I agree with Wolf359. I dont care how good of an artist you are, if you have a broken tool you wont be doing much art. Ever try to paint with a Brush that has the bristles missing? And to DAZ's defense, I participated in the beta testing team for Bryce 4 and you would be amazed to find out, how many BUGS the team knew about that existed in Bryce yet, they went a head and released it to the public because they had a dead line to meet. I'm glad DAZ is prolonging the release. I rather they iron out the bugs than release a Crashing Piece of crap and have everyone here wine on how Bryce 5.5 Keeps crashing.

I am fully aware of the shortcomings of the tools I am using. I just try to accept them and work around them.

Sure - people are creating complex scenes with millions of polygons, more easily now than before with ecosystems. But it doesn't garantie these scenes will be good.

Being able to easily add a million naked vickies in a millon temples will not necessarily help.

Take another example of this in the movie industry. Sure - a large budget for special effects can help tremendously.... but only in the right hands.

In the wrong hands, you end up with big wastes like 'Twister' or 'Jurassic Park'.

But low budget forces movie directors to be more creative to compensate for the lack of 'features'.

Features just make things easier - it still comes down to the creative mind of the user to make something out of the tool. Analog-X - ever heard of finger painting ? :)

Message edited on: 03/17/2005 15:33

------------------------------------------------------------ "Being able to easily add a million naked vickies in a millon temples will not necessarily help. Features just make things easier - it still comes down to the creative mind of the user to make something out of the tool." --------------------------------------------------------------- Who is talking about naked vickies?? what about being able to render a vast landscape with hundreds of animated troopers marching into battle ,Ala lord of the rings.??? And features do more than make things easier they make things possible in the first place. ;-)

Tools do matter, but regardless of what anyone sais, they dont replace skill, talent, creativity or knowing your tool. They can help, but not replace. Period! This is something even the best artists in the CG industry is aware of and agree upon. Pay a visit to CGtalk and ask around. They will repeat what ive just said. Hell, ive seen people creating photoreal images with charchoal pencils, and theyre pretty outdated as well. As for massive scenes, ive cranked out scenes with around 350 million polys, with high res textures, in Bryce, on a home PC, and it worked perfectly. I would say thats pretty impressive for an "outdated" app. No one is saying that Bryce is the best tool around. But for most people here, it works and it works well, and they use it for different reasons. Thats something you will have to accept, whether you like it or not. And no offence, Wolf359 and Analog-X, unless you have some pretty impressive Bryce images to show up here, youre hardly qualified to bitch about Bryces abilities as a tool.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=322332&Start=1&Sectionid=2&filter_genre_id=0&MostWan

Just look at Flak's work :)

"....Sorry but this oft repeated mantra of "its not the tools its the artist" is all too often loyalists "fanboi" denial about the short comings of their favorite application." Nonsense. It's the mantra of people who are sick to death of other watching them as lower beings because they don't use the latest and most expensive programs. "There are people right now rendering massive scenes in excess of 50 million polygons!!! using vue's new intancing feature and they are not using KRAY supercomputers but mid to high range specced machines one fellow rendered such a scene on his dog assed old 750 MHZ MAC G4." Pffft. I'm far from Rudy's 350 millions, but I do have an image or two with more than that. Like 68 millions, for instance. And I'd bet Bryce with 68 millions behaves better than Vue with 50 million. I know Bryce does better than Cinema in that regard. "so the tools DO matter :-)" No, they don't. Cause if they did, the guy with the dog-assed G4 would have to buy the latest dual-processor Mac. :-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------- "And no offence, Wolf359 and Analog-X, unless you have some pretty impressive Bryce images to show up here, youre hardly qualified to bitch about Bryces abilities as a tool." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Well as an animator I gave up on using bryce as serious production tool when I got Cinema 4D years ago And no offense ,but waiting Six days to render One high quality single frame with soft shadows and blurred reflections is NOT an act of courage,or bravado but indeed a ridiculous process only endured by those who never do any Deadline oriented client work :-)

"Well as an animator I gave up on using bryce as serious production tool when I got Cinema 4D years ago" Good for you, Cinema is a great program, and i use it myself. Its also understandable that you dont use Bryce for animations. But that only confirms what i said about qualifying in terms of judging Bryce as a tool. How much do you actually know about working in Bryce5? "And no offense ,but waiting Six days to render One high quality single frame with soft shadows and blurred reflections is NOT an act of courage,or bravado but indeed a ridiculous process only endured by those who never do any Deadline oriented client work :-)" I actually do a lot of deadline oriented client work in Bryce, with a personal record of 14 images in just 20 days, built from scratch, in the quality i normally use for my own images, and i never had any complaints. Nor have i ever missed a deadline. Heres where the "knowing your tool"-part comes in. It doesnt have to take days, if you know what youre doing. As for my personal scenes, im not in a hurry. If the scene require a week to model/build/render to achieve the quality i want, thats how long it will take. And note that i dont use pre-made models or freebies. I make my own. That takes time. This works just great for me. Your way works best for you.

