Zer0 Rei is wondering about the ongoing legacy of Bryce - What's going on in 2024?

Zer0 れい

Hi everyone!

Dropping by, saying hi, introducing myself and hoping to spark a discussion al in one.

I've been trying to be more pro-active about communitybuilding this year, especially with increasing people picking Bryce back up out of nostalgie and love for Y2K era aesthetics.
I myself am using Bryce partially professionally, picking it up out of interest for certain album covers a couple years back and now doing loads of album covers on commission while exploring the possibility of real-life artworks built with Bryce. The commissioned stuff is on my site and I'll attach a picture of some of my recent canvas-printed pieces too.

A lot of my current artists' journey meanders about the value of old technology in both software and hardware so it's been living rent-free inside my brain.
Because the music scene is all bout re-releasing synthesizers from 50 years ago and making new music with them, while 3D modelling abandons progenitors.

So how do people here feel about the future of Bryce? Why Bryce?
How important are the idiosyncrasities of an ancient bit of software compared to the polished high resolution stuff AI can pump out now?
How do we utulise the newly available computing power to make Bryce better? Or to make oru artwork better? When do we start losing part of the charm?
How different is the attitude here, where people have generally been using the software for ages compared to the new users that're found on Instagram and Discord?

Cheers,

Sebastien/Zer0 Rei

NGartplay

Ooh and ah....very cool print outs of Bryce works.  I used to print and sell my XaraXtreme works.  I painted the paper or canvas with a print medium and printed it out on my printer.  Epson inks because they are color fast.

Bryce needs better skies without using HDRIs.

Bryce needs better foliage without having to import.

Hansmar

Hi Zer0 Rei / Sebastien, good to see you in the forum. Your picture shows really wonderful Bryce works. And your artworks on the website breath Bryce and are amazing.

I never printed anything from Bryce (yet), though i know some people have done exhibitions with Bryce work. I mainly like Bryce for the wonderful UI and the options in texture editor and terrain editor and lights. I realise that there are a lot of things that will push people towards other software. Probably the most problematic issue is the limited memory it can use. As soon as you start entering multiple people or animals and trees or other objects from non-Bryce sources, you quickly get into lack of memory. You have to modify external picture textures into Bryce procedural textures (where possible), reduce detail on necessary picture textures and forget copy./past and learn instancing to get a full scene. Of course, part of the fun about Bryce is that you have lots of challenges to overcome and it is great if you succeed.

Regarding the future of Bryce, let's be realistic. As long as it works, there will be diehards, like you and the forum members here, using this great tool. But don't expect any updates anymore. I think there is no businesscase for DAZ to update (or even sell) Bryce (and Hexagon). Even the much more complex and modern tools of Vue and PlantFactory are now no longer commercial, but available for free (and will no longer be updated/developed), because their owners decided to focus on other types of software. I tried out both tools and they have loads of wonderful options, that Brycers can only dream of. They apparently saw no businesscase for Vue and PlantFactory and to me that suggests that there is no chance of a realistic businesscase for Bryce, partly because it is so out of date. 

Ofcourse, there are things Bryce may do (much) better than other tools and its interface is great. And I will keep using it, because I like it so much. However, I cannot close my eyes for the fact that other tools are more advanced, faster, more up-to-date and often better suited for the purposes for which many people could have been using an up-to-date Bryce.

Subtropic Pixel

Sorry for my late arrival, but haha, I've had my hands full this summer!

In my opinion (which is the right opinion), Bryce needs basic bug fixes AND a 64 bit update.

And THAT really is the right opinion.  I've been campaigning for these bare-minimum things for years now, and nothing ever happens.  I'm very upset with DAZ and I don't spend any money with DAZ anymore because of this.  So all that's left for me is to come here every so often to be like the pea under the multiple mattresses or (more likely) a bedbug for the DAZ people who aren't supporting Bryce but have to come to this forum for some other reason.

I don't use Bryce anymore because it's a very crashy-crashy experience and therefore not fun at all.  But if we got word that it's going to be supported, I would consider starting to use it again.

I can go away for 6 months or a full year, and come back and nothing has changed.  That is wrong, and worse yet, it's an opportunity that is actively being ignored and missed by DAZ leadership.  I would love to see DAZ do better.  Or sell the rights for Bryce to somebody who is willing and able to give it the love it really deserves.  Giving it the dignity of bugfixes and 64 Bit mode would show that DAZ still respects Bryce and Bryce's user base.

