I have always liked Bryce, and have used it up until version 4.0. I am thinking of getting back in to it since it seems that it got a new lease on life with the DAZ resent purchase. I know for a fact that it's rendering engine, although good, is very slow, but I guess my question is, dose it run good on OS X?, is it multithreaded to take advantage of a dual processor G4? Is it worth the time to get in to it? I currently use Carrara and love it, so the interface thing is not an issue, but I think Carrara lacks Bryce's capabilities as far a terrain and landscapes, this is the reason I want to get back in to it. I would appreciate any input on this matter. Thank you.

I can only make statements about the non-Mac parts. (I'm on PC) Slow Rendering engine; Yeah, it can be, volumetrics and higher rendering options. Fortunately DAZ has stated they have figured out how to make a Bryce 6 render faster ("and, not just a little") (their quote) Bryce 5 is NOT multi processor capable. Hopefully v6 will be. Bryce 5 CAN network render. The cons may still be worth weathering since THE pro of buying Bryce 5 right now is it is only $60. And, yeah even if I hated Bryce, I would still use it to generate any terrains I needed, lol. AgentSmith

On my G4 dual, it work quite, but not take advantage of a dual processor, like AgentSmith have said. I have only one problem in comparison with OS9. He can't import the textures of a .obj file directely. I am obliged to do it with OS9 or re-import all the textures one by one

the beauty of Bryce 5 on OSX is that it does multitask a consderable advantage over OS9 in that you can set the render AND still use the computer for other stuff, word proc, surfing etc, I always found it apin in the arse when rendering meant you were locked out of the computer. It does crash when you try to import .obj files but the workaround is you have the mesh (.obj) the texture descriptor (.mtl) and all the texture files in the same folder. That works fine. OSX is a thing of great beauty

Also Bryce is not OS-centric, so on a DP Mac just make a copy of the Bryce folder and run one Bryce doing half of the render and the other Bryce doing the other half. Then stick the 2 halves together in photowhatever. I use this all the time on my DP Mac and runs just as fast as if it supported DP. Bryce is remarkable stable under OSX, especially since the OSX version hasn't been updated since 10.1. The only real crashes I've had have been the .MTL problem mentioned above. Since 10.2 I've been unable to use the network render system as host or client and sometimes Bryce's menu grays out and the key commands stop working which requires a force quit. Both this may be DP issues. At the price it's being offered I think it's a real good deal for Mac users. I think you also get the OS9 and PC versions (DAZ may have changed this). HTH; Dan

Thanks. I will get it then. I would probably not be importing to much stuff but manly using it to create back drops to import in to Carrara to render on top of them. I had done this very successfully using RayDram back in the day. I guess $60 buck is a very tempting price to pay for the price of admission.

We'll have to wait and see if a $60 Bryce 5 will receive a price break with upgrading to Bryce 6. AS

Aye, I've only used OSX a few time, but having benchmarked nearly every combination under the sun, I have come to this conclusion : Bryce rendering on a dual G4 or G5 setup is still slower than a really cheap Athlon setup. So, if speed is the issue, it's not BRYCE that would hold you back, it would be the inferior hardware. Upgrade to an Athlon, and you'll be fine. The price of a good Athlon setup is still merely a fraction of what it would cost to buy a MAC. But, you've already bought a MAC! And now you are wondering wehter Bryce is worth 60 bucks? Your computer is overpriced by thousands of dollars and you're worried about wether a 60 dollar product is worth it? Sounds kinda silly, to me. Go sell your MAC, and but three or four brand new, much faster Athlon setups. Network render it, if you want speed. A MAC user complaining about speed is preposterous to me, if you were interested in speed then you wouldn't have purchased a MAC in the first place, you were only worried about ease-of-use. The only people that still believe MACS are faster are the people who are ashamed of how much money they spent for no reason.

Dude...jeez shadow. Don't hold back, how do you truly feel? I actually haven't met a Mac owner who would switch to PC. They love their machines! And, I DON'T believe my Atlon XP 1.5ghz is better/faster than a G5, much less a dual G5!! But...what I would give to have 4 Athlons networked together! (could do it for $1,500 - $2,000 dollars) In the end, for the price, I would say Bryce 5 is worth picking up for $60. Even if you later sold it, you could probably sell it for the same price as it could give a price break on to a v6 upgrade to the new user. AgentSmith

Aye, I suppose I was a bit harsh. Lately, though, I've been facing passivity with a vengeance in myself, and I fear that sometimes it's important to speak my mind instead of giving support where it's not needed. Macs and PC's are just paintbrushes, and the paint is Bryce itself. I didn't mean to mock you for using a different brush than me, and I hope that your rendering is flawless and works wonderfully!

AS, this Mac user would like to doff her hat to you. Many thanks for your words above. ;)

I've used Bryce 5 on 3 different macs, from OS9 to the latest OSX Panther and never once have I had a complaint. I'm drooling over the new dual processor G5's and hope DAZ can create a Bryce to take advantage of this and the 64 bit technology. I think Clay once said that Bryce was originally created for the Mac? Wonder why...;)

IMO both platforms have their plusses and minuses. I wish I could afford both, but since I cannot, I'll keep playing on my trusty Mac where B5 does indeed work fine on the OSX platform. At least it always has for me.

Arry :)

Yup, Bryce 1 and 2 were originally released as Mac prgrams, and then (quickly) ported to Windows. I believe Bryce 3 (3D) was the first to ship out as Mac and Windows, at the same time.

I'm just getting all this info from the Real World Bryce 4 book.

