I know

Quote - Have you looked at the features of Carrara? (I know I hadn't for a long time)

It's complex to start with, lol.

Scroll down this C5.1 list;

http://www.eovia.com/products/carrara5/carrara_full_features.asp

WOW!!! The last time I used Carrara was version 1: they have come a long way before selling it to Daz. The Tree Modeler looks like it would be fun to check out. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road Daz decides to incorporate the best of Bryce's features into Carrara and offers a special price to existing Bryce users in order to eventually discontinue Bryce as a separate program. Bryce users may not like that idea at first, but that route would eliminate the many Bryce Wish List listed at the Daz site.

Quote - I think Bryce still needs to advance though - if not then people will just bail for the cheap version of Vue (the one thats about 100$), though this is assuming that EON (makers of Vue) keep advancing their "entry" level Vue product as well.

Besides the Global Illuminations, the feature I wish Bryce had is the EcoSystem that Vue has. The Easel version of Vue doesn't have it but as far as advancing their entry level I don't know. Maybe Vue will modify their plug-in(s) for Carrara users (Vue Ozone for example).

Carrara5 has a "surface replicator" that allows you to mix several different types of trees, rocks, grass, objects, etc. and scatter mass "instances" of them throughout your scene. It can accomplish much the same thing as Vue Infinite's "EcoSystem". I love the fresnel shaders for realistic water too, they rock!

danamo,

I wasn't aware of the surface replicator nor the realistic shaders. I may have to download a demo of Carrara 5 and check it out. Thanks for the heads up!

"I wouldn't be surprised if down the road Daz decides to incorporate the best of Bryce's features into Carrara and offers a special price to existing Bryce users in order to eventually discontinue Bryce as a separate program"

Very doubtful. No matter how much more advanced Carrara may be compared to Bryce, there will always be a worthy number of Bryce users who would not make the switch, and if DAZ discontinued Bryce, they would lose those users, and that possible income and interest in their products.

That, and Bryce serves the perfect price point position of $100, Carrara Standard is $250. You wouldn't want to close out those people that wanted to get into 3D but didn't want to spend $250 to do it.

Quote - "I wouldn't be surprised if down the road Daz decides to incorporate the best of Bryce's features into Carrara and offers a special price to existing Bryce users in order to eventually discontinue Bryce as a separate program"

Very doubtful.

However, it should also be remembered that not so long ago AS also said.....

Quote - *DAZ bought Eovia. This I doubt most of all though.

Sorry AS,  :laugh:

Even I doubted how much $$ they had in the bank, lol.

What with the 23 new software additions they made to the new Bryce 6 and all.

.........you could hear a pin drop........

I'm just kidding, lol. No really, very much kidding.

Well, I gotta admit I didn't think they had that much $$ floating around either. From some of what they said about the time they announced/justified the bryce 5.5 upgrade price at 80$ (or thereabouts), I had this feeling that the cost of getting Bryce had been about their limit (and this was only 2 years ago-ish). So yeah, I was in your boat as well - there's no way they could buy a company.

23 new additions...  WHEEEEE that'd be the 23 new fluoro alien skies we've all been wanting for the last 5 years :blink:  :scared:  :woot:

23 new "Wild&Fun" mats. Just what we were wanting!

But wait, there's more...

For just another $7* you to can be the proud owner of yet  another 1000 Wild&Fun mats - just use the special CarrarasOurNewBaby coupon code on checkout.  :lol:

• platinum club discount applied

Mergers are not good. I remeber when Metacreations bought Specular I thought cool I am an Infini D user. They axed the whole line. I think Bryces days are numbered. 

Nah, not at all. You'll see in time. ;o)

Quote - However, it should also be remembered that not so long ago AS also said.....

Heh, I wasn't going to rub that in.

DAZ didn't need to have cash lying around for the acquisition (not saying they didn't have it, not saying they did - don't know), they only needed to be able to raise it. Compared to lots of companies in the CGI game they have regular, good cash flow. That can convince a lender more easily than an optimistic business projection alone.

Despite the jokey nature of my tin-foil-hat thread, I really do see Bryce's future as shakey. They will certainly release a Bryce6 (AgentSmith and some others here have probably seen it ) in order to get some return on the investment, but after that all bets are off. There is already a Carrara 'lite' at about the same price point as Bryce. There's no reason to think that DAZ won't base their software future around Carrara.

With AgentSmith's predictive record on this I'm willing to put money down... ;-)

.

DAZ would lose out on far too much revenue to alienate such a big user base as Bryce.

