Just saw over at DAZ Forums someone saying they found Bryce 7 Beta in their Available Downloads. I looked and I got it too. Figured I'd pass it on.

Found this thread too:
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=130693&highlight=bryce++beta

Curious that it says Bryce 7 Beta, then in the next column it says 6.3 update from 5.0-5.5
 it's only available till Jan 20 2010 so get it fast I guess

Now that's a surprise.

There are even more surprises to come...

AgentSmith

I've downloaded it but I'm unsure if it overwrites 6.3. I don't want to risk messing that up as I use the link to daz Studio a lot and i don't think is working for Bryce 7 yet unless I'm mistaken.

Downloading now with much Joy :)

I'm a work right now. I can hardly wait to get home so i can give it a spin.

Bryce 7 by my tests renders roughly 50% faster than 6.1, and a full 80% faster than 6.3, which was actually a tad slower than 6.1. Bryce 7 is a major improvement just in render speeds alone. It even allows you to create an hdri from the sky used in the scene!

Yes, Bryce 7 will install over 6.3, so be carefula to secure your User presets before reinstalling.

Quote - Bryce 7 by my tests renders roughly 50% faster than 6.1, and a full 80% faster than 6.3, which was actually a tad slower than 6.1. Bryce 7 is a major improvement just in render speeds alone. It even allows you to create an hdri from the sky used in the scene!

Yes, Bryce 7 will install over 6.3, so be carefula to secure your User presets before reinstalling.

I'm a bit confused by this, does this mean it turns the full 6.3 version into a 7 beta? does the link to daz studio still work?

Both 6.3 and 7 will install into a folder named Daz3D. This is different than 6.1, which installed in a folder simple named Daz.

So most people, found that in order to use 6.3 effectively they had to transfer their presets from the Daz folder to the Daz3D folder. Just to be on the safe side, I always move my User presets to a secure location, for in the past a new installs or mere re-installs would replace occupied User folders with empty ones of the same name.

As far as the beta goes, I think that in order to qualify you must be a Bryce 6.3 user, and they say it is still not too late to upgrade to 6.3.

Good luck.

With any beta, use caution and always suspect the worse to happen with your presets. Back everything up, elsewhere.

I have my B7 beta installed in a completely different directory apart from my B6.1 and my B6.3

AS

Very wise way of approaching it AS.

My paranoid ways, as always, lol.

Rashad,

I see your image is being used for the cover art. Congratulations! Nice score.

Thanks Vncnt9663!

Well this is interesting news and nice suprise in my downloads...

happiness for the Brycers! :)
may download it  as I bought 6.1 while back for a little nostalgia ;)

I'm looking forward to testing it tomorrow.  It's been so long since I used Bryce because it didint' compare to the progress of my favourite programme

Instance lab = Ecosystems????

I'm hopingthe material lab has changed.  Never did quite get a full handle on that.

I would also caution everyone that this is VERY beta, imho. Some foundation bricks have been laid, but not all of them.

(Not everything has been thrown in there yet).

So, be gentle with old Bryce, her makeover is kinda just beginning, lol.

But, I gotta tell you from what I have seen with the beta crew, they are a crazyily,  amazingly knowledge-able group and have been very passionate at trying to get all they can stuck into Bryce 7. Daz has also been wonderful in taking it all in and trying to hit a nice high water mark with this next version. My hats off to absolutely ALL of them.

The future of Bryce...past even Bryce 7.0 looks quite promising, imo.

This is a nice surprise and a great start for 2010.

This is a bit nostalgic for me, because 11 years ago I was invited to do Beta testing for Bryce 4.0 after a review I wrote for Bryce 3D (v3.1)

Bryce 3D
http://www.designertoday.com/Reviews/Review.Archive/259/Bryce.3D.aspx

Bryce 4
http://www.designertoday.com/Reviews/Review.Archive/229/MetaCreations.Bryce.4.aspx

hehehe what a noob I was back than... and still am. :)

frogdot: Thanks for the headsup.

PS: I'm getting awesome speeds downloading the beta.

There is a lot of content for free as well......  I'm very excited to give this a whirl....

Good lord, Bryce 3D, I didn't come in until Bryce 4.

pity I only have 5.5...;)

It is a bit different to Bryce 6 :) and I think you will find that it renders faster :) which to me is really good. The instancing lab is still very primitive but I think very exciting.

I think it is available so long as you have Bryce 6. But beware because it will want to install in the same folder as Bryce 6.3 in the DAZ 3D folder area but you can always direct it elsewhere.

Okay call me dumb. I got B7 email at work so I didn't go looking for the download. Now that I'm at home I can't find it. Can someone forward me the download link? PLEASE!!

Never mind I found it. DUH!

Pakled you can upgrade to 6.3 For a $40.00. That's a good deal.

http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=4595

Still see they have Duplicate tree's of mine in Object library...?

"Special Tree's"
Bryce tree's...Doh...

To bad we cant use grouped Objects or animated Objects...That would be so cool to be able to have wind blown effects and such...

Ohhhhh man we need WIDGETS inside of Bryce....

Widgets?

I 'THINK' Instancing lab = a way of painting/copying objects into your work very quickly. Great for making forests of trees etc....

"I 'THINK' Instancing lab = a way of painting/copying objects into your work very quickly"

Yup, exactly.  ;o)

Yup, exactly.  ;o)
Jeez! but I'm good :lol:

The DLD skies, any one ?!? What is the DLD skies except from very beautiful sky presets ?!?

