Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
still no Bryce. I am being snetenced to Vue. Eventually, you have to update your product to modern operating systems or it IS dead. Yes, there are people still using Amigas. That doesn't make it a great solution.
I am trying to learn a bit more about Bryce Pro 7, what all I can do with it, and using finished projects with other apps before I go buying it. I am leaning heavily toward a purchase. I love the work people have posted here, it is just really amazing. I really like the landscape stuff and would love to create some of my own works. I hope it is not dead.
If me posting my interest here will help keep alive great or anything else I can do in my small little way.
Liana
@ c-ram...That is good to hear. I usually use the cheap or free software like Gimp and Blender. I am still learning in both. I spent some cash to upgrade my pc it needs so I will be putting some purchasing on hold a little while. Bryce is on my wishlist for sure!
Gotta run the older, unsupported version of Mac OS to have it run. It has been years and it still has not been updated. I'm almost tempted to say send me the source and I'll fix it for nothing.
Yes indeed, that is what is required... I depends on how much you enjoy using Bryce. And old Mac OS is no problem... That it's not supported is no problem, that I have to keep my 8 year old laptop is no problem.... It's Apple and as such it just doesn't break down. And it's Bryce, which is worth (for me) being able to use commercially and for fun
Newbie to Bryce here.
I've got a brand-spankin' new hot PC (Intel i7, 64 GB Ram, GTX 980 Ti, Windows 10). I just installed Bryce and it launched without a hitch.
I would like to say that I am encouraged by the dedication of the Bryce community.
I picked up the Bryce Mentoring DVD and have rolled up my sleeves and am eager to dive in!
P.S. - Would it help to organize a week long event where all the Bryce users fill DAZ's inbox with requests to update Bryce? I would be glad to participate!
My favorite program, but I feel its doomed to digital dust.
With all due respect, it's dead in the water, last major update was nearly six years ago...It isn't even a 64 bit program when most computer users have systems with at least 8-16 gbs of memory, and yet the rendering engine is still the 4gb limited archaic scanline, when every other renderer is physical-based...It's as dead as Daz Mimic 3 PRO...The only thing still alive about the program is the generous and incredibly talented artist community...
But make no mistake, Bryce is as dead as a lump of coal in a black hole...And yes, I say this so Daz can prove me wrong, in fact, I look forward to it! Noting the above post, the bare definition of its ability to run on your system shouldn't be a prerequisite of the program's life, as even Mimic Pro 3 still runs on a win 7 system...
Bryce will only ever be classed as dead when the last Brycer stops posting images, tutorials, products etc. Have you noticed how alive this forum is.
For a start the Main Bryce render thread has had 8 previous closed iterations and is on it's 9th, thats 900 pages of Bryce images. The render challenge, the current one is the 19th, and we rarely have less than 40 entries each time
Again, the program's progress is dead, not the community...
The community is ongoing, unfortunately, the program's progress is not, just like mimic 3 Daz has pretty much ignored its progress...
takezo_3001 - The current Bryce version is from August 15, 2011 and this makes 4-1/2 years, not nearly 6 years. Not that this would make it much better, just for the records. The 6.3 to 7.0 upgrade was to make Bryce 64 bit ready, however, it was abandoned midway because of the risk of budget overrun. Instead, we got a lot more options in 7.1. Again, this doesn't make it any better. Since Bryce does everything in memory, 64 bit would really bring Bryce back up front. However, I'm always amazed how much Bryce can do and how few people know of the possibilities. I'm also frustrated but still use Bryce because it is still the most versatile 3D application. Looking at some other 3D applications, shiny as they may be, I'm surprised how far back of Bryce they are.
I think that speaks to how far ahead of its time Bryce was! I believe the current render engine is not much different from the original because nobody could find ways to improve on it... Bryce's textures continue to be phenomenal and I don't think the DTE has ever been matched. The biggest benefit from 64 bit will be the memory limits as I think most of us have had a few crashes due to the 4gb limit on 32 bit.
Besides Bryce will never be dead as long as we have people like David and Horo showing us ways to use it that nobody has imagined in all this time!
As true now as it was in 2012 when I made this render.
Agreed, I started on bryce before it was a part of DAZ (Version 4) so yeah, I had plenty of dry eyes from my 26-30 hour marathons, but my major problem with the program is with it's horrific render engine and measly 32 bit irrelevance! If those two issues were resolved maybe we just might get Proper HDRI/Radiosity/proper AO/SSAO or even actual volumetric cloud support...
