Hate to sound like a newbie forum lurker, but I actually don't have the time to read through 10+ pages of forum posts over at DAZ...

Has someone found a way to convert a Bryce shader into a Studio shader?
http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/shadershop-for-daz?item=8632&_m=d&trid=404316036

I mean, it states this;
the "actual" texture engine has been extracted from Bryce and made available to the shaders included in these packs.

Anyone know the bottom line?

AS

I really wish it was the other way around and from Poser to DAZ... There are some incredible procedural textures that Poser is capable of creating and it just won't go into DAZ. They really ought to look into that.

 sounds like they used the brycean code for creating bryce procedural textures, and applied it to DAZ studio to be used as textures in Studio Materials.

For a little bit more in-depth explaination i'd like to first define a few terms that are easily mixed up:

• textures are what gives a material its colors or bumps etc. (like drawing a diffusion map, bump map, specular map, etc. in photohop, or in DTE)

• shaders are what define the way a material interacts with light. (how does it react to light hitting it at differnt angles, intensities, indirect light, color bleed, falloff, diffusion, refraction, subsurface scattering, reflection etc.)

• materials are the combination of shaders and textures that makes an object look the way it does once rendered.

So what DAZ seems to have done here is take the bryce Texture Engine to create textures, that can be applied to the shader(s) used in Daz Studio.

In Bryce we dont have a rich choise of shaders compared to most apps on the market today.
The only shaders bryce has are the default one (i forgot its name), "blend transparecy", "fuzzy" and  "volumetric", which can then also still receive an  "additive" property (which is probably an on/off switch built into each of those shaders).

So it doesnt really sound like they converted the bryce shaders, nor bryce materials. They just use the texture engine.

I can't tell, from reading through the thread at DAZ (including the 5 1/2 pages of Poser vs. D|S arguments :lol: ) whether you can actually use the DTE in D|S.
I posted a question there, we'll see what the merchant (or somebody else) has to say.

Yes, they have.  I got a Daz newsletter to that effect yesterday.  They are offering a way to import the Bryce shader technology into Studio.  They say it isn't just a simulator but is the real deal

Quote from Daz site:

Finally, the power of the Bryce texture engine can be realized in DAZ Studio! The Bryce Shader Packs collection contains all of the procedural texture and material presets that are included with the Bryce product. They are provided as easy-to-use DAZ Studio shaders that can be applied to any of your favorite objects, old and new. When your scene is rendered using the 3Delight renderer, the rich, complex materials and textures that made Bryce famous will automatically be right there in your DAZ Studio rendered images. This is NOT an approximation or simulation of the Bryce texture engine, but the "actual" texture engine has been extracted from Bryce and made available to the shaders included in these packs. Don’t miss out! Experience the power of Bryce materials and textures in DAZ Studio today.

Willie? I'm stunnned!

** THE DREAM IS OVER***

Well this says a lot for the direction they'll be taking our revered Bryce...taking as in 'taking apart', and once they have all the parts out they'll insert the relevant ones into DAZStudio and F**K Bryce...this saddens me no end.. ...

Sad to say,  but it appears to me like they are taking the features they consider usable from Bryce and applying those processes to enhance the products they consider more sellable, (profitable), while foregoing making any efforts at improving the capabilities to Bryce so that its user base can enjoy an improved program as well as the customers of their other products. 

 just because they re-use code amongst different applications doesnt mean they scrap them...

Quote -  just because they re-use code amongst different applications doesnt mean they scrap them...

Am I to understand you know of an update to Bryce6.1 comparable to the DAZ one that no one else has heard of?...slippery slope this is.. ...

i dont know anything about DAZ, i just know from a developers point of view it makes a lot of sense to build your code in such a way that it can easily be used and re-used for multiple applications.

What would be the use of building a new procedural texture engine for DAZ studio if they already have one laying around in the bryce code? 

In fact, if multiple programs use partly the same code base, updating that part will benefit both applications.

There are many practical applications for sharing code amongst different pieces of software.

For instance:
Google Chrome, and Apple's Safari webbrowsers both use the same "webkit" html rendering engine.
When the webkit development team creates updates, and google and safari integrate the new version of the webkit engine in their browser, both browsers gain the same improvements.

I apply this same strategy as well in my own day job. For example, I make use of the same pdf engine in multiple pieces software.
And just last week i was able to build a front end for a client of a client of mine to safely represent them part of the information in my clients intranet to their client, in one afternoon. Purely by salvaging and re-using part of the intranet code.

It could well mean that DAZ is trying to channel their resources. They did say they were short of developers, so it makes sense that they try to salvage the most useful parts of their different softwares, and apply them as efficiently as possible across their product line.

**Question:
**dvlenk6 wrote: So, can you actually use the Bryce DTE in D|S to make your own procedural textures?
I read through the thread; but wasn't able to determine if that is the case or not.

Answer:
EilirWorks wrote: Right now, the DTE is used to render shaders that have been converted from Bryce material presets. So, it is somewhat "canned" at the moment.

HOWEVER, though you can't create a new material using the DTE from scratch, you can edit the shaders in these packs and come up with unique results.

We hope to improve customizatability (new word) in the future...

Dear bobbystahr, the day I saw the Carrara 3D Express in DAZ e-shop I understood that Bryce was at the end of the road (and that I had just recently wasted some bucks on buying Bryce 6.1).

Now DAZ strategy is clear: Carrara for large scences like panoramas and Studio for more restricted ones or internal renders; interoperation between Carrara and Studio for fuzzy in-between cases.

