Bryce Render Engine?

Poly Pix

Hello,

I've heared Bryce has two different render engines built-in. As far as I know these engines are selected via the quality menu in the camera controls. You can select between Default / Regular / Super / Premium. The Premium option selects the modern render engine, doesn't it?

Second question: What's True Ambiance? Is this another render mode, or is it only a new light model that can be used with any of Bryce's render engines?

Thanks!

Electro-Elvis

Hi Poly Pix

You are right. Regular (and Default) and Premium are using two different render options even different render engines (as far as I know). I don't often use Super. In my opinion it's a kind of mixture between Regular and Premium. It uses Regular for Rendering but Premium for Anti Aliasing.

I use mostly TA. In my opinion TA gives better results, than the regular mode, especially when you render figures with skin. TA simulates ray tracing, but as far as I know uses not the the physical correct methodes to do it, but rather any approxiamation, a simulation. (There are much more experienced persons on this topic. For example Rashad Carter wrote here in the Bryce forum over TA in detail.)  But with Regular mode you can achive quite good results, too. Outdoor scenes with IBL for example. In the end it is also a matter of taste.

Just my two cents worth ;-) Hope it helps at least a bit.

Chohole

I tend to use Premium almost all the time,  never use super, it is nopt nice.    Premium is good because you can use it to fine tune DOF by focusing your camera on one object in your scene.

Sometimes if you use premium and set the rays per pixel to a low setting (4 or 9) it can actually render faster than the regular renderer.  There are all sorts of variations that you can make using the control panel fopr premium rendering, including editing the ray depth

Horo

Poly Pix - True Ambience (TA) is an unfortunate name that comes from the Bryce 6 times when it worked with full ambience. Now it works with diffuse, which is more accurate. TA works a bit like path tracing and ray tracing combined. Ray tracing uses point light sources, path tracing needs light sources that have a size. Each light source (including IBL but excluding the sun) can be set to be either point lights or have a size. Point lights give well defined shadows with sharp transitions shadow/light. Area light sources give weaker shadows and the transition is blurred. This is good for indoor scenes. TA renders tend to be noisy and need a high rpp setting (rays per pixel) and the darker the scene, the noisier it gets, just as is the case with path tracing. To counter this partly, there is an option to boost the light. In a nutshell: experiment.

Dan Whiteside

Horo, excelent explanation of TA.

Chohole

Yes,   I was hoping that you would come in and help this member out.