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link to real good Bryce renders -
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44502/
Deiter Carlton's DAZ Gallery of Bryce art is decently impressive. The landscapes and Seascapes especially.
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#users/8837/
Similarly impressive, though more stylized is Estevez's Bryce Gallery here at DAZ
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#users/23842/
When it comes to Carrara, HowieFarkes is probably the gold standard for landscapes.
http://www.daz3d.com/howiefarkes
I can see the argument for Vue regarding landscapes, just browsing the galleries at Rendo it seems that Vue is very good at landscapes and must have interfaces and methods that give users a way of producing good landscapes relatively quickly (only a guess). On the other hand, I look at the stuff Howie Farkes and Patrick do and I can't help but think Carrara is more than capable of doing great landscapes too, and I do know that it has very powerful plant creation tools. Vue skies are superior though (in my opinion).
On the other hand, Vue looks pretty expensive once you start adding in the minimum number of modules you would need to even get close to the number of things Carrara can do.
As for Bryce, I'm of 2 minds. First... why not? It's super inexpensive, I myself have picked up a copy, even though I've never used it. The downsides would be in learning to use if it if you aren't already familiar. I don't know enough about Bryce to give much of an informed opinion, but many of the renders I see from Bryce I don't tend to care much for the 'style' of the renderer, if that makes any sense. However those links you guys posted to the Estevez, Dieter Carlton, and Grapholix gallery pics really does change my mind quite a bit. Just goes that you should never judge the software limitation solely by the renders of the most common users, and it's obvious looking through those pics that in the hands of a real master Bryce can do a pretty good job of it two.
If using DAZ figures is important though, then Carrara is the best option I think, as you can load and pose them in Carrara itself easily ( hear you can repose characters in Vue, but that you also have to have an instance of Poser running, but again that's just hearsay). Genesis1 works fine for Carrara, IMO (except for the genitals for the pro M5 and V5 which plain old don't work), and even though I don't use Genesis 2 from the many Carrara renders I've seen featuring Genesis2 looks like that seems to work pretty well too. But to test it out I'm going to load up a few Genesis and Genesis2 characters to put them through their paces.
When it comes to lighting quality, especially for indoors scenes, I think Carrara is superior. Really the more I learn to use it the more I'm convinced it's one of the best biased renderers around, and can give extremely realistic lighting quality if used with the right settings.
Dustrider, those renders are extremely impressive, especially the last 2 (I don't mind the T pose, I'm the guy who zooms in to appreciate the texturing, and those eyes and that skin is quite excellent!)
Dustrider is one of the lights of the Carrara community, I always stop and take notice when he posts a render, and he's very good with helpful and expert advice, as demonstrated in this very thread. I love the approach he's taking of 'show, don't just tell' and actually making renders of Genesis and Genesis2 to show that they can work in Carrara.
Just to test them out, I'm gonna load up some Genesis and Genesis2 figures and try them out with some renders when I get a minute to play later tonight. I'm curious to see if I can run into some of the problems others have encountered. So far in my explorations, Genesis 1 seems to work fine.
I've been watching some of Philw's videos on rendering with realism in Carrara (he'll soon have them for sale here in the DAZ store, but I was able to watch some of the preview vids he's got for them) and was having a quick and dirty play around with some new (and strangely simpler) lighting techniques in Carrara, here's one I did of V4, so that I'm contributing to the 'showing' and not just the 'telling' in this thread :)
Hi dustrider,
Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean the "displacement map caused the bikini to render inside the figure"? I just had a similar sound problem with Hongyu's Bikini 2 for V5 in Carrara. I ended up spending around an hour tweaking the fit using the built-in parameters for the bikini. Your post makes it sound like there is an easier way to do this, but using negative displacement? Would you kindly share the "how" of this technique? Thanks!
Rich S.
Hi Rich.
No worries - and no ignorance on your part either. This was a true WTF moment for me when the Bikini looked perfect in the Assembly Room, but totally disappeared when rendered. Just on a wild hunch, I checked to see if the shaders were using displacement, and they were. Then my next thought was maybe the bikini is getting displaced inward (not sure why, the base is set to a value of 128, so it "shouldn't", maybe the normals are reversed?), so I tried reducing the displacement amount from 0.50 to 0.01, did a test render - and the bikini was back where it should be. Not sure why it worked, but it did.
