever seen this area touched upon. I don't know if Vue can animate, Bryce can. So I guess it depends on what a person's project requires is what they'll use.

vue can animate very well, actually. Easily as well as Bryce can. Right now, when it finally comes all the way down to it, the bang for the buck of Vue versus Bryce for users of Poser is that Vue can take an existing animation set up in Poser, import it directly from the pz3, and allow you to combine it with the animated terrain and vegetation created in Vue. It's sorta, well, killer.

Hum, learned something I didn't know. Since I don't need that much horse power I'll continue playing with my donkey, oops, mean Bryce.

hey -- don't you go knockin' my Bryce by callin it a donkey, buddy! I'll come over there and drag you over to a room filled with brand new Windows users and a bunch of imacs, then lose the key...

I augta add that IMHO all of Kai Krause's interfaces seem to be designed around "Gee this is fun, don't you love random results" ;-)

Hahaha, my donkey is able to leap through confusing interfaces in multiple bounds, is faster then a Brazilian Jungle Slug, is able to bend electrons in a single click. But, alas, his immune system is poor, susceptable to viruses :(.

I finally took time to see what would happen when trying to export from DS and into Bryce. I created a simple David figure, dressed and posed him (sans hair). Bryce had to search for all textures, not just transmaps. Now...in fairness....I have all my textures referenced full path to my external G drive. Maybe if I let DS find all my runtimes and textures on that drive that wouldn't happen. I'm posting a couple of images over at DAZ shortly. What I've discovered is that you can just as easily export the same figure as an .obj from Poser 5, import into Bryce with no more problems than importing the .obj exported from DS. The results are also the same so far as these old eyes can tell. There was one difference: The Poser 5 exported .obj is 16.9 mb and the DAZ exported .obj is 21.4 mb!! So my question to DAZ is this: Does this mean that if you have Poser 5, you really don't need Daz Studio!!?? :)

Does this mean that if you have Poser 5, you really don't need Daz Studio!!?? HUMMM, interesting. funny thing is DAZ wouldnt be able to answer that cuz they dont have P5 to try :) on the otherhand D|S's plugin is in beta still so it may get better (if it isnt already). I think DAZ has a deeply vested intrest in getting poser content into Bryce so the conversion will only become easier from here. RE: the video game like interface of Poser and Bryce, in my opinion, give a false sense of simplicity to a complex program, impeads workflow and to some extents lacks transferable skills/knowledge. That is to say it attacts new people to 3d and once they have invested in learned the skills and interface they will have trouble taking it to the next level, because they will have to relearn the interface. I have yet to read a logical reason to retain the interface. The closest thing to a reasonable argurment to keep it is that it might alienate existing useres.

It has nothing to do with logic. Logic lacks style, panache, and artistic aesthetics. Being a fan of it myself, I'm sorta aware of it's shortcomings. Art is the greatest of them because art is about expansion, and logic is about reduction. You are absolutely correct: Once Bryce is learned, transferring the skills to other programs is difficult. However, you didn't address the second part of the point: The interface of most advanced programs is not inviting. It repels unless you have a driving need. It varies considerably from application to application, requiring you to learn, once again, a whole new interface for each one. New inductees into the horrific addiction of 3D Art already find the bulk of the concepts foreign and difficult to grasp; adding the burden of the steep learning curve that other programs have -- even for experienced users -- creates a barrier to entry. The bryce interface (and program, ultimately) do not create a barrier to entry. They invite. They addict. And then you are stuck. The very things that make bryce difficult to use for experienced 3D artists are the very things that make it easy for the inexperienced. IT has tremendous power in it -- which is why it's used even today in the creation of film, much like the programs it inspired that have since eclipsed it in so many ways. DAZ purchasing Bryce is a good thing for Bryce. It gives it a home that, despite everything else, is better than it's previous one. It gives it a better chance for further development than the previous owner gave it. Will it ever regain it's glory? Probably not. That would likely take greater resources than DAZ has to spare at this time. Will Bryce 6 actually have a chance at competing with Vue for Poser user dollars? Probably not. Will DAZ be terribly concerned? Probably not -- they want to make it the complement for D|S users. Will it matter 500 years from now? Yes. Historians will one day look back on the masterpieces produced by one or two people out of the thousands here, and go -- hey? What was the name of the "program" or whatever they called it?