A VERY distrubing trend is emerging: just a few weeks after E-On raised significantly Vue price, DAZ releases a bunch of shaders (which are nothing more than a part of Bryce program) for a price HIGHER than getting the whole Bryce 6.1. There is a thread on DAZ forums of people who are adding up their investments in DAZ plugins and reach easily the 500$ mark! I am starting to think that the time of economical 3D apps is ending (even without buyouts from AutoBorg a.k.a. AutoDesk).

Hmm, maybe it's time to dust off POV-Ray...

Bye!!!

P.S.: what did the Chinese say about "interesting times"?

Doom and gloom! As Rayraz rightly points out commercially, bryce is going to struggle.
 
I have bryce on my laptop (we all do) and no one is ever going to take it away from me.
    Is not the point here that we carry on doing what we are doing regardless of the development of B7 or B8. There is much talent here lets make the most of it.

 This doesnt need to mean doom and gloom per se...

Just as bryce's procedural texture engine can enrich the other applications of DAZ, technologies in carrara or DAZ Studio could be ported to bryce.

Those are valid points from Rayaz and airflamesred, but from all indications, DAZ doesn't appear to show any noticeable effort being made at improving Bryce at all, much less using the same zeal that they do with their other products.

Since they own Bryce, that's their right and they may have valid reasons for foot dragging any updates to the program, but while they seem to be vigorously upgrading or generously improving their other products for their customer base, Bryce is left languishing and Bryce's user base gets only stalls and frustration from our inquiries about any upgrades to our beloved program! 

I may be completely off base about the priorities of DAZ, but it certainly would be nice to hear something encouraging from DAZ as to whether they are actively upgrading Bryce or not, and about some sort of time frame until a release if they are. 

Bryster said, Willie? I'm stunnned!

What!!!!   sir Cardinal?    Daz owns Bryce.  So I'm still clean, right.   I promise, I didn't inhale.

@rstar, there has been word from inside DAZ that there is indeed a group of people inside the DAZ crew that are passionate about bryce development. However at the same time, they had a shortage of developers.

DAZ has spent time buying a lot of different software applications, this costs a lot of money. Also DAZ's income thrives because of the low prices on their product line, which makes for many sales. but less profit per sale. Or in the case of "hexagon for $2" or "bryce 5.5 for $5" probably no profit at all.

Now imagine you have this group of applications aquired. They're from different manufacturers, so they all have a different code base. They're sometimes really old code, so they're not as clean and object oriented as some of todays code. And none of your developers have seen the code before in their life. Thats a development teams nightmare situation! They have to work through all this foreign code, try to understand it, fix bugs in it, optimize it, etc. and then they have to try and make new features.

Due to the relatively small size of DAZ they had to hire external developers on the bryce project, they've said this themselves on a previous occation. That means that all the knowledge aquired by developers familiarizing themselves with the old code, as well as the new probably largely re-built or re-structured code won't remain in-house. When DAZ has to let go of these external developers again, their knowledge and expertise is no longer available to the DAZ team (obviously).

All this to me looks not like a lack of passion, rather then an overdose of optimism, or perhaps a lack of long-term planning.

Either way, wether you are a large company with many developers or not... It would always be good to sooner or later try to make the aquired technology easily available to all projects in your product line. It takes time, it takes effort, but once its done, it means you can do more, with less developers. And with most the code in cararra and bryce being a bit old, and needing revision, why not hit 2 birds with 1 stone? I think that's what DAZ is doing now.

Wether or not that will be good or bad for Bryce is only something time will tell... The changes taking place are something DAZ simply needs to do to be able to keep momentum with their development. However, if they dont have a clear plan, things like this can also become a death trap. Most important thing is that DAZ will make a good plan, and thinks well about what they want to achieve.

Rayraz
A very reasoned argument. I'll cool my jets and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hopefully someone at DAZ will see our plight and come forward with a bit of encouraging news about any progress for us Brycers!

 Well I won't rain on yer parade Rayraz, and indeed hope your optimisim re: Bryce is not unfounded, but as some one whose first 3D love,Imagine3D, bit the dust from a lot of the same reasons I can certainly see the parallels with Bryce....I do hope I am wrong.. ...

Even if there wont be a bryce 7, I guess whats most promising is that they tackled the DTE... as Doc Mojo told back in the Mojoworld glory days, the DTE was one of the most special parts of Bryce, but also a confusing part. In many cases, mathematically it didnt make complete sense. The fact that DAZ took the effort to make something useful out of that is a sign that at least some of the things we love about bryce wont end up lost forever just yet.

Quote - The fact that DAZ took the effort to make something useful out of that is a sign that at least some of the things we love about bryce wont end up lost forever just yet.

Indeed.. ...

I am wondering if I can use the textures I have created in Bryce? Kinda vague about that or what it means to Bryce.

Some folks would probably hate me for this, but I actually wouldn't mind if Bryce's way of doing volumetric mats or terrains somehow showed up in Carrara. Those two things seem to be stuff only Bryce can do as of now.

Of course if Daz wanted to reciprocate, I think the timeline features from Carrara showing up in a limited way in Bryce would be an improvement. Comparatively, Bryce's animation capability is pretty weak.

I hate to say this Smithy, but I think this could be the beginning of the end for our beloved Bryce.

I'll admit it would be nice to have Bryce features in DAZ|Studio.  The problem is though, the more they do this, the less unique Bryce will be.  Before you know it they'll have stripped Bryce to the bone, a shell no longer required.

It really angers me, but what's the point, there's nothing can be done about it.

I hate to say this Smithy, but I think this could be the beginning of the end for our beloved Bryce.

Heresy, sedition!

Look on the bright side.
SOWs may become more popular than NVIATWAS renders.