Show Us Your Bryce Renders! Part 3
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@chohole I think I prefer the "warmer" colors of the first render, but the vegetation does look better in this one. If you could combine the colors on the model of the first image with the vegetation of the second render, it would be perfect IMO :)
@Dave I've never thought of that. Thanks a lot for the tip. I might go back to the island project sooner than I thought, just to try it! :)
But I do have a question (that I'll certainly see answered when I do it myself), but when converting the primitives to trees, do the trees maintain the rotation, scale and all those variations that we can "randomize" in IL ?
@TLBKlaus Everything looks great, but as fan of Star Trek myself, the first one is just awesome :)
@David There's no doubt that Bryce still has some life in it, even when compared to Octane, but the Octane render is just jaw dropping realistic.
@Horo If my recent experience with IL is anything to go by, I would say that I can't criticize Bryce too much for what it can do and how good the results can be (David's Octane comparisons certainly show that Bryce still has a lot of life in it when used to its full potential). The problem is the stability and reliability of it.
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a Bryce 8 or skip immediately to Bryce X (10) and see an array of new features that put other raytracing software to shame, but I guess the most realistic scenario would be to at least get a Bryce 7.2 that fixed what exists but simply doesn't work as it should...and as far as I can tell, we're not even close to the latter, much less the former.
Is Bryce even on the to-do list of any developer at DAZ 3D at this point in time ?
The short answer is "yes" the trees do retain their scaling and rotation.
But it's more complicated than I remember. I've just had a go at doing it that way and when you change your master source sphere into a tree, it doesn't change the instances of the sphere in to trees. Maybe I'm missing some vital step and I'd have to re visit the tutorials to check up.
The only way I have been able to make the instances into trees just now was to select the group of instances (usually automatically named "unnamed") without selecting the terrain they were instanced on to and converting that group in to trees. But after doing that, the master tree no longer updates the instances and all the trees created are just the default tree. To make them the type of trees you want, you'd have to edit each one individually.
Though I'm sure there must be a way to do it without having to go to all that trouble.
So I've had another dig around in the IL and it seems the only way to make your primitives into trees is to ungroup them from the instance group and break the connection between the master and the instances. This makes editing them a bit harder (and technically, they are no longer instances so the memory footprint goes back up and updating materials takes longer to apply).
But it can be done by ungrouping the instances from the terrain object and then converting them into trees. Then select all trees and use the E button in the object selection mini menu.
It makes life easier as you add more variety of trees to assign families to each different type of trees, otherwise selecting each group is going to get tricky as you can no longer just select the master for each instance group.
In this pic, I started off with Rashad's extra primitive (3 sided column). I used this instead of a Bryce primitive because technically Rashad's extra primitives are mesh objects and only mesh objects will truly instance and comply with Option/Control when using trigonometric option on the IL.
Then I changed the 3 sided columns into tress (at this point they all changed to default tree all with random leaf and bark colour).
Then selecting all trees I entered the tree lab and edited the tree type and materials on the leaves and bark.
Thank you very much for all the kind words folks, I really appreciate it...
Here's something different, a few from the "Exology" series, where I take random shapes
made in Cinema4D [I have an old copy that I can barely use lol] and then put them in Bryce
to work from there... some have a bit of postwork as well.
@Horo: Sorry, Horo, I didn't phrase that question very well. The light reflecting from the mirror in your image is just from the sun showing in the sky? No additional lighting?
@Dave: If you make the ducks small enough and make thousands of them, you could spread them along the shore and they'd become your foam. But with the yellow foam you'd have to keep the adage about yellow snow in mind. :lol:
@TLBKlaus - great abstracts. The second one has a nice feeling of depth. Mirrors are involved, it appears.
@GussNemo - thanks, yes. What we've learned to believe through all versions of Bryce is that light is not reflected from a mirror.
The ducks don't have to be yellow...
... I call this render: Duck Race (see what I did there?) :cheese:
OK Rashad, I'll answer this question because I don't want to loose track of it and it is something I've been thinking about a lot.
