I've been trying out a number of 3D terrain/enviroment renders, such as World Builder, Terragen and Mojoworld. And it struck me when testing Bryce2 (just to see the difference between that and B5) how small the changes have been in the terrain/enviroment apartment.
Some things that I think Corel (or whoever develops the new Bryce) should seriously consider is:

1. A new terrainsystem.
   Not treating terrains as simple objects, but have the ability to create planetary worlds (like Mojoworld), or atlest like Terragen. All they have done is adding more "mountainmodes" and higher resolution.

2. Spraying objects. Please!
   When comparing to the system in Worldbuilder, bryce sucks (really sucks) when it comes to adding grass, flowers and even trees to your scene.
   Anyone who have tried to create a hill covered with grass knows how frustrating (and even impossible) it is. I created a patch of pretty good looking grass that would cover an area of 4 m2, and it sucked out half my memory.

3. The sky.
   Noone likes 2D skies. It was impressive in Bryce2, it's not impressive anymore.

This is my vision (feeble wish)...
A program where you first create a terrain on planetary scale (mojostyle), then you look around in that world for a nice spot to set up you scene. You spray out some preset grass, some flowers, rocks and smaller plants. And then sprays out some trees in the background, and carefully place the forground trees (that have higher quality).
Afterwards Bryce can function like it does now. You import .obj or .3ds objects, texturize them and render the whole thing.

Bryce 6 (Pro)
Does anyone have any info on this upcoming product, apart from the "no Win98/ME support"?
This is what I guess we will see in the new bryce:

1. Improved network rendering (who needs speed when there's nothing worth rendering).
2. Higher terrain resolution (wouldn't be a new Bryceproduct without it) :-(
3. More presets (No comments)
4. More rendering, and texturing options. (Good thing to add, but still missing the critical part)
   The list goes on.

Bryce was once the leading terrain editor, and if it will ever be that again it will need some major restructuring.

BTW, a point to add in the wishlist for Bryce 14:
The ability to perform simple posechanges to poserfigures inside Bryce. :-)

dream on

How long do you think I would have to dream for it to be realized?

the way corel are taking it everone will be swapping to something else then using B4 for nostalgia. I personally rarely use terrain or booleans come to think I'm a metasequioa convert

Attached Link: Using metaballs.

I have found that in Bryce5, it is much more effective to use metaballs to make closeup terrains then using the actual terraintool. That's just how old it is. I mean, would it be impossible to include a Terragen or Mojoworld-like "world-terrain" in bryce?

nice image - like the condoms in the water!Metesequioa has a metaballs function (i'm only using B4.1)

Attached Link: http://www.renderring.com/terrainedit6.jpg

Here's something I invented and put on my wishlist a while ago.

Attached Link: http://www.renderring.com/terrainedit6.jpg

Here's something I invented and put on my wishlist a while ago.

I disagree about the terrains in Bryce very strongly. If you want one terrain for your entire world then go with Mojoworld (great) or Terragen or somesuch. Bryce is simply a different way of working which I've grown to like. (1) it's easier to get more interesting textures by using several terrains. One terrain over your entire world and you're stuck with one material and/or post processing in Bryce. (2) It's nice to build your features in your world instead of relying on one perfect heightmap. You want a cliff over there? Use a separate terrain and have total control of it. I used Vista Pro since its inception on the Amiga and it took me a while to get used to the differences when I picked up Bryce. But now I can't even conceive of going back to a single terrain to depict my world. (except, of course, in Mojoworld which is a totally different approach)

I guess its all a matter of preference. Bryce has the ability to render great realistic scenes..however..like all applications of its kind it all depends on the ability of the user. Seems to me that you want it to create worlds on the fly to save time, wich...ofcourse...is fine. I on the other hand like to have total control of every single detail in the scene and Bryce never failed me there. Besides that..I dont think there is an application that truly fits anyones wishes or needs. You will always need secondary applications to have true freedom of creation. With Cinema 4D for modeling..Photoshop for textures and postwork and Bryce for scenebuilding and rendering I can pretty much create anything that my personal limits allow me to create.

btw...2D skies?

