After sending a PM the Daz's president, he came back with a reply at Daz3D's Bryce forum. If you haven't already seen it, here is the lates from Dan Farr.

*I am sorry that I didn't post a reply sooner but I do not get my P.M.s from here (technical issues), but someone forwarded me the thread. I was interested hearing some of your concerns, thoughts, etc. and we know that Bryce really has its own unique flavor. Bryce is an important part of the DAZ software line up and one that is loved by many users.

So to address your overall concerns and questions on what is happening with Bryce. As you may imagine, just like many other companies, this year has been a real challenge for DAZ as far as resources go. The first part of the year we were ramping up our development staff to be able to handle our efforts across all of our applications but due to cash flow we needed to focus mainly on DAZ Studio and Carrara 7.0. We have been forced to evaluate our product mix and figure out the best way to manage our efforts going forward. One thing that we have seen is the inefficiency of having to develop the same feature multiple times to have it in every application. We are pushing to have more continuity between the applications and where possible share technology (unified code base is not a near term possibility but only a long-term dream).

We also recognize that work flow between applications is something that we need to find a more consistent way of handling. We have discussed integrating Bryce and Carrara, as some of you had suggested above and with some of the same conclusions around the difficulty of work flow. That is not a show stopper for that approach but definitely a challenging obstacle nonetheless.

So where does that bring us now? We are focused on getting a successful release of Carrara 7.0 to market as soon as we can. With that release, we can more fully address the overall software roadmap possibilities and weight them against the challenges of different courses. We are still investigating all options around Bryce and its future either as a 100% stand alone application or something more closely integrated with another one of our other applications.

Although we currently don't have any news about the next version of Bryce it still is an amazing application. Its features are very robust and accessible. The first part of 2009 we plan to gain a clearer view of the future development for Bryce and be able to share that information with you.

I realize that this email is not good news but I hope that it is not bad news in that we still see a strong future for Bryce and plan to do what we can to provide exciting new features in the years to come. We sincerely appreciate your support, passion and general love for Bryce and look forward incorporating your feedback in future releases.

Sincerely,

Dan

We do still have plans to continue developing Bryce but are uncertain as to whether that will be on its code base or that of one of our other applications. There are some very strong Pros and Cons for either approach and maybe some new options that we haven't considered yet.

Dan*   __________________________

*Although the wheels of development move very slowly they are still moving in a direction that will lead towards better integration between applications and better usage of 3D content and assets.

Dan

Thanks again for your thoughts and understanding of the position we are in. To hear thoughts about other 3D applications and their struggles with their communities reinforces concerns around the 3D software business in general. There was a time when the applications would bring in lots of money for company's that they could reinvest back into future development efforts. As many of you would know, Avid and Autodesk recently announced the pending acquisition of Softimage by Autodesk. At the announced purchase price, it is seems that Avid is likely selling because they were not doing well enough financially with Softimage and Autodesk is buying because they want to reduce competition.

So with this being the case it is all the more important that DAZ a much smaller company many others in this area makes sure that our development efforts hit the mark. We don't have a lot of room for developing and delivering software (or content for that matter) that does not provide the necessary returns on our investments. This why we are taking a very careful approach to defining our software roadmap.

Hexagon also faces some similar challenges as Bryce. We had updated releases on it more recently than Bryce (Hexagon Bridge, etc.) but it is also part of our software roadmap discussions around the best approach for moving it forward. We do feel it is a great product as well and has a lot to offer.

Dan

• As it stands, that is it... no positive info on Bryce 6.5 upgrade.
  I think it'll be another few months before we get anymore news,  but lets hope it's sooner.

In some ways this is good news. They at least intend to do something about Bryce sometime in the future

I guess this means there is a chance of a Carrara/Bryce Hybrid.

I fail to see the point of a Carrara/Bryce joining?  Carrara is already a 'Frankenstein' monster.... I say no to Hybrids.....keep Bryce pure and make it better.

*In some ways this is good news.

No not exactly...  They are just deciding to keep Bryce around.  the possibility it might turn out a hinge as an integral part of other software is still on the back burner...  They also point out that it is costly to keep upgrading one platform and having to make changes to "other Programs" to keep them current...  

