I see the 'Export Object' choice on the file menu, but it's always grayed out. Is there a way to export objects from Bryce?

do you have an object selected?

try importing one, and then reexporting it. Perhaps there are only certain types of obejcts that can be exported. Try a 3D tree?

I know the terrains have their own export feature, in numerous formats

Yes, I have an object selected.  Perhaps I'm missing a point somewhere.  I create an "object" from various pimitives grouped together. This is an "object", right?  If not, then how exactly are objects made?   I'm very familiar with imports so I'll try importing and then exporting something. 

Thanks!

by-the-way i'm curious, why would you want to export from Bryce? it's noit much of a modeler, so what's there to export that wasn't outside in some file already?  terrains might be the only exception imho. For making models, I'd recommend Carrara, Nendo, Blender, Amapi etc... and those models will want to be rendered in Bryce, so imported. But what is it you want to export, and to what purpose?

just curious.   I don't use Bryce a whole lot, except occasionally for tutorials and to make tutorials with PD Particles as a companion

The current version of Bryce will only export mesh-based objects, i.e. rocks, terrains, or imported meshes.

Booleans can't be exported in the current version, but can be in Bryce 6.

To export a mesh, you will need to hit the E button, then Ctrl-D to bring up the export menu.  Useful for a quick and dirty translator.

Staigermanus: "..why would you want to export from Bryce? it's noit much of a modeler..'

I'd be careful with statements like that. You could find yourself in a COMFY CHAIR.....

that's ok, I've modeled comfy chairs... in Amapi , they're very comfy LOL

is it much of a modeling tool? hm, maybe I have a misconception of Bryce.

ok, I guess the challenge is out. Make me a comfy chair in Bryce. 

I don't have Carrara, Nendo, or Amapi, but I do have Lightwave. The reason I wanted to export was to do a little modification with a different tool that Bryce can't do, then import it back. I just wanted to avoid starting from scratch in Blender or Lightwave's modeler (which I'm trying to learn anyway). Also, I thought it might be interesting to see what other render engines do with stuff I made in Bryce.  But perhaps most important of all I want to build objects, export them and them import them into either the Create library or just into a scene. That way when I want something I've already made I don't have to save what I'm doing, open the file containing the desired object, copy it, then reopen the scene where I want the object. I can just import it or create it. Does that make sense?

@Mahray: Thanks for the info. I was just trying to save a little time. Perhaps when I get version 6 . . .

You can save anything to the create pallete, so that's one problem out of the way.  As for tweaking in other apps, you're right... wait for B6.

Quote - .....That way when I want something I've already made I don't have to save what I'm doing, open the file containing the desired object, copy it, then reopen the scene where I want the object. I can just import it or create it. Does that make sense?

  . . .

yes, perfectly

I'd like to chime in that I created a terrain in Bryce5 and tried to export it to load into Poser. With the terrain selected, I tried both .obj and .3ds formats, and in both cases I got the error message that basically said "failed to export". Huh? I thought you "could" export terrains? I'm beginning to wonder if that feature was disabled. After all, DAZ has a vested interest in selling their modeling app... whatever that name is... SHade? I forget.

Have you got the ground plane or camera (or anything else) also selected by accident?  Works for me - select the terrain, export it, select options in the terrain export dialogue box, and you're done!

there's a special export option while in the terrain editor, don't try to export it from the main file menu

I have something about that in http://www.thebest3d.com/pdp/tutorials/bryce101/terrains/index.html somewhere

Hmm... also appears to work from the File export menu

Could there be something in the export routine in Bryce that is system or setup dependant? I wouldn't think so, but then I've had apps act strangely when my system had a bug or was not quite right for other reasons.

Quote - staigermanus - Exporting the terrain from within the terrain editor does not work either (see pic). The dialog box says, "An unexpected error has occurred (failed creation)." Mahray - Nothing else is selected, other than the terrain itself.

ok, then that's just something broken on your system, not in Bryce itself. Since it works ok for many others.

You might want to check if you have enough memory, I mean not just Ram, but also virtual memory.  Sometimes after running so man y other things there's so much memory allocated to Ram and in virtual memory that the virtual side saturates and can't accept more. Programs will fail or misbehave when that happens, often with crypting or weird messages, unexpected condition etc.. because developers ususally assume there's enough memory to keep going.