I STILL use Vistapro plus an old copy of photopaint3 (old-style flow fill feature, without the use of masks) to custom sculpt terrains for use in Bryce. This combo gives me the best control over all the details I want in the terrain. Once I have the features sculpted and fractalized in Vistapro (still one of the best there is for that particular function) I pull it into Bryce and do the final erosion, slope noise, etc. tweaking. Using multiple terrains for a single scene is the way to go, you can then texture/control each feature separately.

Attached Link: Grass makes the difference.

Spit...

:I disagree about the terrains in Bryce very strongly. If you want one terrain for your entire world then go with Mojoworld (great) or Terragen or somesuch.

I don't want to make entire world terrains in Mojo or Terragen, I want to do it in Bryce. Bryce has ALOT of advantages over those programs. One ofcourse is the treelab.
But the terrainsystem in bryce is just outdated and very old. Making large landscapes in Bryce is barely possible. All terrainbottoms must be leveled for the terrain to be seamless. Normally, landscapes in Bryce looks nothing more than a cluster of seperate terrains. Mojo has a huge advantage on this part.

: (1) it's easier to get more interesting textures by using several terrains. One terrain over your entire world and you're stuck with one material and/or post processing in Bryce.

Terragen has kind of a problem with this, although the lighting in that program provides with great diversity.
Mojo has a great way of distributing it's texture areas, unfortunally Mojo seems incapable of using textures (judging from the gallery). Maybe in a later version.

: (2) It's nice to build your features in your world instead of relying on one perfect heightmap. You want a cliff over there? Use a separate terrain and have total control of it.

Yes, this is an advantage. I would like for the old terrains to still be available, but I would also want a planetary option. In order to get several terrain-objects look seamless you must either hide the point where the terrains intersect, or have the terrains leveled at 0 at the intersectionpoint.
You can't expect to create the kind of vast landscapes Mojo has using terrainobjects.

MindVision-GDS...

: Seems to me that you want it to create worlds on the fly to save time, wich...ofcourse...is fine.

Not just saving time, saving sanity aswell. :-)
The problem here is that making changes on small peices of the landscape (terrainobjects) at the time, makes it more difficult to control the entire landscape.

: I on the other hand like to have total control of every single detail in the scene and Bryce never failed me there.

Same here. Bryce is easy to work at and effective when it comes to small scale working, but it doesn't cut it in the large. And as I've understood it, that was what the program first was intended for. A landscape creator.

: Besides that..I dont think there is an application that truly fits anyones wishes or needs.

It seems that some apps has some options/tools and others have other kind of tools. The problem is that they aren't all in the same utility. Mojo makes great landscapes, Terragen makes great skies, Worldbuilder makes great vegetation and bryce makes great alot of things.
I would think that it would be a too big step for bryce to realize and adapt the qualities of those other programs. Atleast some of them.

: btw...2D skies?

Surelly you are aware that bryce has 2D skies. There is nothing really 3D about them (except for the altitude). They are simple 2D planes, and they have been 2D planes since Bryce1. And I personally think that sucks.

Regarding grass, this might be something that Corel will add in Bryce 6. I mean, (judging from the info on Corel's site) it's possible to create grass in Poser 5. We all have seem the impressive movie sequence with the ball and the hairy carpet, atleast I think we all have. :-)
You don't have to take a long peek in the bryce gallery to realize that post that include grass are greatly appreciated. I think this is what most Bryce users would prioritize in their B6 wishlist.