Attached Link: Instancing

I started with Bryce 3D version 3.1 in 1998. Moved to 4 in 2000 and my first image on here was done around that time. There was a big shake up here on R'osity when it split to 3D Commune and I removed my gallery (something I regret doing as I had no backup of those images and lost them soon after). My next image wasn't until 2001 still on Bryce 4. Very excited to see what changes they have made. Been dabling with Vue but my heart is always with Bryce how could it not be after 12 years!

Installing it shortly and testing after my backup is complete.

have to say I'm pretty stoked about this Bryce 7 deal.
Here we were all lamenting its demise, and VIOLA ... Bryce 7 beta
Can it get any better than that other than its actual full release  ?

The instancing lab, although not complete as is, is really pretty cool. It would be nice to have a more predictable placement of objects and also a bit more randomness, but its a great start.
I did find you can utilize the random placement uin the EDIT mode , however, to change size etc, of objects. Very cool.

The IBL lab --- using the sky as hdri is pretty decent as well. Again, its not complete, but it works. Slows the render time down a bit.

I can't find the instancing lab ????

create a terrain. create an object. Select the terrain and note the small icons next to it. There is now one that is an "I" click it and you will be in the Instancing Lab.
there are no directions for this, so play around.
That thread up above to DAZ, I put a couple of tips

Quote - I can't find the instancing lab ????

Yea I fiound it after postingbut i had a tree and tried it with that but it keeps 'instancing' the gound plane instead.

:b_crying:

The only thing in the 'source' list is Plane 1

AHHHHHH lightbulb moment!
So I have to have the ground plane selected to paint tree instances.

Shuffles back into dark corner she'd crept out of

Hi Dave,

thanks for the information! That's great news. Am downloading it just now and will play with that Beta on a lazy Sunday. :)

Hubert

What no renders yet - Its all going on over at daz

iNSTANCE aLERT:

iF YOU USE A TERRAIN OR PLANE AS THE BASE FOR YOUR INSTANCING, ALL OBJECTS CREATED ON THAT TERRAIN OR PLANE BECOME A PART OF IT.

THUS, IF YOU DELETE THE PLANE OR TERRAIN, ALL INSTANCES OF THE OBJECTS CREATED ON IT ARE DELETED AS WELL.

you can undo the delete , however.

SORRY FOR THE CAPS...IT WAS SET AND DIDN'T NOTICE UNTIL I HAD TYPED EVERYTHING.

Basically, the instanced items are now considered children of the parent/base object.  You can change the children without effecting the parent, but changing any of the 'Attributes" of the parent will cause the children to inherit the same changes.  (By 'Attributes' I mean, size, rotation, world position, etc.  Textures are not considered as one of those attributes, so your terrain can have a separate material than the children items.)

As for image posts, here's mine:
About 200+ trees on a terrain, also uses the 'Use Sky As HDRI' option in the HDRI lab.  Time to render was quite good, even on my older machine, and making camera adjustment was ridiculously easy compared to what would have happened in an earlier version if I had attempted it.

Spheres on Water 

Over on the DAZ forum, it was brought up to disable sunlight and just use HDRI ... this looks really good.

*disable sunlight and just use HDRI

• That actually works for me, but HDRI really slows things down when it comes to rendering.

Quote - *disable sunlight and just use HDRI

• That actually works for me, but HDRI really slows things down when it comes to rendering.

Bah ditch the Pentium 4 Hamsters and move on over to the quad-harnesses chariot CPU boogie of the 21st century, mate! ;)

glad Bryce ifnally got instancing, makes a hue improvement*! :)

now, I don't know how bryce instanicng works, but if it's like other unmentionable apps, lol, it should allow the use of ANY model, as the chrome sphere pic seems ot show? if so..think ARMIES....
think using it for smoke, fire, special effects ;)

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=910213&user_id=7541&np&np

Yeah, any object in your scene can be Instanced.

Although, right now this is not TRUE Instancing, it is just copying the object for you. The benefit of true Instancing will be later implemented.

Yup, Instance trees, water drops, blades of grass...cough spheres over water, whatever.

HDRI - Yes, takes longer since its lighting is by default, more complex.

* Make sure when you are experimenting with an HDRI the QUALITY is set to its lowest value of 16. This will speed things up greatly while you are testing the lighting.

* Use the "Render In Scene" option under the nano preview window, in the IBL /HDRI section of the sky lab. This gives a quicker way of judging the lighting on your scene without having to go back to your main window and render.

Quote - Yeah, any object in your scene can be Instanced.

Although, right now this is not TRUE Instancing, it is just copying the object for you. The benefit of true Instancing will be later implemented.

Yup, Instance trees, water drops, blades of grass...cough spheres over water, whatever.

HDRI - Yes, takes longer since its lighting is by default, more complex.

* Make sure when you are experimenting with an HDRI the QUALITY is set to its lowest value of 16. This will speed things up greatly while you are testing the lighting.

* Use the "Render In Scene" option under the nano preview window, in the IBL /HDRI section of the sky lab. This gives a quicker way of judging the lighting on your scene without having to go back to your main window and render.

Please sweet sweet Agent Smith wil you explain the different between "just copuing the object for you" and "true instanceing". If it is not just a lot of copys of an object, what is it then ?!? I simply don´t understand it and my brain hurts VERY much ! :-)

Well I have managed to crash 3 times until I got the hang of the instance lab and I have to say for me thats the best thing so far in 7. I made a fleet of ships in about 10 seconds and it worked great. Of course I am good at crashing Bryce. I did have one crash on a save. Tried to re-create it but 2cnd time it worked fine. Probably a hiccup with my new machine.  So far I am happy with the beta and if it is any indication of what the final version is going to be like then it will definitely become once again my favorite program. (the scene I crashed saving would have killed itself in 6.1 and 6.3 a dozen times at least:) )