HERE ENTERS ANOTHER BIASED THIRD PARTY UH OH UH OH.
So , I have used Bryce for almost a year. I stopped somewhat recently, though. There is a reason why, in fact. It's because in Bryce, there is hardly any room for expansion. When I say that, I mean it is an INCREDIBLY limited program. The most advanced things it can do are Booleans (that's pretty damn simple), and it has an okay texture editor. It would be good if the Bryce engine didn't make almost everything look like plastic. It does good metals, some fun volumetrics, and that's it. When I see about 90% of all bryce renders, I either think: "Hi, mister incredibly high specular coefficient!", "Hi, mister transparent metal texture!", "Hi, mister torus (x1000)!", "Hi, mister thats alot of random diffuse and ambient light that has nothing to do with the environment!", or finally "Hi, mister default full-entity lighting which is completely useless and makes things ugly!".
So naturally, having used bryce for many moons, I am guilty of most of those (actually, some are unpreventable due to poor programming, but some are reversible by the user telling it what to do). I am not a wonderful 3d artist. I do not know much about art theory. And yet, I can say all of this because I have used the program, extensively. Bryce is far from wonderful. Hell, it even makes things take long to render. Its the most messed up type of rendering I have seen. Ever.
Bryce took me only about a month to get familiar with. Easy learning interface, easy user interface. those are nice. But its so easy, that you soon find out that it is impossible to do things such as specific polygon editing/manipulation (EVERY OTHER PROGRAM can do that), it does not do NURBS (not that I use these...ever...but every other program can do these, too), has nothing that can confuse or thwart a new graphical artist. This is not good, because with the marked LACK of options, there is a marked LACK of possible variety. Only a couple of people I have ever seen have conquered the lack of options. RJ is one--kind of--he only manages to surpass others because of his Photoshop skills. That's what it seems for the most part. Also, a rather clever guy who could use terrain and lattices to render damned ANYTHING. And finally this other guy--not famous, no name I can recall. He rendered an AWESOME motorcycle in Bryce--I have no idea how he managed it. He did know art theory, I recall from his site. I think it was his major. But wow, that was good for the program's capabilities.
So, for about 5-10 people, Bryce is a very good program. It is an okay program for perhaps a couple hundred people. Perhaps. For the rest, it is largely mediocre. Mwerp, this includes you. Most of your work was mediocre. Some, sure I liked. Then I saw it over and over an over again in all of your other renders. Please branch out in your style.
Wait, you can't, because Bryce doesn't LET you.
I have the same problem. The best I can do is multireplicate shitloads of spheres, apply a funky texture, photoshop, and call it art. Is it art? Sure. Is it good? Not really. Is it original? I haven't seen things like it before, but probably not.
I think, overall, that Bryce might be good for beginners. Maybe about 2 weeks of instruction from a person will do you good, then you just regress and regress and regress into bad 3d habits. They are difficult to break when you try newer, better, more difficult programs.
Trust me on that.
I have used 3dsm6 quite a bit, with no help files, tutorials, or anything. It was fucking tricky. I hardly had a chance to experiment, but I had already realized how strong the program was. Features, features, and more features. Good ones. Very importantly, speedy rendering. Speedier than Bryce, in any case. Lightwave is even more so. It was used for the 3d parts of the Mars Lander documentary. High quality. It was used in several motion pictures, such as the Iron Giant, if I recall. But Maya is even more prominent than THAT. If you are used to 3d model Tekken figures, you know you're good right there. Even if you ignore the rest of its extensive and impressive resume. Bam, one item I picked off a list, and you can see that beautiful things can be made with it.
Another thing, Bryce looks crappy without secondary production (more editing of pictures in a different program), almost always. It needs it. With all of these other, better programs, much less so. Though almost everything looks better after secondary production, I must admit.
Bryce is largely unimpressive. Nobody has used it professionally since maybe the Mid 1990's. And we all know how good the 3d looked back then, Mmmm, MMM!
However, if you don't mind wallowing in your 3d filth, Bryce is fine for you. If you use it for fun and not in seriousness (i.e. "My Bryce stuff is deeper than your Maya stuff because I am deep and abstract and all people who do abstract are are more intelligent than you"), it will amuse you sufficiently for some time.
If you ARE serious and use Bryce, I sure hope it's because you can't afford anything else. By saying that I mean I hope you WILL be able to afford something else, so you can stop using Bryce. If you use it and are serious about it and think it is better than all the other programs without trying them, then you are ignorant. If you use it, are serious about it, and are GOOD (in my opinion), then you are one of about 5-10 people (as I said before). If you are reading this, you probably don't fall under this category.
Even so. Compare the BEST Brycer with the BEST Maya-er. No motherfucking contest. Bryce simply can't do some of the things Maya, Lightwave, 3ds, Softimage, etcetera can do. And besides, the best Brycers wisened up and started using other programs instead. The best Brycers are not the best at 3d. Period.
I know that was not written well, but it was written in chunks, and I did not stop to edit any of it along the way. But the content should be pretty clear. If it is not, you are either stupid, I mistyped, or in denial.
