Sorry for another 'jump ship' post, but sadly it is relevant to Bryce.

I had been debating rejoining the DAZ Platinum Club since they started their big sale of all DAZ original items. Enough interesting stuff had built up over the years and with the sale discount and PC discount it became even more interesting. I missed the sale closing date due to a real life temporary cash flow issue, but luckily they extended it to the end of June. That pretty much clinched it - Platinum Club it was.

And then they brought out their newly acquired Hexagon modeller at $1.99 for PC members (offer 'till the end of May, then up to $269). And now there is their new ‘Poser crossgrade' offer (ends May 31st) of Carrara5 and TransPoser2 bundle at $141.93. With a PC membership (which I was getting anyway), this means I can get Carrara5, TransPoser2 and Hexagon for less than a hundred bucks. I simply can't turn my nose up at that, especially given that Carrara5.1 is widely regarded as well sorted and stable (unlike Vue) - and (looking at the videos at the Eovia website) accessible for fairly normal people (and me).

Just check this incredible feature list:
http://www.eovia.com/products/carrara5/carrara_full_features.asp

Remember wanting radiosity, photon mapping, caustics, HDRI, motion blur, area lights, subsurface scattering, ambient occlusion? It’s all there, and that’s just a selection.

OK, take away the few items marked "Pro only" (the Pro package is $549 regular or $444.69 in the sale, +30% less with PC discount). But then add back in the full Poser6 compatibility and even more modelling capability from Hexagon (the Carrara modeller is a stripped down Hexagon). Since I’m not interested in animations I can live without the irradiance baking and graph features in the Pro version. I’m getting all that scrumptiousness for about fifty Grande Britannia pounds.

Yip-fracking-eee, or what?!

With this offer, it’s actually cheaper to buy Carrara5 and then get Carrara5 Pro as an upgrade than it is to buy the Pro version straight out. So even if you decide you want the few extras later, you still win.

There must be lots of potential Bryce6 customers taking up this amazing offer (the DAZ servers are being thrashed – nine hours to download 334Mb!). Some of these may still get Bryce6 when it eventually arrives, but I suspect most won’t. Bryce6 won’t get near Carrara5, and people will want to realise their learning curve investment in the latter.

I’m not passing this up to wait for Bryce6. Unless DAZ extends the end date for this superb introductory offer, you have 10 days to consider the future…

Yeah, I've been counting the days down too... but mainly for the Hexagon thing at $32 and wondering whether its worth it  - I have no need for the Carrara side of the deals.

An aside.....

Maybe thats what DAZ are secretly hoping - get enough of the brycers that want advance features to move to carrara to cut down the need for putting too much effort/money into seriously developing bryce 7+. This would make it easier for them to position bryce as the D|S of landscaping programs - i.e. any new features could be plugin built rather than requiring rebuilding the software with new version numbers, which would also further their aim of providing an entry level gateway for people to get into 3D very cheaply.

It still amuses me that we went from ->

6th April - "And more important than that of organization, this is just one step in the direction of our current effort to position Bryce as the premier piece of DAZ software."

to the 24th April -> "DAZ Productions Acquires Eovia US Corporation"

Luckily a few days after that, AS said "Bryce 6 is being developed & tested right now" - that "testing" part sounds like its featureset has already been more or less decided. DAZ seem to have been pretty quiet about Bryce in the last month lol.

Just make sure after you spend nine or ten hours downloading Hexagon that you spend another hour or two downloading the 2.01 patch (roughly 50 meg).

Mahray

How stable is hex2 with that patch?

Not sure Flak, still 10 minutes away :)

• Various fixes in the documentation
• UVS smoothing an object ,generate automatically uvs
• Texture change size internal error
• 4-Views windows show loaded objects from same viewpoint
• Adding and closing second New View leaves permanent black rectangle
• Program reports internal error when trying to export a displacement map
• Using the cone tool to make a truncated cone you can not tab to the radius to set the value
• Menu titles remain highlighted
• Internal error using UV unwrap w/ no selection
• Properties panel display corrupts after use of Extrude Line tool
• If material with texture not set on global object, painting on domains does not work
• UVS/Exception draw error when unwrap with invalid seams
• Interface bugs
• Menu File / Recent Files, not to list the non-importable files
• Display Command Viewer no longer works
• File saved in hexagon causes "Internal Error!" on loading
• Incorrect behaviour and interface corruption using Weld
• Bezier curve modif controls not working on Mac
• Properties panel: after rotation via input fields, size values are not adjusted
• Normals and UV data exporting with model when boxes are unchecked.
• Material names hidden.
• BUmp map paiting crash
• Hex opened by file from windows loses name, doesn't always save
• Crash after creating new document after 2x load model

Enhancements:
Several new dialogs have been added when Hexagon detects that the graphic board does not support a specific feature or when the version of OpenGL is less than 1.4. This helps users to understand what is wrong when the application does not work on their system.

eh, would still buy it if I could afford it. Eventually.

