Dig it Up, and Show Us
CTippetts
Posts: 162
I'd like to see everyone's first attempts at Bryce. I mean; very first renders after first installing your first version of Bryce. I know ... embarrassing. Right? So, what! We all did it.
I didn't get into Bryce until late November of 2008. It was version 5.5, and I'm still using that same installation on the same computer. That makes it easy for me to dig up my first renders. For some of you, it's going to involve really digging.
I am proposing this for a few reasons:
1) To show how diverse our first impressions of what we thought we might be able to do with Bryce was;
2) To demonstrate that even the best of you were once beginners;
3) To show beginners that they might not be as bad as they think they are;
4) Because I believe Bryce has always been so powerful that even beginners could produce art from Bryce, but may have never found a slot where they could feel comfortable showing what they did. I'm opening that slot here.
These are my first three renders in order. I think three is a good number here, but, if you only want to show one, make sure it's your very first render. I think six is too many for this exercise. (Um, and I think five is all we can upload in one post.)
Here is "Two Islands Away", "Three Island Mile", and "Joshua's Warning".
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Here's the earliest I can find, I got Bryce for my birthday at the end of February, 2003 (I had also played with a demo version of Bryce 2 which I got on a magazine disc in 96). This source for this picture is dated second of March. So clearly it is not the first render I did by a long chalk, but the first I bothered to save. The building is just a photo I took of some flats as seen from the beach turned into a billboard. So only the sky, the cloud and the water is Bryce.
Edit. dug up another one from the archive on the same date. Again the aircraft is just a billboard. For some mad reason I used DOF on the mountains.
There are my 1st and 2nd attempts and one that I did along the way, but I stopped using Bryce 5.5 after a few months and started again after I downloaded the 7 Pro and started participating in this forum and working with David's and Horo's marvelous tutorials and the others found at Bryce-tutorials.info
Good idea for a topic.
Earliest I can find are from 1998. I put a few together.
1 of them is actually a CD case insert I did for my brother.
He was really impressed at the time. Funny now.
I don't have my earliest efforts saved, this is the oldest I can find. It's not in my gallery because although I was happy with it at the time, now I cringe. Pretty funny how our opinions change over time. I've thought about reworking it, but never quite had enough interest. The tiger could do with some actual fuzzy fur (which would be a lot of work) and a smaller head, the ice needs something to indicate that it's actually ice (maybe cracks, branches sticking through it with frost on the edges, etc.) and the scene itself needs a world of additional outdoorsy detail. The snowflakes were all postwork, one at a time (that took a while) and some of the snow on the bushes was also pixel-by-pixel postwork.
Another of my earliest ones is actually in my gallery, but I went through and reworked it a bit before it got there, and don't have the original version saved.
Gosh, mine will have been 6 computers ago and backed up onto a floppy disc so there's no way I could get it back unless I dug my 20 odd year old computer from the cupboard under the stairs....
.... However, this is an approximation of what my first render would have been:
I cant seem to find my first render, but this is the earliest on I have saved from 2009 :)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You had to do it didn't you Dave? Everyone else was being good, but you had to do it, you had to be the one. I might of guessed!
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You had to do it didn't you Dave? Everyone else was being good, but you had to do it, you had to be the one. I might of guessed!
ROFL
Sorry about that, but we know we all did it at least once. :lol:
I did have some really old render on a website I had many years ago but apparently Virgin have taken that server down because there is no sign of it anymore... I may be able to find the first render I did in 2006/7 when I got seriously back in to Bryce... I'll have a look later.
Isle, June 2002 Bryce 5.01 (German version). Here is what I wrote as comment in my image database at the time:
This is my very first try with Bryce 5. I put an isle in an infinite sea, added two standard trees from the library and made the sun visible and large. This is a soothing image indeed — so much of it, that it is actually a complete Kitsch.
This very first render made me the winner of the Save Bryce Petition Ultra-Mini Contest. I was quite proud at the time.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You had to do it didn't you Dave? Everyone else was being good, but you had to do it, you had to be the one. I might of guessed!
Very funny. I too was wondering when the first water plane plus a shiny ball render would show up. For years it seemed that was all anyone was making with Bryce. If we ran a poll I'd guess at least 50% of people wound up with a similar first try.
Here are a couple I think were the first I tried.
I've just reinstalled Bryce after a long break.
These were my first ever renders with it. Yes, I did a shiny sphere one as well!
OK, well, if you insist. I'm not sure what order these are going to show up in, as this forum always seems to mess me up no matter what order I upload them in, so here goes:
My first render with Bryce 4 was the result of an old Peter Sharpe tutorial I found shortly after I started playing with it. I titled it Broken Glass. My first ever Bryce render, and I just HAD to play with booleans. ~shakes head~
The second, Red Mist, and third, Outer Space, were also done with Bryce 4.
