I know there has been countless topics on image programs, but a search doesn't really answer my question. Is Bryce 3D (Bryce 5) any good for making ship sprites? It's kinda sitting around ildly and I want to know if I can put it to use.

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It's not "great" but several people have made some excellent ships using Bryce. I use Bryce myself, and someday I'll produce something good too ;).

The key is to get some good textures, and pay close attention to the details a lot. I'm working off and on on a secret project code-named "Project-T". It involves Bryce, and that's all I'm going to say :p.

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And now twenty people will proceed to go on and on about how much Bryce sucks and should never be used to do anything. They just don't like challenges I guess.

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Bryce is a great program for designing landscapes. Excellent program for landscaping, actually.

However, it pales in comparison to other applications for ship graphics. It isn't terrible, but there are better.

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Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**And now twenty people will proceed to go on and on about how much Bryce sucks and should never be used to do anything. They just don't like challenges I guess.

**

Far from it. I happen to believe bryce is an excellent app. Personally. When I first got into 3d I used bryce for modeling. Now i tend to use other apps to model (pureley because bryce has no sub object editor), but I still complile all my 3d in bryce, texturing, lighting etc is all done there.

best,

l e g i o n

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Quote

Originally posted by Legion:
Far from it. I happen to believe bryce is an excellent app. Personally. When I first got into 3d I used bryce for modeling. Now i tend to use other apps to model (pureley because bryce has no sub object editor), but I still complile all my 3d in bryce, texturing, lighting etc is all done there.

Well, some people like it (I do!). But many don't. Just warning the guy.

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Bryce is not a great ship-making program by any means, but it is not as underpowered as many people would say. Like has already been said, it's a challenge, but with determination and a good artistic sense, it can put out some decent stuff.

The main limitation of Bryce is that it doesn't have any real object editors - you have to work with primitives. The closest things is has to modelling abilities are boolean operations and metaballs, if you know what those are. If not, I or someone else on these boards could explain them to you.

Examples:
(url="http://"http://www.2xtreme.net/btaenzer/tankership.jpg")http://www.2xtreme.n.../tankership.jpg(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.2xtreme.net/btaenzer/brycemodelling.jpg")http://www.2xtreme.n...cemodelling.jpg(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.2xtreme.net/btaenzer/phoenixfighter.jpg")http://www.2xtreme.n...enixfighter.jpg(/url)

The bottom line: it's not great for shipmaking, but it can be used for that with some work. It's just a bit of an uphill battle the whole way.

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(This message has been edited by Weepul 884 (edited 06-23-2002).)

Better than nothing. I've made some masterpieces in Bryce, really. The Whisper Heavy Assault Cruiser is my best, probably. Heh. I make all my stuff in bryce. can't afford something better =P

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Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**Bryce is not a great ship-making program by any means, but it is not as underpowered as many people would say. Like has already been said, it's a challenge, but with determination and a good artistic sense, it can put out some decent stuff.

The main limitation of Bryce is that it doesn't have any real object editors - you have to work with primitives. The closest things is has to modelling abilities are boolean operations and metaballs, if you know what those are. If not, I or someone else on these boards could explain them to you.

Examples:
http://www.2xtreme.n.../tankership.jpg
http://www.2xtreme.n...cemodelling.jpg
http://www.2xtreme.n...enixfighter.jpg

The bottom line: it's not great for shipmaking, but it can be used for that with some work. It's just a bit of an uphill battle the whole way.

**

You left out the Terrain Editor. That'd be my first choice for making hulls, if I wasn't trying to slap Ray Dream 5.5 into some kind of functionality.

I keep bringing up Bryce as a first application because not only does it do almost everything (the modelling is worse than most. The skies and materials are --far-- ahead of most), but it is really cheap, really easy to use, and so durn comfortable and well-designed during use I still sigh in relief when I'm finished in Ray Dream, Amorphium, Amapi, Poser or what have you and import the end result into Brye to render.

