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Nice Palmtrees
Yes of course Vue 2 on covermount. A lot has changed since version 2. 3DWorld I think it was. I don't get these mags anymore. I wish someone could say that with Bryce that a lot has changed. Yes they added IBL . Maybe it was a mistake that Corel gave up on it after Metacreations calling it off. To complete this list we shouldn't forget MojoWorld. I still have version 3.1.1 which was the very last update before it went off the radar. I don't use it anymore. It's way too slow. After I lost my license for Vue Pioneer when Cornucopia gave up and Bentley made that Adobe thing, I was giving up on the idea using Vue ever again. I'm glad it's free. Version 2023 is rocksolid. Apart from AI stuff I wouldn't know how to enhance a software like Vue. I would say it is very close to perfect what it can and does. Only thing Plantfactory is something I won't be spending time with. For me way too complicated stuff.
Below some of my latest Vue stuff
Rasberri - very nicely done scene on the heart-formed island.
Wonderful render Rasberri - unique idea I like it. The trees are nice too.
Very nice Vue renders Fettbemme
Fettbemme - three very nice renders. I started 3D with Terragen, later I purchased Bryce 5.0 from Corel and I still discover options in Bryce - some seem to be bugs that can be exploited for the advantage, others are annoying. Do not forget that Bryce has two (2) separate render engines built into the program and can render using several computers on a home network, even mix Windows and Mac (up to 12.6 if I remember correctly). By the way, my first renders I had uploaded to a Vue forum and the peers were surprised how great Bryce results can be.
Thanks mermaid010
Thanks Horo
Horo, I used Terragen as well. I think it was version 0.9 something which I find still today a bit easier to use than the latest version.
Bryce is definitly underrated. It has a certain quality to the renders which I like very much. The program was way ahead of its time back then.
If it would be updated to 64 bit it would kick some ass. But I doubt it will happen. They even can't get a indexed Help together after God knows how many YEARS!
I think the secret to the rendered images in Bryce is the atmospherics like Ozone in Vue. The renders with Bryce always will look repectable. I play at least once a week with it.
Another strength is of course the Material Editor. I really wish someone could explain that to me how it works. I'm a visual learner. Perhaps an indepth video tutorial would be great.
Great tree fettbeme!
Rasberri, an adorable island. Love the heart shape.
I also learn from video tutorials. David made many videos on materials, you will find them here: https://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials/
or on his YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@davidbrinnen
You will learn lots of tricks and tips from his and Horo's videos.
Good luck
Thanks, y'all. Fettbemme I love your Vue renders.
I'll have to give Vue another shot again, I haven't played with it in years.. since my older desktop went haywire -- thank goodness I am now using a laptop with some spirit to it for rendering. I am sad about Bryce.. it is so user friendly and yes, would be awesome at 64 bit.. but alas, it has become like an abandoned relic, shipwrecked on the island of deserted software toys.
I know they mentioned there are so many business technicalities as to why folks can't manage updating it.. but why does life have to be so complicated? 
I agree that it is a good idea to keep using the software you know and like. But I also agree it is very nice to lear new things. I did a bit of doodling in PlantFactory and looked at some tutorials. I am convinced it can make much better looking trees and plants than Bryce Tree edtor can, though I also must admit I do not really use the tree editor a lot, so probably am not aware of many of its features. What I don't like in the tree editor is the fact that trunks are always straight. What I do like in the Tree editor is that the trees are very light-weight (memory wise).
I made some variants of one tree in PlantFactory. I started this fully from scratch and it took no more than an hour and a half to create these five variants. Once you have one tree defined and you have indicated some level of variability, it is one click to create a random new variant within the provided variability. I made this a very low polygon tree, as you can see in the trunks that are rather squary. However, it would be one click only to make them of a higher resolution (but more memory usage, of course). The scene is 22.85 MB. A similar scene with five magnolia shaped trees from the Bryce Tree editor is only 7.79 MB ( roughly one-third) and these trees are more realistic in trunk, etc. So Bryce is the clear winner for easy creation of more or less simple and more or less 'round' trees that do not use too much memory. On the other hand, if you want quick variations of the same type of tree, with more differences and e.g. lopsided trees (or if you want to create tulips or roses or so), PlantFactory can be very useful, I think. The tree I made was very simple compared to some of the trees in the catalog.
One disadvantage of the PlantFactory trees is that you need to modify textures (which are of course exported as pictures) to lower memory use and also to show the leaves correctly. These are picture textures, but not per se on flat planes, but on 'warpboards', which are warped planes. Maybe my choice of export-options was not correct (I used 3ds, because fbx did not keep parts together). Modification of textures of a simple plant is, however, very easy. It gets tedious if the plant has many different separate meshes.
Since I like to learn and play around with new tools, I will certainly keep playing with the PlantFactory and use results in Bryce. However, I also started on tutorials of Vue (Geekatplay does short very clear beginners tutorial) and found that the interface is not that hard at all. And using the ecosystem approach in Vue is a great way to populate your landscape with trees, rocks and other items, where those trees and rocks will vary, according to the boundaries provided to them. I will show some Vue render here later.
Finally, I also created severall variants of grasses and flowery plants in the PlantCatalog, exported them, put them in Bryce and retextured them, followed by using the instancing option to create many instances on my terrain.
First: low polygon PlantFactory fantasy trees.