The fourth, Rolling Hills, was my first render in Bryce 5 (my first play with the then new tree lab), and the 5th, Night Waterfall, was in Bryce 5 as well.
Edited to Add: I just KNEW they wouldn't show up in the right order. ~headdesk~
This last render, Teraain 1 (yeah, I know, real imaginative title), was my first render after quite a few years away from Bryce, and the first after installing Bryce 7 Pro on this then brand new laptop the very end of December 2012. It was a unique render as the terrain was created in Terragen and then exported to OBJ, and then imported into Bryce. I wasn't sure how it would work, but was pleasantly surprised.
I love this idea!
Can I take it over to the DAZ section with your permission?
I don't use Bryce and would love to see other people's progress ^^
I am quite impressed.
@mhossack - The composition of your first image is inspirational. I really like how you used the flow of the clouds to apex at the tip of the right-most mountain. The "rule of thirds", I've heard so much about, is evident in that piece. Were you even thinking about that, or did it just happen? For me, a lot of what comes out just happens, which is an amazing thing about Bryce. Also, I'm glad you had a shiny ball experience. (See below.) I'm glad you are now a part of our forum, and have become a member here. It's clear that you know what you're doing, (or at the very least, what you want to do), and I will look forward to seeing future posts out of you in other threads here.
@TheSavage64 - One thing you made me realize with your re-creation was that I probably did half a dozen or so renders before I actually did a "Save". I, too, did the shiny ball thing, and didn't save it, (except it was a ball sticking out of a cube on all sides). Recalling that made me realize that the first one I posted in this thread was the first one I spent any amount of time on, compelling me to save it, rather than re-create it. That's why my second one was really the same as the first one, changed around, and with more added to it. The third one was sort of a comment on the comical nature of trees in Bryce, (um ... 5.5), and I found the Joshua Tree most amusing. Later I learned the producers chair is not the camera. Which brings me to ...
@Horo - You were already moving the sun years before I knew Bryce as anything but a canyon area in Utah. I appreciate that your post is from a "Save Bryce" exercise. It's kind of what the theme of this thread implies ... keeping interest in Bryce, and not giving up. I admit I wasn't after contest winners here. I had a rather flat learning curve with Bryce. I found the interfaces confusing, and quite nearly declared the program unusable. What I said above about not saving my first render was, in fact, because I had not yet figured out that I could hold the mouse to the top of the screen and get traditional menus to appear, which includes the "Save' function. The first time or two I shut down Bryce, I hit the "Windows" key on my keyboard to get to the active program icons, and shut it down from there. I like how most of your tutorials are so professionally done .... concise ... planned out, and prepared for the different OS's Bryce runs on. They have helped me as well as many people here so much along the way, and I'm proud to have your post here.
@DavidBrinnen - Thank you for starting the show. I totally excuse you for not having your first saved renders. Pioneers don't often think of themselves as anything more than an adventurer, and don't make their maps, until someone points out to them that no one has gone there before. The fact that you managed to find examples from 1996 is quite note worthy. Thank you so much for posting them here. I've known your name since I started getting use out of Bryce 5.5. You are credited with several of the preloaded atmospheres in Bryce 5.5. It's a true honor to have you participating and providing input here. Where are other people that are credited in the Bryce 5.5 preloaded materials, such as Jonathan Cummings, and Jessica Riggs? As with Mr. Wernli, your tutorials and videos are a great help to many of us. (By the way, I hope your health is improving, as you seem to have congestion in most of your videos. No wonder your first UV mapping was of cold medicine.) Your on-the-fly approach to your videos is very helpful, because there is as much to be learned by witnessing trial and error, as there is in a straight line to the answer. Plus, the answer is always a good one.
@mermaid010 - Nice! No wonder you stuck with it. Don't you find it rewarding to see your ideas rendered by Bryce? To me it seems, even when I can't get to where I thought I wanted to go with Bryce, where it takes me to is always a fine place indeed. These are the kinds of examples I was hoping to see. We all know Bryce has taken you to many fine places, and that these works, as good as they are, pale in comparison to what you do today. I appreciate that you are not too proud to show them. I got to see them. That's a treat for me.
@StuartB4 - Thank you for pointing out that many works can be displayed in spite of the 5 file limit. Your work from 1998 is quite interesting, and really shows the diversity of Bryce. Your brother was right to have been impressed by it. Um, I'm using Firefox on an old XP machine, and your website doesn't work for me. Clicking the "Gallery" button gets me no image or thumbnail strip. So I'm glad you were able to show so many here. I hope to see more from you in other threads.
