Bryce Birthday this year? Happy Birthday!!!!!!
Eva1
Posts: 1,249
Some mentioned on another site that it's Bryce's birthday this year and it's 20 years old! (There's an article about the history of Bryce too on Wikipedia too, which I've only just discovered!). We should have a virtual Bryce birthday party! I'll bring some cake.....Or at the very least a Bryce birthday render thread:)
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I hadn't realized it was around for 20 years, but then again, I started playing with Bryce back in 2000-2001, and it was already at version 4, so I guess 20 years is about right.
Happy Birthday Bryce!!! :coolsmile:
Yes but only for Mac users in 1994. PC users had to wait a couple years till 1997 when Bryce 2 was finally released for the PC, version 2 for the mac came out in 1996 and included independent light sources, complex atmospheric effects, the addition of primitive forms with Boolean methods to combine them, and a revamped Texture Editor, so really Bryce 2 can be considered the true ancestor of the Bryce we know and love now.
I started with Bryce 2.
I had Bryce 3, and Fractal Paint! I think I still have the disks floating around here somewhere. I remember building architectural recreations out of boolians...Roman architecture...argh!
And I had you pegged for an early adopter ... :)
I had the original Bryce 1.0 release, which ran only on 680x0 architectures (I ran it on a Mac IIci, which had a 68030 processor). They subsequently came out with a point release that ran on PowerPC. I still have my original Bryce 1 floppy disks somewhere.
One of the early Brycers, a guy called Rodney L'Ongnion (who sadly died of a heart attack in 2000), always said that Bryce 1.0 was the Bryce because of the way that it did math. On the 68030 it used 96-bit floating point precision, whereas the PowerPC version of Bryce used 80-bit precision. Rodney claimed that you could actually see the difference in skies and textures. He said that the 68030 version had a look and feel that the PowerPC version couldn't reproduce. I have some sample scenes that he sent me so I could try it out, but I confess I was never quite able to see the difference. I guess it's like audiophiles with 'golden ears' who are sensitive to differences that others can't hear.
With Bryce 2, the rendering engine was changed significantly so that PC could be supported as well. That difference is perceptible even to me.
My Bryce 1 scenes are mostly pretty awful, but I still quite like this early attempt.
Incidentally, the fact that my Bryce 1 scenes were so bad isn't the fault of the software. It wasn't easy to work with, but some of the early Bryce users did gorgeous work: Bryan Smith's beautiful abstract images called Thinkpieces seem to have disappeared off the Internet, sadly, but the Planetary Traveller movie (laboriously stop-framed by a team that included Rodney and others) is still online. Some of it's clunky, but there are moments of pure loveliness.
I don't think I have any of my Bryce 2 scenes left, but do have a couple that I did in Bryce 3 floating around on CDs. I lusted over the original Bryce, but had a PC not a Mac, so had to wait for Bryce 2.
The amazing thing is that those early versions were on Floppy discs, even my Bryce 2 was on a CD. I think my son has that CD still somewhere. I have my 3, 4 and 5 CDs. And an almost pristine Bryce 5 manual. I did still have manuals for 3 and 4, but when we moved up here we were vastly downsizing so I left them behind along with a lot of other stuff. It was all bequeathed to a charity who did house clearances, I often wonder what they did with the old manuals.
I grabbed Bryce 4 after my first play with the original Myst game way back when. Back then the game was created with Bryce, though I don't recall if it was Bryce 4 or the previous Bryce 3D version, but I was hooked as soon as I saw it.
I didn't try Poser until version 5, mostly because I preferred outdoor/scenic renders, and back then I didn't like the quality of character skins. They just looked too plastic. What amazed me was that Poser and Bryce originally came from the same creators, and then both moved over to MetaCreations, but then finally split up to Curious Labs (Poser) and Corel (Bryce). I was over at Wikipedia yesterday looking at the history of both apps, and they've both come a long way.
I discovered Bryce around 1997 and have enjoyed using it ever since. I am also into Artmatic Designer and Artmatic Voyager which are apps one of the early Bryce developers, Eric Wenger, is now involved with.
I came relatively late to the game - my first Bryce was Bryce 5. I remember I had seen it here in the store and soooo wanted it but couldn't afford it at first, then a sale came round and I took the plunge. I do have a copy of Bryce 4 from the Susan Kitchener book but I've not tried to use it. I should really, to see what it looked like back then.
It would have been great if DAZ had decided to dto an update to celebrate it's Birthday - although I guess it's not 20 years for DAZ who acquired it in 2004..ah but that makes it 10 years for DAZ! So there should be a celebration after all! :)
@Miss B - yes, Poser and Bryce came from the same house, as did Carrara.
@Eva1 - I could have written your first paragraph. Though I do have 4 installed.
When Corel announced not supporting Bryce anymore, a petition was launched to save Bryce in 2004 (see Save Bryce Petition Ultra-Mini Contest) and yes, that was 10 years ago.
DAZ 3D has done a lot for Bryce, brought it from 5.01 over 5.5 to 6.0, 6.1, 6.3, 7.0, 7.1, a fact we often forget in our disappointment that development has stalled. Nevertheless, the owner of a program has an obligation to keep it current or give it away to a party that is prepared to assume the responsibility. In less than a month it has been 3 years since DAZ 3D last worked on Bryce.