Second: Bryce 'magnolia-style' trees
Here is the simple node-structure of my self-made trees.
Finally: grasses and flowers from PlantFactory Plant Catalog
wow, you get the hang on it
cool
Very nice examples Hansmar
Hansmar - nice examples. How about the foliage, are the leaves true meshes like in Arbaro, ngPlant, Carrara and Bryce, or are they just squares with a material that cuts out the leaf by transparency, like Xfrog or Ivy Generator?
Fetbemme, Mermaid, Horo, Thanks.
The leave can be meshes, e.g. made from so-called blades or from other meshes in PlantFactory, but mostly they are planes cut-out by transparency. However, these planes are not (necessarily) flat planes, because you can twist and turn them and these are called warp-boards. For my self-made trees, I used warpboads. Some of the leaves in the grass and flowers are actual meshes. Of course, meshes increase the memory use, while transparency increases the render time. There is always a balance to be struck.
OK, so here is a Vue render with my first tree. It is the same tree I showed above, However, I did pump up the resolution (two clicks on the '+' button) and saved it again, now as a Vue object. Then I opened Vue, used a preset ground texture and a preset atmosphere and planted my tree in the scene (it is the one at left in the back). Then I added this tree to the ecosystem options, selected it and painted a number of trees on the ground. As you can see, each tree is different, though there is quite some similarity. The differences are caused by the variability in my tree definition that is taken over in the Vue object. It can also be modified in Vue itself. This scene is 154 MB and it renders much quicker (at 1920 by 1080 pixels) than my Bryce render of just five of these trees. The textures are procedural Vue textures and because Vue uses the variability in the original object, there is no need to enter each variant separately. Just a few clicks and the scene is there.
OK, one more example. There are 113 instances of my tree in the scene, but some outside the camera view and quite a few not very visible (obscured by others in front of them). So, this is a very inefficiently made scene. These instances are all individual in form and size. Rendering in this case (not really measured) around 15 minutes. I did a little postwork to the Vue render to get a little more light and contrast. Vue clearly uses an instancing technique (that includes the in-built variability in the tree), because while the first scene is 154.08 MB, this one with many more instances is 154.13 MB.
Let's be clear, I do not intend to post Vue renders here, except for an example here and there, perhaps. This is a Bryce forum and so I will create Bryce renders and show them here.
Beautiful @Hansmar .. I like the twisted looking trunks
Rasberri, Thanks. That is easy to do in Plantfactory. You cannot really make such trunks in Bryce tree editor, I think. I did make some of these using NGplant, but that is much more work.
very cool
keep up the good work
I stand clear of Plant Factory way too complicated I think
Very nice examples once again Hansmar
Hansmar - The issue with the "blades" instead of meshes is that you need transparency to cut-out the picture. If you have a mesh, you can use transparency to create translucency. A leaf is translucent, not transparent, how much depends on the plant, but a leaf consists of cells with fine walls and within is water. Look at a tree in nature (not a fir tree with needles, but one with leaves) when the sun shines at it, the go to the other side and look how it appears when the sun is behind the leaf and shines through it. This effect cannot be created in Bryce from a blade-leaf because transparency is needed to cut it out.
Fettbemme, Mermaid, Thank you.
Horo, Thanks for the explanation on translucency. Blades in Vue are actually meshes. They are kind of wing-like structures that can be transformed into leaf-like forms and then do not need transparency for cutting out the leaf form. Warpboards do need the transparancy for cutting out the leaf.
Thank you for the information, Hansmar.
Here is an example of PlantFactory trees with clumsy mesh leaves. I made the leaves inside PlantFactory, but that is not an easy task, so they are sort of diamonds instead of leaves. Actually, these are four variants of the same tree with a couple of instances, manually placed in the scene. The terrain is the 'winding river' terrain that I used before. I added some translucency via the transparency channel. This was, given the location of the sun, not very useful, I think, but I wanted to try. It means that the render took many hours. I will try one later with less trees (different view) and light from behind to see how it looks.
Wonderful effort Hansmar. Leaves are the hardest part.
Looks nice Hansmar.
+ 1
Thanks, NGartplay, Horo and ed3D.
The next render uses three variants of the same 'spooky tree', made in PlantFactory, based on the tutorial by GeekAtPlay. In this case, after creating the tree, I can vary the season, the age and the health of the tree, to get rather different results. The textures were added in Bryce. And I used one of the skies with HDRI by Horo and David Brinnen. The leaves, in this case, are planes where the leaves are cut out by transparency. I am still getting to understand how to make use of self-made leave meshes in the software. I am working on some examples.
By the way, the perpetual license allows the use of plants you make in commercial products and, any assets exported from the product. So, if any of you is interested to use one of the trees in your renders, just let be know and I can send you a PM.
Hansmar - very special trees, difficult to get such or a similar result with the Bryce tree lab.
Horo, thanks. I am sure this can be done with Arbaro or NGplant, but not as easily as with Plant Factory. And once you have made a (more or less complex) structure, you can make multiple highly different variants with a few clicks. The structure of this tree is not very complicated, because it uses a number of loops. Here is a picture of the structure.
I did find learning to create this lots of fun and not too difficult. But others may, of course, have a different idea of fun and difficult.
Hansmar - two lovely examples using plant factory tree. Thanks for sharing the structure.
Thanks, Mermaid.