Vue v Bryce
tdrd
Posts: 0
OK I am a newbie so give me some air folks.
I have so far spent two days on Bryce and the same on the trial ov Vue and here are my observations so far.
I find the interface on Vue is a little confucing whereas Bryce "appears" (and I use that word carefully) a bit basic.
It is easier to sculpt the landscape in Vue (for the beginner) and I think the developers of Bryce should make it a bit easier to sculpt the landscape.
I wanted to start with a hillside and simply carve an inclining road up it, to see if it could cope and I ended up slicing the hill either in two or the road was so coarse it looked like a set of steps.
I raised a challenge in a recent post but no-one took it up so I guess it's either too difficult to expect a beginner to do it or it's not possible.
WHAT I LOVE IN VUE is the simplicity of moving the camera round the scene. You can move the camera partially around the other side and even rest it within the scene itself. Now Maybe I am missing something but I was told you cannot invent a large worldscape and plop the camera within the scene in Bryce.
THAT all said I am unemployed at the moment and my budget does not really extend to purchasing a product like Vue. I do have funds available to purchase addons to a free product but not to have to buy the product first and then some.
So. I'll probably get shot down for this, but to me Brycce still has room for improvement. Mainly in the crashes area and the modelling area.
I have a quad core 3.4Ghz PC with 4Gb of RAM and it still crashes on me without warning...
I'll welcome any comments on this as I am still appraising the two to determine if Bryce can do what I want.
I'm told it can but I still have to have someone prove it to me.
I'll raise a challenge in a seperate post and would love to see what Bryce users can make of the scene. I'd love to see what renders people can make of it.
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link -
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/7321/
I have never used Vue personally, so I will not be useful in making direct comparisons. When it comes to camera movements, Bryce camera moves in all of the ways it should. All you need to do is click on the large camera icons with sustained mouse pressure and you can pan in and out and all over.
Bryce has two main cameras, the Director's View and the Camera View. The Director's view tends to orbit the geometric center of the scene. The True Camera by comparison is stationary and can be moved but it doesn't fly around the way the Director's camera does.
My feeling on Vue is that it has very good presets and other things to help new users get good results quickly. We have a bit of that in Bryce 7 but I will be the first to agree that it has to go much farther.
I have more to add on this subject but first I want to get to the challenges you posted in the other thread.
Here's what I can tell you about Bryce. Bryce can do anything. Yes, literally anything, everything, and then some. It literally ALL depends on the particular user.
Bryce is like a set of raw materials, that can be formed into whatever the skill level of the artist allows.
Unlike Vue that probably has a button for everything it can do, there are a LOT of things Bryce can do that don't have a button, are not listed on a feature list, and probably can't be done by just anyone but instead only possible for those with the experience to pull it off.
Modeling is a good example. For those who care to do so, I see these types of models produced in Bryce often enough. Can I personally pull that sort of thing off? Heck no. But my limits are not Bryce's limits.
http://www.bryce5.com/search.php?search_user=PiXi
Clouds are another example. Vue has terrific clouds. So does Bryce, but until version 7 and the products David made available only a few persons outside of myself ever knew it. Now there are several people who can produce clouds in Bryce to rival those in Vue.
Below is a MegaScape scenario I have been prepping for vending for quite some time. It relies on the yet immature Instance Lab, and demonstrates how far it can be pushed with patience and determination even though Bryce is still 32 bit. I first built the scene using Bryce trees but decided to completely repopulate the scene with vegetation built up in Carrara for more realism.
The water is fully 3d created as a terrain. The clouds are a real volumetric slab. The wet sand progression is courtesy of my buddy David Brinnen. The amount of work I put into this scenario may not be evident, but it is there. I know that Vue can make a scene like this as well, and might even do so in an easier way, not sure. But Bryce still can do it, which is my only real point.
There's just no limit to what Bryce itself can do. That's a big part of why I love Bryce.
