@Fencepost52: Wonderful mountain scene. Looks very realistic. And the others are great too, specifically the terrain with the river. The balloons in this one are a bit distorted.

@launok: Nice city scenes. I like the version with the mountain more. Disadvantage of those Sketchup models is their plastic look. I think with Bryce textures you can get even better results.

@David Brinnen: Nice objects you have made, interesting workflow. I really like the colours of the ‘wheels’. Lovely clouds in your ‘Dreamworks’ render. Nice eye in the sky too.

@Rembrandt: Very interesting ‘Dutch seapainting’. I like the white waves. The waves up front look a bit sharp and glassy. The sky is wonderful storm. You may want to increase the quality of the sky or lower the thickness to get rid of the banding effect (top right). Last sky-scape is really, really good!

@dHandle: Wonderful looking abstract! The lens flare does add some spice.

@vivien: Very good looking terrain scene. And the bridge works very well too.

@Dave Savage: Wonderful New Year’s card; thanks a lot and best wishes for you too! And, I really like your Bryce farm.

@Jamahoney: You should be more careful with this dangerous stuff (Mercury, not Bryce, of course).

@Electro-Elvis: Nice portrait.

@orbital: Beautiful sci-fi render. Wonderful colours!

@Horo: Bad-ass machine and nice terrain. Why throw away a terrain? You can always find some use, I think.

@Ati: Welcome to the forum. Nice start of your render carreer!

@Atlantis: Somehow very alien and dangerous, your render.

Sorry, no renders myself, just now.

You guys just used a term I never heard of before... Winding Order... So I had to look it up... That lead to so many other interesting topics and articles ranging from quantum physics to data storage... So now I just spent an hour and a half reading things that have caused several hundred neurons to actually implode... But at least I now know it probably is possible to make an object (in real life) 100% invisible... Though, currently only if it's a super cold sodium atom... But anyway, all that interestingness did not yield an actual definition for Winding Order... But by reading through a bunch of threads and posts at various CGI and coding forums, I am lead to believe that...Winding Order is the process by which a program determines which direction the normals face for rendering?  That sound right?... So that leads to a different question... Aside from SketchUp which is terrible at that, isn't that pretty much automatic in most modeling programs and only needs fiddling with if something horrible occurs?... How is one adjusting the normals to affect how the model responds to light?... Does that mean reversing the normals, specifying that back faces are rendered, or adjusting the smoothing angle? Or is that so other option? I'm really curious about this because from what I picked up, it seems pretty important and not something one wants to mess with if its not reversed normals, rendering back faces or smoothing.

@Jamahoney: Thank you for your comment. Althought it has an I7-4600m processor, 16 GB ram and a SSD harddrive, I was a little disappointed myself with my new computer.  But now, I have solved the problem. It was the eco mode and the power management that build a team against me. First it had rendered very swiftly but after a half an hour it slowed down dramatically. I found out, that the eco mode reduced the number of cores from 2 to 1. I could see in the task manager that the percentage of the used CPU decreased from over 80% to 12%. Therefore it is no surprise, that the estimation of render time, which after the first pass with both cores was around 2 hours 45 minutes, increased due to eco mode to a amazing 20 hours :-D Now I do switch off the eco mode, when I am using Bryce. In the end I am fairly happy. My new computer is nearly twice as fast as my old one. A bit of disappointment remains because of the SSD harddrive. Word or Excel documents are stored lightning-fast, but large bryce scenes... You can nearly watch how the system writes bit by bit on the hard drive. But to be fair it was a scene, that needed more than 2 GB main storage. Maybe it has something to do with LAA? But I can live with it quite well. BTW your metaballs mercury blobs came out very nice.

@Fencepost: Lovely scene. I guess the trees are the reason for the long render time? Maybe the waves could be a bit smaller, though they look great in the foreground, but in the background in comparison to the mountains they look a little too big.

@launok: Good to know, that a lot of good-looking Sketchup models can be put into a Bryce scene. With Genesis 2 characters I have learnt, more than 7 let Bryce crash.

@Rembrandt: Great scene. That I call a storm.

@dHandel: The glare is a nice addition to your abstract.

@Vivien: A good start into the new 2016!

@David Brinnen: I had quite a similar experience like you with Hexagon and Wings3d. I few features in Wings3d are really handy. I like the materials of your objects.

@Dave Savage: Great fun! And lovely grass!

@Horo: Interesting picture with the skull. Maybe you could bring it on a blake T-Shirt? I also like your previous scene with the tree structure. Your island scene with the lighting experiment I like the second one best.

