please don't hurt me

Hallo, my name is arry and I'm a long time Brycer.

That said, I am strongly considering investing in Vue 5 Infinite & wondered if any of you have it & your thoughts.  I'm not here to start a flame war (I feel both appys have their strengths), I'd just love some feedback.

Being a Mac OSX user & finding my beloved Bryce is more then a tad behind the times in relation to my OS, I think V5I would be a good match for my fantasy/landscape type renders.  I've downloaded the demo and although I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm liking many of the options V5I offers.

What I can't find is a definitve answer as to whether or not it's possible to import photo textures into V5I (although you'd think it would be) for when I don't prefer a procedural.  If so, are they as easy to edit as in Bryce? Does anyone know if this possible?

I can side grade since I bought Vue 4 back when they had that $99 offer for Brycers.  Due to bugginess with this version, it's sat gathering dust on my HD ever since.  But V5I definitely has some cool features so I'm very interested.

Any thoughts from any those here who use Vue as well as Bryce?  You don't need to be a Mac user but if there are any here with experience using V5I on a Mac, I'd love to hear how it's working for you.  BTW, I'm still using the latest build of Panther & Bryce 5......mainly because I've read Bryce 5.5 is buggy with Tiger.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

~arry

Hi ariannah,

I too have both Vue (V5I) & Bryce (although I've only got Bryce 3).
Both have their virtues and vices. Vue is a bit less stable than Bryce, but I find it easier to use for some things.
The eco-system rocks! And trees, too :biggrin:

Yes, you can apply bit-mapped textures (including photos) into V5I.

In my opinion, the vegetation for Vue seems better than that for Bryce (from what I've seen of other people's renders), but can't give definitive opinion on that, only a feeling.

Personally, I now prefer to use Vue. I like the support for Poser PZ3 scenes and Vue's function editor, as opposed to Bryce's DTE (which I never really got to grips with).

Within just a few days of getting Vue, I'd created a couple of (satisfactory) scenes that I'd been struggling to create in Bryce for months.
OTOH: There are some things that Bryce does better. The "Background Update" of Vue can slow things down to a crawl; I don't really like the way that booleans work in Vue; and of course, it's a whole new interface and approach to have to learn...

Plus the rendering systems. Two similar scenes rendered with (approximately) equivalent render settings might look entirely different in Bryce compared to Vue (I think this is because Bryce seems to be fairly aggressive when anti-aliasing, but don't know enough to be that specific).

But, on the whole, I'd say, if you can afford V5I, go for it! (But make sure you also have a high-spec. machine 1st!)

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Diolma

Hi Diolma and thanks huge for your reply!
It did very much help & I greatly appreciate the differences you mentioned.

I've always hated learning a new appy (I compare everything to my 1st one - Bryce) so will have to strive for patience while starting all over again.  Patience has never been my strong point so will have to work on this. g

The vegetation is one of the things that attract me so much to Vue.  I'm thrilled to read you like the ecosystem.   And the trees......well, IMO, they look a heck of a lot more like real trees then Bryce's.  Normal trees bend for crikey's sake!  The lighting is another draw for me being fascinated with all things to do with lighting.

Dunno what the "Background Update" thingy you mentioned is, but I guess I'll have to get to used to it.  I hope my G5 is fast enough (2.5ghz) since I can't afford a new computer at this time.  I do have 3.5 gigs of ram so hopefully I can muddle through with my specs.

Cheers right back at you & thanks again for taking the time!
~arry

"Background Update"

Vue updates its various views "in the background", ie, using spare CPU time to do the updates.
This allows you to move the mouse around and (eg) select something else whilst the updating continues, but also means that the updating is slow, and if whatever it is you then change affects the views, the updating has to start over. On a PC, this means that the updating of the views (including the "nano-view") happens at molasses rate. This does, however have some compensations. You can use the time whilst waiting for the update to finish to make a cup of tea, have a cigarette, walk the dog.... OK, I exaggerate. And things may be different on a Mac..

