I just got a product survey from Curious Labs/e-Frontiers. One of the questions is "What Curious Labs/ e-Frontiers products do you own". One of the choices is Bryce.

Message edited on: 04/18/2005 23:24

heh, this in combo with previous topic suggests a bizarre conspiracy. But you might want to check the code of that email to make sure it is what it says it is (click "reply" on the mail window and look at the destination/source addresses to make sure they match CL etc) Anytime you get a mail asking for any sort of info and you detect an inacuracy, check out the code cheers

Good Idea. I haven't actually responded to it, I just read it over.

Gawd, I hope not lol.

Bryce was bought by Daz about 10 months ago... so unless they sold it to CL today which I doubt....

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 00:47

the survey IS from curious labs though.

if i recall correctly CL used to own it back when they where part of Metacreations,then Corel had it,then Daz purchased it from Corel,don't quote me on that though,i could be wrong

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 01:47

Sometimes, that sort of question can be put in as a sanity check. Though it's not a good check-question.

Yes, bryce was owned by meta creations at one point. Not sure if they're the ones that created it originally but they did have it at some point, most probably prior to Corel. Its probably a survey with an out-dated products listing. Or perhaps they still have some influence over it in an x # of times removed way. Dunno. E.D.

Just look at the interface, yes, MetaC created it then it started going the rounds. I bought it originally from MetaC.
Marque

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 03:10

Poser v1 was created and distributed by Fractal Design. Fractal Design then became Metacreations. Don't know if they were bought out, or if the company just changed names at that point. However, Poser 1 was originally a Mac-only product, then became available for the PC a little later..

Edit: I think Fractal Design eventually merged with MetaTools, which then became "MetaCrations".

Yup I still have the manual for it...lol Found it the other day while doing heavy cleaning. Debated throwing it out but since I still have the software kept it. Marque

Yeah, Metatools created Bryce (and Kai's Power Tools which were very big once upon a time) and they linked up with FD/Poser creators. I think the very original creator of Poser is still around...is it Doc Mojo maybe? (creator of Mojoworld) cheers

Hmmm. I'm pretty sure Doc created Bryce, but I thought Larry Weinberg (who was originally part of the Fractal Design team) created Poser. Kai Krause designed the interface for both, I think.

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 04:00

Attached Link: http://www.macuarium.com/actual/english/2003/03/25_interviewcurious.shtml

***"Poser is one of the best known programs in the Macintosh world, as it saw the light for the first time in MetaTools, but it was known with later versions already under Metacreations label.

From the death of Metacreations, other companies had put the eye on some of Metacreations programs and original technologies. One of them was Poser, which returned to the hands of its creator: Larry Weinberg."***

I know for sure Kai Krause designed the Bryce interface and had a hand in it's creation, so it seems he probably contributed to Poser's design originally as well.

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 04:09

Ah yeah - I guess it makes much more sense that Doc Mojo was once Doc Bryce... What's Larry W up to these days? cheers

"What's Larry W up to these days?" I'm pretty sure he's still the head guy at Curious Labs now.

I think Kai Krause still has a credit on the P5 start-screen.

"What's Larry W up to these days?" > >I'm pretty sure he's still the head guy at Curious Labs now. Even Poser's creator can't escape it's grasp!? We're DOOOOOOOOOMED!!!! heheh

On topic. Curious Labs/e-Frontiers and Bryce?

I found a link at bottom of the Curiouslabs front page for the e-Frontiers Japan site. Once there I clicked on the "Products" link and found a ton of different companies products listed. Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, and more. The ones I clicked on appear to take you to a store and then check out all under the e-frontiers web address. It looks like they sell different companies products though their web site. e-frontiers sells shade also. Is Shade owned by e-frontiers of does e-frontiers just sell it to?

e-Frontiers owns shade, and they are the parent company to Curious Labs.

I thought that might be it. With a 3D product of their own I wouldn't normaly expect so see others listed on their site or store. Pretty cool. :)

Just for info, Bryce was invented by Eric Wenger. I don't think Doc Mojo (Ken Musgrave) came on the scene until the development of version 4, wherein he added some of his fractal magic (including some that still hasn't been activated).

