I sure hope it turns out good.  I tried for a month to render it the regular way, but it always stalled out at about fifty per cent.  Maybe it is time to switch over to Cararra for a while?

HERESY!!!!!!!

It really pains me to say that.  I have been a Bryce fanatic since the free version. 

I sure wish Bryce would run on Linux. 

UV Dan..NOOOOO! Don't give up!!!

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTclD-O5-A&feature=related

Theres an option you might want to try Create a new partition on you hard drive and install windows (you can even install OSX Snowleopard on a normal computer which is the last mac operating system Bryce is compatible with at the moment). To install windows is fairly easy if you have installed Linux it will be a lot easier to install than linux was. Mac OSX Snowleopard is not easy and I suggest you look on Youtube for a way to do that (its possible but hard (and I think illegal but People have posted videos showing you how to do so) heres a link that takes you to a video.

But Seriously I would just install Windows it will be easier on you and Bryce on macs have a weakness Bryce 7.1 Pro can't import images in it so you will need either Mac daz studio 3 or Bryce 5 ,5.5,6,6.1 or 6.3 So installing Windows on  a blank partition maybe the answer. (Note it is still risky if you are not sure what your doing and I have never done it so I read tutorials on it first.)

Hope that helps you

Karl

PS What version of Linux do you use because Ubuntu is Free and really good.

Quote - HERESY!!!!!!!

Shall I shackle him and take him to the dungeon... sire..?

Just warm up the comfy chair.

Several weeks??

Must be a glass sphere over a volumetric cloud filled, clear blue ocean? Rendered on Premium AA 256 rays per pixel...at billboard size?

J/K...but wow, several weeks.

Been there, done it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck my friend!

Do you know how far the render has progressed? Is there a way  to determine that? Is the file an animation or is it a static picture? If it is an animation with a lot of information, the render time might be because of this. If it is a static picture, (not animated), there may be a high amount of data that the software must read and process for the render. If your scene is a simple one there maybe some hidden aspects that are making the render so slow. Other than that, (and I am loath to mention it), your computer may have a virus or other type of malware, or you may need to defragment your hard drive. I don't have Linux on my pc, thus these problems may not be what is happening. At any rate, if I were you, I would check into the things I mentioned to see if any of them could be the cause. I don't quite know about the render to disk option, but when I have a render in the normal setup that will take a while to complete, I will stop the render periodically and save the file at that point of the render. I can then exit the program, and open it later for the purpose of continuing the render. I do this to give my processor a rest, allowing it to cool for a while. For large files with a lot of detail, this is a necessity. 

Maybe the above suggestions will help. Either way, let me know how you do. I definitely hope the render is well worth the wait, and I would love to see it when it is done.

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013.

Here is the offending render.

I think my problem was my enormous universe.  I created several enormous terrains and then used the small corner where they came together to stage my scene at.  I ended up with lots of terrain polys that were not shown in the render and probably should have been deleted in the terrain editor.

You get the Bryce Purple Heart for going above and beyond!  ;o)

Quote - Here is the offending render.

I think my problem was my enormous universe.  I created several enormous terrains and then used the small corner where they came together to stage my scene at.  I ended up with lots of terrain polys that were not shown in the render and probably should have been deleted in the terrain editor.

I had that problem with renders at first. What I do with my terrains now is enlarge them to the maximum along the X axis and Z axis. This helps to get around the high poly count problem.

Sometimes though it is necessary to use more than one terrain, especially if you want to use one to add features of a different type to the other. One way to solve the poly count problem in such cases is to positive boolean all of them, group your terrains together and then click on the little square with the C in it. What the C is for is to convert boolean groups to a single mesh, which in most cases will reduce the poly count for the object, (especially multiple terrains as they usually have higher poly counts than most other shapes).

I did not know about this feature of Bryce at first. Then I found the Bryce 7 Artist's Guide PDF file and downloaded it. I highly recommend it! I learned a lot about Bryce very quickly by following the instructions in the guide. There is still a lot to learn, but at least it is a very useful guide and is very easy to follow.

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013.

Thanks guys.

Quote - Thanks guys.

You are very welcome.

I must also thank you for the help you have been providing in the UVMapper forum. I would be lost without it.

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013. 

Would render much faster in Vue, ya know....

puts on chainmail mankini! Safety from Comfy chair :P

Silver? We need to talk........................

Silver? Where see Silver? No see Silver!

Silverblade33 two posts above you Agent0013.  BTW you are named after my favorite number.  I was borne on Friday the 13 th.  It will probably be until the weekend before I get a video recorded on UV Mapper Classic, but I have not forgotten.

Silverblade33 I keep hoping that Bryce is going back into development soon for some rendering tweaks and animation tweaks and some tweaking to the bridge to and from DAZStudio 4 Pro.  I often admire renders done with Vue and Terragen.  When I try to use the fancy render options in Bryce, I end up with a weeks long render or a crash.  And I have a machine with two cores so I ain't slouching too bad in the hardware dept.

Bryster

nope! you are NOt getting my mankini, again! told you that last week! :P

UVDan

even in bryce it shouldn't be taking that long unless there's some kind of internal conflict or over run going on, surely? :(

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2358167

that was iirc 14 hours in Vue, cranked way up.
And I've done good stuff in Bryce 5 years ago that didn't take as long as what yours seems to in Bryce 7, so there must be some issue? :/

Oh you got me all wrong, Silver. Why don't you take a seat, get yourself nice and comfortable..............:biggrin:

Pffffft!! my super sonic sonar radar (and kevlar underwear) will save me! :P

anyway even WAAAY back a scene such as UV dan has done did not ever take a week to render, volumetric soft shadow and depth of field took a day or two in bryce 5 and that's lot more complex?