@Miss B - Thank you for getting your posts in here. I remembered seeing your broken glass image years ago, and I'm still amazed by it as a true example of mastery of Boolean functions. Why the "shakes head" comment? It's great. Like others here, you are so prolific with your art, it's not far from believable that these are the earliest works you can find. I'd rather see something you posted before, than nothing out of you for this thread.
@Tim Bateman - I have to call that cheating. Beautiful, inspirational, downright astounding ... but, cheating. Dave at least tried to show the spirit of a first render. Your post is more like a contest winner. This isn't a contest. No one believes this is the earliest piece you can find. I can say, I'd rather to have seen it here, than never see it at all. It is a great use of Bryce. Nice to have you aboard, as well. Your post is a good example of your art in general. Your art is a true compliment to Bryce. I am trying to compliment Bryce, after all.
@GussNemo - This is where I get to say, "You sure have come a long way, haven't you?" These are very good first works ... true examples of what I was after here. Everyone here knows your latest work is far better than these. (Um, if someone reading this doesn't know that, please follow his link to his gallery.) This thread is for artists and budding artists, (and artist wannabees like me), to set pride aside and show what may now humiliate them, though they were proud enough to save it when they brought it into being.
@Estroyer - Anything to promote Bryce is welcomed.
@Sean Riesch - Once again, at least it's believable that you found something from far back. You, too, are a Bryce pioneer that I am thrilled to have made a post here. When you first saw my suggestion for this thread, what piece did you think of, (that you were unable to locate)? Can you tell us what inspired you to work with Bryce when you first installed it? I like your comment about our own changing opinions of what we do. It's something I was hoping would come out in these posts. Some of the things you point out in your self-critique were not that noticeable until you pointed them out. Makes me imagine what critique Michelangelo might have had for "David". Which brings me to ...
@chohole - Something's missing. Let me see. What is it? Oh, I know ... YOUR OLDEST RENDER. I was hoping you, of all people, would see what I was after here and contribute. It's no contest. Yet, I'm not asking you to find humility. Quite the opposite. We all had pride when we decided it was time to hit the "Save". Show us what you had that first pride in.
@Rashad Carter - See comment above to chohole. I'm really hoping you will contribute. Or, did you start out doing perfect work? If so, I apologize, but we still want to see it.
All - I don't know what it takes to inspire the Bryce developers to continue to develop Bryce. I do know that it has always been a fantastic art program. I'm surprised Corel didn't realize that, and try to re-acquire it. However, I'm glad they didn't, because a few of my favorite art programs were bought up by Corel, and they proceeded to trash them, (think Paint Shop Pro by JASC, and Studio by Ulead). None the less, I hope something gets someone inspired to move toward the goal of updating Bryce.
It's so discouraging to see threads about Bryce getting lost to OS updates. As Sean has pointed out, Bryce rules for fog and atmosphere effects. People still go to Bryce for their final renders, even if every other component was built external to Bryce. Is it too perfect to update? It's not the old, "If it works, don't fix it" theme. If it were, it wouldn't be lost to OS updates. New users are needed. Old users are extremely needed.
One bit of new technology, that I think an updated Bryce would be a standard asset for, is the new 3D printers. Amazing devices. Inventors could easily use Bryce, updated for a 3D printer, to build their prototypes for marketing and copyright uses. I would. Anyone else?
Just for you I scoured through some old back up disc, and found, if not quite my oldest render, certainly pretty near to it. Bryce 3 and Poser 3 imports, so around 1998 I guess.
I have definitely improved somewhat since this one. :coolsmirk:
BTW, I do remember that I hadn't worked out how to put clothes on things in Poser, so they are wearing clothes made from terrains and the tops are made by duplicating part of the Poser figure mesh and making it bigger.Wings are flattened symlats.
Unfortunately my memory is hazy on all points. I don't remember my earliest work at all. The only other earlier thing I can even remember that I don't have anymore was a Bryce tree with some colored spheres on it like a Christmas tree in some snow that I did for a Christmas card. I think I got into Bryce because I saw some Bryce artwork somewhere and got excited about it, but don't recall what or where.
@C Tippetts: Thank you for your very kind words. Things are better now than when I first started, but I've a long way to go before I really know what I'm doing. Plus, it's taking some time to awaken what art abilities I had in my way younger days.
Mostly perpetually snotty due to allergies or colds. In the spring, summer and autumn I have allergies, in the winter I have a break and have some colds instead. It is nothing serious, just irritating.
My "on-the-fly" approach is just, my approach. I lack the discipline and organisational skills that Horo demonstrates, instead what I have is plenty of curiosity to see what happens, even if only to find out that what happens is what I expected to happen, that's still worth knowing. Even when things fail often they fail in enlightening and interesting ways. And not having to produce definite results is a great liberator. I admire Dave (Mr Savage) using Bryce commercially, that is very impressive. For the most part I just noodle around and see what happens, a good result I show, bad results I put aside and curious results I save and come back to later when I have nothing pressing I want to experiment with. From potential bugs come potential features. Which is nice.