As a general fix for poke through, since Carrara doesn't have the push modifier like DS, you can use displacement. The easiest way is to create a uniform gray scale displacement map/image of a slight positive displacement value, say 130 (or if using a color image/map use 130,130,130). This can be done by creating a new image at 2048x2048 in your favorite image editing software, then use the bucket fill tool to fill the entire image at your selected value (or download the attached sample). Save the image, then use it in the displacement channel, and adjust the values to push, or expand the cloths and remove the poke through. If you need to increase the value of your image map, use a multiply operator with the texture map as the first source and "value" in the second source (see attached).
This won't work with items that have major poke through, because the areas without poke through will end up to far away from the skin. But it's a quick and easy way to fix minor to moderate poke through. The idea for this handy little work around is courtesy ManleyStanley.
Hope all this made sense.
No delete option?
Had found an issue that was crashing carrara anytime I tried to load in a new figure. Was related to having duplicate runtimes on different drives... removing the older runtime allowed me to be able to load in newer files that were only present in the newer runtime...
(my guess is, there is a cache of 'what is in your runtime' somewhere... and when I tried to load a file from the new runtime, it looked to that cache, found the cache from the identically named older runtime and noticed... no entry for this... and that crashed it.)
Those who know me will know I am biased as I am a Carrara user through and through, but that has come from years of experience. I used to use Poser (and before that programs such as Lightwave and Bryce), then took to using Vue to render because of its better lighting (at the time) and ability to create complete environments. I started to see some impressive results from Carrara on galleries so decided to give it a try. I found that it had lighting generally equivalent to Vue but that it rendered around 10 times faster for a similar lighting setup. It has replicators that are in many ways similar to Vue's ecosystems, and unique features such as dynamic hair which can produce very realistic results.
So I now use Carrara as my main 3D program. Daz Studio has developed significantly and is amazing for a free program, but it still has limitations. Vue is excellent for landscapes and vegetation, but it is expensive and keeps demanding more significant expenditure in order to keep up with the latest version. Bryce as far as I can tell has been abandoned. Although it could do with some updates in some areas, Carrara has always been a very capable and complete 3D environment, and developments such as the soon to be available Octane Render for Carrara will give it another choice of excellent quality render engine. Although you can produce excellent results from Carrara's native renderer if you know what you are doing - I have spent the last year comparing Carrara's output with that from Luxrender and Octane and tweaking settings to get very close to those physically correct unbiased renderers.
nice - but looks like you need more time
Interesting thread. I will state straight off that I am also a Carrara user.
The landscapes I have seen done by Vue and Bryce are very nice. There may be tools in Vue that allow for more freedom when creating plants, however, my thoughts on the matter are that it is not the tool, it is the artist. If you take enough time to learn how to use the tools at your disposal you can accomplish great things, as proven by Phil, Jon and Dustrider on the Carrara side of things. There are equally talented artists using Bryce, D/S and Vue. For landscape scenes, Howie Farkes is a master of his craft, but us mere mortals can get really nice results if we take the time to learn our tools.
I'll add a couple of mine to the mix. I don't usually try to get hyper-realistic renders, and due to my ancient system I tend to avoid GI. The great thing about Carrara is the flexibility of the tools. Replicators in particular are amazingly versatile. All the scenes I posted simulate the atmospheric "fill" light by using a vertex dome with a surface replicator. I added one distant light to the replicator and replicated it about 60 or 70 times. To adjust the intensity, color, whatever, I only have to adjust one light. The primary light is a sunlight which is basically a distant light tied to the Realistic Sky Editor.
The Bikini Car Wash uses the Skylight which is a partial GI.
" it is the artist. If you take enough time to learn how to use the tools at your disposal you can accomplish great things "
so true - I have seen wonderful art made using MS paint and nothing else .
to get back to your first post -
there is also -
Terragen 3
Blender
I'm so glad you chimed in on this Evil, especially as I think you bring an important viewpoint as one who doesn't use GI and yet is able to produce very realistic renders through the mastery of texturing and expertise in lighting. I would never have guessed that for example the 2 scenes of the knights riding, one in the joust, the other towards the castle/manor with the dragon, weren't rendered with full global illumination. But Evil proves here that Carrara can deliver high quality realism even without max GI settings and at a decently quick rendertime. Nice renders, for sure.
