I like bugs. I really like bugs. I was looking at their ant, bee, and dragonfly models, and was rather curious as to why the bee is so much more expensive than the ant and dragonfly ($34.95, whereas the other two are $9.95). Is the model just that much more amazing? And what is 'swarmable'? Can anyone tell me more about this model before I buy it?

Probably swarmable means you can duplicate them to create a swarm of bees. Not sure, going to check it now. Marque

Attached Link: http://store.daz3d.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ZP1&Product_Code=ps_an025&Category_

There's not much information on the Product Page. It's a lovely bee, though.

HTe dragon fly I know was created as a freebie and then released later with that price because peopel asked about it .. I thin the ant was as well .. The beeis nice and detailed and all though I haven't used it much .. Also comes with poses and all ..

Brycetech has some really great insects here in the marketplace and over at 3dcommune.com( spider, bees,fly,mantis,ant and so on) Or you can buy his cd with a lot of more stuff.

Wow, thanks for all that. Is she fully articulated-- can you bend her at the abdomen and all that? And the legs, fully jointed? Antennae? Thgeisel, thanks-- I've been looking at Brycetech's stuff. I have his Scorpion model and I really love it; a couple of others are on my wish list... I'll look into the Mantis.

Bees have 4 wings, like all insects except the fly family (diptera => 2 wings). I'll have to check Brycetech's bee for wing count, but what I remember about his insects is that they are very realistic-looking critters. If you are doing renders from a distance, the wings and even the texture might not matter. But if you want a close-up of a killer bee with spear and plate mail, the wings will be important. Carolly

Okay! Wow, thanks for all the input. I fear, though, I need a bit more. I'm really intrested in the Bee for closeup work, and for more extreme positons (the abdomen raised in Waggle Dance; the legs stilt-like in dominance displays). Thus, I'll be making my own texture maps. I don't have a lot of money right now and I don't want to splash out on a model with no texture map that I find does not suit my purposes, so I would really like to know if this model will: does the abdomen bend? Does the head move? (for most insects the head does not move, but on some and for most of the hymenoptera, the head can move). I suppose it would have been pictured if the model had had a tongue (many of the bees have a proboscis, commonly called a tongue, used to suck nectar). $35 is a lot of money to me just now... I need this to be a fully articulated, neck, head, thorax, and abdomen with all six legs model , and I'm afraid I can't risk it if I don't know the model will deliver. It looks really good... but I need to know how bendy, how adaptable, it is, before I buy it. Thanks guys!

I do appreciate your help and your renders, Ron! But looks like I'll have to contact Daz direct-- just thought I'd sound out the community first. :) Thanks for all your help people!

If you really want to know: Bees do have 4 wings however, posing 4 wings is a pain, so for the honey bee...I did not include 4, the hornet does have 4. (not even sure if he's up anywhere now) Bees (depending on breed) have hair..lots of it. Honey bees have far more hair than even I made. However, no other bee currently on the market has hair of any number. dont get stung..medical expense is not covered in my EULA and I'm sure its not covered in Daz's either :P BT

Aw, Brycetech, that's an adorable bee! Does she take an age to render with all that hair?

nope it renders pretty quickly...I think that took less than a minute on a 500 mhz machine. :P BT

Sold on your bee, Brycetech (sorry Daz!). If she's anywhere near as nice as your scorpion I know I won't be disappointed. I think I'll pick up that mantis as well... other bugs will have to go on the wish list for the time being. Thanks everybody! happy smile

This is for the benefit of anyone else following this thread: Here's a quick render of Brycetech's bee doing bee-things, without the conforming hair model. The legs bend at each joint and the head and abdomen can be moved relative to the thorax. The wings have a very useful 'flap' dial to move them in a realistic bee-like sort of way.

Here she is again, in another pose. Note extending stinger.

Here she is greeting a hairy cousin. This (admittedly small) image took 5 minutes 53.86 seconds to render on my 233mhz G3 iMac with a mere 128 meg of RAM. For the record: the mandibles do open and close, and the antennae are posable, bending at the join to the head and at the midway bend. First impressions: Lovely bee! I was very glad to see how posable the legs are. They might benefit from ERC, and maybe if I ever manage to get through Ajax's tutorial, I might do something about that. I do like the conforming hair figure: it really adds bee-ness to the model. Between these renders and the ones Ron posted above, one might make a fair comparison between the two. I still don't know what 'swarmable' means exactly, though. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

I can also vouch for Brycetech's bugs, I have them all (I think). They're great to work with and really easy on memory. I've had no problems with them and I'm using an antique iMac (233mhz, 260mb RAM). And you can't beat the price. (This has been an unsolicited testimonial)