Ken Musgrave (Doc Mojo), who was a student of Mandelbrot at Yale, wrote the first book on procedural fractals in the early 90's. Eric Wenger, using Ken's work and others (like Ken Perlin), created the first landscape app, D2, in '93. Kia Krause discovered Eric's app and designed the interface of what would become Bryce in '94 from Kia's HSC Software. Eric split from Kia after Bryce 2 Mac and started UI software (MetaSynth, Artmatic and Voyager), HSC became Metatools and bought the near bankrupt Fractal Design, which of course included Poser. Metatools then became Metacreations and Doc Mojo was hired to work on Bryce4 and was fired very shorlty there after when Corel bought Painter/Bryce. Corel only bought Bryce to get Painter and after a luke warm attempt at developing Bryce, dropped development all together. Doc went on to create Mojoworld and last June DAZ bought Bryce. And still own it.

Larry Weinberg invented Poser - just look into your Poser manual and read "A message from Larry Weinberg" where he explaines it all.

Dan Whiteside is absolutely correct......with Puntomus' addition.....and two addumen, Kai also worked on the interface to Carrara which Metatools also bought out, combining Infini-D with Ray Dream. Kai is now back with Eric and working on Voyager....and is helping Daz launch Bryce 5.5, a sister program to the new Daz Studios ( a Poser content program) ~m

Hehe, this is a coincidence. Last weekend I found this second-hand book on Juergen Ziewe, one of the pioneers of computer-generated art. He worked at the time with KPT Bryce, Fractal Design Poser. He started with something called Sinclair spectrum, learned basic to use it, got MandelZot, and then changed to the AppleMac IIFX and a Quadra to wich he added 32MB of memory and a 1GB HDD. But then he invested in a PowerMac 8100 with 8OMB ram and a 120MHz risc processor. This was about ten years ago. It's good to read this. And to see the art that was produced in those days. With those limited means, he still produced mind-bogging cards and posters then. They wouldn't seel now, but without pioneers like him, where would we all be. I guess he still has a website.

Well if you really want a hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Did you know that Kai Krause designed the type for all of Roger Dean's Record covers???? ~m

Does anyone want to buy a Sinclair Spectrum?

(Attempts hopeful pleading kitty look but those big tiger teeth aren't helping)

Seriously, it was a very popular home machine in the UK. and a lot of teenagers did their first programming on it. And you had to be pretty smart to get the most out of its limited resources.

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 08:45

MetaCreations owned Bryce up to Bryce 4.0 Corel owned Bryce 5.0 which Daz bought. Daz now owns 5.0 and forward. Hope this helped a little.

One correction - Eric's first app was called D3 not D2. And to keep this on topic a lot of the math behind Poser's procedural texture engine comes from the above mentioned gentlemen.

really I thought it was from Tempset.....oh well, Eric is kewl. Thanx Dan! ~m

Attached Link: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/

Oh, well......you can't believe everything that you hear in the forums, I suppose.

Sinclair Spectrum

Find that one and others at the link.

I wonder how well P6 would run on an old Sinclair?

Topic? What topic?

Ah, Painter...that's the other still-active proggie.... It's great to hear those guys are all still in the game somewhere

ms - it is from Pixel3d's Tempest system but stuff like the Granite 3D texture is clearly based on Ken Perlin's original Ridged Fractal algorithm.

If Curious Labs owns Bryce, we might at last see a hope of Bryce jobfiles being written in a decipherable code format. The present format of .BR3 / .OBP / etc files is as impenetrable as Area 51, and I suspect that it is encrypted.

Thanx Dan......I appreciate the knowledge..... ~m

Anthony...one found a way to look inside the Brycefiles and really understand them. Finally creating a converter from Bryce to VUE, but for Mac only yet. Here is the link.

http://www.angelfire.com/mac2/bryce2vue/
Can convert:
Primitive objects like cone, cube, torus...
Terrain Objects (and Lattice Objects)
Mesh objects
Light objects
Boolean Operations
Sun and camera position converted

Hm..some should team with him to write a windowsversion too ;-)

Exportable bryce objects - that would REALLY boost it's usability...wow!

Attached Link: http://www.altavista.com