It all depends on what you see yourself doing down the road. If you see yourself going into design school don't buy anything; wait for them to show you Maya then go jump on the academic discount. Same thing if you are hungering for a job at Pixar. If your thing is modelling, and you have dreams of making every ship used in the fifth Star Wars movie, then go grab a decent mid-range modeller; Strata, Cinema4D, Amapi (forget Carrara or Mechanisto -- you want NURBS at the least).

But for putting a foot in the water, the only thing that beats Bryce is trotting yourself downtown and getting into a class.

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I use Bryce 5 for most everything simply because I learned that first. I know my way around every inch of that program. I use other programs (actually, I have a copy of Lightwave) that I use for making that more complicated parts of ships that it's nearly impossible to make with primitives, but I transfer all of these into Bryce, and all the layouts, texturing, lighting, rendering and animation I do with Bryce alone. Granted, an expert on the subject I am not. None of my stuff even comes close to the ones shown above, but I still think bryce is the greatest program I've used as far as ease of use and an intuitive interface.

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Quote

Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
**You left out the Terrain Editor. That'd be my first choice for making hulls, if I wasn't trying to slap Ray Dream 5.5 into some kind of functionality.

I keep bringing up Bryce as a first application because not only does it do almost everything (the modelling is worse than most. The skies and materials are --far-- ahead of most), but it is really cheap, really easy to use, and so durn comfortable and well-designed during use I still sigh in relief when I'm finished in Ray Dream, Amorphium, Amapi, Poser or what have you and import the end result into Brye to render.

It all depends on what you see yourself doing down the road. If you see yourself going into design school don't buy anything; wait for them to show you Maya then go jump on the academic discount. Same thing if you are hungering for a job at Pixar. If your thing is modelling, and you have dreams of making every ship used in the fifth Star Wars movie, then go grab a decent mid-range modeller; Strata, Cinema4D, Amapi (forget Carrara or Mechanisto -- you want NURBS at the least).

But for putting a foot in the water, the only thing that beats Bryce is trotting yourself downtown and getting into a class.

**

I put my foot in the water with Infini-D 3.1. Granted, my graphics suck , but still...

Divals

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Quote

Originally posted by Divals the Conqueror:
**I put my foot in the water with Infini-D 3.1. Granted, my graphics suck , but still...

Divals

**

I learned on RenderBoy. Then I used various versions of Ray Dream, from 3d up to 5.5 Bryce was a breath of fresh air after that.

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"I know the stranger's name."
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No, Bryce is not good for making ships. No way.
You can use it in texturing you inported models but not to make stuff.The best you can do is make some organic alien ships with metaballs, the ones that don't require high level of the detail. I used it only for texturing and it was fun for a while

BRYCE IS A TERRAIN MODELER.

That's it.You don't make ships with Terragen, Vue' or MojoWorld. Why would you want to make ones with Bryce.
And no I don't hate Bryce. I like it a lot and used it for a quite a while.But never to make ships. Every programme has it purpose it's been made for.
There a bunch of programmes that you can use with ease to make ships. Believe me, don't take Bryce, if you just thinmking about modeling.

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Yeah, Weepul, made some nice stuff with Bryce. But has tons and years of experience in 3D modeling,and one of the best here. You have to check his other ships made not in Bryce to see the difference.

(This message has been edited by Slav (edited 06-24-2002).)