What's your system specs?

I'm using Bryce 5.0. I also installed 5.5 but it fails on missing an entry point in a library. Not sure yet why, or if it's a bad OpenGL driver on my Intel chip's side. I have WIndows XP and 1.5 GB Ram and 4 GB virtual memory, Core Duo Centrino. Some opengl things are iffy and I can usually work around it for other applications, by reducing the level of acceeration in the driver (Desktop Properties/Settings/Advanced....) but not in this case. I may need to re-install 5.5

staigermanus - Wow! You've a beast of a machine! I'm envious.  My poor little box has a 2ghz Celeron with 256m of ram, not much virtual either and Windows XP. I uses B5.5 and/or B5 and both work fine to export from either the file menu or the terrain editor.

Quote - staigermanus - Wow! You've a beast of a machine! I'm envious.  My poor little box has a 2ghz Celeron with 256m of ram, not much virtual either and Windows XP. I uses B5.5 and/or B5 and both work fine to export from either the file menu or the terrain editor.

and it was brand new 2 months ago and like a car depreciates really quickly. It's fast and good alright but I want the Core 2 Duo now and I want an Nvidia chip on it or Ati, something with real opengl T&L. Intel 945 doesn't do that. I heard they're coming out with their own T&L capable opengl chip though.
BestBuy was selling this 'beast' about $1100, now I see better ones below $1000 even as low as $900. The 1.5 GB DDR2 memory is what's significant in price. It added $150 over the 512 MB config.

many systems are offered with 1 GB these days, I still prefer 1.5 or more. And don't keep your Virtual memory at the WIndows recommended level: set it to the Max, in case you ever need it. 4 GB on WInbdows XP I think is the max. 64-bit should be higher.

Don't everybody gang up on me but... I'm using a Macintosh with a head xploding 368mb RAM running at the blistering speed of 450mHz. Virtual memory is set to max at 990MB and running Bryce after a fresh bootup. I suspect that the export feature has been disabled. This was, after all, the free version that DAZ was giving away. staigermanus - "I want the Core 2 Duo now and I want an Nvidia chip on it or Ati, something with real opengl T&L." The new desktop Mac Pros have: TWO duel-core Intel Xeon 5100 processors (the Xeon speaks to the rest of the Mac Pro through dual independant buses that run at 1.3GHz each, with the capability of transfering data at a peak rate of 21GB per second). That's just insane! 1 GB RAM standard (16 max) either a nVidia GeForce 7300GT 256MB -or- ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB OpenGL is built into the operating system (OpenGL drives the MaxOS X display). ports: 2-independant 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet 5-USB 2.0 (2 on front, 3 on back) 4-Firewire (2 on front, 2 on back) these USB and Firewire ports do NOT share bandwidth, they each have their own dedicated controllers. and all the analog and optical audio input and output ports you could expect on a top-end Mac, including a headphone jack. And with Apple's software "Boot Camp", you can boot into Windows and run your PC software. So what are you waiting for?!?!? If I had the money...sigh : (

Elfwine -

Quote - "I suspect that the export feature has been disabled. This was, after all, the free version that DAZ was giving away."

That's the version I tried the test with first and it worked just fine.

Quote - Don't everybody gang up on me but... I'm using a Macintosh with a head xploding 368mb RAM running at the blistering speed of 450mHz. Virtual memory is set to max at 990MB and running Bryce after a fresh bootup. I suspect that the export feature has been disabled. This was, after all, the free version that DAZ was giving away. staigermanus - "I want the Core 2 Duo now and I want an Nvidia chip on it or Ati, something with real opengl T&L." The new desktop Mac Pros have: TWO duel-core Intel Xeon 5100 processors (the Xeon speaks to the rest of the Mac Pro through dual independant buses that run at 1.3GHz each, with the capability of transfering data at a peak rate of 21GB per second). That's just insane! 1 GB RAM standard (16 max) either a nVidia GeForce 7300GT 256MB -or- ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB OpenGL is built into the operating system (OpenGL drives the MaxOS X display). ports: 2-independant 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet 5-USB 2.0 (2 on front, 3 on back) 4-Firewire (2 on front, 2 on back) these USB and Firewire ports do NOT share bandwidth, they each have their own dedicated controllers. and all the analog and optical audio input and output ports you could expect on a top-end Mac, including a headphone jack. And with Apple's software "Boot Camp", you can boot into Windows and run your PC software. So what are you waiting for?!?!? If I had the money...sigh : (

yeah, the problem is just that, too expensive.

