Attached Link: http://reviews.cnet.com/Bryce_5_0/4505-3633_7-6161215-3.html?tag=top

"Whereas true 3D modeling and animation pros purchase expensive design programs, such as Caligari TrueSpace or Form-Z, Bryce has always been the poor animator's app of choice. That's why Bryce 5.0's higher price tag ($60 more than 4.0) confuses the target audience, especially since this program--Corel's first attempt to build on MetaCreations' Bryce franchise--doesn't deliver significant improvements. While Corel has produced some outstanding applications, including CorelDraw and WordPerfect, Bryce 5.0 doesn't hold with the tradition. If you're using Bryce 4.0, stick with it or save up for a more full-featured program. "Overall, Bryce 5.0 includes a few promising additions but not nearly enough to warrant the $159 upgrade price. Plus, it's so snail-paced, you'll spend more time rendering scenes than actually creating them. Save your money and wait for the next release. We're hoping for a better Tree Lab, a lower price, faster performance, plus a ton of new textures and free wireframe models." heh... if they only knew Drac

"Plus, it's so snail-paced, you'll spend more time rendering scenes than actually creating them". Haha.. maybe applies for the 10-click crap that you sometimes see in the hot-20 but quite insulting for those in this community that spend weeks tweaking a Bryce scene before the final render.

"true 3d modeling and animation pros" are we fake then? THEY (non-Bryce users) always see Bryce as the poor cousin in the rendering family.

(Gonna play devil's advocate now) OK, to be fair, this was written a few years ago when the prices were a lot higher. And I don't think any of us would mind a faster render engine.

You have to remember that the reviewer probably played with it for an hour tops before writing the review.

I think we should all rate it. They'll wonder why they got a ton of reviews 3 years after it was written.

I hope version 6 knocks their bloody socks off. Let's seem them moan about it then. Lets also hope that Daz put a realistic price on it. I want it bad, but it could easily be priced out of my market.

mind you, this review was written in 2002 drac

But the good thing is, you can get started up in bryce within a couple of minutes. Not take months learning the app. Rendering and lighting is also really easy.. There's nothing complex, no shader porting to Renderman or Vray, it's just a few clicks and bam done. Well more like a few clicks and.. waits a few hours done. I'll admit that the rendering engine is pretty bad.. I mean, volumetric lights and soft shadows mixed with transparent materials shouldn't cause your computer to EXPLODE. Even simple scenes. But I'm tired of defending bryce...at this point I say let people think what they want. But I posted my image over at deviant art and got private messages like "wait, you used bryce for this? what's bryce?" "I don't understand what you mean by bryce" "this looks good for bryce" etc. Like drac said, I don't think that people who constantly flame bryce have really seen our top 20, or gallery for that matter. Bryce has a HUGE user base because it is so accessible and easy to learn.

lol just had to reinstall bryce because it was crashing... How much did I laugh when i saw this pop up. "Register Bryce 5 today to receive: * Access to the latest updates and enhancements for your product * Classic Support* * The option to subscribe to the monthly Corel eNewsletter, which includes the latest news, Tips & Tricks and special offers related to your product" Oh that's funny.

i still get that update. in my spam folder

yeah... daviantart. I had a picture there once decribed with "...modeled with Wings3D and rendered with Bryce4". I recieved a comment "modeled with Wings3D and rendered with Bryce4?! - Isn't it usually the other way around?" HAha

I just started in Bryce last week. For $60, its by far the best low end 3D animation package out there. I went through both the Vue and Bryce tutorial, and I based my choice on that. Vue crashed on me no less than a dozen times before completing the tutorial. Bryce has yet to unexpectedly quit. Furthermore, Vue felt like work, whereas Bryce; I can't put my finger on it as to why, but its fun. I haven't had this much fun since playing my first game of Civ III. Bandolin

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I haven't had this much fun since Grandma caught her tits in the mangle.......

Come on guys. We all know that Bryce sucks, and that everyone is fully learned within a week of installing it. This review (as most of them, when it comes to Bryce), is most likely written by someone who has about two weeks of Bryce experience. He made a few clicks, put together a default image, and in his mind, he knows enough to make an honest judgement. Oh, these poor misguided fools...

Rochr:
And it was probably a chrome sphere over a water plane, lol.

