Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=107503

I just wondered if I am the only one who is willing to wait *ten days* for an image to finish rendering, as for my last one (see the link)? This was my most time-consuming project until now, not only that it took ten days to render but also the time I needed to set it up... I have read in a magazine that it is already long to have to wait for a week, but ten days? I mean, I do not have the strongest, but also not the slowest computer (P3 800EB with 384MB of RAM), and just wanted to make this little survey to find out how long it takes for the others to render their pictures? I will ask this question both in the Bryce and Poser Forum; even if Poser "renders" (I know that it does not really render) much faster there are many people there also working with Bryce. Looking forward to read about your experiences, Sincerely, Sabine

heheh I just had my client get done rendering 2 animations on network rendering, Bryce 5 all the way and it is a film client of mine, took them 2 weeks 4 days and right at 5 hours running 4 G4s to do one, the other only took a week and 3 hours network rendering on 3 G4s, so depends on what you set up and animate I reckon, these are all set up for DVD output and at 29.97 Frame rates. But I sent them 3 more yesterday so their puters will be busy over the holiday LOL!!

I built a scene [Ritual] that took almost 8 weeks on a 1+ ghz Athlon. Made a pretty nice image. LOTS of reflection and transparency mapping though.

Hmm...my longest so far took almost a week on a 1gig Athlon. However I am working on one right now that I am estimating will take no less than 3 weeks to render...if I keep the dpi at 300 minimum.

I'm well into the second week of one right now...

Hi, I'm just curious... Are you all rendering for 300 dpi output so that you can print it in the real world??? Hey Sabine, that is a great picture though....

For me, it usually takes some 12 hours for a 2000 by 3000 pixel render (G3 at 600 MHz) with antialiasing off, about 2-3 times that time with antialiasing on. Now, if I would actually put glass in those windows it could well go up to 4-5 days.

Tradivoro, i am rendering at 300 dpi for print for some picture i have made, one took me about 7 days to render at 300 dpi for 8x11.25 inch format. The computer used was a P3 at 550 Mhz. Now i am using Bryce 5 and 2 P3 at 866 Mhz, so the render is faster but i never did a render at 300 dpi for the moment. Pleiades

My longest was just a few hours. I don't have the patience to do those "take a vacation while its going" images.

there is no way any render is going to tie up my machine for that long no matter what the deal is, either you people need a super computer to work with this bryce or you need to dump bryce for some other program i hope this is some big joke or something? I know bryce five is slower than two turtles racing up hill on thawing ice,in a 100 mile an hour head wind with a 50 gallon drum of mollasses tied to each of their backs but come on this is too dang funny............youre joking right? ten days???????????????????????

Nope, and ultimately the PC has nothing to do with the speed.

If it exceeds a week, I usually become nervous. It's around that time, usually, for the full sized thing ...

As stated on the other threa, wgreenlee, Bryce is not the app for someone who has the patience level of a squirrel on amphetamines. ;]

I don't find these long render times a problem... although 10 days is a little excessive! There's no problem with continuing work in other apps while Bryce is crunching and... I'm not too sure about this, but is Bryce the only app which allows you to save a render somewhere in the middle and continue rendering at another time? This feature is EXTREMELY useful... I render overnight and through the day and work on new stuff in the evenings. But of course I'm ONLY a hobbyist! These speed-freak pros must think we're cRaZy!

I think my longest render time was about 11 hours. I can't stand waiting. From these above posts I'm guessing there is NO WAY to improve render times? What a horrible concept! I have a new computer and graphics card, but it doesn't help at all! My renders are usually just for stuff like wallpapers. I don't print out my stuff or anything. The render times have always handicapped me making a real complex scene. It's infuriating! I have one right now I really want to render, but I can't have this thing controlling my computer!!! AH! I use my computer everyday, so is there anything I can do?!?!