What IMO would really help the newbie Brycers around (such as me) would be a tute that shows a real good scene like this one, and then goes, "You're gonna make a scene almost just like this (it can't be exactly the same, I know). Here's how.
"First, here's how we make the sky with the clouds...
"Now the lighting..."
"Now the water..."
"Now the trees..."
If there are any tutes that fit this description, please let me know. (David's cavern tute comes close to what I have in mind; now let's have more. Especially ones with cloudy skies.)
Picked up a few more interesting things about Bryce and VUE here, by the way. So many of Bryce's most outstanding features are basically hid below the surface, so to speak, to be taken out and used only by those 'in the know'?
When you describe it in that way it makes Bryce feel like an adventure game, which reminds me of Horo because that's the way he often describes his experience with Bryce.
To continue on the idea of individual results based on the user, I want to discuss the Chimera below. Bryce does not have a formal feature that can split light into bands in this way. However, it does provide the raw materials to make it possible if the user is willing to twist his mind into irreparable states.
Another example of this banding is with the diamonds image. This one is actually older than the chimera but the point is that I was willing to force Bryce into doing what I needed it to do without a button. I did not have a strict deadline for how much time I'd allow myself to solve the problem of spectral banding. But instead I tried a hundred different approaches until I found the right one. Admittedly I had more free time then than I do lately.
I'd prefer if it were a button, I would prefer to ask Daz to add the ability as a formal feature for the next release since it has been proven possible by means of the workaround I developed. But for now it is somewhat hidden between the lines. An ability that is somewhat scattered among the dials of the interface.
Bryce has no limits that I can tell. Yet to run into one I couldn't figure a way around with enough patience.
I unfortunately don't have the original discussion atm about this by Kai Krausse but in the forward of at least one of his manuals (iirc, it was a long time ago) he discusses how his intention was to encourage creativity and exploration with his interfaces. That using them should be a discovery process. Now I'm really grasping at threads of memory here but from what I remember, the idea was that the discovery process engendered by a creative interface would inspire creativity in the person using it (not his words but the impression I was left with (now many years later.)) The Images people develop with Bryce are a good example of this, as in Rashad's images above. You will be hard pressed to find those in Vue, not because Vue can't do them but because Vue doesn't inspire them (imo.)
Vue, like most programs are more geared towards getting a task done and is therefore laid out in what most would consider a more 'logical' pattern. I personally like both approaches. It's more how well they are executed then which is better for me.
As for which is better it really depends on how it is to be used and which matches your style. Both Bryce and the free version of Vue can create landscapes that can be used for backdrops. I don't remember off the top if there are any licensing restrictions on the free version of Vue as per commercial use.
If you want to import objects into the programs, well you will have to pay for that functionality in Vue (or use their pre-canned objects, most of which are not free.) In Bryce, importing objs is built in and there is also probably more free content available for Bryce.
Vue also has top end features (for extra cost) that are not available really in Bryce. Much of the backdrops of the movie Avatar was supposedly done in Vue. That could not have been done cost effectively in Bryce as it doesn't support some of the functions nor the team development etc.. that Vue at the top end does.
With Bryce, you have the community right here, Vue's community is a different crowd (not good or bad, just something to consider.)
etc.. etc..
Oh, almost forgot the url, David Brinnen has a number of tutorials for Bryce you might want to check out if you haven't already.
Bryce btw is probably the only program I would use Booleans in. It handled them reasonably well way back when no other program did. They have become somewhat of a trademark of it's modeling design.
Booleans are still somewhat flakey at times even in Bryce, but it fits Bryce's style I believe. More of a 'let's get creative, to h*ll with deadlines' ;)
Realize ofc that if one does succumb to the joy of using Booleans in Bryce, that modeling is pretty much useless in any other 3D program because outside of Bryce's paradigm of creativity, Booleans are the devils entrapment (just kidding, sort of...)
