I've seen lots of gallery images, created with Poser but rendered in Bryce. And recently some MP items for floor tiles showing renders in different programs.

I've grown curious about using Bryce to render with. I have several questions.

1. Is the program interface difficult to learn?

2. Can all things in a Poser scene be imported into Bryce for rendering?

3. I  don't have the attention span to work with things that are tedious and time consuming. So can someone post the steps involved in importing a Poser Scene into Bryce so I can see how difficult it is? 

I'm sure I have other questions. But those will do for now.

They may have improved it but you used to have to export the scene as an obj file, then collect all the image maps into the same folder as the obj. Then you import into Bryce. The poser node based materials dont work in bryce.

As i said that was a few years ago and the later bryce versions may have been improved.

I believe there is a base version of Vue that offers Poser import and rendering that might be easier than Bryce.

Despite the fact that I made the effort to learn Blender - that was a one-off - I'm really not all that patient at learning completely arcane interfaces. Bryce is one such interface. I can't speak for materials - pretty sure they are different to DS's and probably different to Poser's - but I think Bryce does support some render goodies. Here's from the Wiki:

In June 2007, DAZ re-released Bryce 5.5 as a freeware.

In Summer 2009, DAZ released version 3 of DAZ Studio. This version seems to break Bryce 6.1.

In December 2009, DAZ release Bryce 6.3 which improves stability, and adds support for Mac OS X v10.6.

Bryce 7 released in July 2010. New features include the Instancing Lab and advanced lighting. Updated features include the DAZ Studio Bridge, the Sky Lab, clouds and HDRI. Bryce 7 is available in 3 versions, a limited free version, a standard version lacking the new features and a pro version with the new features.

used to do it back in the day,(Bryce 5 with Poser 4), but the only awkward thing was that you couldn't change the pose once it was in Bryce. Getting the textures over was a pain, but there was a freeware program called Grouper that did this.

It's easier to do the backgrounds in Bryce, render, then import into Poser, at least for me...

 

You know its a shame the VUE now makes you $$pay$$ for poser file import  when it used to be standard in all versions Although I have long since abandoned VUE for VRay & Maxwell I still keep my old copy of vue 6 "easel" installed just for fun.

BTW IMHO Bryce is a necrotic Zombie like the U.S. banking system
its on Full life Support.

Cheers

I know by reputation that Bryce used to be considered pretty slow to render but that was some time ago - don't know about the current versions. Vue is 'probably' a better bet in terms of integration with Poser. OTOH, I believe that there if fairly good integration between DS and Bryce so it's possible to get the content over there even if you had to use DS as an intermediary.

Since there's a free version,  and someone just posted about a 6.x version on a magazine CD, it would be relatively easy to just try it and see. I used 5.5 for only a few hours before getting Vue so I can't really say more than that. If you haven't already, try asking in the Bryce and/or DS forums or of course at Daz.

If the free version of Vue will import .obj files, that's an option as well for static figures and Vue is an incredible program  Either way, a dedicated landscape program opens up new worlds - pun unintended - if you like to do outdoor scenes.

I render in Bryce nearly all the time.  As far as re-applying the materials goes, I do it once and then save the texture (including specularity, bump, transparency, etc.) as a material in my Bryce material library.  Then next time I import a figure and I want to use that texture all I have to do is select the body or body parts and apply the saved texture with one click.  I have libraries for body textures, head textures, eyes, hair, and various other materials I made.

If you're comfortable with using a kind of abstract interface then you'll enjoy Bryce. I've tried Vue several times and ran screaming from it every time.  All those tiny little icons...if I wanted an interface full of little Mayan glyphs I would have asked for one.  Bryce's interface is elegant and simple IF that's how you're wired.  Don't look for a control that says "Translate Y+".  Look for an arrow pointing up.  I can definitely see how some people would feel more comfortable with Vue's presentation of data and controls.  Like many things (PC vs. Mac, chocolate vs. vanilla, dogs vs. cats) one is not better than the other, just more appropriate for particular users.  It's no wonder Bryce is appropriate for me.  In my place of work, for security purposes, all our controls are symbolic or geometric.  There's not a word or a number anywhere.

I like Bryce's lighting and material editor much more than Poser's.  You know how many people say Poser art looks awful?  That's because so many Poser users don't bother to learn the details and just render and present staring mannequins with shiny skin to the world, and that's what the world thinks Poser does.  It's somewhat the same way for Bryce.  I hear people say all the time that "Bryce won't do this," or "Bryce can't do that" and I laugh because I do those things all the time.  You can do almost anything with an imported Poser figure except for a few things, among them: subsurface scattering and dynamic hair.  Perfect your pose before you export it though.  Otherwise you'll have to re-pose in Poser, re-export, and import again, which isn't that big a deal in my opinion, especially when you have all the textures saved in your Bryce libraries.

You know, ManOfSteel, how you feel about Bryce is exactly how I feel about Blender. It all makes perfect sense to me... it's the paradigm of logic. I can work quickly and efficiently. And find myself puzzled by those that actually bag the interface.

I am certain that if I had spent the time with Bryce I spent on Blender learning the interface, I'd be quite sold on it as well.

"You can do almost anything with an imported Poser figure except for a few things, among them: subsurface scattering..."

You can't really do SSS in Poser either... you'd have to invoke cheats.  I'm sure you could probably come up with something analogous in Bryce.

***"If you're comfortable with using a kind of abstract interface then you'll enjoy Bryce. I've tried Vue several times and ran screaming from it every time.  All those tiny little icons...if I wanted an interface full of little Mayan glyphs I would have asked for one.  Bryce's interface is elegant and simple IF that's how you're wired.  Don't look for a control that says "Translate Y+".  Look for an arrow pointing up. "***

Well that depends on your version of vue. 
here is the older vue 6 "easel" that imports poser  native scenes with animation
and allows the REPOSING of figures in vue and supports the poser material room, and renders with true GI and supports HDRI and renders much Faster than bryce 6
I paid $60 USD for it back then.

Cheers

hi

I do some Bryce for a long time now, and the User Interfaces of Poser and Bryce are sort of similar (well, both invented by the great  Kai Krause).

As usual, cameras, lights and advanced aspects of materials do not transfer well between 3D applications. The Bryce render is famous for its handling of refractions and reflections as its a real raytracer, and is quite infamous for its lack of speed. Bryce itself is great for its fantasy environments, like Vue is the app of choice for realistic ones.

For transferring Poser figures and scenes into Bryce, I can recommend using Daz Studio as the interface. Start Bryce, launch DS from there, open the Poser files in DS and save back into Bryce. As an extra, library tools like P3dO which also work great in DS now still can be used (to fill the DS part).

Do note that when working this way, the DS scene is connected into Bryce and will have some points of attention when rescaling and updating. But you can disconnect portions of it, which means these part are turned into Bryce content.

Have fun