Buying Bryce because of the interface makes as much sense (to me) as buying a paint brush because you like the color of the handle. That is not to say it doesnt happen. I want the beauty to be the creation, not the tool especially if the beauty of the tool impedes the creation process. I believe it would be possible for Bryce an Poser to move toward a more standard interface (thereby reducing the learning curve) without completely loosing its attraction (identity?).

Their response was virtually instantaneous over at DAZ. I posted the images and question in the DAZ studio section. Apparently the plug-in was intended to permit the import of the transmap information. They asked if the P5 export imported the transmaps. It does not. It exports the map and bump information but not the transmaps. So if you are creating an image where your poser character has transmaps involved, then D/S is the way to go. The image I was working with was not a closeup of the David figure, so the transmap issue was not apparent. I think importing the .pz3 or daz file directly into Bryce would be a better option. The transmaps do get imported into Vue when you import a .pz3, but you have to tweak them a bit at times.

Message edited on: 06/27/2004 13:54

I agree -- but have a hard time finding a "standard" interface that accomplishes the same goals. There is no "standard" 3D interafce -- every "big" program I've ever used -- mirai, maya, lightwave, rhino, 3dsMax, shade, and six or so others -- has had a different interface. In UI dev, the only common element is "what's been done before" -- user's hate difference. It's killed things before. I often see (especially of late) the concepts behind interface design (an aesthetic) and workflow (a system) get mixed up. In real world design, the two are often blended, but what you get is something that resembles nothing like what's presently available. Design does follow workflow -- both literally and figuratively. Learning curves increase dramatically when options are employed. The more options that are readily available the greater the curve. Dropdowns are a necessary evil of higher end apps -- but drop downs increase the curve, while visual elements do not. These are the "new user" rules. the exact opposite applies to experienced users. Best example I have at present in my core is Windows XP. Casual users and new users found the Windows XP interface as it was finalized to be easier to use and more productive for them, with it's large pictures and carefully designed color scheme and essential hand holding. Experienced users all wanted to know how to turn the damn thing off. They wanted it even MORE plain. And they wanted MORE options. And they hated the way it got in the way of what they wanted to do. It's a trade-off. UI design is not a science, but workflow is. UI design is art, workflow is logic. Getting them together is always a bear ;)

There's another type of user ynsaen. I consider myself pretty experienced on the use of computers. I could do keyboard manipulations, but I'm a "visual person". It's much easier and more fun for me to negotiate anything if I can have access to visual aides :) So I think the real distinction is not "experienced" vs. "inexperienced", but rather "visual types" vs. "cryptic types" :)

Oh dear. lol I gotta watch the oversimplifications.... absolutely, Sandoppe. GUI theory of late breaks it down into 7 types (I think, it could be 9) and a gui is considered successful so long as it functions for any 4 of them.

I admit I am not familiar with all 3d programs, or even most. I am referring more to generic/fundamental/basic windows standard. What does a tool bar look like, what does a ok and cancel button look like. When I hover over a button, a description will appear under my mouse. For example, I have an html editor called First Page 2000. When I first opened it I saw across the top a tabbed tool bar. I had never seen this before but by the nature of its appearance I could figure out what would happen when I choose a different tab. When I opened Bryce at the top I saw what I assessed to be a toolbar and perhaps some menus or buttons, but they fundamentally did the same thing that the tabbed tool bar did. Many people I know are not as click happy as I am and would have to spend time searching thru the manual to find out what it does before they click on it. My secondary concern is how much memory and processor is consumed in creating this custom environment with special dialog boxes controls and displays that could be done with standard recognizable devices. In my opinion the best interfaces for workflow are the most user customizable. The best interface for ascetic are well created icons in well thought-out placement.

hee hee Talkin' about click happy -- I'm one of those people who opens a program and sits down in front of it and then starts clickin on everything. Just cause. lol I'll fess, as well, but I'll deny it in any other thread: I don't read the manual until after I've clicked on everything at least a dozen times, lol

Glad to hear I'm not the only one ynsaen :)