It's so tempting.....

Quote - ...spend another hour or two downloading the 2.01 patch (roughly 50 meg).

I just nipped home to start the download for this, and lo and behold it came through in three minutes. Then the TransPoser thing downloaded in one minute; and the Carrara content leviathan started whizzing in.

Great, I thought, they fixed things. So, as the Carrara5 install file was still crawling at less than dialup speeds with three hours to go, I figured I'd cancel that instance and start another.

D'OH!

Still crawling, and now with eight hours to go.

LOL, I'll play with Hexagon tonight, Carrara tomorrow (or next week).

It didn't seem to matter what time of day or night I tried to D/L Carrara5 and Hexagon; the best I could manage was roughly 1 meg per min using DSL. Slow going, but definitely worth it!

I have it all now, and a long day at work saved me from the frustration of waiting for it to arrive. Hexagon manual now printing, all 292 pages of it.

I had a very brief fiddle in Hexagon. That universal manipulator (also in Carrara) is superb.

It would really help if the most of the videos weren't in French. The girlie speaking English with the French accent is great, but total Frog isn't much use except for French speakers.

I got Hexagon 2.0 (and have the latest upgrades, I think), and am slowly learning it... It certainly seems (to me) to be one of the better 3D modellers, especially considering some of the "advanced" features (micro-polygons, smooth morphing (if that's the right expression) ), and, if I understand it correctly, texture painting directly onto a model (haven't gone near that yet).

For the price of a 1-month PC membership + $1.99, it's a bargain (even if I don't use it all that often, but I expect I will, once I get the hang of it..)

Not so sure about Carrera. I already have Bryce & V5I, so I'm not sure that the extra cost is worth it (especially as I'm on an extremely limited budget - and most of that's been taken up with this month's PC purchases)...

Cheers,
Diolma

Yes, I think if I had Vue 5 Infinite I probably wouldn't bother with Carrara.

I thought long and hard about Vue again before going for Carrara. Vue is still way ahead of everything when it comes to realistic vegetation. Some of the stuff in the Vue gallery here is extremely well done. When I factored in that I mostly want to make science fiction piccies rather than natural landscapes (plus the expense of V5I and that I don't really get on with Vue too well), the points fell in favour of Carrara.

One major plus for Carrara is that it shares modelling techniques with Hexagon, having a stripped down version. That means one learning curve.

I've had Carrara since version 1 - it actually got usable in version 3, great in 4, and pretty fantastic in version 5. Yep it has everthing and then some that Bryce kept letting us down on. Don't worry about the vegetation realism. They make good background trees and you can spring for xfrog plants for closeup realism. With enough random rotation and scaling (via the excellent surface replicator) you can make one tree or plant easily look like dozens. In C5 the replicators, translucency, subsurface scattering, microdisplacement, and ambient occlusion are what I needed to say yes to the upgrade. C4 already had HDRI, GI, and a bunch of other things we always wanted in Bryce. For Sci-Fi you can't beat the GI, HDRI, and volumetric light render speeds. btw - I also have Vue Infinite and even the Vue plants also break down and look cheesy for close-up renders. You can see the angles of all the leaf maps. Xfrog or TreePro trees are the only aftermarket trees that really hold up to that kind of realism. Hex2 is still way buggy but for $1.99 I have less to worry about. Hex1 is still good for me until they work out the bugs. Have a blast with Carrara. Scott

Well..... 

Don't know about anyone else....  I did pick up Hexagon for $1.99   and got Carrara 5 Pro for $306.28.... But I will also get Bryce 6 when it comes out just because I really like Bryce and it is what I started out with.  A die hard Brycer I guess.

looks at his copy of 3dsmax and giggles

nah but seriously, ur right

Just a few hours left on the offers folks.

Hexagon is much cleverer than I am, but I'm plodding through it. So much potential.

Carrara I've opened once to check the install worked. Going in there later.

Been working with Bryce a lot! ;-)