PhilW is one of the great masters of researching and unlocking the hidden potential of Carrara, and best of all he's not one of those cranky 'I'll never tell how I did it' guys, but instead is friendly and open with advice and tips. Beautiful render there, and congrats on just winning round 1 of the render contest over at rendo, btw, very well deserved! If anyone hasn't seen it yet, you should check it out, it's stunning (don't know the contest rules but maybe you could repost in this thread too?)
I would have thought we'd get some more Vue and Bryce renders in this thread too. I'm loving this recent spate of Carrara renders though, I think it gives an idea what Carrara can do. C'mon let's see some show and tell from Vue and Bryce users too :)
to get back to your first post -
there is also -
Terragen 3
Blender
From what I understand, Terragen is a real contender for lanscapes of being one of the best ever, but I've heard it presents difficulties in using Daz figures and has long rendertimes (maybe a misimpression though as I have never used it myself).
Does Blender have native plant, sky and landscape generation? I know that Blender has been getting more and more features and development, and it also has the Cycles unbiased rendering engine which is very impressive, but I didn't know it could also do plants/landscapes/atmospheres.
Thanks Jon. I love what you've been able to attain with Lux!
I to was hoping to see some Vue and Bryce renders. I was really hoping to also hear how one would optimize scenes for efficient memory handling and fast rendering.
Thanks, Jon. I don't think I can repost the winning image yet, but if I am allowed a link, here it is:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/contest/index.php?entry_id=34778
I was surprised and honoured to take the No.1 slot, I think this reflects on Carrara's rendering abilities very well too.
I don't have any Bryce vs. side-by-side comparison scenes to show, unfortunately. Was there anything specific about Bryce you were wondering about?
Optimization may depend on the application in question. For example, in Bryce, to avoid memory problems, one could concentrate on reducing the size or eliminating image-based materials, and there are often things that can be deleted from the scenes; if you are using a clothed figure, you can delete meshes that are hidden underneath clothes. Instancing should presumably help somewhat. There's a thread listing a whole bunch of optimizations for speed something that I've misplaced.
You want Bryce renders, I have lots of Bryce renders.
This one is very simple render, in as much as it is basically just 3 terrains + Some added vegetation Nothing in this render is imported, it is all available from Bryce 7 pro, including the vegetation. The materials are mostly my own, done within Bryce.
More Bryce renders in my Gallery, link in the sig bar. All Bryce renders there. although some are post worked, but I have noted that when I have done any post work
I didn't mean side by side. That would be comparing apples to oranges as there are so many different variables between software, such as render and shading systems.
Very nice! The image has a great texture to it.
That is an impressive render, chochole. I still could not get it, how you could achieve such a nice results in Bryce,
even if you have previously posted some explanations and tips about them.
You are the artist, that just knows your tools ...
Thanks. I have been using Bryce for a while now ................ since Bryce 2 for PC came out.
I think I can answer this question for you - out of the box, Blender does not have native plant generation (in the sense of Vue or The Plant Factory plants). However, it does have a very flexible particle system (which can be used for scattering instances of objects about the place in an ecosystem fashion), and of course it also has Python behind it. There are a number of third-party addons around which do provide vegetation instancing (but it's still very much a "wide open space" for enterprising scripters to engage with).
Blender comes with two builtin render engines, the "Cycles" render engine, and the older "Blender Internal" render engine - both of which have different sky generation capabilities. Cycles has a 'Sky Texture' node with support for Hosek/Wilkie and Preetham types (sorry, I'm parroting the control here - I don't have that much knowledge to share about the technical differences, the manual is usually a good source of info), sun direction, turbidity and ground albedo (and of course can be combined with distance fog, blur, haze, cloud and volume nodes etc etc). The "Blender Internal" sky supports a basic graduation of colour in the background (iirc).
For landscape generation, again no fundamental support in the sense of Vue (infinite terrains, fractal terrains, planetary terrains, terrain weathering effects), but the basic tools are there (fractal-driven displacement maps, randomised sculpting brushes).
On the flip side, there ARE clips and movies produced of the quality of Sintel and Caminandes (and of course various other art styles, promos, ads, short movies etc - can spend hours in youtube if not careful X), showing that even without specific tools and one-click solutions, Blender is no slouch in the right hands :). However, since it does not have anything directly addressing the issues of the original post, I did not put it up for consideration to the OP (^_^)>.