Bryce is just a paintbrush. The paintbrush doesn't create the art, the artist does. The more skill and talent the artist has, the better the art, and that takes some time to go through the learning curve. Judging the quality of a program by what you can accomplish with it after a couple of hours of first time use is just stupid.

And an artist only stops learning when she/he is dead. (And I'm just assuming that).

For bang for the buck, Bryce is still the best thing I've tried, and I've tried just about all the demos out there, most of which seem to be so afraid you might actually make something useful with their programs that they hobble them so badly as to be totally useless. Give me an unlimited month with your program and you might convince me it's worth the money. Otherwise, it isn't worth the space it takes up on my hard drive. Don't waste my time.

I'm sure they all have something special in their full versions, because they all have users that love them, but I need more proof that I can feel the same way about them before investing thousands of dollars. I'm already convinced when it comes to Bryce. And now that Bryce 6 is heading my way, I'm content to wait for it. :^) After all, if AS is all excited about the changes coming in future versions of Bryce, that's a good enough recommendation for me.
John

Message edited on: 08/27/2004 11:23

Although I must say, the animation tools for bryce are....not perfect. runs for cover

Ehrmm...you did notice the irony...right?

"Bryce is just as good as some of the 2400$ programs if not better." Just out of curiosity, which $2400 apps are you basing your comparison on?

We stick to it because of the promise of PRO_RENDER! ducks and hides

Bryce and it's many users may have had a minor set back dealing with Corel, but the program is anything but mediocre. Bryce is a powerful program and could have excellent results if the artist put his or her mind to it. Most 3D programs have Boolean Operations and Bryce is damn good at it, so yes it is a true 3D modeling program. So it's OBJ limits to Bryce only...temporary set back. The Deep Procedural texture editor is unmatched by any other 3D program. If we truly want to compare other 3D programs to Bryce, let's wait to see the next few versions of Bryce bring: some of you who doubt may change your mind :-)

Rochr, No i didnt see the irony, If i had i would not have posted :) I was just blown away to read a statement like that form you of all people here,If i jumped the gun, I'm sorry. Bryce has its problems but its still alive thats all that matters to me. I'm dieing for bryce6, but if it takes another year, it takes another year :) maxxxmodelz, Im not even going there lol, I was just standing up for Bryce. :) Peace All

I agree with tjhon (post 12) the pic is only as good as the artist.... while Ive tried many of the higher doller programs (some not haveing paid a red cent for) I still come back to bryce due to ease of use. though only a week to learn man o man i need to go back to kazaa and down load the manual pdf (<- tis only a joke :))

" Bryce and it's many users may have had a minor set back dealing with Corel, but the program is anything but mediocre."

I agree. It's far beyond mediocre. It's an excellent program.

"Most 3D programs have Boolean Operations and Bryce is damn good at it, so yes it is a true 3D modeling program."

Boolean modeling is indeed true 3D modeling, but it's not as efficient as subdivision modeling for instance, and not the best choice for making realistic organic models, such as humans.

"The Deep Procedural texture editor is unmatched by any other 3D program."

How is it more powerful than DarkTree Symbiont procedurals? Or the node-based procedurals in Poser5/Pixels 3D even? Does it have micro-poly displacement?

"If we truly want to compare other 3D programs to Bryce, let's wait to see the next few versions of Bryce bring: some of you who doubt may change your mind"

If you truly want to compare Bryce with other 3D programs (especially the "high end" solutions), then compare how efficiently it handles things like micro-poly displacement mapping, motion blur, DOF in animation, and render speed optimization compared to those other apps. Can it map camera movements in an imported movie clip to assist compositing CG with real life motion shots? Does it render true 3d motion blur on highly detailed objects at film quality/DVD resolution with a keylight and GI fill (or fake GI) without flickering or artifacting problems?

Come on, guys. The quality of a program should be based on how well it meets your needs as an artist, not how it's features match up to more higher-priced software.

No problem xceiverx. :)
That "Bryce sucks", is one statement that ill never be serious about. I know what it can do.

maxxxmodelz,
I dont think anyones comparing it with the "big boys", but the end result can be just as good. It all depends on the artist using it.
Crap can and is being made just as easily in Bryce, as in Maya, Max, XSI or any other app out there. :)

Note that im talking about stills here. Ill leave the animation part to someone who knows anything about it, i dont. :)
And i totally agree with you on that last sentence.