"We are pushing to have more continuity between the applications and where possible share technology (unified code base is not a near term possibility but only a long-term dream). ".

Bryce is an "other program"...  That means Bryce will go through many internal changes if they decide to integrate it..  They also want to look forwards to returns for their efforts...  cost will be critical..

Bryce will not be abandon anytime soon so let us pray...
No upgrades soon for back burners......
No updates soon,, except to make it integrable..

That's my take... 

P.S.

It would be nice if in concert with the Bryce render engine we get another engine to play with..  and a much better Import and export functions..

 There has been a run on the bugs list recently, so perhaps an upgrade is to come soon.... 6.5?

The Animating Materials Ticket that I have in the system was looked at recently.

i wish for a faster renderer and also something to enable me to change textures on imports from studio. meaning that when i go back into studio to change a pose on for example v4 the bryce texture doesnt get changed again. little things like that would make bryce much more enjoyable to use.

i remember these concerns when we were at 5 waiting for 6 - my feelings are the same then. I will still be using the Bryce i have, and if they ever do upgrade, and it has features i want then i will invest, if not i'll still be using the tool i like. it may be old, but a pencil still works.

A functioning Holodeck will be available much sooner than a real Bryce improvement...:-)

Quote - A functioning Holodeck will be available much sooner than a real Bryce improvement...:-)

Well to be honest, it would be more interesting to build a scene using holodeck, and being able to physically walk around it.... but since holodeck technology won't be with us for some time yet, i'll wait for Bryce.

I bet they're still documenting Bryce code-base and doing occasional comparison to how things work in their other apps. (There might be some interesting tricks hidden in there, most likely with fractals, terrains, and volumetric materials.) So my guess is that other than money being tight, things are moving faster on the Carrara side because they actually have the developers to work with. (The original Bryce developers have moved on to other stuff, and are likely to not even remember things from the old code.)

Now if they want to do something cool with the UI, perhaps they should look to how Wings 3D carries over the desktop way of mouse interaction into the graphics manipulation workspace. (At least in the default Wings/Mirai camera mode.) Not saying they should completely throw away the older ways of doing things, but it be nice to have another interface and workflow put on the table. (More or less this idea: left click for selection, right click for menus/commands pertinent to the current selections, and middle click/scroll for camera controls. And for more speed in menus, middle and right click are also alternate selectors in some cases.) I find it very fast in regards to workflow, would be nice if more apps had it.

truth be told, they could always make one mega-bryce app with carrara, dazstudio and whatever else has popped up over the past two years i haven't been paying attention.. and that would make much more sense than tending to these many separate apps and trying to integrate them.

As long as they kept the 'Bryce' 3D window interface, i've no problem with that.

Regarding Dan's comment about bringing Bryce together with another app; I have mixed feelings about that.  If they were to add DAZ|Studio abilities into Bryce, I think that would be great!

It's the Bryce/Carrara thing that worries me because I don't see how there would be anything to gain from it, and more to the point, we'd have too much to loose.  The line would become blurred and we'd eventually loose Bryce.

One thing to be thankful for is that they seem to be admitting their mistakes; in short, they bit off more than could chew, so it'll be interesting to see how they go about 'tooling-down' a bit.

If anything, the app that needs to go is Hexagon.  By that, I mean that Hexagon should be merged into Carrara as a 'modeling room' or whatever.  That's one less seperate app' to worry about.

They could go from four to two app's :

Bryce & DAZ|Studio
Carrara & Hexagon

Carrara doesn't need the figure abilities of DAZ|Studio because it already has such things, so simply improve what it has, that being the modeling.  Bryce needs good figure integration, so introduce the companys very own technology, that being DAZ|Studio.

Hopefully, that'll be pretty obvious to DAZ this time around.  Or do we really have to wait until Hexagon goes around shouting 'I LOVE CARRARA' and DAZ|Studio starts waving it nickers at Bryce!

i'd absolutely love to be able to do at least a bit of basic posing and texturing of human or animal models in bryce. i'm not able to afford carrera