        Same could have been said about Infini D and metacreations. Infini D had a large user base most of the unique features of that and texturescape were gone lost. Remember these companies are for the most part run by suits that think if they can trim waste like Bryce and hexagon they can lay a lot of people off and be more profitable. By this time 2008 there will be no Bryce or Hexagon. Carrera might be a bit better or it might even be worse. Mergers are not a good thing.  These decisions are not made by 3D pros these are made by suits that call whatever they sell product and the customer be dammed.

I wouldn't say Daz is run by 'suits'.  They do care about their customers.

I tend to agree with Mahray, and besides that, they seem to have far too much personality for suits.

Not too long ago, KMart bought Sears.  KMart was about 2 weeks coming out of bankruptcy, while Sears was doing OK.  Sometimes the buyer is not in the best shape.

My humble opinion on this : DAZ couldn't fix/update Bryce so they rather bought a new, better baby to play with; maybe they will export a few things from Bryce so that Carrara will be the main render platform but not Bryce; you can probably forget B6.

actually, if I just had a faster Bryce, with ambient occlusion,  I'd be happy.

Bryce 6 is being developed & tested right now. It will be released in 2006.

DAZ Staff & Corporate are just too insane to be "suits". I met them at Siggraph 2004 & 2005. They are just as carzy as their pics at the DAZ website. And, in public or in private, they are very excited when talking about Bryce.

DAZ is nowhere close to being like MetaCreations or being in the same situation as them. But, even Infini-D can still be used, look at "RustBoy". It's all in the artist, not the software, imho.

Bryce 8 would probably be able to compete with Vue 5 Infinite, lol. But now DAZ as a comapny, can take an immediate neck-to-neck competition stance with Vue, Shade, eventually Poser, etc.

"By this time 2008 there will be no Bryce or Hexagon"

-Might as well say that in 2008, there will be no Illustrator or Elements, because Adobe will have integrated them all into Photoshop.

Time will tell. But, enough speculation for the day, I have to go Bryce.

"It's all in the artist, not the software, imho." Serious agreement with this!

Well,

Daz has already started with Hexagon 2 for sale for $1.99 if you're a Platinum member. Let's see what they do with Carrara 5.

Peace,

Eugenius

P.S.Yes, I agree with Agent Smith: It's all in the artist, not the software. 

saw that..now if they only took cash..;)

Quote - "By this time 2008 there will be no Bryce or Hexagon"-Might as well say that in 2008, there will be no Illustrator or Elements, because Adobe will have integrated them all into Photoshop.

It's highly unlikely that adobe will do that. Splitting up programs is good for your marketing

Same way its unlikely that carrarra and hexagon and bryce will merge any time soon. Especially because they have rather seperated user groups...

Yeah, that's basically what I was trying to convey by that comparison. Adobe would never do that, neither will DAZ.  ;o)

As sackrat has predicted (slightly modified by me, the |S thre him into convoulsions)

Bryceararagon|S

 We have documented proof to claim that name first, so don't even try it. :)

DAxaBrygon|S

BryceCaraGon

=-}

Hexabrycara|s

Awwwww...a Trinity after my own heart....literally, lol.

I still like EoviDaz Studio SDTAKE (Super-Duper Totally Ass-Kicking Edition)

Quote - > Quote - "By this time 2008 there will be no Bryce or Hexagon"-Might as well say that in 2008, there will be no Illustrator or Elements, because Adobe will have integrated them all into Photoshop.

It's highly unlikely that adobe will do that. Splitting up programs is good for your marketing

Same way its unlikely that carrarra and hexagon and bryce will merge any time soon. Especially because they have rather seperated user groups...

If it was business as usual, I would agree. But there's one thing we must consider. Given the huge Bryce feature wishlist posted at the Daz website, one has to wonder. According to Agent Smith, bryce 6 is a go. The only way I can see Bryce being a stand-alone program in the future is if Daz eventually re-built it from the ground up. But who knows...

But reprogramming something is very different from merging it with another piece of software

What I meant was if Daz decides not to merge Bryce with Carrara, then I would strongly suggest that Daz does eventually rebuild Bryce. However I don't know what Daz's goals are with Bryce. Do they want to compete with Vue? If so, reprogramming is almost a must. Will Bryce be only used for still images & some animations? Then perhaps reprogramming isn't the answer.

I think that now that they have aquired eovia they will most likely have aquired eovia's programming department also. This should allow them to have the resources to rebuild bryce. Which could defenitely be very helpfull considering that one of bryce's makers once said it's kinda chaotic underneath.