Message edited on: 08/27/2004 13:21

"Crap can and is being made just as easily in Bryce, as in Maya, Max, XSI or any other app out there. :)" I agree. I'm just pointing out that comparing software on a feature-by-feature basis can be fruitless. It all depends on what you're using it for and how comfortable you are using it. I despise the "Maya's better than Max" and "Bryce is better than Vue" arguments as much as anyone. People should be aware that if you start making these kinds of arguments on behalf of a software, there's always going to be counterpoints that can derail them, etc. The true value of any program is what you do with it.

Well, bryce 5 is mediocre. But.. there are a million ways to trick it into being great. It's like buying a puppy versus buying a well trained circus dog. Sure the circus dog costs more and knows more tricks than the puppy. But you can teach the puppy to do whatever you want. I for one like the challenge of bryce, I find it fascinating that you can replicate very expensive software rendering with such an inexpensive program. Bryce will allways be my first true love in 3d art. Man, why couldn't they give it a sexy feminine name,lol...

I think in the context of the review/article, and the time in was written, the description of Bryce as being mediocre is fair. If you take away our familiarity with (and affection for) Bryce, could you honestly recommend Bryce to a new user over, say, Inspire, Cinema4D, or Truespace; which were being sold for not much more than Corel were touting Bryce for back then? The word "mediocre" has taken on such negative connotations nowadays that it actually sounds worse than "poor". If you check their ratings system, this is not what they're saying. Having said that, I would definitely rate their simplistic and inflexible ratings system as "poor". Speaking of context, in the context of Bryce's original purpose - i.e. a 3D package with an inclination toward natural landscapes - I think that Vue has surpassed it in almost every respect. With a nod to tjohn's well made point about the artist being more important than the brush, I still argue that Vue does Bryce's original job much better than Bryce does - it's simply a much better 3D landscape brush. I offer as evidence the Vue gallery here. Compare the best rankings there with the best Bryce rankings. More and better natural landscapes. Could a good Bryce user do as well? Almost certainly. But next to none are. Why? I would argue because Vue is the better tool in that respect. You can paint a wall with a 1 inch brush, but more walls are painted with six inch brushes...

Well guys, I left a review with the new owner DAZ mentioned. If you want to change people's opinions leave a review, cause when they search this article comes up even now, 2004. Overwhelm them with positive feedback...;]

Message edited on: 08/27/2004 15:27

In reality Bryce models what it is designed to model ( and exports them ) better than most any program or plug-in on the market. So what if you can't open Bryce inside Max, Maya, Lightwave or any other app to create a terrain. { irony } isn't that something you do to your cloths?

"Speaking of context, in the context of Bryce's original purpose - i.e. a 3D package with an inclination toward natural landscapes - I think that Vue has surpassed it in almost every respect". I don't own Vue, however I have wondered at their website and took a look at the list of what it can do and I may have to agree that Bryce does have some catching up to do as far as little things like importing Poser animation into Bryce. If DAZ didn't know where to start with all of our suggestions, it would have to start matching and/or surpassing Vue.

Hmmm..that price looks familiar, and that's about when I got it, but then I've got Cinema 4d (my version, $15), and Truespace (free)..what does that say about me?..;) Word Perfect was fine, but how well does it render?..;)

@ roch: "Come on guys. We all know that Bryce sucks" it does suck. @ xceiverx: "If Bryce Sucks and Bryce is no good, Why are any of you here in the bryce forum?" maybe we like suckers :P @ jcleaver: "We stick to it because of the promise of PRO_RENDER!ducks and hides" no need to duck WE DO. In a previous thread i said bryce 6 could be a good partner for blender as it already has good animation and render capacity it lacks userfriendlyness and material and terain editor so why not go that way ? Blender is a free app and will stay free so letting it do things for bryce will reduce time on implementing those features in the new bryce and keep the cost low who is waiting for a 400+ bryce 6? Well at least put a wings and blender file im/export feature in it.