As to the questions you pose, well I really don't know. I suspect though that the presence of free software in the market such as Blender has put a dint the sales for render engines that would otherwise be used in the hobby market and created a bit of a wasteland between the free stuff and the professional stuff, which mid range applications could otherwise have occupied. But really, as I said, I don't know. Retail and marketing is not something I have ever studied, so it is a bit pointless to speculate. I just know that if you give people stuff for free they rapidly come to the conclusion that what you are giving them has no value and as a result it makes it very difficult to go back to a situation where they will be willing to pay for things again.
don't remember what year
I cannot just start a recording and go on as David can, I'm incapable do do such a thing. That English is my fourth language is not a valid excuse. I'm a technical person, not an artist and I lack imagination. I have to go about a problem in an analytic way and doing a video means nearly a week of preparation: check if my ideas work in more than one way, document what I've done and what I want to cover. Finally recording an hour or two with many pauses to get a 30 to 40 minute video that I have to edit down to half cutting out the pauses, the ahms and whatever that is just there to steal the time of the gentle watcher.
I came from TerraGen to Bryce and struggled with the interface because it was not (boring) Windoze standard. Meanwhile I'm convinced it's the best interface for artistic work (though there is still potential to improve). What's meanwhile out there in the 3D realm is just horrid from the interface perspective, made for masochists. I want fun and Bryce is fun. I got more serious with Bryce when I "met" David and later Rashad on www,bryce5.com. A gallery where positive critique and feedback was the rule, not just praise or silence. I learned enormously from the comments. Sadly, it got a bit quieter lately. Not many giving usable comments anymore. Bug-tracking is also very helpful to learn. There were folks that complained about things that didn't work correctly I wasn't even aware that such a thing existed. Sadly, DAZ 3D chose to delete the complete bug database, years of helpful comments lost. To be fair, DAZ 3D says they still have the database, it's just not public anymore. If so, there's nobody left understanding it. But - we hang on, don't we?
Well I've been looking through some of my old back up drives today trying to find something else, but I took the opportunity of having a look to see if any of my old Bryce stuff was around. I managed to find this little gem that I must have done way back when.
I don't have the Bryce file for it, because I got this from a back up of a website I used to play with years ago and for some unknown reason, I thought this was worth showing off at the time. :lol: I think it was so small because of the painfully long render times.
I had acquired one of the first versions of Poser too and thought it was great that models could be swapped between the two programmes.
Much the same as my old one. I think I would have been using a 486 at the time, but it was a 486dx2 66. It may have been after I upgraded to a P5 pentium though, not quite sure.
CTippetts – It’s so nice of you to comment on everyone’s post. This shows your dedication to this thread and Bryce. I hope more people post their early work, so we can all share in their experiences. Thanks for the nice thread and to everyone who shared their renders.
I found my very first space scene made in Bryce 5 on 26. January 2003. The terrain is a bit low resolution ...
Here's another of my earlier works.
CTippetts,
This thread makes me sad because it reminds me of how much stuff I've lost over the years. Once I had a roommate who dumped over 10gb of files on my computer just to be mean on the day she was moving out. Then I had a few random hard drive failures, and even had a back-up drive fail. Most of the stuff I still have from those days has been recovered using recovery software. The odd stripes across some of the images was the result of the file recovery. Many files werent recovered at all so I count myself lucky that I was able to retrieve anything at all.
Suffice it to say, I have no clue what I was doing back then when I first started. But here's the oldest stuff I can find which you can see I already had a few years of experience under my belt by t eh time these renders were produced.
Since the beginning, I've always tried to do things with Bryce that are in theory impossible. Thus the strange musing below.
This first series was an experiment of making human figures modeled with metaballs. This was before the days of the DazStudio Bridge. The figures are terrible, but fully Bryce. At one point I decided to start over creating a head. Here is a test render I managed to salvage. She was going to be a sexy spotted alien.
We do get better over time, and the second series of images proves it. This set deals with my goal of building a futuristic city in Bryce. Though I didn't have much skill at the time, I knew that I wanted to build a futuristic city with all kinds of odd and implausible architecture. I eventually decided I wanted the city to be terraformed over water near a mountain so I tried that too with no success. Since I never am satisfied with anything I render, I tend to go back and re-examine previous projects. About 4 years after I started it I finally figured out in 2008 how to make the city look as I expected. I had to use Truespace for the basic city model, but I used my previous Bryce boolean creations as the main buildings in the final scene. Nothing ever goes to waste. I almost always find a use for something eventually.
Thanks for your interest, CTippetts. It's good to see how far we've come sometimes.
Fun fun
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