Nice new store front, nice new site, same old software that doesn't work...

Matt Ridge

Really people, I hate to say this, but when are you going to get your priorities straight?


Bryce 7 has been out for how long, and it still isn't working on Lion, but yet you have enough time, money and effort to shuck probably a few thousand dollars into re-developing your front end and back end of your web server?


I'm sorry... but this is a problem... I've forced myself to learn new software instead of using the try and true Bryce... The learning curve was massive, and I still can't do everything Bryce allowed me to do...


Yes people here are going to be apologists, and I don't care what they say, especially since they say Bryce isn't in the cycle of development yet. I am calling BS on this, because the next version to be in development if it is at all is version 8... so why even come out with Bryce 7 if it never was going to work with an OS that has been out for almost a year?


So what is the reason really?

Brycescaper

It's quite simple... they don't have enough people to concentrate on special issues within the company's development and deployment of its products. Take Bryce for example... since Bryce 5.5, (which is the last stable version because Corel created it, not Daz), Bryce is constantly been passing adding new features and upping the version numbers before the bugs have been worked out. In short, Bryce is and has been a beta product release while being passed off as a full stabilized version. How many projects have I lost due to program crashes? Why do you think Daz now offers products for free that I have already paid for (Bryce 7), yet not is it only now offered free, until a short while ago Daz Bryce 7 PRO was free which I haven't purchased. I just can't help feeling that I've been ripped off. But, by offering it as free is an acknowledgement it is being offered for what it is worth- a beta version not worthy of value. But there is hope.

In the short term, do you know what would alleviate that problen? Corel Video Studio Pro has a ten-minute auto-save option, where the program automatically saves your current project every 10 mionutes. Just create the file, add an object to it and save under your project name. Then, delete your object and begin working on your scene, importing chaarecters, whatever. In ten minutes the projects and all its changes will be saved, and every ten minutes your progress will be automatically preserved without a crash wiping it all out.
In the long term, use product updates rather than passing off more than five improvements as an entirely new version. the only diffeeence I see between Bryce 6&7 is the expanded lighting options (dome lighting, fill light, etc) and the and the ability to import mainstream HDRI instead of just probe HDRI's thast you had to create in HDRI Shop. I'm not touching the content managent fiasco... they should have a team hunting out and retrofitting Metedata to all existing products developed over the last ten years. Or at least creating a seperate metedata thread where product creators can post metadata updates to their own products. Anything pre-genesis, even the original V4, doesn't have metedata, nor the clothes created for it even by Daz (bikini, boy shorts, etc)..
I haven't bought anything since the new storefront opened but it's another example of how Daz is multitasking existing staff instead of bringing outside experts in to debug the store. The complaints have been deafenening and I'm afraid to purchase anything in the new store. The idea of offering a "sorry we destroyed the front-end store' sale is almost unprecedented. That should have gone through beta testing before being forced on us before it was stabilized and tested. What was wrong with the old storefront anyway? Stop trying to 'fix' things that already work fine, and concentrate on what isn't- like Bryce itself.
DAZ is slow in recognizing it has grown beyond the capacity to have volunteers from within the Daz community doing the heavy lifting, especially in areas they themselves have limited knowledge in. Software debugging, backward compatibility and marketing are diverse and specialized issues that can no longer become adequately handled by volunteers. I'm sure people like Horo have given up their hobbies and family life due to the overwhelming issues he must answer for. It has to be a full time job in itself.
And I'm just talking about Bryce... God knows what is happening with Hex and Carerra, I'm actually afraid to use them. because of the issues I've experienced in Bryce. How can you learn a program that keeps crashing before you can learn how to use it?

Brycescaper

By the way, when is a 64 bit version of Bryce coming out? I bought a specialized PC to handle effectively files twice as large as my current one that accepts only 3 or 4 charecters at a time importeed into a Bryce scane. It has been a waste of money because while Studio may have 64 bit versions, they aren;t really needed- I import my charecters to the infinitely superior Bryce environment, and I may as well have saved my money- Bryce is a 32 bit product, and half of the 6 gig of memory is being wasted because Bryce can't access it. I strongly suggest youy update the priocessing capacity of Bryce to its full potential before even thinking a Bryce 8 should be offered.
My apologies for ranting, but I know I speak articulately for those who feel Bryce is underdeveloped, and running on yesterday's technoology. What sophisticated art application hasn't graduated to 64 bit? None that I kbnow of. Except Bryce.

Horo

I don't comment your post, brycescaper. It's your oppinion and this is a free world (well, mostly). Just two items: Metacreations were working on Bryce 5.0 when Corel bought it from them. Bryce 5.0 had issues but they were resolved within a few days and Bryce 5.01 was indeed very stable. Bryce 5.5 was made by DAZ and was stable as well.

Bryce 6.0 was not very good and DAZ brought in a former key developer from Metacreations and he fixed a couple of things. Bryce 6.1 is quite stable on the PC. There were issues on the Mac, these were resolved with 6.3. 7.0 was again not very good but 7.1 is quite good - at least for the PC. For the Mac, this is another matter. "Good" options to crash 7.1 are displacement and Instances, though you can make them work - nevertheless, both features are not mature at all. The rest works fine (there are rumors about animation, but this is a black spot for me).

Since Bryce 6, the file saved is compressed and this compression happens in memory - decompression after loading a file as well. This was not a very wise decision IMO because we have that 2 GB memory limit of a 32-bit application. Bleeding things out on the HD would make things slower, but would at least work. Luckily, we can make Bryce large address aware and it can use up to nearly 3.5 GB.

