Wait on Bryce 6 or switch to Vue 5? - this is the question....

My adventure with 3D started in 2002 when I get a free copy of Vue 2 with a magazine.
I was amazed that I could easily set quite complex scenes on this old (1997) software.
After a couple of weeks I became addicted to 3D and decided to purchase some more actual 3D software than 5 years old Vue 2 - I considered Vue 4, but I could not find it anywhere where I leave, so I bought the new Corel's Bryce 5. I was impressed by excellent works of such Bryce artists as Rochr, sbleci, rohi or beton, unfortunately I didn't knew that 80% of the effect they get was due to extensive 2D postwork applied on basic Bryce renders.

As I had only a short experience with Vue 2 interface I was not addicted to it's functionality, but what I found in Bryce was a total disappointment.
One may say that Bryce interface is "revolutionary", but for me it is simply not ergonomic. The major disadvantage of Bryce interface is the lack of 4 simultaneous views - the basic for any 3D application - still I can't understand why Bryce does not give such an option to the user...

The second big disadvantage is the lack of object manager - it's a real pain in as if you have to manage hundreds of objects without such useful tool as Vue object manager and its layer system allowing you to deactivate/hide groups of objects in one mouse click.

Rendering speed - Bryce is definitely the slowest render I ever worked with - I had impression that same quality was achieved with Vue 2 in 1/4 of Bryce time. Then I worked on a slow Celeron 600, and it took ages to render even simple scenes. On the same machine, working in Vue I could prepare and render nice scenes much quicker (just look into my gallery - I switched to Athlon 2000+ one year ago, all works before "striders in the sun" were made on Celeron 600)

Bryce terrain editor lets you edit only very basic shapes - no special geological effects - all terrains I could do with Bryce looked very artificial.

Bryce plant editor seemed to me very promising - it was something that old Vue 2 does not have - unfortunately what I was able to set with Bryce tree editor was much, much worst than Vue vegetation.

So after 2 weeks of bad experiments with Bryce 5, very disappointed I came back to Vue 2.

Today If you compare Bryce 5 and Vue 5, it is as if you was comparing a WWII Spitfire with a F-22.... It is beyond compare.
Unfortunately Bryce's days of glory passed away a long time ago, actually it is a very old software, with very little options. Of course this old tool in hands of very talented artists can still produce interesting results, but only after a very extensive 2D postwork, which makes it useless for quality animation.

What is the point in waiting for something that probably won't happen? I don't think that DAZ would be able to update Bryce to the extend that it could match Vue. They will continue what COREL did - they will suck from Bryce 5 as much as they can, then they will sell it to someone else. The talented team that conceived Bryce does not exist anymore - without their knowledge, the real development of Bryce is very unlikely.

In hands of unskilled people neither Bryce, Vue or Maya will produce interesting results, but if you have this precious gift to art , why confine to old software that limits your potential ?

Vue 5 new features are simply amazing - GI/radiosity/HDRI produce QUICKLY outstanding renders.
New graphic function editor allows you with almost limitless possibilities while setting new materials or new procedural terrains.
Import of objects works very well, even most of material information is correctly transferred.
Text editor is an amazing tool that enables you to model from simple font shapes very complex objects - just take a look on a sample scene I quickly set with ONLY font objects - (it was the first time I experimented with font editor).
Metablobs modeling also seems very interesting - you can "blob" cubes, pyramids, cylinders, tours, cones and of course, spheres - each can have its own material that would merge with other metablobed objects materials.
Not to mention previous Vue 4 features that makes Vue the easiest powerful 3D program available.

Hope to see you soon in Vue gallery :-))))

Cheers !

Robert

Message edited on: 10/20/2004 13:28