I'm switching to Carrara by eovia: Carrara 4 pro

It's everything brcye never had, and it was based off of bryce so the interface is similar.

It has the same terrain editor (although it is much more functional in carrara as they have updated it)
It has Global illumination and radiosity.
It renders FAST.
It models.
It has better tree creation abilties than bryce.
It doesn't suck on the mac.
It doesn't use one of my CPU's when idling.
It is not buggy.
It is being worked on.
It is $119 after academic discount: Carrara Academic
It is endorsed by madmax!

Here is my first render afer using the program for 25 minutes total:

It is a mock-up of my upcoming photography show. Render time was 7 minutes with fairly high quality radiosity, soft shadows, and 9 lights. I'm impressed.
It also has caustics, hdri support, tube lights (flourescents), global illumination, volumetric skies, metaballs, poser import, inverse kinematic character animation, and plugin support with cool plugins like building creators and hair/fur generators.

Here's the free 30-day trail version: Carrara Trial

I am so sad to leave bryce as I have used it since version 3 back in 1998, but it's just not meeting my needs. Especially with Daz's comments about future Mac improvements, the time as come to let a good thing come to an end, and replace it with a better thing. I won't be buying it until next september as this summer I will be working in the mountain with no computers.

Here are some screenshots:

Carrara premade scene wizard

Carrara Main Interface

Carrara Terrain lab, layer based!

Carrara render window, 6 minutes for this render!!!

Who's with me?

Message edited on: 04/29/2005 22:16

That interface does have a bryce that flare to it.hmmm What kind of modeller does it have?Oh hell I'll just dnload the trial.

Awesome! I already mentioned using Bryce for making great textures in another thread, so I won't rant about it too much, my friend. It certainly seems that Carrara has come a long, long way since the Ray Dream days... If I wasn't already knee-deep in Maya, I'd certainly take it up. As it stands, there's really no reason for me not to anyway, as I won't be wasting a penny on further versions of Bryce. Yeah, I know : nay-sayers suck. But once again, I am making MY decision based off of my desire to actually make a career out of 3D graphics. And there is simply NO money in Bryce-work. It renders far too slow for production animation, and is years behind every other program on the market, in every possible way save texturing. And it makes me feel vomitous to say this, but VUE is even better than Bryce now... (Yuck!) I'll go so far as to alienate myself from everyone in saying that if "you people" are actually EXCITED about Bryce 5.5 being called an "upgrade", then you really are mired in the swamps of mediocrity. One look at the 'Rosity Bryce Gallery will confirm my suspicions. And again, all that said, I'll keep using Bryce 5 for as long as I need it! And it really does make texturing a snap, knowing the DTE inside and out has taken my texture-making to whole new levels. So at this point, Bryce for ME has reverted to it's initial value : a simple Photoshop plug-in. For me it's a Maya texturing weapon, for MadMax it's just hard-drive filler, and for the rest of us here, well no hard feelings and I hope to see some excellent artwork yet!

Well lets see, I have the Carrara trial...havent really played with it, but after getting the bryce upgrade and after seventeen crashes, Im rather perturbed. 5 never crashed on me, and now, every time I try to import a plant or something, whammy. Not happy with this at all. The renders, I think look like crap. Maybe that is just me but everything comes in so dark..forget about importing Jessie...she doesnt even look like a person. sighs Perhaps I should just keep using five. I think I want me money back. The extra stuff is great, but...what is with the crashes? Now Carrera, gonna look into that again...

'Who's with me?' been there for a while now, welcome aboard... although I must say, I doubt if I'll ever fully say 'goodbye Bryce', but it's definitely not my drug of choice anymore since Carrara grew up.

Bryce is my choice at the moment. It is a great learning tool and yes i have gone and got Bryce 5.5. May be one day i'll expand to something else but for now i'll stick to Bryce and learn what i can with it.

"And there is simply NO money in Bryce-work" I made $1,000/week for 6 weeks (that time in November I was out of town) Mostly Bryce, and some Photoshop. I also received about $600 in computer accessories. Again, Its not always the tools, but it is always what you the individual can do with them. AS

Bryce has a lot of GREAT uses. I am not saying that bryce is a bad/obsolete program at all. It is PERFECT for beginning 3D as you can get results and really work on your art rather than mastery of the program. I am saying only that as for myself, I have reached the technical limits of bryce and they have not been lifted with the 5.5 update, and I for some reason don't anticipate miracles to be worked by Bryce 6. Carrara seems to extend the bryce toolset and keep most of what I love about bryce, so it seems the natural direction to travel. It's not ideal; I wish bryce had been updated years ago so that I had reason to justify staying with it. My bryce no longer fuctions under the new Tiger OS so I have to emulate an old OS with poor graphics support just to use it. PC users do not have this problem, so there is less of a reason to panic. If bryce 6 can deliver the tools and improvements an advanced user needs and wants, then I won't have any qualms about switching back. Keep in mind that Carrara is NOT nearly as easy to use as bryce, and the advanced features require a lot of learning and research. I have used countless 3D programs for several years, including Maya, 3dsmax, and lightwave, and over these years I have picked up a large vocabulary of terms and experience with things such as HDRI-based lighting, photon maps, refractive caustics, shader iterations, radiosity interpolation, XDUGEF modeling ;-), and render-spawned instancing. These features are part of what appeals to me in carrara, and to a beginning or intermediate user these terms have no value or use. In the end, the old "use what works for you" doctrine really does hold true.