"Bryce is just as good as some of the 2400$ programs if not better" -I love Bryce. My first 3d program, but this statement is not at all correct. Is its learning curve much easier? is it an all around funner app? Yes. Is it as powerful. Not in the slightest. "Most 3D programs have Boolean Operations and Bryce is damn good at it, so yes it is a true 3D modeling program." -as Maxxxmodelz said. This is not the way to go about modeling. Its extremely "messy" and pretty much unaccpeted in terms of professional modeling. But you are right, Bryce is good at boolean operands. And for hobby modeling, its just fine The Deep Procedural texture editor is unmatched by any other 3D program. "wow. sorry. completely and utterly untrue. Max, Maya etc have an unlimited range of customization when it comes to procedural textures. I suggest you try out the other apps before making such a statement <--- prepares to get flamed dont take my words as meaning that I am not a Bryce fan, because Im a huge fan. But I also know that bryce's place is thta of a hobbyist application. That is not to say that NO ONE could ever get paid to do Bryce work because I know several of you on this forum have sold your Bryce artwork. But dont get offended when people write reviews talking about how Bryce is not made for production uses. It was never intended for that. But it is great at what it does.

One should look at Bryce this way... For a budget priced program you get: basic boolean modeling, the ability to import models (this makes up for not creating subdivision models internally, especially by using Wings3D), a fractal terrain generator, a decent (probably not the worlds best, but not the worst either) procedural texture engine, a very easy to use ray trace renderer, and rudimentary animation system (which really does need improving). But unlike the big dogs that cost $800 and up, with Bryce you get all the tools in one shot. No additional and expensive plugins are needed to upgrade or suplement existing features. So sure some programs do all that cool stuff Bryce can't, but you have to fork out additional $$$ beyond what you're starting with in order to do so. (Although a few of the big name 3D programs are becoming more full featured out of the box in order to adapt to what the market demands. Maybe they're keeping an eye out on "lowly" ol' Bryce? Hmmm...)

I see no reason why Bryce can't be used in production work. Depending, of course, on what is required of that production. The quality of it's renders, although very SLOW by comparison, can be made to look and feel as good as any. GI can be faked, and although it's not quite as good as the real thing, it can be adequate. Remember, true GI is not used very often in real production work anyway (although now that new meathods of GI are much faster, it's seeing more use recently). No, Bryce can't do advanced camera mapping or compositing, and it doesn't have much flexibility to work into a production pipeline, but it's a damn fine piece of software anyway. I think it's mostly neglected in modern CG production because it lacks the render speed to meet all-important deadlines, and it doesn't have an SDK platform for 3rd party developers to build customized plugins from (huge limitation). It also fails in the area of micro-poly displacement, which is a major thing among CG professionals... But Bryce HAS been used in production before. Mostly for games and some movie background mat renderings. I don't recall specifically what movies, but the famed MYST original game used Bryce for all it's "cinematic" scenes. Over the years, Bryce has fallen far behind in it's render technology, which really put it out of contention for most production use, but it's not totally unusable in that respect either.

"But unlike the big dogs that cost $800 and up, with Bryce you get all the tools in one shot. No additional and expensive plugins are needed to upgrade or suplement existing features. So sure some programs do all that cool stuff Bryce can't, but you have to fork out additional $$$ beyond what you're starting with in order to do so." Forking out additional $$ for plugins isn't a big deal to people who are making decent cash from their work (ie., professional users). It's a write-off as a business expense. In fact, as mentioned above, the fact that a studio can't take advantage of a flexible plugin programming platform means that the software is very limited for production use. Years ago, "high end" software used to cost studios upwards of $30,000 to license, and more if they wanted additional licenses. "Over the years, Bryce has fallen far behind in it's render technology, which really put it out of contention for most production use, but it's not totally unusable in that respect either." It's fallen behind in more than just that actually. As a landscape generator, it's still one of the best, if not THE best. But if you take into account that most pro-level CG these days requires a lot of compositing and advanced animation tools, and the fact that advanced particle systems are used very often in generating special effects in CG shots, you begin to understand Bryce's true limitation in production work. Not to mention the absence of micropoly displacement, which is what gives PRman it's advantage over most other renderers for production (and PRman costs a LOT of cash), and also the absence of one's ability to render things like ambience, shadows, and specularity in "layers" for post-compositing and better color correction really hurts Bryce's chances in production use. Why do you (when I say you I'm speaking in general terms) think studios willingly pay for multiple licenses of $3000-$5000 software? Because it allows them MUCH greater control over every aspect of creation in much less time than most lower-end software is capable of. THAT is what justifies a software's price tag. As I said before, it's all in what you do with it, and what you need it to do.