So , I have used Bryce for almost a year. I stopped somewhat recently, though. There is a reason why, in fact. It's because in Bryce, there is hardly any room for expansion. When I say that, I mean it is an INCREDIBLY limited program. The most advanced things it can do are Booleans (that's pretty damn simple), and it has an okay texture editor. It would be good if the Bryce engine didn't make almost everything look like plastic. It does good metals, some fun volumetrics, and that's it. When I see about 90% of all bryce renders, I either think: "Hi, mister incredibly high specular coefficient!", "Hi, mister transparent metal texture!", "Hi, mister torus (x1000)!", "Hi, mister thats alot of random diffuse and ambient light that has nothing to do with the environment!", or finally "Hi, mister default full-entity lighting which is completely useless and makes things ugly!".
So naturally, having used bryce for many moons, I am guilty of most of those (actually, some are unpreventable due to poor programming, but some are reversible by the user telling it what to do). I am not a wonderful 3d artist. I do not know much about art theory. And yet, I can say all of this because I have used the program, extensively. Bryce is far from wonderful. Hell, it even makes things take long to render. Its the most messed up type of rendering I have seen. Ever.
Bryce took me only about a month to get familiar with. Easy learning interface, easy user interface. those are nice. But its so easy, that you soon find out that it is impossible to do things such as specific polygon editing/manipulation (EVERY OTHER PROGRAM can do that), it does not do NURBS (not that I use these...ever...but every other program can do these, too), has nothing that can confuse or thwart a new graphical artist. This is not good, because with the marked LACK of options, there is a marked LACK of possible variety. Only a couple of people I have ever seen have conquered the lack of options. RJ is one--kind of--he only manages to surpass others because of his Photoshop skills. That's what it seems for the most part. Also, a rather clever guy who could use terrain and lattices to render damned ANYTHING. And finally this other guy--not famous, no name I can recall. He rendered an AWESOME motorcycle in Bryce--I have no idea how he managed it. He did know art theory, I recall from his site. I think it was his major. But wow, that was good for the program's capabilities.
So, for about 5-10 people, Bryce is a very good program. It is an okay program for perhaps a couple hundred people. Perhaps. For the rest, it is largely mediocre. Mwerp, this includes you. Most of your work was mediocre. Some, sure I liked. Then I saw it over and over an over again in all of your other renders. Please branch out in your style.
Wait, you can't, because Bryce doesn't LET you.
I have the same problem. The best I can do is multireplicate shitloads of spheres, apply a funky texture, photoshop, and call it art. Is it art? Sure. Is it good? Not really. Is it original? I haven't seen things like it before, but probably not.
I think, overall, that Bryce might be good for beginners. Maybe about 2 weeks of instruction from a person will do you good, then you just regress and regress and regress into bad 3d habits. They are difficult to break when you try newer, better, more difficult programs.
Trust me on that.
I have used 3dsm6 quite a bit, with no help files, tutorials, or anything. It was fucking tricky. I hardly had a chance to experiment, but I had already realized how strong the program was. Features, features, and more features. Good ones. Very importantly, speedy rendering. Speedier than Bryce, in any case. Lightwave is even more so. It was used for the 3d parts of the Mars Lander documentary. High quality. It was used in several motion pictures, such as the Iron Giant, if I recall. But Maya is even more prominent than THAT. If you are used to 3d model Tekken figures, you know you're good right there. Even if you ignore the rest of its extensive and impressive resume. Bam, one item I picked off a list, and you can see that beautiful things can be made with it.
Another thing, Bryce looks crappy without secondary production (more editing of pictures in a different program), almost always. It needs it. With all of these other, better programs, much less so. Though almost everything looks better after secondary production, I must admit.
Bryce is largely unimpressive. Nobody has used it professionally since maybe the Mid 1990's. And we all know how good the 3d looked back then, Mmmm, MMM!
However, if you don't mind wallowing in your 3d filth, Bryce is fine for you. If you use it for fun and not in seriousness (i.e. "My Bryce stuff is deeper than your Maya stuff because I am deep and abstract and all people who do abstract are are more intelligent than you"), it will amuse you sufficiently for some time.
If you ARE serious and use Bryce, I sure hope it's because you can't afford anything else. By saying that I mean I hope you WILL be able to afford something else, so you can stop using Bryce. If you use it and are serious about it and think it is better than all the other programs without trying them, then you are ignorant. If you use it, are serious about it, and are GOOD (in my opinion), then you are one of about 5-10 people (as I said before). If you are reading this, you probably don't fall under this category.
Even so. Compare the BEST Brycer with the BEST Maya-er. No motherfucking contest. Bryce simply can't do some of the things Maya, Lightwave, 3ds, Softimage, etcetera can do. And besides, the best Brycers wisened up and started using other programs instead. The best Brycers are not the best at 3d. Period.
I know that was not written well, but it was written in chunks, and I did not stop to edit any of it along the way. But the content should be pretty clear. If it is not, you are either stupid, I mistyped, or in denial.




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