64-bit application - that was indeed the goal for 7. However, the task proved to be too labour intensive and - at the time - out of the time frame and most probably also beyond budget. You see, a lot of code is written in Axiom and this has to be rewritten from scratch. Unfortunately, it is not a matter of just compiling for 64-bit.

Brycescaper

I understand this is my opinion, but I haven't used or noticed these other improvements you spoke of (primary because I haven't noticed them- I use Bryce as a backdrop for imported Daz figures).. There isn't a need to defend Bryce's improvements by making a laundry list of them. What you are missing is that whatever the intentions, Daz has changed int a totally different company than when it started (I still have Daz 1.3 on my system)and the volunteer-hobby approach cannot be relied on completely as the software becomes more and more complex and more and more products are offered. The people who developed the 10-min autosave should be brought in as consultants so that usful feature can be used in Bryce. Then the crashing wouldn't be a problem because how many major changes one makes in ten minutes casn't be redone (especially as you did them ten minutes before. The it can crash as much as it wants to with minimal damage. I'm not a programmer, so I understand why Bryce has to be re-written to accomodate 64 bit.
I sounded critical, but it was more frustrated. I felt I had to explain to the original poster that Daz is going through growing pains, and that Bryce is the most user friendly and photorealistic application especially when interfaced with the Daz charecters. I am evangelistic about Bryce and its possibilities, I wasn't understanding why Daz hasn't kept pace and be the leader in the market, but that has been answered as well.If you can't afford it, you make the best of what you have. I personally plead you to consider the auto-save option- I get so wrapped up in creating my scenes that I have lost entire projects because I didn't stop and manually save the project. I expect Bryce to keep working until I reach a stopping point when I remember to save. A restore pount would be nice to have, not from the last saved version when the project was waved last days before, but minutes before. .

Matt Ridge

Daz has been going through growing pains since they took over Bryce then... that is not an excuse that is plausible, that's an excuse because we don't know the answer. Especially when none of their software works on my mac in reality.


You know, i am learning Blender because Daz can no longer be expected to make software that works...lets be honest, if they cared about the OS that gave them the funds to now ignore one of the largest growing computer markets out there, then perhaps it's time to hang up the DAZ appreciation hat, and put on one of pure skepticism because Daz has shown nothing in the past two years they they care about the Mac platform, or Bryce... which is a shame.


Also, why in the hell do I have to know HTML to post correctly on this form? Whoever designed this POS we call a forum now needs to go back to school and learn real web design... because I know a dozen people that could of done this, and not have the required need of knowing HTML to post correctly here.


Just my two cents plus change.

Chohole

I am not quite certain th what you are referring when you say you need HTML in order to post sorrectly

My knowledge of HTML could be written several times on the back of a postage stamp, and there would still be space left

I admit quite honestly I had a "cheat sheet" that I used when doing certain things that mods do on the old forum.

As to THe mac and Bryce problem, there is one post somewhere in this forum by a member of the DAZ_Management Team that does state that as soon as Bryce is taken back into the dev cycle, then this issues has top priority, and may in fact be the only thing that is updated.

Matt Ridge

When you need to have < br > (close together) or < b > to bold or break a paragraph, that is HTML code.


PHP code is [ b ], and it knows what to do when a paragraph is made...


This is 2012, the year of smart phones, etc... stuff like this should not be required. I know more about HTML than a lot of people out there, I have created spam blocking scripts, and scripts that can identify your IP, your web browser, your OS, and a bunch of other things. I should not have to type anything to make a paragraph break, but yet I do here...


That being said, the DAZ_Management_Team has been saying that for over a year... time to fess up that the program isn't on their docket for the perceivable future, and that those like me, who actually do make a living off of some 3D side work...are SOL.


Sorry, that line worked on me for a few months, but you know what, it's like politicians, and diapers... they both need to be changed frequently, and most of the time for the same reason. DAZ is starting to fall into that category... I use to buy their stuff without a second thought, now... I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole till they solve this issue.

Chohole

I actually use return space return works every time, without any fancy html.

Horo

I use 3 times return. Faster and works as well. In fact, it has never occured to me to use HTML tags here.

Matt Ridge

chohole said:

I actually use return space return works every time, without any fancy html.

Perhaps for bold, but it's a moot point.

I use 3 times return. Faster and works as well. In fact, it has never occured to me to use HTML tags here.

So you are happy pressing return three times to get a single space between comments/paragraphs? Glad you are, I'm not, that's poor practice.

Chohole

No for bold I use the format tools at the top. for paragraph breaks I use enter space enter.

Matt Ridge

chohole said:

No for bold I use the format tools at the top. for paragraph breaks I use enter space enter.

I used the same thing, and my paragraphs run together... not exactly the way I want to do thing.

These are two paragraphs. Separated by a hard return in between to make a space, doesn't look it does it?


If I use the < br >, like I did before this paragraph it separates, sorry, that's HTML... instead of spending time on the forum and front end they should of spend time and money on the software... and making it actually work than this forum, and showing me I can have a DAZ-a-Holic logo attached to my account... which honestly right now i wouldn't be caught dead with because anyone in the 3D world knows DAZ doesn't work.

Chohole

Return (or enter

space

return (or enter)

Like that

Matt Ridge

chohole said:

Return (or enter

space

return (or enter)

Like that

That is called a hack, or tweak... that should not be required.