That's great news for The Agent - a new mission! A fantastic opportunity and not to be missed! Hope we can see you around these parts again one day. Good luck!

I did exactly what you are proposing to do: moved from Bryce 6.1 to Vue (in my case, Vue.65 Infinite). Was it worth it?

Absolutely!!

I spent about 18 very happy and fruitful months with Bryce, starting at 5.5 before splashing out on V6i. Why? The quality of the renders and the way it handled natural environments were the main reasons. I loved Bryce from the moment I first used it because its so intuitive to use. Vue, on the other hand, does require you to work a bit harder at the beginning. At the start I didn't find Vue to be artistically inspiring (at all) in the way Bryce is, but, after spending about 2 months with it now, its been well worth the effort.

Vue is a very different user-interface to Bryce of course and does take a bit of getting used to, but thats true of most new programs you'll learn. Its worth the effort as you have so much more control over objects than in Bryce. Not only manipulating objects, but even more importantly, organising them.

The breakthrough for me was figuring out how to display only a single one of the 3D views at a time in Vue, just how it is in Bryce - its beyond me how anyone could work with all four 3D views open at the same time! I have a 24" widescreen monitor and even then each view was far too small to work with. Having a single view open at a time should be the default setting I think! Anyway, that was a huge step forward. Its hard to say what else is better in Vue than Bryce because practically all of it is (I sitll love Bryce though!). One look at the render quality in Vue should convince you though - after a basic bit of experimentation with a scene in about 20 mins I had a render that was far better than anything I'd ever get out of Bryce, no matter how long I spent tweaking HDRIs and so on in Byce. There is simply no comparison whatsoever...and neither should there be because V6i is an expensive bit of software, whereas Bryce isn't..

So, price is a downside (though Infinite is definitely the way to go if your budget stretches that far - the ability to 'paint' eco-systems is an absolute joy: very intuitive). As others have mentioned, Vue requires better hardware, however, my setup is pretty much identical to yours, so no problems there for you. I think the main downside though is the number of crashes I have had. More crashes in a week and a half with Vue compared to a year and a half with Bryce. I'm not exaggerating on that either - Vue is not a stable program whereas Bryce has always been very robust. Considering that V6i is pitched at the professional market, this is not good....but, despite all of that, I'm a confirmed Vue convert and wouldn't use anything else at all now!

Only a few days to Christmas, so go and buy yourself a Christmas present from e-on software! :-)

Thankyou Bernie, thats a lovely Christmas gift! :-)

Best wishes from Melbourne, Australia!

Hi Nancy,

Even if its not possible to select the objects in the view, you should be able to select the various objects in the Object Browser window, then press delete there - you may have to ungroup the object first though.

A fellow lapsed Bryce user, now Vue convert! ;-)

I first discovered Bryce when I happened across Orbital's gallery here at Rendo. His series of pictures featuring a balloon (which have sadly been deleted) really touched something in me and I had to find out out how Joe had made these wonderful images  - hence my discovery of Bryce. So, I think Bryce chose me, rather than the other way around! I had no idea about other 3D rendering programs: Bryce was all I knew.

I was amazed it was so cheap to buy (V5.5) considering what it was capable off, so its always seeemed such great value to me. Should a 3DS Max, or C4D afficionado pick it up, they probably would dismiss it as just a toy, but for me, Bryce always amazes me. It can be incredibly intuitive in many ways (the main screen is so well laid out for example, like how an artist would work at a canvas), but frustrating in other ways (so many high end functions are hidden away such as how to selectively turn off anti-aliasing for a particular object). Bryce, I think, has grown organically, whereas more 'professional' apps have been designed from the ground up to be scalable and efficient....

....yet that is the very source of Bryce's appeal! (at least for me anyway) Through its very design as an application, it promotes creativity because it isn't restrictive - its easy to use and allows the novice to experience the joy of creating their own 3D worlds. It's this accessiblity which is at once both Bryce's power and its Achilles heel that has unfairly led to it being labelled as non-professional. I've tried Vue v5 Esprit, worked my way through the tutorials to learn and understand it (not that difficult as it operates in a similar way to Bryce in terms of its feature set), but yet for me, it just doesn't grab me, doesn't inspire or excite my creative passions in the way that Bryce does. Perhaps its the user-interface, perhaps its the traditonal menu/icon method of navigation, but Vue just doesn't 'do it' for me. I think that most professional applications are designed to produce product, yet Bryce, through its quirkiness, is still designed to produce art.

