What's LAME is that Bryce (I'm using Bryce5) has such amazing features such as volume lighting and volume world, but to use them you have to wait weeks for renders. And another thing that blows is that I can't turn my computer off or save the Bryce file, close Bryce, open the file and resume rendering cause the spotlight will mysteriously have a gel, thus ruining the render. I of course could put a spotlight in in postwork, but I hate postwork and really suck at it, I like to have a render be the complete project minus postwork enhancement and jpeg conversion. Anyway, I'm curious what the longest Bryce render has been...My longest before this one was about 5 days. Thanks for letting me vent!

The image is of the scaled-down render so far.

Doug

I think it's be well worth the wait.

Bryce render can be slow, but then it depends on the processor/s, specially if you are using soft shadows, depth of field etc. Generally, a render is a bit like a box of chocolates......... i have waited an eternity for a render only to stop it and change my approach..... like, did I really need to use soft shadows here?
Still, I would keep it going if you are happy with it.
You could also try rendering a portion at a time, i've used this technique myself.
Anyway, good luck with the render, will look forward to viewing.

i have to agree with you there - the best effects do seriously slow the system - but i also have to say you have a mind blowing image coming out there, and i cant wait to see the final.

If you want you can send me the scene, i'll try and see what i can optimize for you settings-wise. Plus i got a quad-core system, if its faster then yours it might slash the rendertime a bit?

By the way, you can also use the lens blur filter in photoshop, in combination with a depth mask, to manage your DOF.
Did you have TA on in this picture?

Another option could be to render the image in 2 passes. One where your objects render with TA and the light has no volume.
And another one where your objects are black, TA-less, and you can render the volume light with that, so you get a seperate layer with just the volume light.
Then you can combine the two in photoshop, which even allows for some tweakings of the overall look of the volume light, without needing to re-render.

--
Ray

Have you tried increasing the priority of Bryce task a little?

If you have an anti-virus that is bloatware and uses CPU cycles constantly while eating your RAM, consider switching to NOD32. (if you're on a PC)

and then of course see if you can get even more RAM stuffed into that puter.

If all fails, try Carrara. Much faster renderer. There's entry level versions like Carrara 3D Basics or 3D Express for small budgets. And Purplus has them too. http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara/resources.html
  can give you some ideas also about what's possible. Carrara has gone a long way with stuff like Mountains, plants, skies...

Oh, and this kind of volumetric shadows, easy. EVen a 2D post tool like Dogwaffle could help there.

What's the dimensions in pixels of your render?

-Philip

I know what you mean about Bryce 5 as I am using the same version. I have had the same trouble with spotlights that seem to become overly attached to gels and keep turning them on even after I turn them off, save the file, close it and reopen it again later....viola the spotlight has the same gel turned back on again. The only solution I have found is to delete the troublesome spotlight and replace it with another one with the same setting (minus the gel of course). My longest render to date was one that took a full week to complete (169 hours over a 2 week period). I would let it render during the day and when I got home, stop the render save the file and close Bryce. In most cases, Bryce will save the render at the spot it was stopped and then resume the render from there when you hit the resume render button the next time you open that file. Caution though....as Bryce doen't always work the way you want it to in this circumstance as I have experienced Bryce not saving the render at the spot I stopped it, but starting the render process from the beginning, even though I hit the resume render button.

Well... If you go to download.com you can get a copy of Bryce 5.5 free.
http://www.download.com/Bryce/3000-6677_4-10696716.html?tag=lst-1
This is a 122Mb download so you have to have a fast connection.

For me it was only about 10-20% faster than 5.0. It does handle multitasking in windows so you can use your other programs while it is running. Not a great improvement...but it's something.

awesome render....   Bryce can be slow.... 

Nice render!
I usually end up using plop render to final render smaller parts of the image at a time so my machine only has to make the calculations for that part of the image instead of the machine taking the whole image into its calculations and eases some of the frustration of having my computer tied up for such lengthy time periods That way you can save its progress more often and it comes back in at the same point of final render every time.

I love Bryce but its one major shortcoming is the render engine. I really don't see why Bryce has such great potential built in but is held back because its rendering engine isn't optimized to handle the task efficiently. What's the point?
If there is going to be a V7 of Bryce, I hope the rendering engine is THE most improved part of the new version. I would also like to have an irregular plop render capability instead of just a variation of a square version...that would save a lot of useless rendering of non-essential parts of the image everytime just to get the part rendered that you want rendered!

Quote -   I would also like to have an irregular plop render capability instead of just a variation of a square version...that would save a lot of useless rendering of non-essential parts of the image everytime just to get the part rendered that you want rendered!