I'm scheduled to do some test runs on a DualCore MacIntel shortly, not in bootcamp reboot mode, but with virtualization software such as crossover or in this case Parallels (www.parallels.com) which should let me run something like win98 or winXP in its own window while MacOS is running. Also Linux and Dos are possible. Essentially once it's an Intel or similar, various OS'es can co-exist. Sweet. Parallels costs $79, plus add the windows CD but if you've got it already you're all set. I want to find out how well Project Dogwaffle's PD Particles and PD Artist or PD Pro will run under Parallels. Evidently it's great under bootcamp reboot, but many may not want to reboot. It's better if you can run both at the same time, like in VirtualPC, and pass images created in Windows over to the Mac desktop and send it into Photoshop or Brycve or whatever on the MacOS side.

Svarg - Huh... (scratches head) i dunno what to make of this now. It 'should' work if its working on your free version... i'm dumbfounded... not sure even what to try next. maybe if i pound on it...

staigermanus - i know it'll be OT, but let us all know how your experiences with the new Mac Pro tower goes; your thoughts, likes/dislikes, etc. O.K.?

Quote - staigermanus - i know it'll be OT, but let us all know how your experiences with the new Mac Pro tower goes; your thoughts, likes/dislikes, etc. O.K.?

you bet, I will. And for those who haven't seen it, PD Particles is at www.thebest3d.com/pdp and I have some Bryce related tutorials there too.

I did run an earlier version of Project Dogwaffle on a Mac a while ago with Virtual PC, but that was a G3 ibook or something alike, essentially way too slow, in terms of clockspeed and FSB, and the ram speed. It's probably still not the best solution to run Virtual PC on such machines nowaways, but on high end systems, desktops with top memory speeds and bandwidth, I'd expect it to work at least usably fast.

I have heard that Parallels is much better for performance, and that it's been called 'what Virtual PC was meant to be '

Then again, in the last few years there have been tremendous speed improvements with CPUs, memory, front system bus bandwidth etc... so that's also a big factor. Anyone coming out with a new solution now has the benefit of better systems overall.

Elfwine -  If it's any consolation, the exports lose a lot in the process, especially the texture as you can see in the picture. Ok, it's a bit small to tell much but I promise it does. There is still the possibility that something in your system can be adjusted (not with a hammer) to get it to work.  I'd still like to export boolean objects but I guess that means waiting for ver. 6. Actually, I'd like to export whole scenes to try rendering them with various engines, but that's a whole different story.

Be advised tho, these Bryce exports are polygon heavy and although you might be able to squeeze good effects from a polygon cruncher plugin they are best exported from Bryce when you simply don’t have the time to model your own.

very good example - I was hoping to see examples like this when I first popped the question, why export from Bryce. I do like the multi-tool philosophy, meaning that you want to have an arsenal of various tools, each fit for their perfect job. There is somuch more to a terrain modeler than making terrains.

"Seek and ye shall find" actually works!  The very same problem (where the 'Export object...' option is always greyed-out) has been bugging me for ages, so I finally got around to finding out why... and Svarg had already just asked the same question! 

I think that option is very poorly named - I tried everything to select an object, but nothing worked of course. However, all I wanted to do was re-use an object I'd created in another scene, so I followed  Mahray's idea of just saving out the object into the  create palette - perfect!! That was just what I was after! Many, many thanks !!

(ps this is my first post  to Renderosity!) :)

My experience in the software development field tells me that probably the designers (or sales team) planned to include the feature but the progammers couldn't get it finished by the release date. They doubtless had it all done a week later :^) I'm glad to hear it will be in version 6.

Ok, out of curiosity . . .  I've downloaded models in obp files. Since you can't export from Bryce, are there modellers that do handle this format?