Practical.
There is no point in reinventing the wheel.
Not everyone wants or needs a hyper real render engine - it is somewhat limiting in its own way.
Used in anger, it's just as slow as Bryce - just the results are more plausible - in the sense of being realistic.
My impressions.
I like the Bryce interface. Octane is not very friendly.
Octane's material synthesis - while flexible because of it's node based nature, lacks Bryce's utility.
Octane would offer a route to more professional results for those that want to stay with Bryce but push photo-realism.
Speculation on my part.
It's possible we loose quite a few artists who otherwise like Bryce and would stay with Bryce because they reach the limitations of Bryce's capacity for realistic results - in certain area's. Most specifically figures. Without competent handling of SSS, and you've demonstrated this amply yourself, it's "rocket science" to produce good skin in Bryce.
Maybe only a relatively small proportion of Bryce users would want an Octane plugin, this is my speculation OK, but... if the renders that are produced are jaw-droppingly good and it's Bryce's name on the label - I think that would be good for the hobby.
Bryce does not have ray absorption, so I had to fake it by using scattering and bias that with metallicity effect which is dependent on camera position. This gives me limited control over the ray's exit value from the material surface dependent on angle of the surface to the position of the camera looking at it (yes it's a bit ham-fisted). The colours were as close as I could get them within the limitations of the different approaches used. Rather than try to match Octane to Bryce, in this case, I worked backwards - I know Bryce much better.
@Dave, these ducks are too cute. Your own model?
@TLBKlaus, another two fantastic selections of renders, goodness I wish DAZ 3D would pull their finger out and get the galleries back on line, they would look great there!
Sorry, I forgot to mention galleries in the last post... not had enough coffee yet. I'll mention it again now to make up for my omission. Galleries. Here... On DAZ 3D. Where are our galleries? Has anyone at DAZ 3D checked down the back of the settee? Or in the other coat pockets? Or under the dog? That's where I usually look first.
This.
Many years ago as a musician I felt it necessary to get into the world of midi sequencing.
I sat for weeks in front of an uninspirational midi sequencing software package totally uninspired by the technical interface and never got to grips with it. Nowadays software such as Garageband is so much easier to look at and much more likely to allow you to experiment without giving you some data dump error that it's a pleasure to use.
Bryce has always had an inspirational interface that allows you to go exploring and experimenting instead of presenting you with just graphs and data inputting. Developing an Octane plug-in would give people more choice, but only as long as it didn't stop development of the Bryce render engine as well.
Alas no, a freebie download I acquired from somewhere some time ago.
If I remember correctly it was a 3DS file and needed smoothing to get rid of the visible mesh shape, but it did turn out looking well.
This.
Many years ago as a musician I felt it necessary to get into the world of midi sequencing.
I sat for weeks in front of an uninspirational midi sequencing software package totally uninspired by the technical interface and never got to grips with it. Nowadays software such as Garageband is so much easier to look at and much more likely to allow you to experiment without giving you some data dump error that it's a pleasure to use.
Bryce has always had an inspirational interface that allows you to go exploring and experimenting instead of presenting you with just graphs and data inputting. Developing an Octane plug-in would give people more choice, but only as long as it didn't stop development of the Bryce render engine as well.
If... sufficient interest was generated, then there are quite a few improvements that could be penciled in using the argument that it would assist the workflow between the two applications. My experience with software development, not just here, has been you need to find compelling reasons that offer multi-stage benefits to coerce programmers into give you the options you want in the way you want them and not the options they think you need in a way that is comprehensible to them - which is how so many programs just end up like spreadsheets.
For Bryce, I'd like to see vector shading, cel and toon capability built in - that kind of thing I think would compliment what is already possible (and open up more artistic options) and would also offer good render times.
But I'm not the boss of DAZ 3D - that's just what I'd say.
@TLBKlaus: Very nice! I like the color variations of the second one :)
@Dave Regarding "Duck Race", lol good one :)
As for the instancing trick, that's not as good as I thought it could be if I can't directly change the primitives to trees and keep their variations.
