Hiya. Everyone who using Bryce knows how Rendering somethings can take forever. I understand that, but I'm working on something now and it's truly beginning to irritate me. First, the Auto-Update for the preview alone takes a forever. I don't know for sure how long, because I left while it did. I usually keep it on wireframe when I am working on it because on this. Anyway, I tried to render it at 800x600 with Regular Quality and Normal Optimizations as opposed to the best levels because it was basically a first draft. It only got to 32% complete and froze. I say it froze because I tried to pause the render several time and nothing ever happened. I came back much later (10+hours) and it hadn't progressed at all. I never got the dialogue asking to Stop or Resume. Agh! I just want to know if there are any things I can do to improve the render times. ANYTHING. I need my computer at least every other day, so I can't just bear down and wait. Ack. I'd appreciate any suggestions or helpful advice from people who've had similar frustrations. Thanks.

what kinda system and OS are you running, and do you have the Bryce 5 patch?

I can't really help you without seeing your scene. I can just give you the clichaswer like use less reflections and transparant and glass objects. And keep your scene-files as compact as possible so your computer doesn't start swapping (swapping really slows down rendering, I once monitored processor-activity and it was 100% while using RAM, but when my computer was swapping the harddisk was working at 100% and my processor at 3%(!), it was just waiting for my harddisk). If you e-mail me your scene I might be able to give more specific solutions to your problem. My e-mail adress is: rayraz.rv@hccnet.nl and I've got an ADSL (broadband) connection, so I don't really mind downloading large files.

one little thing, also when rendering, and you hit/click to pause the render, click only once and be prepared to wait. When your pc is bogged down with rendering, and especially when it is using the swap file, it's going to take a while to "get to" your click. Multiple clicks will just add to what it has to catch up with and can aid in your program truly freezing. Quick fixes? Keep your preview window set to "sky only", unless you truly need to see something and...add more ram to your pc. Other than that, tell clay and rayraz what's up, they can truly help. Agent Smith

I also keep my preview window on "sky only" since I do a lot of work with transparencies and reflections. I've also learned to click once and wait(yes, that's true even if no swap file is being used!) and then SAVE THE FILE, then go back to rendering(using the resume render button). It may make it a little longer, saving every few hours or so, but at least you can start rendering from the last save is anything happens. The render I'm doing now started Friday night, and when it's done I'll still not be satisfied with the picture....:)

Turn off the Auto-Update on your Nano-Render preview. Only click on it when you want to see an update. Having it update a slow render every time you move something sounds like part of the problem. If your render is that slow, it sounds like you are using lots of Trees, Transparencies, and/or Reflections. Or you just have so many objects in the scene that you just don't have enough RAM to get through the whole render. What kind of machine and OS are you using?

Like others have said, shut the nano down or wait till it is complete finished before starting or resuming the render. Not sure what your system specs are, I've had renders take up to 5 min to stop, and over an hour for the render line to appear when resuming. I have a 1GHZ P111, the image I've been rendering ( high setting ) has gone at times for 8 hr. and not even reports 1 %. Anyway what might help you get through some tough renders is, Go to Edit/Preferences make sure... Image with scene Open/Save... is enabled. Render the scene, after awhile while the render still looks like it's going fine, stop it and save, then continue by using the resume render button, do this in increments of 8 hrs or whatever. If it seems like the render has froze try stopping it. Give it plenty of time, if it still appears froze shut the program down manually, and reboot. When you open the file back up you should be able to resume the render from the last save. It's very important that you do not open the bmp ( image ) being saved with the project file, if you open it while the render is running it will probably freeze the render and corrupted the bmp for the open/save option ( the render will have to be started over instead of resumed ) It's also very possible it will corrupt the open/save option if you open the bmp even when Bryce is shut down and not using it.

I'm running a 1Ghz P3. I have 256MBs of RAM, and I don't use much of it so that isn't a problem. From all of you alls input I'm guessing my problem is with using too many glass-like objects. Not sure how to get around that, because I want to keep them in there. I'll have to try the suggestions that were made. I can't seem to get this thing past 33%. I saw the one I just stopped and it was only 1/3rd done, but it was already past the part where it would have had trouble. I just can't figure it out. Again, I'll have to try the above suggestions on my next attempt. I really appreciate all the quick replies! Thanks to all of you! I'll post what happens (if anyone's interested)! ;)

Oh, I've just got an idea, kinda stupid that I haven't thought of it before, because I use it myself all the time: Go to the render-settings and set the number of shadow-ray's on a low value, like 1 or 2 in the render-setup, it really speeds up rendering glass and metal, and it might make your machine more stable during rendering because of that. I'm defenitely interested in your progress.

Another quick and cheap work-around is to go grab like an old Pentium 600 or so, for really cheap, and just render on that. This will free up your main system so that you can create more new stuff while the old suff is still rendering, or of course there's always Bryce Lightning, which is a great program for huge renders.

I'll have to try that shadow-rays idea, because this scene doesn't really need detail in that area. One question about the Open/Save option. I never used it before because I didn't realize what it really did and never was curious to find out. I have it enabled, but Stephen Ray suggested rendering for X hours, stop, and save it before resuming it. I tried to do this, but the menu's won't come down. I still have the Stop/Resume dialogue open, because I figured hitting stop would negate all progress. Is that the case? Like I said I've never used it before so I don't know how it works. Thanks again to everyone!

How are you stopping the render? It should be just clicking on the little button immediately to the right of the big render button which shouldn't bring up that pop-up, the render just stops where it is. Then save file and be sure to click the small button again, otherwise if you accidently click the big render button you'll start all over.

I stop a render by clicking in null space ( just under the render button ) sometimes it takes a while before the render button turns white, then save and hit resume render button, no dialog ever comes up. So are you rendering to disk? That's the only time I get the dialog. I don't think open/save works with rendering to disk. If you stop a render to disk, it will start back at the begging, at least that's been my experience.

Watch out for stray settings too. Some of my renders were really slow but the pictures were simple. Found out that the "Use Gel" In the Lighting section had been turned on. Turned it off and the renders were faster.

Ah, I render to disk usually, so that seems likely to be the problem. So, when I stopped it I used the X button on the render status bar window thingie. :P I'll check that Use Gel option, also. I still can't get past 33%. I'm going to start again with the shadow rays lower and I'll check the Use Gel options. Thanks again everyone. Very helpful.

This is going to take longer to finish than I thought. Now that I got it to render I see a bunch of things I need to fix. Shouldn't take that long, but it'll probably be at least a week for anyone who's still interested.

If you rendered to the screen, a plop rendering might due for the areas that need fixing.

...? I could've sworn I made another post before that previous one. It's not showing up for me. Weird. Anyway, SevenOfEleven was right on the money. The use gel options was selected for all 8 of the lights I have, and I really only need it for one or two of them. I'm rendering each thing one at a time to make sure they look right, and then add them in the scene. Instead of putting everything in there and hoping for the best. heehee. It's coming along!