Oh, and AFAIK, your specs look good enough (not really able to comment on that, but seem OK)

Hmmm - I'll have to careful, else this thread will get moved to the Vue forum:-))

AS: No slight intended to Bryce users! Only trying to offer help! (to a prospective Vue user sigh)

Cheers,
Diolma

Ah.  I see.  Well good to know.
My new puppy will love the extra walks. ;-D

Hi arianna! I also went over to Vue5i because of the Ecosys; you just can't live without it! With billions of polygons (ten thousands of trees) your file only weighs about 50 Mb!

One of the few problems is the antialiasing issue; you must set those sliders quite high in order to get a decent, grainfree pic but then the rendertimes will go trough the ceiling even on a duocore (2x2 ghz) processor (I also like to have Global Illum when using Vue multiplying the render time....) In Bryce I never used higher settings than "normal" AA but still had satisfying AA; in Vue you always have to go for at least "superior".

The second thing is the water; in Bryce I never had to tweak the water to get a nice surface; in Vue I have to struggle to get a good looking, distinct water surface...it's hard to explain but the difference is big! Vue is  more time consuming than Bryce; you can tweak things forever... :-)  

Oh grrrrreat.  I'm already a nut case about tweeking in Bryce.  But good to know, attlleus & thanks for your reply and warning, lol!  Ahh, good things & frustrating things in both appys, eh? But the ecosystem's weight does sound mighty promising. ;-]

I read you can export objects if you have V5I.  So does that mean if I have a hankering to render in Bryce I can import one of Vue's cool looking trees if I first export it in say .3ds or.obj?**
**

Don't forget Carrara.

There's lots of good looking Renders in Vue at the moment because that's where most of the natural landscape render fans have ended up (there's also a lot of crap coming out of Vue; it's the artist not the brush, etc). Vue undoubtedly has the lead and the momentum - but then so did Bryce at one time...

Check out this gallery to see one artist's progress with producing vegetation filled Carrara scenes:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?browse&user_id=237321

Yup, Carrara.

I couldn't pass it up myself, DAZ had too good of a deal on it.

Given the right person, Carrara would stand up to Vue5i, no prob.

I have Bryce 5.5, Carrara 5ro, and VUE5I.

I like Carrara Best. But before you plink any buckage down.
Download the demo of V5 and of Carrara. Give em a whirl first for free.
I think you will like Carrara More It's speedy and  full of features.

Thanks for the suggestions peops.  I've looked a bit at Carrera but haven't tried the demo so will take a look.  But at first glance, V5I still appears my 1st choice.  It seems more up to date for Macs as well & with Vue 6 due out this year, it's very tempting.

PJF - I couldn't agree more with what you said about it being the artist & not necessarily the tools.

Gah.
I hate these kinds of decisions.

If only you could afford them all, eh? ;-]

take me forever to set up a complex scene or render in vue and thats with a really fast X2 processor
Compared Carrara is like lightning.

I you are patiant and if you are not under pressure to produce somthing quickly, then for landscapes Vue does have more native features related to that like making foamy water by shoreline thru use of material nodes.
In carrara that will one day be an option, but only by a seperate 3rd party  plugin that you pay extra for.

Frank, thanks for clarifying that.  Since I do mostly landscapes, Vue will probably be the better way to go.  I'll still Bryce - I do love the appy.  Being my first 3D application, it will always hold a special place in my heart. :)

Thanks again to everyone who replied.
Your input is greatly appreciated!

No Problemo
Anytime Ariannah

Quote - In carrara that will one day be an option, but only by a seperate 3rd party  plugin that you pay extra for.

ddaydreams, can you please explain on what grounds you are basing this rather firm prediction?

Hi PDF

Quote - ddaydreams, can you please explain on what grounds you are basing this rather firm prediction?

This is based on an email I received from EnhanceC shaders plugin from support at DigitalCarversGuild when I asked about it. And also based on replies to a question in the carrara forum about "foamy shore line" as a wishlist feature for C6 and online pictures of results of the beta version.