It disturbs me a bit when I hear that so many people use Bryce just for 'playing around'. I get the feeling that Bryce will forever be stuck in the 'toy' category, never reaching its true potential. It seems that even Corel has no idea of what they have and don't seem to take Bryce very seriously. And what they have is a 3D program that, with a bit of serious effort put into it, could become the greatest, most productive 3D program in the world. I've tried out no less than 4 hi-end 3D programs so far, and compared to Bryce they all feel like a nightmare to use, even to accomplish the simplest tasks. If Bryce had some polished hi-end features, such as radiosity, better shadowing, bevels, and displacement mapping, it could compete with the best. And it could be much more than just a cute terrain generator. What do you all think?

I disagree Biker,
Bryce seems so slow because it's a True Raytracing app, it just doesn't have functions like depth map shadowing for test renders etc. I use Maya and it's just as slow if not slower when I kick on the raytracing functions for Shadows, reflection and refraction etc. And I'm running a highend jacked up machine. True it could be faster, but I do use and I have used about every 3D app you can get for a mac and it's not really any slower rendering than a highend one is, once you turn on the quality effects they all slow to a crawl overall. And as for film quality work, I use Bryce for my client's movies etc., I'm working on a Mars documentary that is being mostly done with Bryce 5, it's just having the patience for the animations to render out is all, with any app that's the key. It boils down to the user and how much effort is put into the project I reckon. Just my opinion.

sorry, I accidently deleted the post. Basically it just said that the Professional has a deadline, Bryce renders very slowly, and appears not yo be taken seriouly by professionals because of this. . . . clay, I know what raytracing is. I can even code simple raytracers and know some of the reasons why raytracing gets so slow, one of the first programming books I got was "Advanced Graphics Programming in C/C++" by Loren Heiny.(the first thing I did was modify the source so it compiled in less than a second rather than 15 minutes. The more features you add the slower raytracing gets. It is also directly related to the Speed of the CPU and the way the code is written. It is my feeling that patience and deadlines don't always get along. It's nice that you have Maya - I haven't been able to work with it yet so It's nice to know it won't be much faster. Have you worked with lightwave? I wonder how slow that is? TV quality I know is easy, but . . . Can you get up to Motion Picture quality with Bryce? - TJ

Cool clay! ;) Any samples out there of any of your animations?

Hmmm... from my limited knowledge of high-end apps, I always thought they outperformed Bryce to SOME extent when using the same functions - especially Cinema 4D (damn it's fast!) For example, I did a quick render in C4D-7 of a couple of light sources, a few dozen primitives, etc. with volumetric lighting... 7 minutes. The same scene in Bryce - I don't know because I couldn't be bothered to wait - but it was looking like 5 hrs. I run a high-end PC but rendering 'real' scenes with >64 rays/pixel, or volumetric lighting with quality >80%, etc. is simply not possible (i.e. we are talking weeks of render time). I will bow to the greater experience of others (Clay for example), but surely this can't be the case for all high-end apps...? Having said that, I'm not knocking Bryce. It's a great piece of software. And yes, there is a tremendous amount of bias out there against it. Some art sites will not display work in Bryce, no matter how good it is. Some say so up-front, others don't. It's a pity, really, 'cos a surprising amount of stuff I've seen created in Maya / Max is pretty mediocre considering they cost 2K - 7K and can't by any stretch of the imagination be classed as hobbyists' toys.

I am an engineer in the aerospace biz by trade so I am one of those hobbyist users I guess. I love it! It has allowed me to create images of the things bouncing around inside my head like a virtual camera. Yes, I do have the skills and experience to do these things in more traditional media but each took so long that the backlog was immense and immensely frustrating! For me Bryce was the revolution and freedom for my art!

I use both Bryce and C4D...and where cinema is great for modeling...i always go back to bryce...something about it is soothing, perhaps the familiar interface, or maybe that you can start to see your image in a matter of minutes...but I have always fallen back on bryce, it is a great tool and will forever be in my toolbox

The only mild complaint I have is that compared to other apps, the lighting in Bryce seems to be the worst of them. That's not by much mind you. But, even Terragen outperforms Bryce in lighting and sky lab feature realism. But as for ease of use, Bryce has yet to be beat in my opinion.

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

Ya lol I know who he is but I didn't know if he had a consolidated place he kept his graphics...and to be honest I'm a lazy bum about looking stuff up. Thanks for the link! I have seen the Shahnra project many times before and each time I see it it never ceases to make me smile inside - just on the fact that it's so cool :)

Survey says.... GOOD Answer!! lol...;o)

LOL...hence the wink in my first post ;)

Agent Smith, Thanks for the link. It's enjoyable to look at clay's stuff. He has such a creative mind. that cybernetic eye is really neat. - TJ