As much as I hate to ask...
Turner
Posts: 114
Been using Bryce since its KPT days (And Cararra since Ray Dream...)
I look back over those years with an incredible fondness....
However, as it seems DAZ isn't developing Bryce anymore, I'm hoping to get some recommendations as to some other software to experiment with.
E-on, while great, has become exceedingly greedy over the years so I'm hard pressed to support them. (I have Vue 7 but never really got into it.)
Any thoughts?
cheers
Andrew
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Comments
@Turner - it is true that DAZ 3D hasn't done much for Bryce except still selling new stuff for it. Nevertheless, Bryce is still very much alive. Apart from being still a 32-bit application and therefore limited to 2 GB (or around 3.2 when made large address aware), 7.1 Pro has many modern features other 3D applications are still missing. Of course, the opposite is also true. As a dedicated "brycer" I'll stick to it.
We shouldn't scorn Carrara which has seen very much attention from DAZ 3D. It appears that there is a permanent group of developers working on it. I have Carrara since v3 up to v8 but haven't upgraded anymore to 8.5. There are many things I miss that I have in Bryce (though I also miss a few things Carrara has and Bryce doesn't).
There are a couple of "brycers" I know that went the Vue way and many of them returned disillusioned. One reason is certainly how E-on treats its customers, another probably the steep learning curve. Nevertheless, Vue is certainly a good 3D application.
The best program is the one you know best how to use.
Basically, "what he said". The fact that Bryce hasn't been updated for a while doesn't mean it isn't useful. As Horo and David's work testifies, you can do some amazing things with it.
If you're a Mac user, Bryce won't work on recent versions of the MacOS. However, it does run quite nicely under Windows running under the Parallels emulation software. Older versions of Parallels are often discounted -- for example, Newegg is selling Parallels 9 for $20 today -- so if you can then come up with a version of Windows that you can install on it, you're golden.
Carrara is well worth considering as a Bryce alternative. It might not satisfy a Bryce maestro like Horo, but it has some surprisingly powerful landscape modeling features, and a reasonably capable atmospherics engine. You can use it to make some quite realistic (or surrealistic) landscapes, if that's what floats your boat. This image was made in Carrara, and this one, and this one too.
I dabble in Vue, but it usually makes me weep tears of frustration. For an expensive 'pro' application, it's inexcusably unstable on Mac.
Another possible Bryce replacement is Terragen 3: very powerful, but it's not cheap. At the opposite end of the scale, for Mac only, there's also TerraRay, which is at least fairly inexpensive, if very much less powerful than most other programs in the space.
Hey guys -
the fact that it won't work on a modern Mac is my issue. I do have a PC, might try it out.
As noted, I have been using Carrara since it was Ray Dream; in fact, I'm rendering products in the background as I write this :)
That said, it could use some development as well. When purchased from Eovia, the idea was to integrate it far more with DAZ products, but I think the development curve was too steep...
I don't consider really as an alternative to Bryce in most ways, though I haven't tried, either.
[edit] I looked at the Carrara images just out of curiosity - nice, but not nearly as lush as what I'd like to do with it...
Then, there's Blender...
Vue 7 all you need - I use Vue 4 and 5 ( like you said cost to much for the new version )
lots of help on youtube .
Used to use Bryce - not to much now .
What, exactly, are you hoping to experiment with?
I disagree to some point with Horo's claim that the best software is the one you know how to use. My take is the best software is that which allows you to express your artististic drive. I know how to use Excel: I'm not all that keen in using it to make bitmap graphics. I know how to use Bryce: I'm not all that keen on using it for nature or physics simulations.
To help you answer your question, let me break it down into components with these two questions: What aspects of Bryce do you enjoy doing?
Modeling (the creation of 3D objects)
Lighting (the illumination of 3D objects)
Material/Texture design (the painting and mathematical construction of optical properties)
Post-Production (Not in Bryce: the layering of scene elements for 'Photoshop-like' effects like blurs, glows, grading, etc)
Animation (the movement of objects and materials in 3D space)
And secondly, what aspects of Bryce's supporting features do you like the most?
Preset Libraries
Ability to import non-native objects into Bryce scenes
The smooth operation of its Interface
Its interoperability with other software (such as DAZ Studio)
Its reliability and developmental roadmap (how well the software is maintained and operates)
These aren't comprehensive qualities by any means, but in trying to figure out a good answer a few more questions need to be posed, given the large amount of 3D software available these days.
You might look at Eric Wenger's Voyager 3:
http://www.uisoftware.com/Voyager/vyinfo.php
It's Mac only and it's a blistering fast render on multi-core systems.
Besides doing Bryce like terrain scenes it also has extensive support for 3D fractals.
To do totally original setups you'll also need the Artmatic app.
Here's something I've been fiddling with using Mandelbox and Julia set fractals.