I've been using Bryce since 2011, when I at first downloaded the Bryce 7 PLE version. I was immediately hooked when I learned how easy it was to learn. Before that time I was doing all my digital art in MS PowerPoint 2007, which I used to create my own makeshift 3D art program. Yes it has 3D capabilities, which I figured out how to use by digging deep into its innards. Still PowerPoint left a lot to be desired, though I was able to do some amazing stuff by figuring ways around the limitations.
I picked up DS 4.0 standard about two months afer getting my first version of Bryce, but could barely find more than a basic instructional on how to use it. Indeed I had to do some digging just to learn on my own about lighting in DS 4.0. The first two weeks with it had me doing post work in other programs just to get shadows into my images, as the basic instructions mentioned nothing about lighting. Not so with Bryce 7 PLE! In it the shadows were already enabled, and it took several months to learn how to stop objects from casting shadows in it. To me, that is a far better way of doing lighting. In DS, even now, if you create your own lighting as I do 99% of the time, you have to turn shadows on for each light you want shadows to be cast from. Then you have to tweak the settings for the shadows to get the effects you want. Sure in Bryce you do too, but there are actual labs in Bryce where you can do that, dependent upon what type of lighting you are using. Plus Bryce has several types of lights on the Create tool shelf, many of which do not exist in DS!
Now I'm not dissing DAZ Studio by any means, but when you have to work harder to get good lighting in the company's flagship application than you do in Bryce (which has not seen an upgrade in 4 1/2 years), that speaks volumes for an application that old!
Now to continue with my history concerning Bryce, I have to say when DAZ created the awesome free software bundle that included Bryce 7.0 Pro, DAZ Studio 4.0 Pro, and Hexagon 2.5 Pro, I jumped on it fast. By that time I had already learned about David Brinnen's awesome video tutorials, and through him Horo's as well. These two men have taught me more about this 'Little Application that Can' than anyone else concerning any other application! One thing that amazed me about it all was the way these guys are able to discover new capabilities in this supposed dinosaur application, thus breathing new life into it! In fact the two of them have created collaboratively, new product packages for Bryce 7.1 Pro, which bring out even more awesome capabilities. So I say "No, Bryce is not by any means dead!"
I lend my voice loudly to all those of the other Bryce users, in demanding that an upgrade be developed, and that it be available in a 64 bit version, with bug fixes and new capabilities! I do not see DAZ Studio being as great in capabilities as Bryce when it comes to landscapes, no matter how much is incorporated into DAZ Studio. The Depth of Field ability alone in Bryce is a good reason to bring Bryce back into the mainstream of development. No other application I know of can do such realistic distance effects. We want Bryce 8 64 bit!
@Mage 13x13, very well said! ...and i couldnt agree more :)
We keep hearing comments along the lines of "because Bryce hasn't been updated for x years it's dead" but I don't agree. If you've got something that works well then it's not dead, if you enjoy using it, it certainly isn't dead.
Someone mentioned the lack of physics based rendering as a point against Bryce. I think that Bryce's unique texturing and rendering system are part of it's special character and what makes it Bryce. Just because everyone else is jumping on the physics based bandwagon doesn't mean Bryce has to. If they do decide to add a physics based option to Bryce then please, please be careful not to break what's already there.
The only upgrade I'd really like to see is to make Bryce a 64 bit application. The rest is already great.
Taking a week to render a scene when the tech exists to do otherwise is pointless...Regardless of the nostalgia one feels...The entire purpose for 3D tech/art is to continue to grow and advance, not molder away in fond reminiscence...Noone needs to fix anything, but we do need to dust it off and bring it into the present for those to enjoy it for the future...
takezo_3001 - Bryce 7.1 has proper HDRI (contrary to Studio and Carrara) and Radiosity/GI (called TA), but no AO and SSAO or SSS. There is volumetric cloud support but not obvious with a button. Render time, well, every render engine is too slow, everybody complains. Bryce 7.1 can use up to 8 CPU cores to render. Comparable scenes render faster in Bryce than DS/Iray (using CPU only) and Carrara. To be fair, there are strategies to make a render faster which I know for Bryce but not DS and Carrara. The main point here is to say that many users don't understand what is involved to render a scene and are therefore unaware which options are not needed for a project and do not disable them.