@David I would like to re-iterate my previous question, because it seems this thread is touching the subject of Bryce's future quite a lot:
Is Bryce even on the to-do list of any developer at DAZ 3D at this point in time ?
Is there any official word from DAZ 3D that Bryce isn't discontinued, to even have some sort of faith that something new is coming ?
I love Bryce and would definitely be among the buyers of a new version (assuming that it doesn't break the bank ^_^), but it would be nice not to get hopes up, just so we get a major disappointment when DAZ says they're not working on any Bryce improvement / update...
Both those questions you would have to put to someone in an official position to answer. Anything I said on the matter could at best be misleading and at worst an infringement of my NDA. It is DAZ 3D's business and as such, as a PA and beta tester have to respect their right to manage it how they see fit. My views I've expressed as such indicate what I'm currently researching and trying to achieve because I like Bryce and want to promote it. Anything else beyond that is just speculation. You might consider putting your questions to Pam and see if she can gather any intelligence, but in my experience, DAZ 3D like most businesses like to play with their cards close to their chest.
Yeah, very close unfortunately. I did used to get little hints when Blaine was still around, but now no one wants to talk to me :down:
On the other hand I am having fun playing with RGB spotlights
It appears that since you have a new computer and upgraded Bryce you experiment more. Which I think is very good.
@ Chohole: I like that one much better, it's got the light but retained the shadows.
Meanwhile, hot on the heels of Duck Race, we have...
... Duck Racism.
And I suppose I should point out I'm not making fun of racism, I'm making fun of racists.
Not one for normally posting renders, I get a lot of enjoyment from this thread
chohole your leipreachán makes me look forward to when it rains somehow :) I rather liked MrSilus's Hope with the message in bottle and M1chaelFrank pushing spring along, there is so much going on in here and it moves at a fair old pace.
A good few years ago, I was in the car park of the hardware store B&Q at Farnborough in Hampshire, fixing on a roof rack to my freshly re-sprayed red Renault 4,those of you that know about military aircraft, will also know they make a terrifying noise, well, I hit the deck so to speak, according to the news on BBC television that evening, apparently, I was privileged to witness the first two Russian Mig fighter jets to come to the UK. to take part in the Farnborough Air Show. The pilots had decided to do an impromptu display of their skills, the actual show was not for quite a few days. I have never witnessed anything like it before or since, at one point they were flying upside down and so low that I saw the pilots in their cockpits, they flew toward each other until they were so close they had to turn what looked like a ninty degree angle straight up, both jets were still travelling toward each other belly forward at the end of the turn, jets travel extremely fast, it was strangely exiting and frightening at the same time.
Now,in retrospect. I have no love of war machines, or what necessitates them to be built.
During a Royal Air Force anniversary a while back,I was in Trafalgar Square, a ten minute cycle ride from where I live, and along with some Spitfires etc. taking part in the fly past over Buckingham Palace was the last flying WW2 Avro Lancaster bomber, a woman standing next to me in the crowd was looking up at it, and as its four deep Rolls Royce engines rumbled overhead, she turned to her husband and with tears in her eyes she said to him "Oh! you won't see anything like that again" he replied to her curtly in his full Yorkshire accent "No,and you don't bloody want to neither"
I will never forget what that chap said that day.
OK Rashad, I'll answer this question because I don't want to loose track of it and it is something I've been thinking about a lot.
Practical.
There is no point in reinventing the wheel.
Not everyone wants or needs a hyper real render engine - it is somewhat limiting in its own way.
Used in anger, it's just as slow as Bryce - just the results are more plausible - in the sense of being realistic.
My impressions.
I like the Bryce interface. Octane is not very friendly.
Octane's material synthesis - while flexible because of it's node based nature, lacks Bryce's utility.
Octane would offer a route to more professional results for those that want to stay with Bryce but push photo-realism.
Speculation on my part.