There is a plethora of tutorials for Bryce around. Most from the v5 times but they are still of enormous value. Just start at the top of this Bryce Discussion thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2839/ It doesn't really matter with what 3D application you start, you'll have to learn the software first. It's the tool. You have to learn and exercise if you go about it with pencil or spray can as well. There is no starting with 3D CG and being a master within minutes. Bryce has everything on board: modeller, terrain generator, sky lab with atmospherics night sky and stars, libraries with ready to use objects, materials, textures, skies ... Either create stills or animations, if you have more than one machine, network render your artwork. Bryce is a turnkey application. Everything is contained, and currently at no cost. And yes, the interface encourages art because it is art.
if you want to do some good right away get Vue - if you want to take a long to to do some good get Bryce .
because like they said you have to learn so much to do it .
so there :roll:
And of course bigh you just know I am going to disagree with you. I found Vue difficult to get on with, and ditched it. Bryce on the other hand I taught myself to use, from a mag cover copy of B2 and no manual.
I presume you never got around to reading this when trying VUE? ;-)
No. I tried Vue some time back, not recently, and just couldn't get on with it.
I do agree some of the Vue vegetation does look good, but otherwise I am more than happy with my Bryce, from B2 through to B7, have every version. Bryce is Fun.
well you know how it is some people just like one drink and some of us like
a variety - meself likes to sip different ones .
Well I do have variety, I have Br2, Br3, Br 4, Br5, Br5.5 Br 6, Br6.3, Bry7 pro. what more variety do I need. Oh and I do have a couple or 3 flavours of Poser, but only one installed, and of course my trusty Photoshop 7.
So you're basically wanting people to do it for you? I read the thread where you posted the challenge. I'm the one that told you that your drawing skills looked good enough you might be able to use them as a DEM (digital elevation map) in Bryce. If you knew how to convert your drawings to a DEM then Bryce would create the terrain with the road already carved in it for you. You would still have to add your material settings (textures) to it though.
Sounds to me like you are trying to evaluate two programs without understanding fully how the controls in either of them work. Yes Bryce isn't the most newb friendly program out there but that true for pretty much all the serious 3D modeling applications, Max, Maya, Lightwave, Bryce, Vue, etc.). Programs that are more newb friendly like Poser and Studio are designed to make it easy for people to create great art without fully understanding how to accomplish that from scratch in 3D. The problem though is you are then dependent on others (vendors) to make what you want possible by doing the hard part for you. Unfortunately though, for highly personal projects like the one you described in the other thread it's probably not going to be worth it for a vendor to make because there would probably be only you and maybe a few others buying it.
As for the camera in Bryce, I didn't see anyone in that other thread tell you the camera can't be moved around. I did see people talk about how to move the camera around, sounds like you didn't understand what they were telling you? Moving the camera is pretty easy as simple as selecting it and draging it to where you want, once you know how to navigate around in Bryce.
It can't do character rigging and posing. :)
That's not realistic because the scene like Rashad is showing in the post you quoted has taken him months to create and even then he had help. In fairness though Rashad does have a real life with real obligations. Meaning that if he could devote himself just to scene creation he might get completion down from months to weeks. Still that's not realistic for a beginner, what is realistic are the scenes described in the tutorials available from David. I'm pretty sure I posted links to several in your thread on this same topic of Bryce vs Vue but you apparently didn't notice? Those kind would be more suitable because they can be done in a fairly short time frame if you can keep up with David. :)
Here they are again for anyone interested
Bryce desert landscape - part 1 - a 15 minute tutorial in two parts by David Brinnen
Bryce desert landscape - part 2 - a 15 minute tutorial in two parts by David Brinnen
Bryce lake in a landscape - a 15 minute tutorial by David Brinnen
Bryce lighthouse "light beam" effect - a 15 minute tutorial by David Brinnen
And of course bigh you just know I am going to disagree with you. I found Vue difficult to get on with, and ditched it. Bryce on the other hand I taught myself to use, from a mag cover copy of B2 and no manual.