Regards the Bryce, Poser and Carrara coming from the same MetaCreations group, I remember that when I updated to Bryce 3 I bought a bundle, Pretty much it meant I paid for Bryce and Poser and got Ray Dream thrown in for very little cost. Ray Dream of course did eventually get merged into Carrara, together with Infini-D
Horo, do you also remember the attempts to form a consortium similar to Curious Labs to try and rescue Bryce when MetaCreations dropped their bombshell, before Corel bought it?
No, neither do I remember who actually run the Petition when Corel backed out. We did the buttons and since they are still up, I could trace it. I learned about DAZ 3D when they bought Bryce. I started with Corel Bryce German version at the time and bought it as hardware.
Yes I still have my Bryce 5 Corel CD, with it's serial number containing KAI as one part.
And I had you pegged for an early adopter ... :)
I had the original Bryce 1.0 release, which ran only on 680x0 architectures (I ran it on a Mac IIci, which had a 68030 processor). They subsequently came out with a point release that ran on PowerPC. I still have my original Bryce 1 floppy disks somewhere.
@angusm - You ought to do a UVMapper of that Bryce 1.0 floppy disk for us.
@angusm - You ought to do a UVMapper of that Bryce 1.0 floppy disk for us.
I'm not sure I understand. UVMapper -- at least the one I'm familiar with -- was a tool for generating templates from .obj meshes. I don't know how I'd go about "doing a UVMapper" of a disk.
If you have in mind making a disk image of the disk, I probably can't really do that either. Even though anyone with any interest in that product has probably long ago moved on to other things and I wouldn't be hurting their sales by distributing an image, it would still technically be a copyright violation. It would be just my luck to suddenly get a lawyer's letter from Enliven (the company that MetaCreations eventually turned into) informing me of their intent to sue me for fifteen gazillion dollars for the irreparable harm and damage I had caused them by duplicating a twenty-year-old floppy disk.
I'd actually be curious to see if Bryce 1.0 can run under any of the various Mac emulators out there. I suspect that the experience of getting it running and then using it would be painful, though.
I'm not sure I understand. UVMapper -- at least the one I'm familiar with -- was a tool for generating templates from .obj meshes. I don't know how I'd go about "doing a UVMapper" of a disk.
If you have in mind making a disk image of the disk, I probably can't really do that either. Even though anyone with any interest in that product has probably long ago moved on to other things and I wouldn't be hurting their sales by distributing an image, it would still technically be a copyright violation. It would be just my luck to suddenly get a lawyer's letter from Enliven (the company that MetaCreations eventually turned into) informing me of their intent to sue me for fifteen gazillion dollars for the irreparable harm and damage I had caused them by duplicating a twenty-year-old floppy disk.
I'd actually be curious to see if Bryce 1.0 can run under any of the various Mac emulators out there. I suspect that the experience of getting it running and then using it would be painful, though.
UV-Mapper is free, you just need good images of your disk via a good camera or a scanner. Nothing that will endanger the disk, other than your own handling of it while you do this. Someone sent me links to it in this post:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/659085/
While at that post, go back a few pages to see some of the things people have done with it to make Bryce objects.
It creates meshes from images and exports as obj. It's not the easiest to use application, but it's not like you have to install it ... it's a single executable. Uninstalling it is as simple as deleting that single file. (Um, I think, but I may be getting confused with another helpful tool that enhances Bryce.)
I'm not at all asking for a copy of the disk or the data it contains ... just basically a photo-realistic image of the disk itself. No copyright violations, please. Um, I guess I'm assuming it has an official Bryce label ... probably saying something about Corel instead of DAZ. Otherwise it's just a floppy, and who cares?
As far as that goes, You real don't need UV-Mapper to make a realistic Bryce model of real life objects that don't have a lot of surface changes, if you can get good, flat images of them. While you're looking back at those previous posts, mine is the one with a Milk Duds box, and it had nothing to do with UV-Mapper. It's just six overlapping primitive cubes, each with a different face material made from a single flat image of a Milk Duds box. I'm sure you can safely and easily do that. Since a floppy is so flat, you really just need two images, front and back. UV-Mapper would have allowed me to use one mesh object instead.
I promise you, if you make a Bryce model of that disk, and send your image to that same thread that post is in, you will get tons of respectful praise. It really is a rare thing you have, and this is about the only group in the world that would really show proper appreciation. Not sure if any of us would pay fifteen gazillion anything even to own it, but we'd all like to marvel at it.
Don't make me beg, dang it.
OK, this makes sense. Sorry for being slow on the uptake.
The label, as I recall, was rather pretty. And it says KPT, rather than Corel, because this is long before Corel got their fat fingers on it.
I will do anything for respectful praise. Can't remember the last time that I had any of that.
I wouldn't dream of making you beg. Alas, however, I may have to make you wait.
The disk in question is actually on another continent, so any scanning will have to wait until I next go to the United Kingdom. I don't know quite when that will be, as it depends on family stuff, airfares, etc. However, the next time that I do go, I will be happy to scan/photograph/etc. the disk. Always assuming that I didn't throw it out. Which I think I didn't, but it's just the kind of bone-headed thing I could have done.
Anyway, sorry for the delay, but if the disk is still there then I will image it every way that I can think of and post the results here.