...with both Vue and Bryce, you have to pre-pose any characters that are included in a scene before importing. Carrara on the other hand has posing tools.
The drawback however importing from Daz doesn't always work well, and many Daz Studio shaders will not translate over at all. Carrara also does not (yet) support Genesis 2.
I have better results with shaders and characters importing them into Bryce. The sad thing is aside from some new content, Daz seems to have abandoned development of the application itself just as they have with Hexagon (which also has a bridge to both Bryce and Daz Studio). Both Bryce and Hexagon would benefit greatly if they were 64 bit and as I have contended in the past ,would make a powerful suite of applications along with Daz Studio due to the bridging between them (making Daz Studio more "compatible" with Bryce than Carrara or Vue).
I really like Bryce and wish there was more nice landscape content on par with Howie's sets for it.
I have been using Genesis 2 figures in Carrara 8.5 without any major issues. When Genesis was launched, it introduced a raft of new technologies which required an update, which was Carrara 8.5. Genesis 2 figures use the same technologies and therefore works fine.
I have been using Genesis 2 figures in Carrara 8.5 without any major issues. When Genesis was launched, it introduced a raft of new technologies which required an update, which was Carrara 8.5. Genesis 2 figures use the same technologies and therefore works fine.
not all Genesis 2 work correct in C8.5 - wish you guys would stop saying that they all work .
Aiko doesn't - none of the HD stuff works .
fit to doesn't work all the time on G2 .
try putty some of the Genesis cloths on G2 .
some of the cloths don't work even if you use DUF - bring one over and change the pose .
I have all three, which I like for different reasons, but a Daz/Hexagon/Bryce pipeline doesn't seem to be a bad way to go. chohole's Bryce renders are really good, and the Daz bridge makes going back and forth easy.
I found Cararra 8.5 Pro to be an overpriced disappointment. Buggy, Genesis and G2 are only partially implemented, and there isn't a scratch of documentation. Lots of tools, but too cryptic and a pain in the ass to waste time hunting online for info when I'd rather be working. I'd rather soak down the cash for Vue Complete. That said, Cararra DOES have nice tools, and paint on mesh is nice. It does a pretty decent render too, including caustics. I'm not sure if Bryce does that, I haven't opened it up in a long while.
Vue Complete is awesome, but it's priced accordingly.
If you are considering Bryce:
The primary difference I tend to see in regard to Bryce renders compared to Vue or Carrara renders is the degree of geometric complexity. That is why I tend to focus so much on getting believable levels of geometric complexity into my Bryce renders.
Below are a few of my not so recent Bryce offerings. Later on tonight I will post some newer things.
Also, please view my Daz3d Gallery for more examples of Bryce renders of seriously complex landscapes.
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#users/465/
This is a breakdown of the relevant issues based on my personal opinion.
Native Engine Rendering Speed:
Carrara rendering generally is much much faster than Bryce, Vue, or Terragen. But speed alone shouldn't decide this for you
Atmospherics
Carrara has good atmospherics including decent haze, decent volumetric clouds, decent control over sunlight and effects like flares. What I love most about Carrara is that its tools are rooted in real life measures. You can apply sun position based on time of year and longitude/latitude matrix settings for very nice accuracy. Bryce on the other hand provides the raw tools but doesnt concern itself as much with scientific accuracy. This can be a freedom or a curse depending on the user. That said Bryce greatly outclasses Carrara in most areas of atmospheric study. Bryce has superior volumetric clouds, haze, and some other tweaks it would be nice to see in Carrara. But most likely, Vue with its Ozone software has by far the most believable atmospherics on the market. Terragen has volumetric clouds which are actually better than those in Vue. But overall, Vue takes the atmospheric cake by a long shot.
Plant Modeling
Bryce has a native tree modeler that can be very powerful, but it isnt nearly as capable as the native tree generator in Vue. But the tree generator in Carrara is EXCEPTIONAL, beats the heck out of the native Vue tree generator. In it's price range the tree generator in Carrara cannot be beaten. But the new and so very expensive Plant Factory for Vue is even more powerful than Carrara's plant generator, more powerful even than X-Frog, and is probably the most capable vegetation modeling tool on the planet right now if you can spare $1000 just for a plant modeler. On the issue of Blender, there is a free application called ngPlant that produces results on par with X-frog but it is free whereas X-frog costs hundreds and worse just like with Plant Factory you cannot actually sell the trees you make with it as meshes only as presets. Blender + ngPlant is a very powerful landscaping combination, as good as any other workflow like Vue or Carrara. Don't rule out Blender just yet.