Once we started seeing fixes, that is.

Hansmar

Subtropic Pixel, I guess all us Bryce users (diehards) agree with you on what would be needed. But that will not change the lack of a business case, specifically since they now have the Ultrascenery that is integrated into DAZ Studio. Let's be honest: there will never be any further development of Bryce. But it is still nice to work with, if you are patient enough to avoid crashes.

Subtropic Pixel

Hansmar said:

Subtropic Pixel, I guess all us Bryce users (diehards) agree with you on what would be needed. But that will not change the lack of a business case, specifically since they now have the Ultrascenery that is integrated into DAZ Studio. Let's be honest: there will never be any further development of Bryce. But it is still nice to work with, if you are patient enough to avoid crashes.

This is 2024.  We should not be forced to band-aid 32-bit software to keep running on our modern machines.

And man, oh man, we shouldn't have to put up with avoidable crashes!

THAT is the right way to think about this.  We can make a business use case for basic fixes and 64-bit mode, plus maybe Apple M silicon.  Hell, fix everything that's wrong with it and put it up on Steam.  Blender is there.  Why not Bryce?

Anything less, including the current state of affairs is just not good enough.  The intellectual property alone could bring in SOMETHING for DAZ.  Just sell the IP to somebody who would be willing to take care of it.  And if you don't need the money, then just donate the proceeds to a school who trains disadvantaged kids in 3D art and animation.  Or a school that teaches math, science, and English to people who want to learn.  God knows we need it.

DAZ isn't making any money off of Bryce now.  Sell it for $10,000.  I'd buy it as long as my attorney would not see any copyright showstoppers in the contract for the sale of the IP. 

Not gonna lie.  I'd love to get my hands on the source code for Bryce.  Bare minimum, I would fix the crashes, bring it up to 64-Bit modernity, and see about fixing the User Interface so that anybody older than 38 years of age won't have to squint just to read the damned drop-downs and help files.  I don't know if it ever ran on Mac, but I'd start with Windows code first.  Then Mac, eventually arriving at full Apple Silicon compatibility.  I'd like to see what Apple's latest beast, the M4 can do on Bryce animation renders.  And what was that networking renderer all about?  Man, that would be awesome.  I'd also like to see if it can run on iPad.  Hey, an M4 is an M4. 

And CUDA processing if you have an RTX graphic card?  Man oh man, the sky is *not* the limit, assuming you have the vision!

I'm not too proud.  I'd even find Kai Krause's phone number to see if we can make something happen.  Or at least have lunch.  I'd fly to Byteburg, or wherever his castle is!  And I'd solicit input from some great fantasy and scene artists such as Roger Dean (Album covers for Yes, Azia, and others), Michael Whelan (he did book covers for Robert A. Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and album covers for Meat Loaf, The Jacksons, and others).  Oh, and the artists here, too.  The best of the best.  God bless you all for keeping the faith.

Our tagline could be "BRYCE 2030:  Not Your Daddy's Old Floating Mountains!"

It's better than the current, "Bryce 2024:  It's Not Dead...yet."  Puh-lease.

Going further than the bare minimum, I think it should be made Open Source, with a future strategy to rebuild it in its entirety with Python.  Or at least bring it up to snuff with a current version of C, C#, or C++, and maybe offer a choice of core rendering engines, with plugins that could be added by the user.

Do it, DAZ.  Sell this property to somebody who'd be willing to give it the TLC it deserves.  Free Bryce from its purgatory!

Now, the question for everybody else here:  Why am I the only one who can actually visualize a THRIVING future for Bryce?  I'm just not willing to settle for mucking and muddling along.  My God, I can almost TASTE a beautiful future for Bryce!  But everytime I say something, everybody else here seems content to let it languish.

I highly doubt that by this point Bryce still contains any top trade secrets that other softwares haven't already cracked by way of independent research and work.  But even if it does, let's work this out.  There are probably multiple solutions to every problem.

DAZ should make this happen.  Some of us still have enough energy to make magic happen, especially when it comes to coding (or making coding happen).  But ain't none of us getting any younger.  The clock is indeed ticking.  A 20-something engineer isn't going to have the fire in the belly to do this...and maybe not the time either, 'cause he's got a couple of full time jobs already. 

But somebody who knows it from 1997?  Now you're talking MOTIVATION.

All I can do is keep speaking up.  I wish I could do more.