I fear that they will keep the old terrain objects and not bother creating a new system.

well...I kinda added the pic to show that you can make 3D skies in Bryce :) However..as happy as I am with Bryce..you have some good points there. Trouble is we can easely spread wishes and makebelieves but try to actually code it :P I still say there's nothing I cant do in Bryce tho..(if u dont count external modeling and texturing)

Well, you can get almost total realism in most things in Bryce, if you have the patience! Volumetric skies are easy to create and can be extremely impressive, but they take hours or days to render. Using the Skylab is fast, yes, but it only produces the most basic of effects. A faster, more efficient render engine would be most productive improvement that could come out of Bryce 6. Even using a high-end PC there are numerous functions I can't use in B5 because they take too long. Not much point in adding any more - we need to be able to use the ones we have first! As for landscapes, Bryce is at present an object-oriented package and therefore terrains are objects too. I can't imagine any images that could be restricted by the size of terrains available unless you're running 128K or something, it's just a case of positioning them carefully. Having said that, the terrain painter is total garbage. A single, smooth circular brush with naff-all control - urgh! If Corel do only one thing in B6, I hope it's to fix this!

I agree that the terrain editor needs some improvement to it in regards to ease of creating terrain. Also I do agree that there needs to be a plant generator of some sort built in. Spray on grass and weeds or vines would be great. The one thing I REALLY want to see in B6 is a Tree Editor that can create realistic conifers, bushes and shrubs. Let alone the more odd trees like Weeping Willows, Sycamores, Mangroves and Sumac. I've also noticed how poor the randomization and other characteristics work on deciduous trees increase one variable one way and suddenly you have a furry popsicle or a locked up computer. Also, if Corel's intent is to make/leave Bryce a 'hobbyist software package', I'd like to see the price drop down to the hobbyist level as well.

Actually, I believe that Corel is not intending to make Bryce a "hobbyist" package anymore. Calling the next Bryce "Pro" instead of "6", tells ya something. (at least I hope it does) And, for Bryce Pro...pray for plug-in support, Corel has been threatening to do it...

Bryce has me mostly happy for the main part. All I think it needs is a decent polygon editor or one of those spline based NURBs deals... You know, so you don't have to do 100 booleans/metaballs just to get the contour you want on what should be an otherwise simple object. Right now, the other option to boolean craftsmanship is hunting down another program for modeling.

As for terrains not being seamless enough... Perhaps they should come up with another control for material blending across objects. It would make some things look more natural.

I couldn't complain about the skies too much either. Theres an option for planar or spherical. And if that's not fancy enough, then you can always throw your volume clouds in, etc.

The materials control could be better. It would be nice to have a way to paint stuff right onto an object. Right now it's a luck of the draw kinda thing in some aspects. If you don't have the texture map for an import to look at and modify with a 2D program, then you're pretty much SOL.

One last thing to ask for I suppose would be rewriting the code a bit to allow graphics cards to take care of lighting, volumetrics, and anti-aliasing (heck-- that's what they were invented for, right?) Something like that should improve render time greatly if it's possible to implement.

P.S. I hope the next version is affordable. (that means it should cost less than any major hardware item.)

Yes, thinking about it, I must say that Bryce is probably the best s/w product, in terms of value for money, I've ever bought. It's difficult to compare it against other products that do different things, I know, but when you pay nearly 400 for Illustrator10 and don't even get a font preview function you come to appreciate good, thoughtfully produced s/w even more!

Ooops - pressing Post Reply doesn't normally start a new paragraph... <:| I was going to add that sure, the high-end apps have some amazing features, but value-for-money-wise (!) they just do not compare. I think it's the new version of Maya that has an ocean algorithm, that allows you to create an infinite liquid plane and stick objects on it (boats, for eg.) Fair enough, the objects tilt depending on where you place them, but it seems to me pretty basic stuff. Amazingly, this feature is only in the 5K version of the s/w, not the 2K version!!!!

re 2D skies: Yes, but as of Bryce 4? at least they're mapped onto a sphere, not a plane, by default. If you have the ram you can go for the planetary resolution in Bryce 5. A terrain that is 4096x4096. I've never even tried it. The highest I've gone is 2048x2048. But use the '*' on that big puppy and you can fill your world, your ram, your swap file...