I completely agree with Horo here. Most people who complain about the slow render times of Bryce are people who do not know how to use it.
Optimisation of materials and lighting/render settings are just as important to know as how to compose a great looking scene.
I set up quite complex scenes a lot and light them with HDRI and Bryce lights, use premium effects including True Ambience and still most of my renders are complete in under an hour... And that working on an 8 year old laptop.
Taking a week to render? I find Bryce renders pretty quickly on my computer. My Daz Studio renders usually take as at least as long as my Bryce renders, often longer.
You say "The entire purpose for 3D tech/art is to continue to grow and advance..." I can see that an opinion like that might make you think Bryce is dead. My opinion is that the purpose of 3D tech/art is to create the images that we want, and the extra purpose for hobbyists like me is to enjoy doing it. That is why I think Bryce is very much alive.
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this subject.
I agree with Peter also... I use Bryce commercially to produce pack shot illustrations amongst other things... You can't tell me that Bryce is dead because my bank balance proves otherwise.... Bryce is also a hobby of mine (I've always thought if you can make money from doing things you love doing, you will never have to 'work') and I enjoy the challence of wringing more and more out of it... Even though Bryce hasn't been updated for 5 years, we ARE still finding new ways to use the features that were added 5 years ago.
If you want to keep working while a long render is in progress then open a new instance of Bryce and work on another scene. I have also opened DAZ STUDIO and worked on a scene in that at the same time. This on a laptop with an i7 and 16Gb of ram :) I just just change the number of cores used by each program.
Bryce is the only program allowed on my Windows desktop. All other stuff -like vue 2015 and Worldmachine- is neatly tucked away in folders.
I sometimes use them -a little- but always immediately come back to Bryce. User friendly, brilliant interface and an impossible depth of possibilities.
Too bad it hasn't been updated in a long time, sure.
But frankly...I don't give a rat's #$$ as long as I can use it to make all kinds of wonderfull renders that keep amazing me.
Honestly, I don't miss any of the features that other rendering programs seem to have.
As long as it is installed on your harddrive, as long as you are having fun using it, Bryce is only sleeping.
Dead?!? Oh no, my friends, Not At All.
Regardless, it will remain static and will not grow mainly because the main users are forced to make do with what little they have, I have seen the volumetric cloud support, and Horo's contributions are an invaluable asset and an outstanding way of keeping the static 32 bit program going for a little while longer, furthermore, I've rarely seen bad renders from the community
...Yet I still disagree with you guys on the status quo, as I would rather not settle making do, as the program's progress is dead And I reiterate; No one needs to fix anything, (Answering the if it ain't broke, don't fix it mantra) but we do need to dust it off and bring it into the present for those to enjoy it for the future...
I would also love to see this program get the needed upgrade, but the sad fact is that while this is still a good program, it will eventually go the way of Mojoworld as Daz is only concerned with Daz Studio/content sales. Mainly because they are still feeling the aftermath of the botched D/S advance/Pro fiasco as they painted themselves in a corner...Which is the root of my posts, the question isn't so much about the life or death of Bryce as much as it is the neglectful management of programs under DAZ's control as this seems to be a continued pattern with them...
Hexagon, Bryce, Cararra, Mimic, are four excellent programs that would do well to be upgraded, but this won't happen (Anytime soon) as they have too small of a studio in order to split production into different teams for each of their separate programs...In short they spread themselves too thin...
So yeah, to sum up, Bryce's official progress is dead, (For the time being it seems) The community is still vehemently active
and Daz has it's hands full so they can't devote the man power to address their stagnated IPs!
takezo_3001 - to the above, I can mostly agree, to the last paragraph up to the smiley fully. Bryce 6 and also 7 were coordinated by Daz but not programmed in-house. As for Daz's understanding of the scope of 3D art I have an opinion I won't share here
LOL, Agreed! BTW, I usually completely stuff my Bryce scenes with imported Character/assets OBJs and this isn't even including HDRI/Full VOL lighting/clouds, so what are we looking at in terms of render time?
Also as a side note, I stumbled on an AO/pseudo SSO solution in my earlier poser/daz days....Simply take multiple spot lights with soft shadows....But the render times would be catastrophic, no matter the render engine!