Maybe your firend needs to reconfigure the heuristic part of NOD. I have it at work and have had no problems. BTW, BitDefender is a great antivirus program with spyware protection. I've been using for the last several years and am very satisfied with it. Plus, if you buy it now, for $40 you get a license for two computers for two years. (Do not use their firewall. It's not problematic, but it's not very good either.) As to the PHP conversion, I'm not getting notices. And when I get them, at work, when I click on the link I get sent to the market index page...

Ray, are you actually talking about environment maps? You put them in the material so it looks like the objects reflects them? That would certainly be nice. Transparent as in alpha map or as in glass? Putting a Moderate glass sphere in the scene above resulted in Bryce reporting it would need 1 hour 43 minutes instead of 45 minutes. Putting in a 2D object with an alpha map, gave 1 hour 10 minutes. All in regular quality render with full IBL with its quality at 10.

http://www.debevec.org/Probes/ works. Just download those in HDR format. http://www.rna.hr/tutorial01/Tutorial01_part6.htm also works, although it's not in the backroom. Another one at http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/hdri/hdri_1.asp. Just go down and find the link to rnl_probe.zip. I'm not going to directly link to other people's files... Two at this German HDR tutorial page, http://www.dma.ufg.ac.at/app/pane/102.120/module/9933;jsessionid=82497D22FCF7C9821895B3458F566151, down at the bottom. Pity Dosch doesn't have samples, as they have tons of great HDR images, in all kinds of formats. Jeeez. I kinda discovered that the majority of free angular map lightprobes is at Debevec's site...

Only triangles, although there are places where a mesh would greatly benefit from being quadrangulated. As to the density, the first one was meshed at the setting of 32, and it gave a bit less than 5000 polygons. A very similar mesh at the density of 16 gave 2800 polygons. At the density of 8, it had 1664 polygons and was no great shakes when reimported back.

Quote - its easy to spend money on these things isnt it?

Naaah, where did you get the idea? :biggrin: Seeing it's a Dell, how much it really costs? A similar Boxx with two dual core Opterons and no monitor, no sound card and speakers, plus Windows, costs $5700.

One more thing. Unfortunately, Bryce 6 exports a booleaned mesh as a group. That is, the above cylinder has five textures. The cylinder is one mesh, while every place where it was booleaned is a separate mesh. With appropriate textures. Although it's funny that the cuts have diffusion texture, ambient texture and bump texture, while the cylinder has only diffusion and ambient. You'll need to remap the mesh in order to optimize the number of discreet meshes and textures.

PPS. I was apparently wrong about TA being faster in B 6. The original of the scene above in BR5 format, no messing with IBL at all: Bryce 5.5, TA at 4 rpp - Bryce reports it will need 8:30 minutes Bryce 6, TA at 4 rpp - 12:26

Not much help will this be, but I'll try... >To get the best of both worlds in other programs its not >unusual to use a high-res map for reflections and a low-res map >for the IBL. Does Bryce 6 allow for this also? No. >Do blurred or non-blurred HDRI's affect the look of the IBL? Haven't really tried, but a blurred HDR should have softer lighting, as the transitions between the light and dark areas is gradual, just like in other programs. >Does the resolution of the HDRI affect the results in terms >of lighting? Not that I can tell. Control-wise in Bryce 6, Quality regulates the number of rays, Intensity darkens or lightens the whole of the HDR, while HDR Effect regulates the intensity of light areas on HDR. >Can seperate HDRI's be used for HDRI reflection and IBL? No. >Also, there's already been some other tool in bryce since >version 5 that can be used for realistic lighting, known as >True Ambience. Does the HDRI and IBL support work well (or at >all) in combination with TA? And on the performance side, does >TA seem to be faster in B6 compared to B5 and 5.5? and how does >IBL affect TA performance? TA seems to be faster in B6. IBL works with TA and in the way you might expect. TA gave a lighter image because of the "reflected light" in the previous versions, and it does it again in B6. A quick and dirty test (without final results) on a P IV 1.7: 680x920 image with 140 million polygons: No IBL at all - Bryce reports to need 16:35 minutes at Regular setting, plus AA pass IBL, no background - Bryce reports to need 59 minutes at Regular, plus AA pass full IBL - Bryce reports to need 45 minutes at Regular setting, plus AA pass full IBL + TA (4 rpp) - Bryce reports it will need 4 hours The second and the third ones are fishy. But I guess the results would be different if I closed down Bryce and tried every option afresh, instead of just changing the options. PS. TA at 4 rpp without IBL says it will need 1 hour 15 minutes.

Quote - I don't think quad cores are going to be out for at least 6 months or so,........maybe longer

Heh. Wait till November 2. :-) > Quote - and as it's newer tech, it'll cost considerably more. Just my 2 cents worth.

That, you're certainly right about. Hyperthreading, dual core, both were sold for an arm and a leg when they were introduced. Brycetech, you should ask at DAZ. I have no idea whether it's the same thing as dual-core only larger, and consequently whether Bryce 6 will be able to utilise all that power.

Right. And you'd pay for the update how? Or you mean they would do that in their free time? How long did e-on take to come up with their ecosystems? Five versions. Five effing versions of continuous development. And how much the effing Infinite costs now? BTW, in comparison, check Mojo and their forests and you'll see it's not nearly as good. Please, a little a bit of the sense of proportion. Take a look at Vue Easel and see what it has that Bryce doesn't have. EcoSystems? Nope. Direct Poser animation import? Nope. HDRI? Nope. A terrain editor with enough resolution for you to see what you're doing? Nope. Normal positioning system? Nope. What it does have is global illumination, environment mapping and a useful vegetation editor. And only Vue d'Esprit costing $299 has HDRI. But not even that version has EcoSystems or direct Poser animation import. You know, posts like yours are really starting to grate on my nerves. We all know what Bryce can and cannot do. And there's still ton of people who can run rings around you with their puir wee Bryce. Enough already.

Well, I'm not. :-) As I already stated here a long time ago, 3ds max started with Character Studio as a separate install. Now they are one program. If it's good enough for a high-end program, it should be good enough for Bryce too. Especially since we all hope Bryce will get many new abilities high-end programs have. OTOH, Bryce/Studio should then also have the ability to morph figures like Poser or to replace a body part with a prop, again like Poser. And the ability to easily rig figures like Cinema, not to rely on Poser or PHI Builder or what not.

Oh, quality up to 15-20 is quite bearable. But no real advantage to it.

Bryce, as far as I know, has caustics, but only those resulting from light passing through a refractive body. What Bryce lacks is the reflective caustics, like you'd get on ceilings from the light reflecting from a pool.

All those files with MS are usually Microsoft files, and other companies usually don't include them. MSCVR(Txx).dll is "Microsoft (R) C Runtime Library". You can download it here, too: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcr71 And yes, Bryce 6 installs the latest version of Studio unless you told the installer to skip it. Since Studio and Bryce are quite connected, you should install the latest version, 1.3.1. I hope to see them as really just one program.