So, I think like 2 MONTHS ago was when I last posted here? (something like that)

Well, my PC literally burned up and what took so long for me to get back is just my work and bad luck.

Work keeps me going 12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, so not much time to reconstruct a new PC.

And...every new replacement part I had ordered turned out to be lemons (DOA)

So, it took a heckuva long time, but I'm back to being able to at least have the ability to lurk around, lol.

How's everyone?
Is Bryce 8 out yet? (can you smell the sarcasm there?)

AgentSmith

Fine here... Sorry to hear bout the troubles...but we all have em eventually...Happy to see yer at least semi-cyber...no it's not...LOL... but they have promised some bug fixes from DAZ last anyone heard...think it was last week.. ...

Bryce...I'll say the same thing I said to the DAZ staff last August at Siggraph...give us an SDK.

If (right now) they cannot provide a good amount of time & money to upgrade Bryce, then spend a little time & money to insure you keep your Bryce user base around.

Creating a Bryce SDK would be the one, single move that would provide the most amount of user base interaction for the longest amount of time. It's spending money in the right direction, imo.

AS

Man, you have the worst luck with computers ! ! !

Good to hear from you ! !

. . . and my cat  Katrina says, "Arr-arr-arrarrouw" - whatever that means.

I probably have messed with (tweak) my computers FAR too much. I would bet that is the cause of my usual problems, always trying to get the most out of them. I don't ever over-clock or anything, but this time around, everything works, so I'm not touching anything.

AS

Nice to see you around again.....

Good to be seen. I gotta three day weekend before principal photography begins at my work, so I'm trying to catch up on everything. (including some sleep)

Btw, I gotta say, I made a switch from Gigabyte motherboards to Asus, and I LOVE them. Gigabyte Mobo's have always been good to me over the years, but mine siezed on me, and the next one I bought was also broken, so in desperation, I switched to Asus. So far, its perfect!

AS

Oooh nasty AS!  Glad you finally got things sorted out.

The news on Bryce is that Bryce Version 907 is caught in a time loop.....

Maybe the bug fix will be good news but I ain't counting on it...

good to see you out here again.. despite your pc nitemares..
btw..ignorant me..what's an sdk??

Wot Rosie said.

Last I knew, it was a "Software Development Kit". SDK-Wiki

How this is attached to Bryce would interesting to know.

Glad we have our AgentSmith Industry guy lurking around now!! WhooHoo LOL

AgentSmith, nice to see you about again. Sounds like you’ve been busy. Sorry to hear about your PC problems. Not that I would miss em but life wouldn’t be the same without them. Totally agree with your SDK assessment. This would mean that individuals with the know-how could develop Bryce add-ons and plugins and share with the community either commercially or as freebies. Welcome home AS!

Well, that has to go in the 'repair hall of fame' next to  (these I've actually seen)

A mouse (live) that took up residence inside a PC, and used it for a personal bathroom...
A portable that was rolled in a tool truck, directly across from the sledgehammer display
a 386 that was put in the wrong way (puff of smoke, lost mobo, but that's as close as I get...;)

Glad to see you back. There's a video floating around somewhere of an overworked 3d developer, wish I could remember where (it was in a forum...but don't remember which one...;)

Unfortunately, creating the SDK is not a quick walk in the park. DAZ would have to put some people behind it to develop it. Yet, its the most potentially powerful upgrade they could give Bryce.

As stated, a SDK would open a doorway at least, for further development by the USERS. Something Bryce has needed for the last decade, imo. If we would have had this 10 years ago, we and Bryce would be in a radically different place right now.

AS

Quote - but this time around, everything works, so I'm not touching anything.

AS

Famous  last words?  lol
Welcome back...

I haven't used Asus since the "incident"    dum de dum dum...

Did it just die, or smoke came from the vents?  Last I remember you had the overheating licked.

But, glad you're back in business.