1. Get a secind computer to render on. 2) Get a copy of Susan Kitchen's Real World Bryce 4 book and read up on all of the scene optomization and rendering optomization tricks that arent in the manuals. 3) Minimalise your lights, and make efficient use of grouping. A ray trace engine calculates where a ray will intersect things in the scene - if you have tns of loose objects, it calcs for EVERY SINGLE OBJEct every time. If you have groups, it calculates only once per ray per group, then per subgroup, etc... Likewise... use volumetric lights and materials ONLY where you have to have them. 4) Learn to do a render of the basic scene and then plop render in the other elements like characters and what have you that add massively to the render times. Plop render is your friend. Again, Bryce really isn't a good tool for the "I want it done YESTERDAY" mind set. Raytracing in any app takes time, and Bryce 4 is a slow raytracer. Bryce 5 is slower.

I see. Thanka. The scene i'm working on has a TON of trees. I grouped them all together and the preview actually worked! lol. Anyway, I do my old copy of Bryce 4 so perhaps I'll use that to finish this scene. I like B4 more anyway.

Ah... hrrmm. Are all of the trees 3D meshs? The more imported meshes, especialy if they have any transparency to the textures, then the loger a render is going to take. A lot of trees can choke damn near any PC in a hurry.

I just spent 8 hours downloading the Bruce 5 Trial Version. I was going to ask where the menus are, other than the little arrows, and pretty little icons. I was also going to ask how to import poser things, and how to do some "basic" stuff. I'm working on a game, and I need a terrain/organic renderer. But, considering the problems y'all are having.... And considering the amount of work, and the time limit, Bryce is definately not worth the time it took to download. Thanks for the info people!

FIRST, if you REALLY want to DO something in Bryce and not only want to "play around" with it -> buy it! It is worth MUCH MORE than an "8 hours download time", and the developers deserve EVERY CENT for it. Secound, just because you do not understand a program at first sight, it does not necessarily mean that it is not basically easy to use. Third, with the bought version of Bryce comes a great printed manual, and if you have read it two or three times (I have mine in the bathroom for two years now, and each time I have "nothing else to do" there I am re-reading some lines!) you will think that Bryces' menus are supereasy and logical to use. And, last not least, four: The full version of Bryce does not have any time limit, you can take as much time as you want to play with it. Seriously: Did you think that all these great Bryce artworks that are shown here in Renderosity come from Artists or result from people playing with trial versions for 30 days...? If you want a program to work great for you, you have to spent time with it and time on it, and you have to love it and be patient with it, thats it, and it is that simple, and then it will work great. If you hate the programs you are working with you will never ever get anywhere with 3D computer graphics. This is how I found my way to Poser, Bryce, TrueSpace and PhotoPaint - I just love these programs! Sincerely, Sabine

When I got into Poser, everybody only had positive things to say about it. And while it's manual was written by someone on some serious drugs over a long and incoherent period, it is still a great program, and it's demo is fairly easy to comprehend and use. Studio Max is about the same; a nice demo, with easy to understand menu's and controls. A bit pricey if you ask me, but nice to work with. Truespace, and Lightwave are likewise easy to use demos, with menus that are easy to understand and follow. Terregen's "demo" or "shareware?", while quite limited, is a very easy program to use. I may be wrong, but it's always been my understanding that a demo is made in order to help convince people to purchase the full version. Which usually means that they show you what it can do, and how easy it is to do it. The Bryce 5 Trial version seems to be designed to get previous users of the Bryce programs to upgrade, not to convince newcomers into purchasing it. And, as I'm sure you'll agree, if I didn't think Bryce was at least worth a "Look-see," I never would have spent 8 hours to download the trial version. I've seen the results, it's a great program, in the right hands. But since you, yourself, mention the LOOooonnnngggg rendering times, and 2 years of reading the Manual, would you say that it's really a newcomer's program? Sincerly, Warzog

I initially picked up bryce a number of years ago, and learned out how to use it without opening the manual - by the "hrmmm... let's click on this an see what it does method". Didn't take that long to figure out how to make it do what I wanted either. Bryce 5 has some new features, but overall, the interface, the menus and other elemets of the program haven't changed that much from the version I learned on. So... yeah, I am saying it's a pretty simple new comers program. The only things I've needed the aftermarket books like RW Bryce for are the advanced things, things that arent obvious and aren't explained fully in the manual - the deep texture editor and aspects of the sky editor and tweaking the render engine.

