Bryce 7pro is great but...

defuser2002defuser2002 Posts: 61
edited December 1969 in Bryce Discussion

It is buggier than the previous versions. I 've been using bryce since version 3 and this version crashes often or stalls.

Comments

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    MarkSA said:
    It is buggier than the previous versions. I 've been using bryce since version 3 and this version crashes often or stalls.

    How Bryce behaved - or misbehaves - can be dependent on a lot of factors. Even something simple like, having your task bar on the side or the top can cause instability. Also desktop themes can cause problems... though that's getting ahead of ourselves. If you are experiencing more crashes and stalls than previous versions of Bryce then that should not be the case. If you are keen to find out why Bryce 7.1 Pro isn't working for you as it should, there is a wealth of knowledgeable folks here who can offer advice. Before that though, it might help if you told us what system you were running Bryce on and if the crashes and stalls occur consistently or are just random. That's will help narrow things down.

    Cheers,

    David.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,630
    edited December 1969

    @MarkSA - tell us what you did before it crashed. I'm working daily for hours and don't experience crashes. Bryce 7.1 is more memory hungry than the versions before 6.0 and since it is still a 32 bit application, there are 2 GB at most - except if you make Bryce large address aware. Displacement can also crash Bryce if render priority is set above low, a well known and reported bug.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited April 2013

    I have to agree with Mark to a certain extent. I am managing to crash Bryce 7 more frequently than I managed to crash Bryce 5 (for some reason I didn't use Br 6 too much tended to stick with Br 5 till I got this machine). However sometimes I am aware that it is my fault for making too many changes without saving. a lot of the time.

    The one thing I do find however is that the crashes are rarely fatal, as they would have been with Br 5. A crash in Bryce 5 mostly meant that I had corrupted the working fille and couldn't use it again, whereas with Br 7 I can reopen the file once I reboot Bryce.

    Another thing I find with Br 7 is that it will sometimes go unresponsive for a while, but if I leave it it will work itself through and recover itself, at which stage I save and reboot Bryce to get rid of the undo stack in the memory.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • defuser2002defuser2002 Posts: 61
    edited April 2013

    Bryce 7Pro crashes or stalls when I am selecting a material or just when I am working on a simple prop. It decides to crash and pops up the error console and then exits.

    I am running XP32 SP3 with 4 gig of ram.

    Next time it crashes I will try and post the error log.

    I have noticed with displacement, things tend to stall for a long time, so I try and not use it in the material lab.

    Post edited by defuser2002 on
  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,630
    edited December 1969

    Displacement, as mentioned above, is really an issue. It is not yet fully cooked. I had some modest success using it, but it must be used extremely with extreme care - I usually avoid it.

    Bryce can chew quite a while on certain things and it is reported as unresponsive. However, it is still working. In such a case, it is helpful to open the task manager and watch what the CPUs do. Even on an 8-core computer, most of the time Bryce only uses one core. This is a bit disappointing. Only when rendering up to 8 can be used. The important thing is to be aware that Bryce reports when it fails. As long as it doesn't say so, it works. Someone recently reported to have waited for 3 days until an elaborate multi-replicate concluded and he could continue to work.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    MarkSA said:
    Bryce 7Pro crashes or stalls when I am selecting a material or just when I am working on a simple prop. It decides to crash and pops up the error console and then exits.

    I am running XP32 SP3 with 4 gig of ram.

    Next time it crashes I will try and post the error log.

    I have noticed with displacement, things tend to stall for a long time, so I try and not use it in the material lab.

    That sounds wrong, it shouldn't be doing that. Are you running the latest version?

    If you are not certain of the answer to that question, here's a very short video.

    Bryce 7.1 Pro - Help, About Bryce - a short video by David Brinnen

  • defuser2002defuser2002 Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    I have the latest version :).

    My other issues with Bryce is the main screen sometimes goes haywire and the materials in the material database don't show up (White squares). The undo in the terrain editor doesn't seem to work, so I have to use Cntrl-Z.

    I am having problems with the debugger, it doesn't let me copy or save a error log.

    I wish that Bryce would support multiple cores, it may render faster.

    Otherwise, it still lets me open older Bryce files.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    MarkSA said:
    I wish that Bryce would support multiple cores, it may render faster.

    The Bryce render engine does access multiple cores.
    Make sure Priority is set to High in the render settings.

    When the materials don't show up in your preset library, click on another sub folder and they come back.

    Not sure that Undo has ever worked in the Terrain Editor as all the options in the main menu are greyed out whilst in the Terrain Editor.
    Like you say, the keyboard command for Undo still works fine.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Dave got their with the answers first. Well, I too have suffered some of the problems you describe. The interface sometimes goes haywire for me when I've got other software running and Bryce doesn't seem to know that it should update after I've minimised what was over the top of it. Switching to another menu on the shelf usually fixes that.

    For multi-core support, see image (as Dave said, but here it is visually).

    Yes you only get one level of undo in the TE via Ctrl + Z (the button does not work it is true). Otherwise if you want to have more levels of undo, you need to step out of the TE and go back in again, then the state of the terrain will be added to the main undo stack.

    In the libraries I didn't have the problem at first, but as I've added more and more categories it has started happening to me to. I've found the same as Dave.

    Many of the solutions are scattered about my video's... but obviously there's a lot to go at there to find just a few tips. I'll think about condensing them into one video - when I get the chance.

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  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,630
    edited December 1969

    MarkSA said:
    I have the latest version :).

    I wish that Bryce would support multiple cores, it may render faster..


    And what is the latest version?

    If you computer sports multi-CPUs or a multi-core CPU, they can be put to use when rendering. Low Priority takes 1 core, Normal Priority half of the available ones, and High Priority all - that is, a maximum of 8. Bear in mind that even if a 4-core multithreaded CPU shows 8 CPUs, there are still only 4, the other 4 are virtual CPUs that can take about 15% of the load of a real CPU.

    If you think your renders take too long, you can always use several computers in a network. However, there are also strategies to make a render finish faster without quality impairment.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Trick question Horo? I think the latest version is this... (see image).

    Don't tell me I'm out of date again?

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  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,630
    edited December 1969

    You have the most recent one, David. MarkSA said he has got it also, I just wondered if this is just a claim out of the blue. I can be a be vicious at times.

  • defuser2002defuser2002 Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    Sometimes when I try and load a obp file I get a msvcr80.dll error. What does that mean?

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,630
    edited December 1969

    Not sure, but you might have the wrong version of this dll. It is one of the runtime libraries many programs make use of. Make sure you also have the 32 bit one.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969
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