Lol, sure thing, all yours. Yeah, at this specific moment right now, a $1000 would have me max out my motherboard with 4Gb of memory, and a major upgrade on my video card. AS

Hey, btw, anyone going to the Maxwell website and looking at their gallery picture...BETTER than that is on their frontpage - it's a button entitled "Picture Of The Day". The pics there, kick the butts of the renders in the gallery. *note - when looking at the P.O.D., you can click ON the pic to get a high res version, that you can save. Just fyi. AS

Len, so your installation runs off a removable disk? That... looks suspiciously like your reason for slowdown. BTW, if you use a firewall and an antivirus, SP1 is pretty secure. I used that for quite a while and never got infected. I also use SP2 now and the system works normally. For my processor, P4 1.7, that is. :-) AS, the interiors are incredible, but the snake is not. Also, it almost looks like Maxwell doesn't use diffusion/ specularity/ and so on maps, because everything is so shiny and new.

maxwell 1.0 full price: $995 "unbiased render" sounds slow :P lol still... if it isn't slower then bryce's renderer.... and it does do GI and Caustics and such in relatively decent rendertimes.. it could be handy. If DAZ produces new versions fast enough to actually get a market of bryce users that can and want to pay such amounts of money for a plug-in renderer which might not even work with their existing object, sky and material library's (maxwell uses it's own special shaders or so I read... and it doesn't say it supports other shaders also..)

I for one could not afford a $1000 plug-in for a hobby, and no I don't have a $2500 car stereo either. It's hard enough not to be mega discouraged trying to squeeze out a comparitively descent pic without Photo Shop post work when viewing others on the gallery. If Daz cooperates and Maxwell renderer is part of the package, then it should be called Daz Infinite or something like that with it's own gallery/forum. I'll not bother other than an occassional viewing to see what the other half has. The pro's will have it but hobbyist can't follow. The huge user base and passionate beginners that post now on Bryce gallery (that no one ever looks at or seldom get encouragement) will be left with crayons while the rest have graduated to oils. (steps off soap box) Maybe I can sell one of my kids

We will never become that what we resent.

@Erlik

Hell no, well not technically anyway. My hard-disks are removable, but they're the proper internal variety (they're not USB or anything). They're no different to standard drives, it's just that I can remove and swap them at will - because they're held in a kind of removable housing which slots in/out the front of the tower. It might seem like overkill, but there's no way I'd ever put my "work" drive on the internet, I owe the security not just to myself, but to others I do work for. Unfortunately, I won't use a laptop either 'cos I absolutely HATE those LCD/TFT screens big-time! (give me a decent CRT anyday.) So you see, whenever the property is left empty, I can't take a non-existent laptop with me, so my solution is to whip-out the removable-drive and take it with me ;-) Removable drives are a godsend, I tell ya!

@AgentSmith

4GB of RAM? - lol That's awesome, 'cos this little beastie can only acces 2GB at most if I remember correctly :-(

@Rayraz

Glad to see you make an appearance again. I was beginning to think you'd commited the ultimate sin, and ditched Bryce :-D

@EveryoneReadingThis

Worry not dear Brycers...it's gonna be OK!

PRX is what you need...
PRX is what will be...
PRX is ALMOST free...(well, compared to Maxwell anyway)

All my love,
pumey.

I've just looked at the Maxwell gallery closely (I only saw the entrace images before).

I have to say I've changed my mind - those are some of the most accurate renders I've seen, if not THE most accurate. The only thing that concerns me is HOW intergrated it will be with Bryce. If I'd be able to render using the same Byce materials, nano-preview and plop-render with it, then yes...

That's a BIG yes, I will definately put money aside for it 'cos that is one AMAZING looking piece of render-wizardry. I was particularly impressed by those "Physical-Sky" renders, after what I've been upto lately, I knew EXACTLY what I was looking for in those images, and they really are f*ckin' kick-ass I have to say 8-)

I just REALLY hope they intergrate it well, otherwise it won't be like using Bryce - (fingers crossed they do it well).

Len.
(VERY excited)

Dear pumey... LOL! What the heck is PRX?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1822731

Methinks FranOnTheEdge is quite new here...

...or...

She's been living on another planet over the last year or so ;-)

Check the attached link when you've got a spare couple of hours. It's over 200 posts long now (as you'll see from master drawbridgep's excitement in the 200th post). It's one of those threads that has an habit of springing to life every so often - dunno why :-D

Len.
(I wonder who'll be 300th)

Attached Link: http://www.gimp.org/

4Gb of ram - the OS uses 2Gb, and the software uses 2Gb. Also, I have a 64-bit cpu, and will be upgrading to the 64-bit OS. The extra ram is mostly to be able to model multi-million poly meshes in ZBrush. AS

Wow....Pumeco's Pro Render. I didn't know that was still on the burner(?) As always, would be interesting to see it one day for real. Hope Bryce 6.0 doesn't beat you to the punch...;o) AS

AgentSmith, Oh yee of little faith ;-)

Nah seriously, I figured it ought to be released for the Brycers - the work would've been for nothing otherwise.

