I have been reading a lot of the posts that people have been putting up about what is wrong with B5. But not many about what people would like to see in Bryce. Well I was driving into work today and thought about this topic and well here are a few things that came to mind. Mind you I an not the best bryce artist there is in the world, infact I am so far from that it is not funny. For me working with bryce is more of a hobby. A way to control the root ball on a tree. a few times I have created a narrow trunked treen and have to plant a lot deeper then I want to due to the high arches of the trees roots. A larger example of a texture when you are creating it. May a time I have had to spend jumping in and out of the texture editor and DTE trying to get rid of a repeating dot pattern that makes a texture I want to use unusable for an object. Half the time I have had to throw out the texture and start over because it becomes to messed up trying to remove that pattern. Possible gird over lay for the terrain editor. alot of time I want to create two separate items for a terrain but I find I have to toss that out the window because I have no way to line up the edges of two terrains. Possible script engine for the manipulation of objects that right now has to be done with a third party app. Being a programmer myself I know this one would be a major implimentain in bryce. But I feel that this would be a really great addition to bryce. Well that is just a few of things I thought of that I would like to see Teaur "Buy the ticket. Take the ride" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

I'm still in Bryce 4 since Bryce 5 sounds too iffy for me to spend money on. But my main complaints are: I'd like some areas to just fill my work area so I can see them better - such as the KPT plugins, DTE, and the Terrain editor. I'd like to have all those "hidden" controls in the help manual. Things like the extra light source that doesn't show on the "create" panel or turning off anti-alias for certain objects. Instructions on how to use the KPT plugins that came with Bryce 4. I don't know what extras, if any, come with Bryce 5, but in my opinion, for newbies some help on how such extras are used would be helpful. I've had Bryce 4 for over a year now and I still have no idea how the KPT plugins are used. They sure look pretty and there are dozens of buttons to push - but in my hands, it's a waste of time and space. That's all. s

Things I would like in Bryce 6: 1. A simple spline modeler 2. Much faster rendering 3. Plugin support, program extensions 4. A 4 viewport interface 5. Layers 6. More effects 7. A truly customizable interface 8. Better UV mapping control 9. Volumetric Metaballs 10.No bugs LOL

Easy solution guys, buy Bryce5 and Lightwave/Maya/3D Max, which ever one you can afford, now put Bryce away in a safe place and use one of the other apps. The problem as I see it is yes, Bryce doesnt have this and it doesnt have that, but at the moment its an affordable program. If all these other things are included, whats the price gonna be?

If I could afford Lightwave/Max/ or at a stretch Maya, I would be using them. They could ad some of these features to Bryce without jacking up the price too much, other software companies prove this time and time again.

Look I am not complaining about Bryce at all just a few things I have thought about. a few would take some time to inpliment yes, but a few would not take that long. I could whine and moan about this and that in bryce like a lot of others. But intead I thought hey lets look at a few things that we would like to see in Bryce. You know not every app out on the market is created by what the developers think we want 90% of the time is what the end user wants. SO speak up, say what you want, You never know who might read this and think that something you said is a great idea. Yes I could go out and buy one of those others but then again I could just start using blender only and skip having to pay. But myself I have been working with bryce for some time now (still not good but working on it) and I don't feel like another learning curve. I got enough learning in my life right now with keeping up in the programming area, going through the MCSE and MCDBA classes to waste any more time on another 3D app. And Kaom you have alot of good idea there some that I never thought of or have not looked at yet. And yes you are right they could add alot of these with an almost unnoticeable cost to us the end users Teaur "Buy the ticket. Take the ride" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

Amen!

Guys guys!!!!!! Yas have got me all wrong. I wasn't knocking your ideas, I for one would like alot of the things that have been mentioned. I just feel we need to be carefull in what we wish for, we may just get it and then still not be happy. The root ball in point, would love to be able to change it and make it smaller, bigger, whatever, to suit the picture, and grass, proper grass, now that would be fantstic. Layers and plugins, now that would be out of this world. And last but not least, Render times!!!! Wouldnt it be great to not have to have three days off just to let a render finish? I do hope I've explained myself, the last thing I intended was to rufle any feathers :) Cheers from the bear.

Remember the line from the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" What happened to the man who got what he wished for? He lived happily ever! I truly believe they coild expand Bryec a lot, and not raise the price by more than $50. Heck the main code is already done for them, they just need to improve it, and that wouldn't cost a fortune.

actually from what I know 50 bucks for most of these changes would be extreme. Some of the ideas here is nothing more then add a few lines of code here and there or adjusting the size of a view box. But I can say that from what I have learnt about the actual rendering engine of bryce Corel does not own the rights to that( saw it in an Magazine article about 6 or 7 months ago). They would have to contact the owner and see if he would make the changes or allow Corel to do so. That is one of the few things that could potentially increase the price up around 100 bucks easy. But then again Corel did make it possible to speed up the rendering time by allowing the use of sending out parts of the image to a network of computers. if you work in an office that uses alot of computers I would have to suggest say go make friends with the admin guys. They might let you run it the evenings when most the people are gone. Plus if you are lucky they might let you run it on the servers... Now that is rendering power there :o) think of the stuff you could create there. As for me I want to see changes that make the end user job a little more productive. One fearuter I would like to see worked on is the Material Lab. Heck there is so much screen realastate wasted for such a small box they could intergrate the DTE with then actual Material Lab and save us the end user the hassle of having to pop back and forth between the two when we are working on a material that has 2 or more textures to it. If they could do a few of these other features then that would make our lives a little easier then heck yea I am all for it. I think I would be willing to pony up a little more dough without crying about it.

