Is there any way to import A:M characters into Bryce, and if so, could you animate them? If so, then I might get A:M for cutscenes once I get enough money...
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"How do you know that she's a witch?""She turned me into a newt!" "A newt?" "...I got better!"~Monty Python and the Holy Grail
~Nick
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Originally posted by nwa728:
**Is there any way to import A:M characters into Bryce, and if so, could you animate them? If so, then I might get A:M for cutscenes once I get enough money...
**
Yes and No, at least not without a great deal of work and pain.
I've managed to create some really nice looking landscapes in AM, I have better control over them, and I don't have to put up with that freaky Kai Krause interface either.
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People who claim the sky is falling obviously aren't aware the earth is falling, too.
people take bryce for more than what it is: a terrain/environment modeler. It isn't really built for animation on any scale, and certainly not character animation. Programs like AM or higher ups like Cinema 4D and LightWave can do terrain modeling just as well as Bryce -- they just weren't designed around that concept, and so their true abilites aren't always obvious at first.
AM can create some stunning landscapes and effects. In most situations the AM rendering engine is also superior to that of Bryce (or any of the old Metacreations products) -- so your terrains will look a little better when you finaly finish them. The higher-end programs might have a steeper learning curve, but I think most people will be much better off in the end using an all-around modeling/animation package, if for no other reason than that they won't be exposed to the Bryce interface.
and (url="http://"http://www.hash.com")A:M(/url) is cheap, too. only $300 bucks.
note: though I dislike it for many reasons, (url="http://"http://www.pixels3d.net")Pixels3D(/url) actually had some very smooth terrain editing features. I never tried to create anything of production quality, but I enjoyed playing around with it. I made some interesting terrains quickly. and hey, it's free.
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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi
Sadly, Bryce's animation controls are not only limited (I need IK chaining! :p), they are also rather buggy. When working with a complex object with multi-leveled grouping (a group within a group within a...), sometimes, moving the time slider will cause parts of the group to fling themselves out into the scene. What's worse, this seems to be a "data change" bug - moving the slider back does not cause them to resume their previous positions, nor does Undo. The only thing you can do when this happens is "Revert to Saved" and hope it doesn't happen again... Plus, animation paths are severely limited; they act like Bezier curves, but it does not seem possible to adjust the curve handles (meaning, I can't control how sharply or gently a path corners.) If you're wanting to do animations of any complexity, don't bother with Bryce. It's just not worth the hassle.
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"In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane." - Mark Twain
"The answer is yes or no , depending on the interpretation." - Albert Einstein
"Freedom of belief is pernicious; it is nothing but the freedom to be wrong." - Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
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Originally posted by ben1cohen:
**I would be interested to know why you dislike Pixels:3d... It is easily the best free 3d program in existence (although to get all of the features like particles and other stuff, you need to pay...).
**
I haven't used Pixels all that much, but it seemed to me to be rather crash-prone, and the interface felt very clunky. I suppose one might get used to the interface, but the instability just made the program feel flaky to me. Also, if you register the free copy (which I believe they require you to do), you've just agreed to receive a lifetime's worth of "Upgrade Now!" spam, even if you specifically state in your registration comments, "I don't have enough money to register, nor do I need the new features. Please don't e-mail me about it."
That said, it's been about six months since last I used Pixels. Maybe they've gotten better since then. shrug
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"In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane." - Mark Twain
"The answer is yes or no , depending on the interpretation." - Albert Einstein
"Freedom of belief is pernicious; it is nothing but the freedom to be wrong." - Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
I subscribe to a few mailing lists, some for audio software, some for 3D software, and I've seen something similar to the following said about both types of programs:
"I used to think XX (semi-cheap program; Cakewalk, Animation Master, etc) was a buggy piece of $#!, with a lousy interface. Then I tried AA, BB, and CC (expensive industry-standard software; Maya, ProTools, etc), and found out that they are ALL buggy pieces of $#! with lousy interfaces."
Sadly, high-end media software has not yet gotten to the reliablity factor of even my cell phone, let alone a good piece of shop hardware like, say, a Makita Drill.