I'll release it before christmas (100% Guarantee). I'm hoping i'll earn something from it, but if folk decide to rip me off there's nothing I can do about it so...

...yeah, either way :-)

BTW, 'bout that RAM, how would I go about dividing my RAM for use by individual app's like that?

Len.

I don't have any knowledge of being able to divide up RAM. But, after talking to the ZBrush users for some time about RAM, and whgat could actually be taken advantage of, it seems that's the natural split it comes down to (2gb/2gb), when using a program that canNOT take advantage of 64-bit cpu and 64-bit OS. Once a program can take advantage of it, the amount of RAM that the program can take command of is absolutely ridiculous. Both ZBrushers, who are weeks away from a new version, and of course Brycers (B6.0) want all the new types of cpu support. (dual, hyper, multiple, 64-bit, etc) AS

Oh is there news about Bryce 6.0? Displacement mapping???

Ah, damn, I was thinking maybe I'd be able to force certain apps to use ONLY physical RAM and not touch the Page-File.

Mines only a 2.6 Celeron, so I don't have HT or any of that stuff, but ZBrush can still handle really high poly stuff on it. I'm really impressed with ZBrush - and can't wait for 2.5!

Len.

Attached Link: http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050907/gigabyte_iram-01.html

I witnessed Pixelogic at Siggraph 2005 scuplting with ZBrush on an 18 million polygon, wrinkled old man. This was with the new version coming out, v2.5 It looks quite amazing in many ways. AS

The 2g split for OS/apps is a windoze thing, the 2k3 server and the top version of 2k server don't have the split, nor does the 64bit version of any of the OS choices unless its treaing an application in a legacy mode.

Yes, Bryce 6.0 It's a-gonna happen. I was talking to DAZ staff about it at Siggraph back in August. They're even thinking forward to Bryce 7.0 Displacements? It's been at the front of every conversation I've had with DAZ. Just have to wait and see. ;o) AS

Thanks for the link AS, yeah, it sure looks looks like a good idea, but I'd keep an eye on it's development for a while first I think - see how others get along with it.

ZBrush:
18 Million polys? - Oh my god!
You could create one unbelievable virtual-babe with that sorta poly-count - and be able to use displacement mapping for EVERY detail :-P

Len.

I find the mention of Bryce 7 and displacement in the same message - disturbing...

I mean please? oh Pulease??? let it be in Bryce6.0

(attitude of ferverent prayer)

Message edited on: 11/11/2005 08:50

Mebbe my mind is going, but I seem to remember something like that iRAM (ick!) from the old days of the early Nineties. There used to be expansion boards for RAM. EISA, or somthing similarly abandoned, IIRC. As to the 18 million... I tried Vue Infinite. The great scene by Eran Dinur (cliff and jungle) has something like 3 billion polys on my computer. On its site, E-on says 72 billion. Nevertheless, it's billions, even if they are just instanced. That's the way to go. Citius, altius, fortius. :-)

Pumeco; Zbrush Oh, yes! And the new automatic uvmapping it can do, and the ridiculously easy rigging. It's all very exciting. ;o) Fran; I didn't say what version we would get displacement, lol. I just wanted to mention B7, so people would know that DAZ is into Bryce for the long haul. Erlik; I'm not completely versed in Vue 5 Inf., but yup, I believe a big part of having 'billions' of polys in those scenes in through 3D instancing (vegetation), and the fact that if you took all the terrains in their scenes, converted them from displacement maps into true polygonal meshes, then yeah, billions. But, trust me, I'm not knocking it! We were chanting instancing and displacements for Bryce to Corel... AS

AS, I know you didn't actually say which version would have displacement - that's the trouble. gg You're an awful tease!

Sorry, I try not to be on this subbject. I can only say so much. And, only know so much, lol. AS

I know. You're rotten you are! Lol!

"And, hopefully I'm hoping we will see an opening up of Bryce 5.5/6.0 for WIDESPREAD plugin development. Whether that be for; External renderers Tree Lab vegetation add-ons Vegetaion wind animators Terrain Lab animatable ocean waves Meta Primitives Object Export Poly Editor Oh...do NOT get me started....;oD" Don't get ME started hehehe Maxwell looks cool and it has my name :) I'll try to get an educational license for $200 or so seems reasonable.