I'd kill for photon maps and refractive caustics, lol. B6 needs an plugin SDK, and the possibility of using 3rd party renderers. AS

Bryce 6 will have to be rebuild from the bottoms up. Once's that done, I can see it being able to handle 3rd party renderers, plug-ins and even a new rendering engine.

Or, multiple engines.

Agent Smith, no offense intended, but $1,000 in six weeks, doing Bryce work? I make more than that at my day job doing nothing but drinking coffee... And I'm certainly not trying to be elitist here. I'm just saying, if that's the most you have made using it, it's not a career at all. It's a bonus check, man. Again, no offense intended.

LSD i think you mis-read what AS said. he didn't say he made $1000 in 6 weeks, he said he made a $1000 a week for 6 weeks...quote AS "I made $1,000/week for 6 weeks (that time in November I was out of town)" Sorry for correcting you mate, i hate doing that so i hope you don't get mad at me and send those dragons to my place :)

Message edited on: 04/30/2005 03:26

Yup, what CD said. I cleared $6000 for the 6 weeks, and got a new 200Gb WD hard drive, Logitech Speakers, and a 9x12 Wacom Intuos 3 tablet. But, that being said, that has been my best paying freelance work so far. `Course, I had to keep the regular job while I did that, but that turned out to be no problem with that gig. AS

Message edited on: 04/30/2005 03:39

Well...many thanks to you Max for your great contribution to Bryce; your Smartpipes will live forever! :-D Good luck to your future adventures! Regards Attila

smartpipes rock. STILL don't see how he created them. `Course, if I took my head out of the rusty metal end of the DTE for a second...

Aye, then I apologize for any insult to you, AS! It was an honest mistake, but alas I must admit to some arrogance in making it in the first place... (just thinking that $1K every 6 weeks = $8K anually, or what we call "homeless" here in Seattle...) And please do NOT take your head out of the rusty metal end, we rather like it there, thank you!

Lol, "insult"...;o) No, I DO remember the (teenage) days of $1,000 a month! After High Scool, I lived in a 5 bedroom house with a group of Canadians who were in CA going to DeVry (or some school like that). Lean days, fun days, but lean. AS

AS: You got money for this??????? Ack!

Ill have to second AS about working with Bryce. Since last year, ive made almost as much cash with freelance stuff, as with my regular job. Using Bryce for freelance work is no problem, BUT, if youre aiming for work in the CG industry, then Bryce is probably not the tool to use. Youll be forced to use some of the high end progs. But naturally that also depends on what type of work you want to do. For concepts and such, Bryce is ok to use, as long as the clients are happy with the end result. :)

You are a wise man Max, good luck in cararra and please keep us updated on your progress in this bryce-from-the-future program ;) "I made $1,000/week for 6 weeks (that time in November I was out of town) Mostly Bryce, and some Photoshop. I also received about $600 in computer accessories." WTF????? What is your secret?? damn... I didn't even know freelance cg jobs that pay like that even existed!!

I got paid $40 bucks an hour to be a graphic designer, and the same to be a video editor. Not cg, but it's sorta of graphics related. work three hours per day and that's $1500 per week at 40/hr

damn... how do you do that? I can't seem to find any job in graphics that actually pays :|

I must say that I'll miss ya Max, you're a good'un. Somehow I suspect that you'll duck in occasionally to check in on some of your old friends, and to see if Bryce evolves into a more capable tool than it is now. I foresee a bright future for you in the graphics/CG field and I can see that sometimes you have to leave some things behind as you outgrow them.
I've been considering Carrara as well, for all the reasons you stated. I even find that the now free Carrara 1.1 has become a valuable addition to my toolset, so maybe I'll eventually upgrade and join you.
Thanks again for SmartPipe and for the various iterations of your excellent "Zenith" lighting rig. I don't think it's any coincedence that my highest rated pics have used both of these great tools. Best of luck to you friend!

hmm..I make about $1,000 a week, but that's just babysitting 1,100 network printers, not something fun...and by the time Uncle Sam and Uncle State are finished, it's a lot less..;)
Patience, young Padawan..;) I've got an older version of Carrara, it's ok, but I'm comfortable with what I've got so far..have to agree that Vue 3 is amazingly like Bryce (such that the 'Wings effect' [still trying to use Wings commands in Bryce, after you've finished modeling] actually worked fairly well.
Use the tools you like, as long as you produce art you like..