It's possible we loose quite a few artists who otherwise like Bryce and would stay with Bryce because they reach the limitations of Bryce's capacity for realistic results - in certain area's. Most specifically figures. Without competent handling of SSS, and you've demonstrated this amply yourself, it's "rocket science" to produce good skin in Bryce.
Maybe only a relatively small proportion of Bryce users would want an Octane plugin, this is my speculation OK, but... if the renders that are produced are jaw-droppingly good and it's Bryce's name on the label - I think that would be good for the hobby.
I can see DAZ working on making it so Bryce Textures would translate to Studio for easier rendering with the 3Delight render engine, I read that the newest beta version of Carrara has the STudio Bridge and can handle the new file format for Studio (I think). I don't see DAZ putting time, effort and money into Bryce to use a different render engine. Bryce's material Lab is unique and would be the biggest hurdle for programmers to deal with for a new renger engine.
Ah, but which is the racist...the single black one (actually, a penguin) or the yellows ;)
And that's what I find unfortunate. Bryce seems to have a steady, even if small, community that may not warrant the R&D costs for an updated or entirely new version, but at least some news would be nice. Something like a "maybe" or "not right now"...something.
You are definitely one of the people around here that promotes Bryce the most and as I said in a previous post, this community is one of the reasons I keep coming back and I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen just with me. It's not just the "love" for the application itself (that I've used since version 5, when it was still owned by Corel), it's also the fact that the people around here are very nice and help / suggest in improving our work / hobby. And that is a major plus.
But without news from those that can actually improve Bryce, I'm afraid that Bryce won't go anywhere anytime soon. When was the last time that a Bryce render made it in a contest or something similar, outside of Bryce only renders ?...version 7 was released years ago and nothing was released since, with the exception of the 7.1 update that still left a lot of buggy features without fixes...Meanwhile other similar, more advanced applications are updated regularly. Updates and new features are one of the reasons that keep current customers happy, but also attract new customers. So in the end, I just don't understand the mystery...DAZ 3D should just come out and say it, whatever it may be, although I hope for the best.
Of the winners so far in the Stonemason contest, two have been Bryce renders. :-)
Though I do wish DAZ 3D gave a bit more attention to their program (and finally realise that Bryce is actually their flagship), Bryce 7.1 was not released years ago, it is 1 year 7 months and 4 days.
well I don't have Octane (luxus plugin for Studio was alot cheaper)
this is the diamond I tried to get right in Bryce, done in Luxrender after only an hour.
I was talking about version 7, which as far as I remember was released in the middle of 2010. I also mentioned 7.1, which was indeed released later, but 1 year and 7 months is still quite a long period between updates...
I don't want to come off as someone bashing Bryce's lack of updates just for the sake of bashing. I genuinely care about Bryce and would love to see it updated / improved. It's like what they say about couples that fight. When they stop fighting, it's because they stopped caring :)
@Dave Ok, so maybe I jumped the gun. Care to share the link to the submissions and/or winners ?
@Sean Which contest was that ? Was it the same that Dave mentioned ?
@TapiocaTundra Nice render and with a background story :)
I was talking about version 7, which as far as I remember was released in the middle of 2010. I also mentioned 7.1, which was indeed released afterwards, but 1 year and 7 months is still quite a long period between updates...
I don't want to come off as someone bashing Bryce's lack of updates just for the sake of bashing. I genuinely care about Bryce and would love to see it updated / improved. It's like what they say about couples that fight. When they stop fighting, it's because they stopped caring :)
Bryce 7 - release 8/3/10
why do you think there is more info here than in the other thread ?
no one has any info more than whats been posted .
The Second Annual Kit Bash, http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/14967/ , different from the Stonemason contest. There were a bunch of different categories and winners, however I was fortunate enough to co-win the Prop Kit Bash category (although admittedly that could be because there weren't a lot of other entries in that specific category.)
I don't. I just thought I should ask. Maybe there was some sort of development. But maybe I should've searched the forum before I did. Only recently have I returned to the forums, so I was unaware of another thread specific to that discussion.