So, Bryce is definitely not a toy, yet neither is it a professional level 3D production house, but its a tool for allowing the production of art. Its far from perfect, yet I love it anyway! :-)

HI IO4,

It's only in Bryce v6.1 - do you have this version? Like dan said, its not well documented and though its mentioned as a new feature in the pdf version of the 6.1 Help File, it doesn't actually say where the feature is! I'm not in front of Bryce at the moment, but here goes...

No, its not optimisation, but you'll find it under the 'Render Options' menu (the lowest little triangle on the left hand side of the main Bryce Window - near the trackball?) Anyway, when you click on that, it brings up a menu - there is a menu item called Priority (its either the 2nd or 3rd item in the list). Select Priority and then you'll see three options - Low, Medium (the default) and High. Set it on High, and then you're renders will complete mcuh faster! Open up the Task Manager in Windows to see the difference - on the Medium setting, Bryce only ever utilises a maximum of about 50% of the CPU - select the High priority setting in Bryce though, and it'll utilise 100% of the CPU! Thats more like it! :-)

Thanx for the pics of the Derwent bridge  - now I can see it, you've made a great job of reproducing it in Bryce! The bridge itself is a work of art too - finely crafted and I daresay a couple of hundred years old? Built to last!!

Quote - "Is this automatic in Bryce 6? or does it need some User intervention?" Within Bryce 6.1 the CPU priority can be set to 1, 1/2 or all of the cores. This does not result in 4X render speed but it's a huge render speed increase over a single or dual core system.

WHAT???!!! You mean Byce 6.1 can actually use the entire CPU on my venerable hyperthreaded P4 3.2GHz machine?? What a revelation! I always wondered why it only seemed to use 50% of the CPU and no matter what I did in Task Manager, it never helped at all! The solution was right under my nose! (For those who don't know, its under Render Options, Priority - can't believe I never saw it before!) A big Thank You to Dan Whiteside for pointing that out, but you really should've told me before I did a render that took over 25 days!! :-)

Its like having a new computer!

Shame I couldn't make this challenge, but I was a bit distracted! Wouldn't have mattered anyway as there was no way to beat these!:

3 points - Riquelme8
2 points - alexclark
1 point - Death@Midnight

But, I feel honourable mentions to Orbital, brittmccary, haemoglobin and Skiwillgee are in order. Man, that was difficult selecting just three! Well done to everyone! :-)

Special thanx to Orbital for taking the time to organise this contest as well - Good on you!

Name: SunsetHunter

Age: 41

Area: Melboune, Australia

How long have you used Bryce?: 18 months

What kind of art do you create usually?: Scientific surrealism (I coined that term myself!)

Would you ever move over to Vue?:  I've tried to already....but I just find Bryce so much more inspirational that Vue 5 remains virtually forgotten on my hard drive. I'll try again one day!

What is your most favourite Bryce art that you have done and why? "Mother Earth" because of who its about and "Theatre of the Spirit" because of its design.

I use 'great POV' or similar wording in a lot of my comments as I appreciate when the artist has explored an unusual viewpoint of their subject, instead of just taking a straight-on view. Its always a good thing to look at something from a different viewpoint. Definitely complimentary.

I agree with Orbital - I was surprised, and pleased, we were given nya choice at all! The idea of a challenge after all is to use the subject given to you, not to pick something you might prefer - where is the challenge in that? :-)  Yes, it is an exclusive club - only Bryce users can apply to join! :-) 

Now, hand me the Ivy Generator and lets get stuck into 'Secret Garden' before the month is out!

I agree with Orbital - I was surprised, and pleased, we were given nya choice at all! The idea of a challenge after all is to use the subject given to you, not to pick something you might prefer - where is the challenge in that? :-)  Yes, it is an exclusive club - only Bryce users can apply to join! :-) 

Now, hand me the Ivy Generator and lets get stuck into 'Secret Garden' before the month is

I agree with Orbital - I was surprised, and pleased, we were given nya choice at all! The idea of a challenge after all is to use the subject given to you, not to pick something you might prefer - where is the challenge in that? :-)  Yes, it is an exclusive club - only Bryce users can apply to join! :-) 

Now, hand me the Ivy Generator and lets get stuck into 'Secret Garden' before the

I agree with Orbital - I was surprised, and pleased, we were given nya choice at all! The idea of a challenge after all is to use the subject given to you, not to pick something you might prefer - where is the challenge in that? :-)  Yes, it is an exclusive club - only Bryce users can apply to join! :-) 

Now, hand me the Ivy Generator and lets get stuck into 'Secret Garden'