Bryce is a decent program. I learned on it years ago, and have found that it hasd some neat features. It has a good terain fractal generation engine (though it doesn't compare that well to vue's in my opinion), and can be very useful for making landscapes. I used it for this puropsed for some time. However, I found that I could produce much higher quality work (even landscapes) with Lightwave (and Maya, though I don't recomend anything but Unlimited). Bryce has some neat features. Its surface preset library is good, though making your own surfaces is a royal pain. Its surface editor has nowhere near the power of a professional modeling program like lighgtwave. It is also imposible to make many of the structures and vegitation that you would like to include in your work with Bryce (the vegitation generator in Bryce 5 is prety poor). Most importantly, there is no grass in bryce... This make many close up shots where grass is needed incredibly hard to simulate (or impossible). Bryce has some bneat features, however, It has some very serious limitations: no modeling whatsoever, slow rendering (not that great either), limited surface editor, poor handeling of volumetrics (esp volumetric light), no radiosity or caustics, no particle FX system, no Volumetric FX system, poor animation system (very poor actually, and it has no ability whatsoever to do nonrigid animation/deformation, though the renderer is so slow that one wouldn't want to anyway). For a while I used it frequently, and produced some decent things (especially web graphics, which it handeled prety well...), then I used it for its fractal terain and treain editing features, now i hardly use it at all, as vue's fractal terain generator suits my purposes beter in general. Like people have said, Bryce has its strengths (though I would say probably the best is its attractive GUI (It isn't all that easy to use, the interface is rather cumbersome, it is often very hard and time consuming to achieve some more advanced effects goals) and itsd low price). What it boils down to is this. Limited ship design is possible, it is often very dificult and time consuming to produce anything that really looks good. It would be a beter option to use a program that is less restrictive, and that has mmodeling features. My favorite 3D program, especially for beginiers, is Lightwave which is incredibly simple to use, has most of the features of programs that cost much more, and can accomplish any effect needed with only a marginal amount of work...
Joe

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A while back, I wanted to learn Bryce, but it costed too much money (for a junior high school student) so I ended up getting POVRay. I'm hopelessly hooked to the program, but I'm trying to learn other high-end (Maya, Lightwave, Softimage) programs.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Most importantly, there is no grass in bryce... This make many close up shots where grass
is needed incredibly hard to simulate (or impossible).

That's, "moderately hard with a bunch of computing power". I've made a decent volumetric grass material that could be applied to just about anything. Unfortunately, I don't have the computing power to keep render times short enough for it to be practical.

My favorite 3D program, especially for beginiers, is Lightwave which is incredibly simple
to use, has most of the features of programs that cost much more, and can accomplish any
effect needed with only a marginal amount of work...

Ahhh, you're about the only person I've heard call Lightwave simple, or good for beginners. It's very different from other, object-based programs. I'm finding that out the hard way...

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Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**

My favorite 3D program, especially for beginiers, is Lightwave which is incredibly simple
to use, has most of the features of programs that cost much more, and can accomplish any
effect needed with only a marginal amount of work...

Ahhh, you're about the only person I've heard call Lightwave simple, or good for beginners. It's very different from other, object-based programs. I'm finding that out the hard way...
**

You got that right. I would hardly call Lightwave a program for beginners. I've been working with it for weeks now and I've still barely scratched the surface.

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.

Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**> Most importantly, there is no grass in bryce... This make many close up shots where grass

is needed incredibly hard to simulate (or impossible).

That's, "moderately hard with a bunch of computing power". I've made a decent volumetric grass material that could be applied to just about anything. Unfortunately, I don't have the computing power to keep render times short enough for it to be practical.

My favorite 3D program, especially for beginiers, is Lightwave which is incredibly simple
to use, has most of the features of programs that cost much more, and can accomplish any
effect needed with only a marginal amount of work...

Ahhh, you're about the only person I've heard call Lightwave simple, or good for beginners. It's very different from other, object-based programs. I'm finding that out the hard way...

**

Hey Weepul, could you use UBB code? It's confusing when you don't.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

Lightwave is easy to use, all you need to do is keep the pdf manual open and search whenever you want something. Lightwave has a nice, logical layout, and will let you model even if you don't have any idea what you are doing. A word to those who use it, the most powerful modeling tools tend to be spline guide and magnet (at least for object deformation).
Joe

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Quote

Originally posted by jdh545:
**Lightwave is easy to use, all you need to do is keep the pdf manual open and search whenever you want something. Lightwave has a nice, logical layout, and will let you model even if you don't have any idea what you are doing. A word to those who use it, the most powerful modeling tools tend to be spline guide and magnet (at least for object deformation).
Joe

**

The original post was not "Is a Ferrari fun to drive?' It was "Can my old VW get me to work?" On that basis, sure, if you can swing the cash for Lightwave (or Maya, or Max), go right ahead. But if the lad already owns Bryce, can it hurt him to open it up and play around a little?

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"I know the stranger's name."
Turandot