Bad luck on the board Smithy, but wise choice on the ASUS I think

I agree with the Asus statement, they are great boards. Anytime there is a PC build at work, the IT Department uses Asus boards. (otherwise its HP workstations all the way).

I'll still back Gigabyte boards though. They served me very well for many years. This was just some bad luck.

Did it just die, or smoke came from the vents?  Last I remember you had the overheating licked.

• What happened was that my Gigabyte board was a micro ATX with onboard video. At the time I was on the fence with what video card to go with so I went with that particualr board to get me by until I decided.

The onboard video (chip) was ATI and I started having BSOD's with the cause being the ATI chip. It got more and more frequent until one day....everything froze...it eventually went all BSOD...but what I didn't know was it had also seized my CPU fan...and within 30 seconds I could literally smell burning electronics filling the air. I leaped for the switch on my power supply, but it was all far, far too late.

Motherboard was dead, CPU was dead. I'm in the process of RMA-ing them both (fingers crossed I get both replaced)

But, yeah, I did and still do have the Quad CPU heat problem licked. I had bought a more modern thermal paste and replaced the stock CPU fan with a giant but quiet Zalman. Makes a massive difference.

Now I have an Asus M3N78 Mobo with a very nicely powered Geforce GTX 260 video card.  ;o)

AS

Zalman/Asus all the way for me!  I've got nickel-plated Zalman GPU and CPU fans, on an Asus P5 Pro main board with a 2.66 Quad Core Penyium and 8Gb of Geil Black Dragon RAM, the ones with the red LEDs which are SO cool, and obviously vital to machine running, in the same way that Led Zeppelin and the Cramps on the stereo are vital to my car working.....built it last July, and haven't had a single problem so far.  I run Vista 64-bit on it, which is rock solid, but a real memory hog.  When I had my heart-attack last year, building, tweaking and fiddling with this was great therapy.  I know I would NEVER buy a ready-made PC again.

I really got the computer-building bug a while back, despite not knowing the first thing about it; the machine on the left of the monitor is the first one I built, not really knowing much about the whole thing; a dual-core 2.66Ghz with 2Gb of memory...for some bizarre reason, it kept crashing Vue, and when it does, it then refuses to run Poser, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro or Zbrush, but would still run Bryce. Weird.  I've still got it, in stripped-down form, but need a Pentium 4 3.4 to make it live again.

Pagan (l) and Suki (r) under the desk!

Attached Link: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/03/undressing_the.php

HP z800 workstation can be disassembled with ease. 

for some bizarre reason, it kept crashing Vue, and when it does, it then refuses to run Poser, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro or Zbrush, but would still run Bryce

• That's because your PC is infected with the virus created by DAZ, "Meta-Flicker".

Btw, that image didn't show up for me, on either firefox nor i.e.

Love that HP...yeah, I won't build on a micro ATX board next time, its fine, but its all an annoyingly  tight fit.

Hey AS, what happened to that photo of you with the long hair?

as to an sdk. It depends on what you wanna do - a lot of functions can be done from Windows itself. the references I used to get some functions to work through a "C" program are "Advanced Windows" - Jeffery Richter  and "Programming windows 95" Charles Petzold. Both are ancient and from MSPress and unless I've missed my guess out of print. 
An example of a successful app that I would guess is based on this is the old "Suzanna"(sp) Program. I played around with some "C" functions that worked with Bryce a couple of years ago but I realized I'd be stepping on a few toes if I got it up and running so I stopped playing with it.
 

I don't know where the pic went to. Seemed they changed around the format on that page. I needed to update it anyway.  ;o)

AS

ROFLMAO....oh, so, so wrong, lol.

lol - I'd always suspected Smithy's hair might be a wig :biggrin:

Nah, not even its the head that's fake.

AS

I wouldn't worry about the wig. It's the side-arm I'm worried about.

What the ? ? ? ! ! ! ! 

LOL, if Quest is going out dressed that way, he better take a gun.

I'm sure the gun is very nice but I wanted the real AS... sniff.  :m_bawling: