Digital Art Zone

Bryce 6.3 did not work for me at least

Horo - 28 October 2012 01:41 AM

Macs used another (Motorola) processor family than PCs (Intel) do. At one time, Apple abandoned Motorola and switched to Intel. Code written for the earlier processor family is not compatible with the one used now. Macs featured a virtual processor that made applications programmed for the previous processor run on the new. Apple had announced that they will stop supporting programs written for the previous processor eventually. It appears that nobody believed that this would be done with a dot-update (10.6 to 10.7) but rather with a full update, like 10.x to 11. However, Apple chose to dump the support for the old programs earlier. In fact, a few months after Bryce 7.1 came out, which is most unfortunate for the Bryce community on the Mac. Windows emulators on the Mac still support programs written for the old processor, and of course for the new one, which is the same Windows uses.

We can argue whether it was a good move to stop support for the old programs for good or not. Programs I’ve written for DOS in 1994 still run on Windows 8, which I find very cool. On the other hand, dragging on old code just to keep outdated programs along is also a hindrance to progress and makes the operating system bulkier than necessary - and progressively more difficult to maintain.

What this boils down to is that Bryce for the Mac has to be re-written in very large parts. But then, to make Bryce a 64 bit application for the PC does ask for exactly the same. It is time to rework Bryce from the ground up; it doesn’t work on the Mac and is crippled on the PC. If DAZ 3D doesn’t or cannot bring the code base up to date for whatever reason in the near future, Bryce ought to be given to a company that is prepared to do this time consuming and expensive task. Otherwise, Bryce will perish.

Well that fills in the blanks a little better, thanks Horo. Well to the point of what Daz should do with Bryce, I’ve not seen any indication from them that they’re unwilling or unable to upgrade Bryce, just that they can’t do it right now. I agree that if they decide to give up on it they should hand it over to someone else, assuming there is someone else interested and capable in taking it over. For now though I think Daz deserves a chance to go thru at least one more dev cycle with it. Afterall they did really make some significant improvements to Bryce even if it did take you and David a while to really figure out how to exploit them to their fullest potential. As for a total or near total rewrite I’m inclined to think that wouldn’t go well unless Daz somehow managed to get the original creators involved. Left to others only using the old versions as a guide leaves me feeling like it wouldn’t go well.

LordHardDriven - 29 October 2012 08:18 AM

Well that fills in the blanks a little better, thanks Horo. Well to the point of what Daz should do with Bryce, I’ve not seen any indication from them that they’re unwilling or unable to upgrade Bryce, just that they can’t do it right now. I agree that if they decide to give up on it they should hand it over to someone else, assuming there is someone else interested and capable in taking it over. For now though I think Daz deserves a chance to go thru at least one more dev cycle with it. Afterall they did really make some significant improvements to Bryce even if it did take you and David a while to really figure out how to exploit them to their fullest potential. As for a total or near total rewrite I’m inclined to think that wouldn’t go well unless Daz somehow managed to get the original creators involved. Left to others only using the old versions as a guide leaves me feeling like it wouldn’t go well.

I would love to see DAZ 3D start a new dev cycle. There are outstanding programmers out there, we had the chance to work partly directly with some of them and they did an amazing job. DAZ 3D had an excellent feeling to whom most of the work was outsourced to. We had a lead programmer (Bryce 2 to 5) for the 6.0 to 6.1 dev cycle and he was excellent, too, but not better than the “newcomers”. This makes it appear that a really good programmer understands the code and/or that the code is well documented. A part of the 5.5 to 6.0 dev cycle was also outsourced and a very good job was done, just not so amazingly outstanding as what we’ve seen for 6.1 to 6.3 to 7.0 to 7.1. Knowing the whole history would certainly be helpful, dedication seems to count more, though.

It was planned to make Bryce a 64 bit application from 6.3 to 7.0 (that’s why I had invested in a new computer) but the task turned out to be rather daunting and beyond the initial budget planned. On the other hand, we got so many new and enhanced options (and a very few frustrating bugs) that haven’t even been detected, let alone exploited, by most Bryce users. We haven’t a lot to complain about, really - except the Mac community. The last dev cycle took 2 full years and we have had a standstill for less than 15 month. We just cannot say honestly that DAZ 3D hasn’t done much for Bryce. Nevertheless, time moves on and so must a program.

I can´t believe that DAZ 3D just bought Bryce to let it die, is a real shame and a real disappointment, you have to make a Bryce version that runs on Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, you can not let an amazing tool and a legend like Bryce die.

I propose to set up a http://www.kickstarter.com project to gather money to support Daz 3D on the creation of a 64Bit version of Bryce for Windows and Mac.

Please don´t let it die.

joserendon - 02 November 2012 10:15 AM

I can´t believe that DAZ 3D just bought Bryce to let it die, is a real shame and a real disappointment, you have to make a Bryce version that runs on Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, you can not let an amazing tool and a legend like Bryce die.

I propose to set up a http://www.kickstarter.com project to gather money to support Daz 3D on the creation of a 64Bit version of Bryce for Windows and Mac.

Please don´t let it die.

A similar thing was attempted when Metacreations almost let Bryce die, people talked about forming a co-op of users to buy Bryce but too few people were willing to put up the necessary money. Fortunately though Daz came along and saved it from dying at version 5