Bryce Pro under Parallels? What's actually required?

Barbfmc

Out of desperation to use Bryce Pro on my Yosemite iMac 5K Retina machine ... I'm considering the Parallels arrangement .... except I have no idea what that would mean. How much would all of this cost me (except the Bryce Pro price which I do own) A new partition? A purchase of and installation of Windows (which version) and Parallels itself ...

&, finally,

anyone successfully using this arrangement? Downfalls?

Barb

Oroboros

Hi Barb,

I have a 10.6.8 machine with Bryce 6.3 running natively, and I have Parallels running XP for another Bryce 6.3 instance, though I don't use it much.

Parallels is a Windows firmware emulator that allows you to run Windows WHILE you're running Mac OS. No re-booting necessary. Windows becomes... an 'app', and you can run this app full screen, like a real Windows environment, or you can run Windows within its own window.

Parallels is not an operating system itself: You'll need to buy an off-the-shelf version of Windows. Take into account the versions of Windows Bryce won't run on when making the Windows purchase.

Parallels is $80, Windows is... a random number depending on version, financial times, wind direction and ouija board predictions, so you'll have to nail that one down yourself.

Set up is very straight forward. Like most Mac software, Installing Parallels is just a matter of following the step-by-step instructions. When it starts up... nothing happens except another icon in your dock/Mission Control, because the next step is installing Windows.

Installing Parallels/Windows on your Mac doesn't require you to set up a separate partition or buy a new external HD. Parallels installs on your Mac like any other app. Once it's running, you install Windows, and Windows will install like it does on any Windows-friendly machine. Once installed, Firing up Parallels will also fire up Windows, and THEN you can install Bryce on your 'Windows' machine.

The take home message you should get from this is: These are a lot of hoops to jump through to get an old application running on your comp, and; shovel as much RAM into your comp as possible.

OK, performance.

Parallels-Bryce works (and doesn't work in certain areas) like Mac-native Bryce, though I haven't gone to the mat with Bryce 7 on Parallels. My install has one positive and one negative significant difference. Because I tend to build complex models I like Families for model organisation. Creating and assigning Families to objects is fine, but once assigned, the colors of families get royally-screwed if you go into the Select Families palette, and often selecting a family crashes Bryce. This is a really aggravating pain for me. However, under Parallels-Bryce 6.3, Families work fine, no color weirdness, no selection-crashes.

The negative is mouse tracking speed (and please take into account my set-up above: I'm not on Yosemite). Under Parallels, you may have to knock back your mouse tracking speed significantly. Under Parallels-Bryce, mouse speed is... unsettling. Just moving your mouse is fine, but if you're manipulating objects in Bryce space (XYZ translation, rotation, scale) the mouse SCREAMS AWAY into the wild blue yonder. Very small physical movements result in very large virtual movements. You can tame this to some degree by holding the Option key while dragging, but... I found this eccentricity to be freakin frustrating.

Parallels under Yosemite might cure this problem. I don't know.

Parallels-Bryce runs slower than Mac-native Bryce as you might expect. But unless you're a speed freak with uncanny muscle memory people won't notice too much difference. Rendering will be slower as well. But what isn't being taken into account here is that the specs on a modern Retina 27" iMac SCREAM. So it's likely you'll see a speed increase overall.

You haven't asked for a verdict, but I think Parallels-Windows is a very good system that has aided me when I needed associated Windows-only apps to process some Bryce scenes. Also, when working with other Bryce users collaboratively it's been good to have a Windows system to render their output, because while Bryce scenes may be opened on either Mac or PC platforms, Mac and Windows systems use different color gamuts... And running Parallels-Windows also forces Parallels-Bryce to render within the Windows gamut.

The fact that I don't have to re-boot my Mac to run Windows is also a big plus.

I got Windows XP off a friend, so on the whole, Parallels is handy-to-have at $80, whether you only need it to run Bryce or not.

In March/May I'll be getting a Mac Pro 8-core system (one of those little black kitchen towelette-sized machines) and that will be running Yosemite. But I won't be installing Bryce on it :) It's unlikely I'll be installing Parallels on it either, as many powerful open-source apps are coming to the public as cross-platform distros these days. So.. take any recommendation I might make with that in mind :)

Barbfmc

This was a wonderful, thoughtful reply. Exactly the information I need. You are so kind to be thorough .... I love this new Mac . It's fast and crisp and has 4 cores. I filled up every memory slot I could both video and ram. I'm afraid of wrecking it ... slowing it down, something. This has really helped.

Thank-you!

Barb

Peter Fulford

Windows doesn't have the display scaling skills that the latest Mac operating systems enjoy. Even if you get Bryce functioning in a virtual Windows PC on your iMac, the stubbornly fixed Bryce GUI may* be unusable on a 27 inch monitor at 5120 x 2880 pixels.

Remember, the Bryce GUI was designed back when 17 inch cathode ray tubes at 1024 x 768 resolution were exciting...

*information offered in ignorance of precisely how Parallels presents old Windows apps on the Mac

Barbfmc

That's one of my concerns ... the age of the app. I was reading about vue, mojoworld, bryce .... they're disappearing. I'm wondering why. Right now Vue is a very expensive investment and, for me, the Bryce gui was always more effective. Nevertheless, these programs are capable of beautiful and original creations.

Barb

Oroboros

The reasons for software discontinuation are varied, but they boil down to "software no longer takes advantage of new technology; too much money to pour into changing it; not enough people buying to cover it."

All three of the apps you've listed were purchased by a company who makes money selling assets, not selling software. And if you're not making money on the software, you might as well not develop it – development risks incompatibility with an existing asset portfolio, so it's best just to keep making more assets.

This isn't a slight against the software. Bryce and Mojoworld, specifically, aren't the first 3D apps to fade. I used to use Meshworks for Mac 3D work, but that ran aground when Mac OS left the OS 8/9 CarbonLib platform. Similarly, all that can be done with Bryce, code-wise, is bolting on a feature or two, but nothing that touches the core code, written in AXIOM. Bryce requires a bedrock re-write, core code AND UI, and we're talking person-years of development, testing and money.

Throw 4 experienced devs at it for 3 years @USD$80k/year and you might get a working version.

A shortcut would be to grab the source code for a working, modern opensource 3D app like Blender and develop a Bryce-like interface for it, but even that takes a truckload of money and time.

Barbfmc

I've noticed that ... the asset development. DAZ Studio and Vue both have libraries of obj.s and themes and easy access to as well as membership into those libraries. These apps also seem to share a sense of 'the importance" of animation labs ... something I don't care about at all. But I did enjoy thinking about Bryce as my "paint kit" and creating my own 'paintings'. Time moves on, I guess and some folks don't :) C'est la vie.