I myself didn't come in until Bryce 4, I think it had been out for about 8-9 months, before I bought it!

AS

Message edited on: 06/30/2004 21:35

shadowdragonloard: I would agree with you if I was only using Bryce, but I use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Painter, Freehand, Illustrator, Fiereworks, InDesign, QuarkXpress, to name a few, and Carrara. This last one is written for dual processors and it renders lighting fast. I love it. The speed of Bryce rendering is not much of a concern to me, but stability is. All the other Apps that I use are not very processor dependent with the exception of Photoshop, but Photoshop has been extremely optimized for the Mac. I know that Bryce is no speed demon when it comes to rendering, regardless of the processor it works in. I agree that the computer is only a tool, and believe me I will never change to Windows because I am not very productive in it. I hate that I have to always "travel" through the same directory hierarchy starting from the desktop down to save a particular file in a folder even though I have just saved a file in that folder a second ago. I find this to annoying and to me the Mac presents a much better solution since it "remembers" the last folder you save something, heck it remembers the last 10 folders visited. With OS X you can save a file in any directory in a matter of a few click, Windows has a very cumbersome Open/Save file system that forces you to click through the same hierarchy every time. In the end, it's not a matter of how fast the computer does my work, it's how fast I can do my work in the computer. I do respect your choice of platform, but to a Mac user there is a lot more advantages then just raw speed. I have been using OS X for more than 2 years in three deferent Macs, I have never had to restart any of these computers from a crash. I have not had to re-install any application that has gotten corrupt. There is no known virus or trojan horse for OS X. I cant say the same thing of our Windows XP machine that has had a lot of problems since we bought it a year and a half ago. I am buying Bryce and taking advantage of this incredible price. Believe me, when you own as many software packages that have to be updated every 18 or so moths as I, every penny counts.

Aye, well you make a good point with the virus condition and sexceptibility of XP, but I use a finely tuned version XP Pro 2003 and am nearly immune to such silliness. Also, you are misled when it comes to the Open/Save functions of Windows. It does remember where you saved your last files, just like the Mac. FOr example, if I go to save a project from Bryce it will wake to C:Program FilesBryceProjects, which is where I save all my projects that don't need their own folder per se. And if I back up a step, to C:Program FilesBryce, to save a new default scene, it will wake up at that location next time I go to save. But most of my files go to the Project folder... I use Photoshop, Amorphium, Lightwave, Poser 4 & 5, Bryce 4 & 5, Plant Studio, Painter, Universe, Illustrator, After Effects, and many more programs. All of these hit only the processor, including Amorphium which I originally thought took some clock cycles from your graphics card, but alas... No one at Nvidia or ATI has ever made much attempt to integrate with production software, since games are where they make their money at... Ariannah, if you coud afford a multi-thousand-dollar Macintosh, you should be able to afford a few-hundred-dollar PC that's much faster. The Dual-G5 processor setup is ridiculous, it takes Apple 2 processors to even compare with one Athlon, and even then they fall very, very short. It's the way of things, overspecialize and you breed in weakness. That's why it takes two people to mate, one set of genes would be more susceptible to viruses and exterior conditions...

I got one screen shot for you. Now granted this was roughly one year ago. They are faster Athlon and faster G5 chips but don't try to dismiss the G5 so fast. This test was ran by a totally independent entity that has nothing to do with Apple, or AMD for that matter. Also try configuring an Athlon dual MP with the same specks as a G5 and you will see how the G5 is not more expensive than the AMD PC. But all this is meaning less, you will not switch to the Macintosh and I will always refuse to switch to a Windows machine. I do agree that the Athlon is a very impressive chip, if only Apple would port OS X to it, I might consider it.

shadowdragonlord, I hear ya, and certainly agree Macs are pricey. But in my line of work, the film biz, they are the computer of choice so I use what keeps me employed. ;) Also, I really do love working on a Mac and since all my graphics software is for the Mac, it would cost me a pretty penny to also have to buy software for a PC. Some of my graphics software is dual platform, but not all by a long shot.

The second generation G5's just came out and I'm keeping an eye on them. Among other things, the liquid cooling system looks interesting and now that some software is taking advantage of the 64 bit technology they are seeing some sizable speed improvements. IIRC, Photoshop for example, tested in with an 82% in speed.

The two things that caught my eye with the 2nd gen G5's:

"64-bit breakthrough
The new 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor enables the Power Mac G5 to break through the 4GB barrier and support up to 8GB of main memory four times more than a typical PC."

"High-speed AGP 8X Pro graphics bus AGP 8X Pro graphics bus effectively doubles the maximum transfer rate and doubles the amount of data transferred in a single AGP bus cycle. The 66MHz AGP 8X Pro bus strobes eight times per clock cycle, achieving a 533MHz data rate and a maximum bandwidth of 2.1GB per second ideal for the ultrafast graphics cards you can choose, like the ATI Radeon 9800 XT, 9600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra"

I'm no technowizard, but these are a few things things I am definitely interested in seeing in action. I aso ike not having to worry about viruses, dependability (Macs rarely crash) and being a creative sort, they are just flat out fun to work on. OSX itself, rocks. I have yet to have a complaint. It's solid, well organized and so far, just keeps getting better and better. IMHO, it's a vast update to Apple's older operating systems, being UNIX based to boot.

Now if someone could make Bryce and Poser able to take advantage of the 64 bit technology, I'd be one stoked puppy. :-D

Arry

Aye, I agree! We'll all be seeing vast improvements in our programs once they figure out how to run them on 64-bit chips, both Macs and Athlon 64's... Good times...