yeah...believe me, if companies could pay the $70 for a copy of Bryce 5 and get out of it what they need to, then they would. But they cant. There is justification for the price tag of the high end programs. If Bryce was as powerful as the "big boys" for $70, Bryce would OWN the entire industry, but the fact is it is NOT as powerful in far more aspects than just the rendering engine. "But Bryce HAS been used in production before. Mostly for games and some movie background mat renderings. I don't recall specifically what movies, but the famed MYST original game used Bryce for all it's "cinematic" scenes." You are 100% correct. But this was around 13 or so years ago (not sure about its release date). Im talking by todays standards. For example, 3ds Max, which as most of you know is a very powerful program, is losing ground to Maya in the industry. As of a couple of years ago, Max had a real good toehole on the gaming industry, but has started to lose that due to the power of the poly modeling tools available in Maya. My point is, that even a powerful program like Max is falling behind. Just shows how competitive the game/film/etc industry is. But ill second what Maxxxmodelz said, its all in what you need it to do.

If Bryce was as powerful as the "big boys" for $70, Bryce would OWN the entire industry, but the fact is it is NOT as powerful in far more aspects than just the rendering engine.

Well, Innovator, it's much more powerful in some regards. Like exactly the rendering engine. You get stuff like caustics and true ambience for $70. You have to buy an additional module in Cinema to get caustics, for instance.

Of course, that quality is heavily offset by the slowness of rendering, but still...

For stills, Bryce offers much more than any other program, especially in regard to its price. As for animation, like Rochr, I wouldn't dare speak about it, cause I'm not doing any.

Ducks and hides in advance I don't know why, but I actually read all of the above posts. And I still don't care :)

A raytracer is a raytracer. (Well, okay that's true and not true) The BASE math and science of raytracing is a constant, and Bryce IS a raytracer, SO, on some level it IS as powerful as the "big boys". (Although, a lot of the big boys render with scanline) Yet, speed algorhythym advances in raytracers and speeds in cpu's have advanced a lot in the past 5 years, so you see more instances of raytracing by higher end programs. Anyway, as we know, Bryce has been in need of some updating to its renderer in speed, and in the program with what options it can do as far as more realistic lighting (which is the cornerstone of any render) You'll see cool progress in Bryce 5.5 and 6.0, not to worry. AgentSmith

My rambling aside... Point is, Bryce has more bang for your buck than anything else, period. Nope, not perfect, but neither or SO many other things I'm addicted to, lol. So, there ya go. ;o) AS

"Point is, Bryce has more bang for your buck than anything else, period."

Weeeeeellllll... LOL. I don't wanna keep stirring the pot, so I won't challenge you're statement here, AS. ;-)

However, the power/price award has to go to Blender, IMHO. After all, it's free. hehe.

Bryce is a great program though. I'm not going to dispute that at all. I just don't think some people understand why it's not being used a lot by studios in production. It's just not made as a production-capable tool (I'm NOT saying Bryce is a toy either), and that fact has less to do with it's rendering capability, and more to do with (among a few other things) the inability to make it modular. What I mean by that is, it lacks a developer's scripting language (3dsMax has a powerful MaxScript, and Maya has it's own extremely powerful MEL scripting language), which makes a program infinitely flexible in a production environment. In an unrelated example, Poser has just the opposite problem... it has a very decent scripting language (Python), which makes it 10x as valuable, but the program is seriously lacking in other areas of the workflow that makes it virtually useless to studios for production.

Anyway... that's all. Cool thread. ;-)

Message edited on: 08/28/2004 11:25

Blender is good for the price! ;)

Blender is excellent for the price, yeah. But the learning curve is steeper than with 3DS Max. So complicated.

Oh, I've definetely got Blender installed on my machine. Now I just have to learn it, lol. Blender made a BIG splash at Siggraph this year. But, I feel Blender has always been on the edge of being one of the greatest "all around" free 3D apps out there. I love anything free. ;o) AS

'" Most 3D programs have Boolean Operations and Bryce is damn good at it, so yes it is a true 3D modeling program." Actually Bryce's Booleans are only render effects, they make absolutely no changes to the geometry of the objects. So it is really not considered modeling. Example: even if Bryce could export the Boolean, no other app would recognize it. They would import only as a bunch of objects stuck inside one another. " Point is, Bryce has more bang for your buck than anything else, period " If your talking about Landscape Generators your absolutely correct. If your talking about low end 3D software, not really. " I love anything free " Yea weren't the early 70s great.....

Anyone for kittens.............?

Lol...are they free?

No, I've got them in a little cage out back..........