I have to disagree with him too. You can do good very easily with Bryce just like you can with vue. As far as what is natively available. Going to the next level it's still the same, both can do good but you need to buy someone else's work to take much of the difficult part out for the beginner. I mean really Vue doesn't seperate itself from Bryce in comparrison until you get to the point of making hyper-realistic environments such as seen in Avatar. But hey if you're at that level you're probably not working with Bryce anyway because of it's current limitations with memory and not being 64 bit yet.
I have to disagree with him too. You can do good very easily with Bryce just like you can with vue. As far as what is natively available. Going to the next level it's still the same, both can do good but you need to buy someone else's work to take much of the difficult part out for the beginner. I mean really Vue doesn't seperate itself from Bryce in comparrison until you get to the point of making hyper-realistic environments such as seen in Avatar. But hey if you're at that level you're probably not working with Bryce anyway because of it's current limitations with memory and not being 64 bit yet.
you can't do good with Bryce right away - I been using it for years
Vue you can right out of the box
I didn't say super .
If Rashad had a tute like what I described, then it wouldn't have taken him that long, right? :)
And maybe the tute could go in stages. First you can have the bare scene with no terrain. Stage one: focus on the sky first.
Stage two: Okay, now we have a scene with a lovely sky with clouds. But still no terrain. So now let's work on that.
Stage three: Ah, now we have some terrain, but it's all barren. So let's now add some vegetation...
And so on.
And one could always give the warning that it's a long way to the final scene.
To each his/her own. ;-)
Some like chocolate, some prefer vanilla.
But I have to say you're making it increasingly difficult for me not to be a little partial towards VUE...
I have to disagree with him too. You can do good very easily with Bryce just like you can with vue. As far as what is natively available. Going to the next level it's still the same, both can do good but you need to buy someone else's work to take much of the difficult part out for the beginner. I mean really Vue doesn't seperate itself from Bryce in comparrison until you get to the point of making hyper-realistic environments such as seen in Avatar. But hey if you're at that level you're probably not working with Bryce anyway because of it's current limitations with memory and not being 64 bit yet.
you can't do good with Bryce right away - I been using it for years
Vue you can right out of the box
I didn't say super .
Okay maybe we're working with a different definition of good? I'm saying there are enough things (content) in Bryce that you can click on them and assemble a decent scene for a fresh out of the box newbie, same as view. Now will either scene be so amazing that people will say, "My god you are a great 3D artist"? no but you can create reasonably decent scenes.
If Rashad had a tute like what I described, then it wouldn't have taken him that long, right? :)
And maybe the tute could go in stages. First you can have the bare scene with no terrain. Stage one: focus on the sky first.
Stage two: Okay, now we have a scene with a lovely sky with clouds. But still no terrain. So now let's work on that.
Stage three: Ah, now we have some terrain, but it's all barren. So let's now add some vegetation...
And so on.
And one could always give the warning that it's a long way to the final scene.
Not really because Rashad is developing the techniques one would need to use to create a scene like that. So there is no tute Rashad could have that would speed up his process. Even with a tute though a scene like that would still take alot of work and time and beginners tend not to have that level of dedication to want to spend days or weeks creating a scene.
This is exactly correct, in most cases. One cannot be creative when struggling to get a tool to function as trying to get something to do what we want uses our mental resources and leaves nothing for the creative process. Except in Bryce. Yes, you do need to understand the basics in Bryce to be able to do anything, and those basics have a little higher learning curve for most 'because it is non standard.' We carry over concepts of interface interaction from one piece of software to another. When something is as non standard as Bryce, that paradigm breaks down, even if the interface is superior in many ways.
Back to the 'Except in Bryce' statement. Bryce's core concept of inspiring/exploring was well realized in it's interface design so people are able to create amazing stuff 'poking around.' Much more so then in traditional interfaces. It is not unusual for someone to come up with something amazing in Bryce and then for them to tell you they're not sure how they got that effect, because they did it in a freestyle method. You just don't get the "oh hey, that's cool" moments in traditional interfaces that you get with Kia's interface designs. What you do get is a much more predictable and repeatable experience on average. Basically, if one is really good with either tool they will get both, what they get while learning is almost opposite (imo.)