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People who claim the sky is falling obviously aren't aware the earth is falling, too.
bryce can do some pretty good stuff (url="http://"http://www.brycetopia.com")www.brycetopia.com(/url)
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Originally posted by daimyo:
**bryce can do some pretty good stuff www.brycetopia.com
**
Oh, I'm not saying that it can't (I mostly use Bryce myself). I'm just saying that animations in Bryce are a major pain to pull off. Check out the "Movie Gallery" on Brycetopia - the "GearsEngines" one is the only one that features any even vaguely complex motion. All of the rest are either simple rotations, simple translations, or camera flythroughs. Just about anything is possible if you're willing to work hard enough, but complex animations in Bryce just aren't worth the effort 90% of the time. It makes pretty nifty stills, though. 
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"In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane." - Mark Twain
"The answer is yes or no , depending on the interpretation." - Albert Einstein
"Freedom of belief is pernicious; it is nothing but the freedom to be wrong." - Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
Oh, and sanehatter is absolutely correct. But IMO, Pixels is buggier than most of the other buggy pieces of $#!*. 
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"In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane." - Mark Twain
"The answer is yes or no , depending on the interpretation." - Albert Einstein
"Freedom of belief is pernicious; it is nothing but the freedom to be wrong." - Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
I know! I wish these **** 3d programs weren't so expensive. It took me forever to save up for Bryce 4 and thats only 180$.
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Originally posted by ben1cohen:
**It is easily the best free 3d program in existence
**
well, there's your answer right there... it has been said that money isn't everything. but whoever said that obviously hadn't done much high-end digital imaging.
but really though: my biggest problem with Pixels3D is the interface. It's much clunkier than it needs to be. Actually, Pixels3D (v3.7, anyway...) reminds me very much of older versions of A:M. not so much the set up (A:M uses a very different patch construction system), but just the overall feel of the product. The first 4 or 5 releases of A:M were some the shakiest pieces of software ever created. However, if Hash, inc. is any indication of the future for Pixels3D, then it is a bright future. Pixels3D has issues, but at it's heart is an amazingly powerful software package.
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Originally posted by sanehatter:
**
Sadly, high-end media software has not yet gotten to the reliablity factor of even my cell phone, let alone a good piece of shop hardware like, say, a Makita Drill.
**
I dissagree here. I work in an animation lab at a university that uses 3 platforms (mostly some form of Mac), about 5 years worth of hardware stretched across 20 some-odd machines, an aging network, and at the least 5 different 3D software packages. To tell you the truth, I can see a marked difference in stability and productivity between something like, oh say, Infini-D (Metacreations, $200) / Bryce4 ((url="http://"http://www.corel.com")Corel(/url), $200), and Cinema 4D ((url="http://"http://www.cinema4D.com")Maxon(/url), $1600) / LightWave ((url="http://"http://www.newtek.com")NewTek(/url), $2500). I'm sure that my experience differs from many others in this area, but I've found that the price-tag on a product usually does give you a sense of how much it's worth.
This is all just my opinion though -- I don't expect anyone to run out and buy copies of LightWave and Maya ((url="http://"http://www.apple.com/macosx/press/alias_wavefront.html")oh, the joy of X(/url)) just because they can produce better graphics. If you can get the results you're looking for with Mechanisto (sp?) or Infini-D 3.0, then do it. Save your money.
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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi
The interface was a little clunky at first (of pixels)... But I've used it for so long, it's like second nature to me. Also, most of the instability comes from the fact that pixels is a ram monger like you've never seen. I've found that a lot of the crashes go away when you up the ram to >300 megs. That being said, in the next version they're doing a major interface redesign.
I guess the thing is, when you really tap it's power, Pixels:3d can create fabulous results, equal to that of programs costing upwards of 1,000 dollars. It's just very hard to use, and it takes quite a lot of patience with all the crashes and bugs.
You get what you pay for, but I think with Pixels you get just a little more.
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I haven't been dealing with 3D for to long but I've made some pretty descent stuff with inexpensive programs such as Meshwork ( (url="http://"http://codenautics.com")Codenautics(/url) ) which is only 30$. And for land scapes I use Strata 3D which is free (but it's nothing compared to Bryce).
(url="http://"http://www.3d.com/home.html")Strata(/url)
to see what i've done click (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/mindspace")here(/url)