Eugenius;

DAZ voiced the desire to rebuild Bryce from the ground up with version 6 or 7, at the time they weren't entirely sure when it could come to pass (Siggraph 2004). But, now with this Eovia buy-out, who knows what the gameplan is.

With the Eovia buy-out, DAZ now does compete with Vue. Vue 5 Infinite is $580. Bryce with Carrara Standard is $350. I'm not saying to two solutions are equal, (I don't know yet), but they are now fairly direct competitors. It's a great start anyway.

Bryce will be used for what it is used for now, anything. It will still be for people who want to experience 3D, inexpensively.

Rayraz;

Yes, DAZ acquired Eovia's California programming department. Yet, they are focused on bug-fixing with Hexagon 2, and anything to do with Carrara.

But, with DAZ owning all these programs, it will (should) lead to the ability to transfer your data amongst all the programs back and forth. (I'm assuming/hoping)

Also, technology sharing. There is a Carrara "Basic" that in my mind...is begging for its abilities to be integrated into Bryce. (along with the already updated abilities that will be given to Bryce 6)

The Carrara "Basics" program;

http://www.eovia.com/products/carrara3D_basics2/c3D_basics_features.asp

Text modeler, spline modeler, Bezier curves, metaball primitives, Raytracer , Hybrid Raytracer, Z-Buffer, Two level antialiasing, more advanced tree modeler,more advanced terrain modeler, uvmapping, lens flares, and glows, Shadow Buffers...and more.

Time to stick all that inside of Bryce's gui, imo.

Here, here, swaggers & raises a tankard-o brycian-swill ....Put it all in there!!  Read most of this not to long ago when I dropped an entry for the It's ART contest. Nice little bit-o-software.

Agent,

Carrara Basics would be a perfect start for Bryce 6. If this is what's coming down the pipes then I will definitively upgrade :-)

I can only hope! 

Or...DAZ continues on what upgrades they have given B6, and then make a quick B7, which would have the added "Basics" abilities.

I don't know how far in advance they knew they would be acquiring Eovia, compared to how much work has already been put into B6 already.

Quote - The Carrara "Basics" program;

http://www.eovia.com/products/carrara3D_basics2/c3D_basics_features.asp

Text modeler, spline modeler, Bezier curves, metaball primitives, Raytracer , Hybrid Raytracer, Z-Buffer, Two level antialiasing, more advanced tree modeler,more advanced terrain modeler, uvmapping, lens flares, and glows, Shadow Buffers...and more.

Time to stick all that inside of Bryce's gui, imo.

advanced tree modeler, advanced terrain modeler, Raytracer, metaballs,  primitives... atmosphere editor (cloud, haze, fog) .... Well Agent Smith, I'm afraid but it sound like Bryce is allready integrated to Cararra.. So why will Daz spend time and money to intergrate the basics Cararra tools in bryce when Bryce is allmost allready integrated to Cararra?..

To broaden the $ales base.

amen brother ICM

Quote - advanced tree modeler, advanced terrain modeler

the only problem is that, for instance, the advanced tree modeller isn't. Its trees are not even as good looking as Bryce's. And I don't remember any very advanced options in the terrain modeller. OTOH, I may be misremembering. PS. Just checked. Yeah, the terrain editor in Carrara looks mostly like it just came from Bryce. Vue has a more advanced TE, but is PITA to work in with that little unchangeable window.

Well, for once I have to disagree with Erlik, and I say this knowing that he is a tree "fanatic" as much as I am.  He may well be right about the tree lab in Carrara Basic,(never tried it) but Carrara5 standard and Pro recently got a major upgrade(March '06) in the treelab which offers huge strides forward as far as realism and customization possibilities. Since the trees are poly-based, I can "prune" branches, bend trunks and export my finished tree to use over, or to share with other people; even those using other 3D apps. In Carrara standard I can even add a displacement map on the tree trunks closest to the camera to get true 3D bark. The new wind animation feature is terrific as well, and IMO looks more realistic than Vue Infinite's implementation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming Carrara's new tree lab is the second coming of X-Frog, or even Onyx, but I have been able to get more realistic trees than I could using Bryce's tree lab, and one thing I have been known for in Bryce is my trees and vegetation.

Well, yes, Carrara offers much more options to adjust on the trees, that's what I have to admit. But the tree lab is in some regards worse than Xfrog, which is complicated to high heaven. And in the time I was testing Carrara, I simply couldn't get the final look of the trees better than the preview. The fault may be entirely mine although I seriously took into account that I couldn't wrap myself around the way Carrara works. And I'm talking about Carrara 5 Pro.