guys sadly, I dont think a lot of people know about the bryce code. see, this program was originally intended for one thing...to create simple worlds (tho beautiful) for backdrops, desktops, etc. when it went public, people fell in love with it! Here were great computer graphics..that were affordable. And then the input started... "I'd like to see this", "I'd like to see that"...and so to try to expand the market...import was added..animation..more control of the DTE...etc... and while this was being done..there was the ever increasing problem of not looking forward..not planning. Now Bryce code is what has been called "hodge podge". Its not written the way that a coder would write a program from start..with fluidity and planning in mind. Anyhow, what this is all leading up to is that IF there is a bryce6, I fully anticipate an entire re-write of code..from scratch. IF corel makes a new version (which they are reportedly planning) I am very sure that almost everything that users want will be added..but I am also sure that it will be a lot more pricey. People bitched about the small 50 increase in upgrade for this version..wait til the next one when it will be 150 more (300 for an upgrade..500 for the program) I fully expect to see this. Cause to make the additions the Bryce community wants on the whole..to keep the program alive, they will have to recode the program. With that, they will have to recoup the cost of the programmers. so, B6 will probably be an entirely new/different program. More like the standard 3d proggies are because of the rewrite. It will be very interesting to see what happens. I may be wrong, they may just keep 'hodge podging' it together..letting it get slower and slower and slower. I think that the old hands at this will be in for a big shock with the change. Hell, we fussed because its now silver metal..lol later BT

I like the silver controls, I dig the colors! Maybe if Corel make a deal with the Aliens for some cheap Alien technology, we can have an insane version of Bryce of only $29.00.

I do agree with you about the coding there BT it si a hodge podge. I have heard the runor that they might be re writing it. But you have to remember what I said in my last post Corel only has the right to use the Bryce engine. Heck even the main app as it is right now is not their own doing they inherrited the app from... metacreations. Dang that took a while to remember had to get out my old copy of bryce 3 to find that one. But I digress. Either way if they keep it cobbled together like it is or redesign it I would really like to see them talk to the user community there are a lot of good things that have been mentioned in this thread that I feel would add to Bryce and make it better. Yes I do agree that as it is now it is getting slower due to all the stuff that is being added in with each version. But that is only to be expected when working with an already existing app like this. either way I like what they have been able to do with Bryce so far and I hope they keep it up in the future. And well if and when B6 comes out I suspect that it will be well worth it. One of the things that made me happy with B5 is the network rendering and the trees. THe main reason I made the inital posting was I got sick of reading about people complaining about all the problems they find with B5 and not actually saying "Hey this would be a nice feature." But I guess that is just the programmer in me. You see I have to deal with UIs mainly in my coding so I have constant end user input. And from most of my experience most the other programmers I know tend listen more to ideas that end users want to see in with the app they use. Either way I think that Corel is doing a great job with what they have been given and I look forward to seeing what they do in the future. Teaur "Buy the ticket. Take the ride" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

heh I have few gripes with 5. I do believe it is well spent money for the upgrade. I dont like the ~13% slower renders than 4...but shrug..with all the additions they made to the code for the tree lab and light lab..and the status bar update when doing the basic render (?) I can see the increase happening. If not for the network rendering, they would have cut their own throats with the slower increase. I know that they are shooting for professional usage..so thats why they did the network, but the need to do some code corrections so that its not necessary to be networked to get a faster render. I dont fuss about their stuff much. It is slower, I see no need to bitch about it..just find a way to make it faster..which I did. So, I guess we are of like minds. I dont know what I want in addition other than better options on the trees right now..and other foliage (grass and such)..and maybe multi-views. later BT

What I'd really like to see is a 5.x patch, and soon. I'm tired of some of the major bugs in 5, and I really hope they get a good working patch out soon. That would be a great feature in 5.

Its not written the way that a coder would write a program from start..with fluidity and planning in mind.< Actually Bryce was TOO well planned I have been a user since bryce2. Eric Wenger, the biological father of bryce, is a brilliant mathematician and musician Metacreations NEVER bought the rights to the original bryce code during their collaboration with MR. Wenger Bryce 4 is still over 86% originial wenger code. Thus Metacreations never had any true mathematical scientists (other than wenger) who understood bryces complex mahtematical algorithums So when Metacreation Fled the Consumer 3D market into the the wildernes of oblivion they left a a program the few traditional coders understood. Wenger reportedly was not happy with the sale of his baby to corel and was threating to to put out his own version of "Superbryce" but ( Sadly) has now gotten too busy with other projects. COREL IS CLUELESS!! If bryce is ever to reach its true potential, it needs its "Father" Eric , COME HOME!! PLEASE!!!.