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=262288&user_id=7541&np&np

Quote - Silverblade33 two posts above you Agent0013.  BTW you are named after my favorite number.  I was borne on Friday the 13 th.  It will probably be until the weekend before I get a video recorded on UV Mapper Classic, but I have not forgotten.

 

Silverblade33 I keep hoping that Bryce is going back into development soon for some rendering tweaks and animation tweaks and some tweaking to the bridge to and from DAZStudio 4 Pro.  I often admire renders done with Vue and Terragen.  When I try to use the fancy render options in Bryce, I end up with a weeks long render or a crash.  And I have a machine with two cores so I ain't slouching too bad in the hardware dept.

Gotcha with the Silverblade33, UVDan.

 As for the number, it is actually my lucky number, and you were born on my lucky day. As you have already helped me with learning something about UVMapper, you have brought me luck. Fitting!

On my earlier post where I mentioned converting my groups to a mesh: It seems I may have been a little hasty. It seems that terrain objects cannot be converted when booleaned and grouped together. I'm not sure if you can convert other object types that are grouped with a terrain object; however I will try it and let you know my results.

The point of converting booleaned groups to a mesh is to reduce the poly count. Not all conversions do this but in the case where you have negative booleaned objects grouped with positive ones I have found that the conversion operation removes the unused negative and positive polygons. Only the polygons that show as visible in the render will remain. At least that is the way I understand the conversion operation. Kind of like a "Polysectomy".

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013.    

Quote - Pffffft!! my super sonic sonar radar (and kevlar underwear) will save me! :P

 

anyway even WAAAY back a scene such as UV dan has done did not ever take a week to render, volumetric soft shadow and depth of field took a day or two in bryce 5 and that's lot more complex?

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=262288&user_id=7541&np&np

 

 

 

Great looking piece here! Very well done. 

Silverblade 33 a cursory look at my image fails to reveal the the explosion is composed of four different meshes.  Each one with volumetric transparency.  There are also 3 lights inside.  Whenever I put one of my explosions into a scene, the render time goes way up.  I am trying to "billboard" some of my explosions so I can get more of them into a scene.  But yes I agree that there is probably something else going on as well.

Agent0013 I try to use Hexagon to model any objects I need so that booleans are not necessary.  I have been actively avoiding booleans like my life depended on it since 2001.  They cause only grief and heartache as far as I am concerned.

Quote - Silverblade 33 a cursory look at my image fails to reveal the the explosion is composed of four different meshes.  Each one with volumetric transparency.  There are also 3 lights inside.  Whenever I put one of my explosions into a scene, the render time goes way up.  I am trying to "billboard" some of my explosions so I can get more of them into a scene.  But yes I agree that there is probably something else going on as well.

 

Agent0013 I try to use Hexagon to model any objects I need so that booleans are not necessary.  I have been actively avoiding booleans like my life depended on it since 2001.  They cause only grief and heartache as far as I am concerned.

That's cool. I have been using several programs to create my models. As I am new to Hexagon, I cannot say much concerning it. I also have Blender, which is comparable to Hexagon, and Wing3D, which is a kind of way simplified modeller. I use them all, sometimes for creating a single model; performing different operations within each to get the effects I desire. Bryce is included in that group because there are things it can do that make it easier to reach a desired result.

As for the explosions you mentioned, I found a posting somewhere that says the more you have the longer the render time. I think it was when I downloaded a flak exposion zip file in .obp format for Bryce.

Stay awesome.

Agent 0013.

Yes, that was my Bryce Flak Freebie that you are referring to and it was constructed the same way as this explosion.  One mesh and volumetric material for the smoke and another mesh and volumetric material for the fire.  With a light in the middle of it. 

Anytime you add the volumetric material, you will have increased render time.  Add transparency and your render time increases more.  Add more lights and your render time goes up again.  Want soft shadows?  Go ahead and add them, but the render time goes up even more.

Quote - Yes, that was my Bryce Flak Freebie that you are referring to and it was constructed the same way as this explosion.  One mesh and volumetric material for the smoke and another mesh and volumetric material for the fire.  With a light in the middle of it. 

Anytime you add the volumetric material, you will have increased render time.  Add transparency and your render time increases more.  Add more lights and your render time goes up again.  Want soft shadows?  Go ahead and add them, but the render time goes up even more.

I looked in on the zip file being referred to and found the it is indeed yours, UVDan. I stand in awe. 

You are right about the increases in render time for the additions of which you speak. In addition to that, the size of the picture, (as in H x W), will affect the render time. There are also resolution settings that affect it as well. As it is, all of these things must be considered when you go to render your scene or animation. I have only done a few simple scene animations so far, due to the fact that I am working with just the one computer with 4GBs of RAM.

Stay awesome!

Agent 0013. 

I'd suggest using post effects for explosions, just put a coloured light in right spot and a small coloured sphere to note centre

Lots of brushes/PNGs for fire/explosions and best of all if you cna afford it is PARTICLE ILLUSION ;)

though oddly one of my fave SFX plugins for Photoshop went wonky when I installed in my new PC :(

Ulead GIF X 2 is awesome for lightning, lens flares etc, get weird "cannot find anigif2.dll" error even when I know that dll is in right spot or even copied it to WIndows/system32 etc grrrrrr