One other thing. Bryce, once one gets the basics down is a much more personalized experience from my experience. What any two people do with it will often be drastically different. This is not the case so much with more traditional interface software tools.
To LordHardDriven:
You sound like Rashad is actually working on the next newer version of Bryce. (Bryce 8?)
Well, as he said, hopefully in due course things will develop to the point where what I have in mind will become a possibility.
Hey, there's a bit of variety with VUE as well. There's VUE 7, 8, 9 -- and now 10...
If we look at Bryce's material editor and compare that to a more standard dialog box design we can get a glimpse of how interface design can shape our view of something as simple or as complex as setting surface properties can be. Bryce's visual push, pull.. 3D, colorful interface is beautiful, quirky, fun... and less efficient for most people. This concept permeates the software. The Elevation Map design is brilliant imo, better then in other software, but it wouldn't 'fit' in standard designs as well, so breaking the standard design paradigm can result in better designs.
Anyways, these are just some of my musings on the topic, peace. :)
Well one could make the arguement that in a sense he is, Rashad Carter, Horo Wernli, David Brinnen, Graham Dresch, Brian Foley, Kirk Dunne, Clay Hagebusch and Brandon Bridges were all part of the team that helped create Bryce 7 Pro. So if for example Rashad discovered a way to improve how the instancing lab works then that indeed could become part of Bryce 8 if there ever is a Bryce 8.
As for what you have in mind, everything I've heard you ask for is already doable just not in a simplistic, click one button and it's done fashion. It is not very likely that Bryce will ever be so simple as having a one click solution for creating highly realistic compelling scenes. Then again Vue isn't really that simple either.
Now in both you can buy 3rd party packages where someone else has done all the work and you just add a couple of elements to round out the scene but that's not really creating something of your own because without the person to do the hard part and then sell it to you or if you don't have the money to buy it, then you're dead in the water or back to learning it well enough that you don't need the 3rd party stuff.
OK, maybe think in these terms.
Bryce for people who art is their hobby, do not begrudge the time spent on their hobby and treat the creative process as a bit of an adventure.
Professional software is made for professionals (in other words people who get paid and generally have to work to deadlines and towards specific goals), you spend money and time according to your budget and brief.
Choose the appropriate software according to your aims and your demeanour.
We can argue whether the Bryce interface is better and more intuitive than a standard one we find in Carrara, Terragen or others for eternity. What it boils down to is preference.
In the beginning, I also asked for metric values and a standard interface. Once I discovered the Bryce GUI is some sort of an adventure game and that I can assign any unit to the Bryce unit, I shut up.
The Bryce UI is fun, the more standard ones may fit better to geographers. A 3D CG application that is capable of generating just any genre of artwork imaginable and is not limited to landscape needs to have an "unscientific" user interface. But we must not forget that Bryce also offers numeric input, not only sliders. And thanks to this numeric input option, everything is repeatable just if it had a standard interface.
Well one could make the arguement that in a sense he is, Rashad Carter, Horo Wernli, David Brinnen, Graham Dresch, Brian Foley, Kirk Dunne, Clay Hagebusch and Brandon Bridges were all part of the team that helped create Bryce 7 Pro. So if for example Rashad discovered a way to improve how the instancing lab works then that indeed could become part of Bryce 8 if there ever is a Bryce 8.
As for what you have in mind, everything I've heard you ask for is already doable just not in a simplistic, click one button and it's done fashion. It is not very likely that Bryce will ever be so simple as having a one click solution for creating highly realistic compelling scenes. Then again Vue isn't really that simple either.
Now in both you can buy 3rd party packages where someone else has done all the work and you just add a couple of elements to round out the scene but that's not really creating something of your own because without the person to do the hard part and then sell it to you or if you don't have the money to buy it, then you're dead in the water or back to learning it well enough that you don't need the 3rd party stuff.
they are not all that work on making Bryce 7 - there are others !