What I'd like to see...is an equivalent version of the program but without the animation features...for us poorer folks that have no interest in animation :o) Maybe it would shave a few bucks off the price? I think they'd get more hobbyists interested in the program if they could offer that option. But I'm ignorant about programming so I don't know how feasible it is to separate the animation tools from the rest of the program. Just a thought.

I'd settle for exporting whole scene to POV-RAY 3.5 format.

Actually Bryce 5 is faster then Bryce 4. The test you did is flawed. while bryce 5 renders bryce 4 scenes slower then bryce 4. it renders those exact same scenes made with bryce 5 faster. But while we are on the topic. Things that I would like to see. 1. enhanced tree lab. with Branch length, wind direction, lean, trunk curvature. 2. The ability to build your own mesh leaves. (I have tried to understand the bryce format for leaves but to no avail) It would be a great boon if they released a mini app to let 3d modelers produce leaves for bryce. Can you say real fruits and flowers? 3. Grass or a particle system for making grass 4. plants :) include plant studio inside bryce! 5. real world settings for the camera with ability to animate those settings 6. real world settings for terrain sizes and the ability to set materials by altitude according to those real world settings. Snow at 10,000 feet rock down to 500 feet grass to 0 feet.... you get the idea 7. The ability to read poser animation files! 8. I agree with Vargol the ability to port a whole scene to another app for rendering (Lightwave.... please :) ) I could easily add another hundred or so :) but for now will settle for these. Griggs

keep dreamin guys!!!

I love the Eric , COME HOME!! PLEASE!!! line... :)

griggs...if my results are flawed, how come so many people have noticed the difference? Not a big deal, but just because some do not observe a problem, does not mean it doesnt exist. BT

hia Brycetech Your results are not flawed it was that you did not include Bryce 5's ability to render Bryce 5 scenes. I tried to explain above what was used to include that into your test. You are completely 100% correct Bryce 5 renders Bryce 4 scenes slower. The mistake lies in that you didn't include Bryce 5 scenes into your equation. I hope you don't take it the wrong way and will try out what I did. I have tried this on both an intel win2k system and a athlon win2k system. It would be great if you could try on win 98 or me. Griggs

still dont follow what you are saying griggs...and no Im not a touchy type so let me know. This could help others if there is indeed something I did not take into account. I did 5 things during the test: .I opened a bryce4 scene and rendered it ..I saved the bryce4 scene as a bryce 5 scene and rendered it (was indeed faster than the straight 4 scene) ...I did optimization of both b4 and b5 to get the lowest possible times (2 steps) ... also just rendered both straight with normal settings in b4 and b5...and b4 was faster with the same settings (either optimized or not) additional..which is not included in my test...I created a set of objects in b4 and b5(a cube, sphere, and cylinder) placed them in the same position in both 4 and 5) textured them and timed the render... this of course is a fast render, but the difference held up there too. what did I not do that I should have? thanx BT

lol I feel like a complete idiot. The camera in 5 was in a slightly different spot to 4 changing the amount of rays shot back to the camera by a slight amount. I can get the renders to give me those numbers each time but is a mistake on my part. perhaps vue is everyones answer, time to uninstall b5 you can do image based lighting in vue right? Griggs

No matter what, I prefer 5 over 4. My only problem is a slowdown in the work areas when you get a load of objects in, such as would happen using version 4 on a much slower machine. I use a 1 gig machine with 512 megs, so 4 flew along in the building stage with that. 5 slows down there, but I still get good render times and find the output a bit sharper and richer. Not sure if that's a real observation of imaginary, but it does seem that my textues appear richer. I love the trees, just burying the root mass so only a peek shows here and there. I also shave off some trunk swellings in post, but love those trees and the variations. Anyway, that's a few pennies worth of trivia. Walt "Mike"

i want 2 things from bryce! 1. Being able to import bvh files from POSER 2. Some form of partical system to make stuff like fire,smoke,explosions,debris. how cool would it be to have people walking around in a bryce animation without having to mat it.. lol

Seems to me that all of this wanting is included with the more expensive proggies like 3Dmax or Lightwave (you can export a scene (kinda) as an .lwo). I have used Lightwave and have 3D Max. I like to simple things that Bryce does. Those others are more powerfull, and they do what everyone would like Bryce to do, but they are MORE expensive than Bryce; unless you get a pirated version. I have been Brycing for 3 years starting with B4 and the GREAT tuts on Brycetech's site (love ya hun!) and I have come up with some great stuff. I like it the way that it is. THE only reason that I would get B5 is for the trees and the metaballs. My $.02 Tankred

What I would like to see.... The greatest thing they could do is make Bryce plugin compatible, go the poser route and sell Bryce pro packs, with the features so many desire, I don't think it would be to hard to add a spline-lather modeler as a plugin, or a particle effects as a plugin, the code itself for these plugins wouldn't be difficult, its intergrating them into Bryce. I've been thinking about Susanna, and think it would probally be possible to have particle effects via that marvelous piece of software...