Oh yes!!!!  I certainly second that motion - in spades!

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but Bryce renders slow because it is more of a Ray-Tracer type render engine??

That's right, Bryce raytraces everything; even things that don't ever need to be raytraced. Wastes a lot of compute cycles. It really needs a scanline renderer to handle that stuff.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm using Windows Vista and I'm not sure how many things I've got running in the background, I'm quite computer illiterate especially with Visa. Without the soft shadows and shadow ambience the rays looked too harsh and kind of cheesy IMO. Thanks Rayraz for the offer to render it for me, but I'm good...sounds like I need your system. I never did buy Bryce6 since I heard it isn't much faster than 5, if at all. Maybe  a Bryce7? I should just switch to a Carrera or C4D or something, I dunno. 

IMHO Bryce 6.1 is Significantly faster than 5 and moderatly faster then 5.5 and somewhat faster than 6.0, plus it has HDRI support and really does some incredible work with it!!!

Anyone who is planning on using Vista  should have at least 2 GigaBytes of Ram and if you plan to use any kind of software like Photoshop or Rendering you should have an additional 1 or 2 more GigaBytes of Ram.

It's a beautiful image and I can't wait to see it done.  Maybe try render to disk, as that is a little faster, but probably will still take several days.

My longest continuous render was 3 weeks.

Bryce 6.1 is faster.

But, use a render farm. Mine is 12 computers, each dual cores, (ASUS MB, AMD 6000 X2, 2 to 4 gigs DDR2, 320 gigs HD each).

 Windows is terribly slow to render Bryce, and after 3 days and your render is nearing completion...CRASH! Switched to Mac 2 years ago and problem solved. While still slow to render, you have no fear of tying up your processor and then something decides to run in the background and everything you have worked so hard on is gone. As Death_at_Midnight suggested, try rendering to disk.

Using atmospheric settings or volumetric materials? Yeah, it's slow like that.

Bryce Rendering Slow is a feature by the  programmers... you see this gives you the oppertunity to walk away from the computer, and get other work done around the house.. like finally getting that Garage Door Painted... or install a sprinkler system... what about cleaning the windows... or get all that laundry done?? ;)

I stopped the render lol...seemed to be getting slower and slower. I did a few test renders using Depth Of Field at 4 and then 16 Rays Per Pixel and it rendered quite fast in comparison. So I just started the new render, DOF and 256 RPP. We'll see how long this takes. My guess is it will take about a week...hopefully not much longer!

Quote - Ugh...I've been waiting on a render now for a week and a half, and its not even done with the second to last pass.

You should have used Carrara Pro 5.1 which is free now.  Much faster at rendering.

 You have piqued my interest, Shonner. Is there a link for Carrara Pro 5.1? I don't seem to be able to locate it on the Daz site.

@Shonner Me too! You also piqued my interest. Please post the link.

Thanks!

I dont think  you can download Carrara 5 Pro for free...  It still shows for $559 on Daz's Site.

http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=4203&cat=331&_m=d

The only way you can get a free copy is to find a copy of 3D World Magazine Issue #100.

It was in 3D World Mag issue #100 on DVD a month ago.  You'll have to order a back issue copy from 3D World magazine if you can't find one in the bookstores.

Go to www.daz3d.com/c5pfree to get a serial number.

The thing that really speads up B6 is the multi-processor support!

The pig-headed-gel bug has been fixed in 5.5; at least I didn't have any problems since I've upgraded.

I used to get around this by simply leaving the stupid gel, one that was as invisible as possible, like transparency at 100%, everything else at zero, no textures.

Found one thing that Bryce can do that Carrara can't. Animate terrain deformation. So for animating hills/mountains that grow or erode over time, Bryce has a small edge there. (Might be able to do something to a smaller degree with an animated material displacement, but I'm not sure it'd be close to the same degree that a terrain would displace.)

"*Found one thing that Bryce can do that Carrara can't. Animate terrain deformation. So for animating hills/mountains that grow or erode over time, Bryce has a small edge there. (Might be able to do something to a smaller degree with an animated material displacement, but I'm not sure it'd be close to the same degree that a terrain would displace.)"

*I noticed that right off, since I've used  terrain animation a lot in Bryce. I've made a lot of Grayscale animations in Bryce to import into Carrara to use as an animated displacement map. Works great, and since it's grayscale a 5 second, 30 fps clip will render in about 5-6 minutes!  I've made roaring rivers, mudslides, and lava flows in Carrara thanks to Bryce's ability to animate terrains.

P.S.- I'm looking forward to seeing Severed's finished render.