Landscaping Tools
Bryce has an Instancing Lab that I make lots of use of. But it still lacks some practical tools. Vue has the carbon scatter as well as ecosystems. Again. Vue's dedicated tools are hard to beat. Carrara has its surface replicators which can distribute instances over a surface based on an image map. Very useful. But again, Vue is likely the more flexible tool.
Lighting
This is where the rendering speed issue really matters. Bryce 7 has several new abilities that previous versions lacked. That said, the point-light based tools of both Bryce and Carrara, and Vue are more or less on par with one another. but with the added benefit for Carrara that it seems to complete the same renders in less time than in Bryce or Vue . With GI rendered scenes, Carrara's GI is faster than Bryce's True Ambience and Vue's Global Radiance. All of these apps use biased lighting models, but Carrara's biases are well hidden (compensated for) by tricks under the hood, clever shortcuts, that produce great results in less time. Though Carrara is faster than Vue with full GI renders, Vue has a more professional pipeline; plug-ins to high end software like Maya and V-ray and alternative rendering engines that make Vue very attractive. And let's be honest, Vue's Gi is fantastic, very very good. I've read that Vue now has an unbiased engine, so we can expect even better looking light in upcoming Vue landscapes. Blender has the Cycles which is unbiased. Carrara has a plug for Octane being developed. The only app without an easy direct export to an unbiased rendering engine is Bryce...so far... but that too can change.
Daz3d Content Compatibility
Bryce has a bridge directly to DS. Hard to beat that. Carrara actually has the posing parameters built in, so there is no need for use of DS or poser, it can all be done from within Carrara 95% of the time. For me Carrara wins on this hands down.
Average User Results
As was mentioned above, never judge the true abilities of a software based on the output of average users. This is especially true in a hobbyist market like this one. My results from Bryce are unlike the results I see from most Bryce users, but this is deliberate on my own part. Most Bryce users get the app because it is cheap and they want to join in on 3d art yet they dont want to spend money or time getting amazing results from much more expensive software. Most Bryce users due to financial constraints cannot afford crazy workstations either. I personally can afford such a machine, so I can push Bryce into areas other Bryce users cannot. When adequately attacked, Bryce can keep pace with Carrara or Vue confidently. That's why Bryce is so popular, because it can do the high end stuff but for a much cheaper price if you the user know how to fill in the gaps.
In another respect, the results of average users can at least tell you how intuitive an application may be. I have often argued that Howies Carrara landscapes look better than most Vue landscapes I've seen. But the only person making those types of landscapes in Carrara is Howie, I dont see anyone else pushing the complexity as far as he does. As they say "with Vue, anyone can be Howie Farkes." This to me says a lot of the way Vue presents its tools, and why it gains so much respect. You dont need tons of ability or hours of work to get a fairly decent looking render from Vue.
Glad you found this thread Rashad. Nice comparison of the different software mentioned. I have Bryce 7 but I'm not sure I've even opened it. I'll need to compare the instancing in Bryce to Carrara's surface replicator and non-surface replicator.
Very nice images and gallery as well. Quite impressive.
Here's a recent one that I'm kind of partial to. ;-) Carrara 7.2 Pro. No GI. Light rig is a dome with replicated distance lights, sunlight and a light linked exclusively to V4 and her wardrobe for highlights.
Wow, getting some really nice Bryce renders now. Chohole, good one, thank you for that.
Rashad, that was an excellent breakdown of the ins and outs and advantages of each of the 3 (and so glad you incuded some info on Terragen and Blender too). Really helpful in filling in my knowledge gaps learning about programs I don't use myself.
Also the renders you have posted range from really good to wow-my-jaw-is-on-the-floor. You're actively demonstrating that Bryce can really sing in the hands of someone who has taken the time to learn some real mastery/expertise. Excellent work, thank you very much for joining the discussion and sharing. And the description "in Vue anyone can be Howie Farkes" made me chuckle :)
I've never done much rendering of landscapes yet, I tend to render indoor human scenes more than anything else. I think the next thing I'd really like to learn is how to do a decent landscape/nature scene.
Evil, another really nice example of how even with no GI you can get really good light effects. kudos bro.