"What is your secret?? damn" No secret, just live next door to...and work for...rich people. Which I'm lucky enough to do. (from time to time) (Los Angeles/Hollywood) AS

Actually,....I've been working(still learning) with C4D 8.1,........very nice out of box render engine,......HDRI(with advanced renderer module)is very easy to use, especially if you have HDR Shop(free from USC) to make your own HDRI's. Seeing as how Bryce 5.5 DOES have dual processor support, I will be buying it when the boxed version is released. I still love Bryce, as it is capable of producing very painterly images, and I like that. Max please don't abandon Bryce altogether,........you have made some very valuable contributions to the app. Does this mean you won't be coming to the meet in NYC ? I hope not.

Attached Link: Render Comparison

It was RDS ( Ray Dream Studio )
Which had the worst interface ever created. When it got changed to Carrara, ( I think Metacreation still had it at the time ) Everybody loved the simplicity of Bryce's interface, so they integrated the basics of Bryce's interface into it.

I tried to learn RDS years ago, but it made my head hurt form banging it against the wall.
I won Carrara 2 in a art contest about 3 or 4 years ago. Doodle with it for awhile. From what you shown here it looks like they have added a lot to it. It does have a powerful rendering engine, and produces great images. It also has character animation abilities.

Version 2 was a little short on the modeling side. So have they added NURBS, and/or SubD.

AS, How would I make sure people to actually pay me? I've lost hunderds of hours of work over some project that promised me hunderds, possibly thousands (up to $10K) of dollars (depending on the success of the project) but I haven't seen a penny yet :-/

Same goes for this gallery that sells prints of my artwork. They claim to simply not have sold one print (in over 2 years???) despite investing thousands of bucks in marketing (where the hell do they advertize then?). But what can i do against it? I can't find out if they sold anything or not... I did sign a contract that says they gotta pay me, but if they say they didn't sell, and I can't proove they did, there seems to be nothing I can do...

Checks were deposited into my hand a day or two before each coming work week. We had accounts at the same bank (VERY fortunate), so the money would could "clear" into my account usually within 24 hours, and I could tell there wouldn't be any "problems". Basically, get paid in advance if you can, if not, they had better be reputable on some level. A contract beforehand is usually the best thing if payment doesn't come first. This will (hopefully) keep people/companies who might take advatage of you at bay. Hmm, It kinda sucks, but buy one of your own prints, without them knowing its you. See if you ever hear anything of it..... AS

If I remember it right what was planned for a Bryce 6 in the Corel days:

Plugins!
Weather effects!
Particle effects! (needed for weather too)

Not sure if Daz3D got the feature list for that Bryce Pro version too the time they bought Bryce. But if and if they able to, then Bryce 6 will top Vue in some parts, be good as Vue in others and be a little behind in the rest. But a good program to use for all.

Bryce 5.5 is not a bad software. But it is not really a new version. It is a big servicepack that was long time needed.

We should wait for Bryce 6 to decide if Bryce is worth to work with in future or not.

And never forget, Bryce is fine for fast creating of scenes. I often use it work on some quick ideas. Sometimes I later create them in a "bigger" application after found out that idea works in 3D. Bryce is for me a creativity enhancer and if only for that reason, it will stay on my HD.

Yeah, I believe since Bryce 3 (?), it was planned for Bryce to accept plugins. The ground-work may have been layed, but never finished. It talks about all that in the Real World Bryce book. AS

The point is that in the first prealpha works for Bryce Pro that Pluginconcept was included! Even some modeling functions.

Oh, absolutely. And, yup, DAZ does know. ;o) AS

"How would I make sure people to actually pay me? I've lost hunderds of hours of work over some project that promised me hunderds, possibly thousands (up to $10K) of dollars (depending on the success of the project) but I haven't seen a penny yet :-/"

Rayraz,

I know this is not a quetion directed at me, but there are a couple ways to do this. One, was mentioned by AS and that is to get paid in advance or atleast half of the total price in advance and the other half on delivery of product. The second would be to write out a contract. You can read up on how to do this or find someone who knows. Customize the contract to each individual job and make sure its all signed and legit before starting work. That way they have no choice but to pay you. I, myself just graduated from art school and am currently working on freelance and contract jobs so Im starting to learn first hand how this real-world business works :-)

Matt

Message edited on: 05/01/2005 07:19

Thanx for the advise! I'll defenitely make sure to do all that in the future. 'cause right now I fear I've been fucked...