So, I see this has become a pissing contest. Vue has only recently begun to outpace Bryceit took them long enough not withstanding that Bryce has been neglected for several years. Before Vue 5, Vue was just another imitator. If you have deadlines to meet, then your art is your work, your bread and butter and you must find the shortest route to meet your deadlines to keep the cash flow going. Others here do it for sheer recreational enjoyment as a hobby so deadlines matter not and their art is a labor of love. A few bristles missing from your brush? You pull out your scissors and give the brush a slight trim and continue on. You can lock a chimp up in a room with two computers going, one with the most expensive 3D software and the other with the least expensiveif you dont have the talent and skill, you can use neither. If you cant afford the most expensive, then you cleverly compensate with what you have. There had been some awesome Bryce work exhibited long before Vue ever came into existence. Weve chugged along with Bryce a few years outputting excellent work, we can surely wait a little while longer to see how Bryce develops. Some of us dont have deadlines to meet so therefore, dont have a need to abandon ship.

"So, I see this has become a pissing contest." Unfortunatly it seems so. These threads always end up as a "my dick is bigger then your dick" competition. Even if the thread should be about praising work made in Vue. Im still thinking of including Infinite in my toolbox, but as far as visiting the Vue forum goes, ill manage fine without it. Think ive seen enough good examples of the users occupying it. Agiel not included.

Attached Link: Bryce Murals

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ But that only confirms what i said about qualifying in terms of judging Bryce as a tool. How much do you actually know about working in Bryce5? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Quite a bit actually since I do own Bryce 5.1 with the DAZ Turbo import plugin :-) BTW I meant I no longer use bryce as a ***serious** production tool but i still do the occasional personal render like these two six Foot by Six foot canvas prints I rendered in Bryce for my bachelor apartment last year. the models in the right mural are imports from Cinema of course.

Well I would love to add Vue to my toolbox. Lack of funds etc I will keep using Bryce. The biggest Bryce problem is that the original peopel from Meta tools/creations left a number of years agoand it languished under Corel which did not know what to do with it. I have a different idea of what to make Bryce. I like what it does. I would like more compatibility with more modelers. So Bryce woudl do the same things but be an option for people who woudl get a program liek Flamingo lightscape etc. Trying to make it into another Vue 5 infinite might not be the way to go. I will wait and see. meanwhile I will plug away with wings and bryce and try to get better at the tools I have.

Rochr - don't be too harsh on the whole Vue forum :) We have the usual purists, some Vue / e-on bashers, some users more vocal than others... but there are also a lot of good people, less vocal but happier about their use of Vue.

"And no offence, Wolf359 and Analog-X, unless you have some pretty impressive Bryce images to show up here, youre hardly qualified to bitch about Bryces abilities as a tool."

Rochr: I disagree that I need to have impressive Bryce Images to be able to comment on it as a tool, but yes you are true in that I have no pictures posted and probably my best work is Silver Spheres on CheckerBoards and some WIPs of some Dolphins Under water done million times before. I was not attacking anyones artistic merrit, I was simply stating that every artist needs a tool that is at least in working order, and if Bryce is released with Bugs and keeps breaking than its a Broken Artists tool.

I am qualified to bitch about Bryce's Abilities as a Tool, as a former beta tester. I also have a background in Programming.

However the point I was trying to make was, that I could see the possibility why DAZ is delaying the release of Bryce 5.5 being a Programmer and Participant in many Beta Programs I've seen products full of bugs get released under pressure of deadline.

I rather DAZ Studio release a Solid product than a quick release to please the public because they cant wait.

Bryce 4 had more bugs at the time of release than there are fingers on my hands (and no I'm not missing any).

Message edited on: 03/17/2005 19:38

Rochr is wise.

...$600!!!!!!????? ...I'll probably invest in ZBrush 2, or C4D first. (Not to say Vue 5 Infinite probably isn't VERY nice.) just my 2 pennies. AS