I just had my school purchase the academic version of Bryce 5 three weeks so I can learn it and then teach it in my high school CG elective course next fall and, though there was a plastic insert for the manual, there was no manual in the factory sealed box. So I got on the horn and called the education sales rep who said that Corel is not shipping a manual for the program anymore - guess they're trying to save some rainforest somewhere in Bryce Canyon?!? Anyways...She stated that Corel now only includes those useless HTML help screens. I, for one, am not going to print out 400+ single-sided sheets out of my laser printer one HTML screen at a time, then go down to the copier and double-side them, punch holes, and pop them into a three-ring binder! Or what's worse, flip back and forth between my browser and the program trying out everything in sight! That's like learning how to drive and read the licensing manual at the same time, fer cryin' out loud... Bottom line - where can I get the Bryce 5 manual that should have shipped with my order to begin with?!!

NO manual!?! That sounds like an awfully chintzy way to save a few bucks for a company like Corel. Jeeze.

Maybe you don't get a manual with academic version??? But there is a pdf version on Disc 1 in the documentation folder.

they didnt give you a manual for bryce5????????? that sucks!!!!!!! corel are really getting themselves in trouble! i got a manual with mine but some pages were missing so i wrote them about it they gave me a bunch of run around about it so i dont think im going to be upgrading again someone said theres a full manual on the disc........

Yes, there is a .pdf maunal on the disk, but I'm back at square one again, printing out the whole thing, one page at a time. I have even emailed the Academic Support lines at Corel with my situation and haven't heard a peep from them yet (corelacademic@corel.com and clp@corel.com). I would go with Vue d'Esprit 4.01 - I have the registered 2.02 version with the animation package and, if anything, it works far better than what I've tried to do in Bryce 5, but Vue d'Esprit isn't available on the Mac platform. And please, don't even try to say that I could run Vue on Virtual PC - been there, tried it, never again... You do not want to run anything on Virual PC on a Mac. My teaching workstation is a G4 Cube with 512MB RAM and the 25 Macs in my lab are G3 650MHz 384MB iMacs with CD-RWs.

Ironbear:Still think it's for newcomers?

Bryce 5 might not be. ;] Heh heh. But if you shop around, I know for a fact that Fry's Electronics still has copies of Bryce 4 cheap, and I bought my copy of Susan Kitchen's Real World Bryce 4 book at MicroCenter on the sale book rack for $4.99 just a month ago. ;] And it doesn't alter the statement I made that everything except the advanced features in bryce can be figured out by the "click on it to see what it does" method. For that matter... AutoCad 2000 is the only graphics program I've used so far that can't be learned that way if you have the patience to experiment.

Attached Link: http://www.phase2.net/claygraphics

Not shipping with a manual is totally untrue, your sales rep was wrong, I work with Corel on Beta testing Bryce etc. Bryce 5 full version ships with a manual, reference card and 2 Cds. there is online help and PDF docs too, but as far as I know the paperback manual is still included with the full version.

Bryce 4 or 5 is a very easy program to use for newcomers... I remember when I got Bryce 4 2 years ago, I didn't know anything about 3d graphics and crack out of the box, without reading the manual, I was getting beginners scenes with ease... all I knew was that I had seen pictues people had made with bryce and I wanted to do that... I got Bryce 5... Crack out of the box, I created trees, did the metaball thing, no opening of manual... If you want to do a complex scene, that starts resembling art, you're going to have to read the manual, like I did, learn the program, like I did... But that's true for every program... As for the pdf manual, scaramouche, just load it into a laptop and carry the laptop around... I've printed 400 page manuals in the past... it's not that bad... Just punch holes into it, put it in a binder and forgetaboutit... :)

I reloaded the Bryce 5 Trial version. And sure enough, there's a gazillion html pages! (I usually delete html pages-can't stand 'em!) After reading through the "manual" I discovered that I had actually done about all that could be done without importing stuff. Unfortunately, it's not the program I'm looking for. Sorry to have wasted y'alls time! Warzog

I am doing a render for print. It is directly a render to disk. I just pass the 30 hours mark. I'm using the premium render option.

Bryce 5 came with a manual for me. Whats this about a reference card though? I didn't get a card of any sort.