@Orbital: Simply perfect. Tremendous work as usual.

Happy New Year! 

My 1st attempt of a full town scene which I have worked on end of December 2015.  Everything you see in the renders are SketchUp models.  It includes even the terrain with river and small bridge, people, vehicles, flowers, trees.  I am actually amazed that in this instance Bryce didn't run out of memory or crash which is the case when I use good quality models or characters imported from Daz Studio.  These models are low poly but the outcome is quite nice though in my opinion.  The mountain and 'ocean' are Bryce's.

I still have to learn lighting though.  But this is just something I do for fun. 

Laura

I kinda need something more along the lines of this:  http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/park-pond-trees-max/768957
-MJ

There is also this free sketchup model:https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=f4631fb8bbd902b4336cff46bcf598be. Open in Sketchup and export as obj.

I know this is probably quite late for what you wanted to do two years ago...but I think most modeling programs should be able to select objects by surface/material group, as well as other grouping like bones.  A quick skim over some web search hits shows Rhino, Blender, SketchUp and Wings3D can.  LightWave also has this ability and I've used it while morphing DAZ figures, if only to hide parts so I can edit others without extra mesh in the wireframe view.

Your max goal will be 15,000 iterations in less than 1hour and 18 to 22 minutes.

Zilvergrafix...I'm sending you a bill for a new keyboard.  This one is now covered in so much drool it 'squishes' as I type...

Is that your render box?

Yep, mine, a virtual one, but mine,

It's a Sketchup prop created for other dude, exported to Luxion Keyshot for OBJ import, Sketchup does wrong Obj imports to Daz, Keyshot does better.

There are plugins available on Sketchucation...I usually use TIG's plugin.

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33448

For freebies maybe convert sketchup models to obj and import. These in particular seem like what you may be looking for: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=ud5696481-8c41-42c5-b181-e0270252eedd and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=179501628b11c7dfad656f212e8ca1c1 and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=e6a5cfa27017c3a1ae6363a26cef94fb

But there are lots of other New Orleans items:

French Quater items:https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=French+Quarter+New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

and New Orleans in general: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

Oh wow those are perfect...and free! I never converted sketch up to obj though, do you know of free program that would do it? I really don't have much to spend. 

If you have never used Sketchup get the free Sketchup Make. It includes a free 30 day trial of Sketchup Pro and so for the first 30 days you can open the model in Sketchup and simply export as an obj file using the builtin export of Sketchup Pro. This is the method I think is best.

http://www.sketchup.com/

After your 30 day trial is up you can still go to Extension Warehouse and get a free extension to export to obj. I use the LIPID export extension or as mlc1016 has suggedted in the post above there is the TIG obj exporter plugin for Sketchup.

Thanks, Ill try the trial then. Sounds like a good idea! There were a couple of models on that site that would be perfect so this would be good if I can convert them. 

thanks again.

For freebies maybe convert sketchup models to obj and import. These in particular seem like what you may be looking for: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=ud5696481-8c41-42c5-b181-e0270252eedd and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=179501628b11c7dfad656f212e8ca1c1 and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=e6a5cfa27017c3a1ae6363a26cef94fb

But there are lots of other New Orleans items:

French Quater items:https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=French+Quarter+New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

and New Orleans in general: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

Oh wow those are perfect...and free! I never converted sketch up to obj though, do you know of free program that would do it? I really don't have much to spend. 

If you have never used Sketchup get the free Sketchup Make. It includes a free 30 day trial of Sketchup Pro and so for the first 30 days you can open the model in Sketchup and simply export as an obj file using the builtin export of Sketchup Pro. This is the method I think is best.

http://www.sketchup.com/

After your 30 day trial is up you can still go to Extension Warehouse and get a free extension to export to obj. I use the LIPID export extension or as mlc1016 has suggedted in the post above there is the TIG obj exporter plugin for Sketchup.

For freebies maybe convert sketchup models to obj and import. These in particular seem like what you may be looking for: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=ud5696481-8c41-42c5-b181-e0270252eedd and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=179501628b11c7dfad656f212e8ca1c1 and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=e6a5cfa27017c3a1ae6363a26cef94fb

But there are lots of other New Orleans items:

French Quater items:https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=French+Quarter+New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

and New Orleans in general: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

Oh wow those are perfect...and free! I never converted sketch up to obj though, do you know of free program that would do it? I really don't have much to spend. 

For freebies maybe convert sketchup models to obj and import. These in particular seem like what you may be looking for: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=ud5696481-8c41-42c5-b181-e0270252eedd and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=179501628b11c7dfad656f212e8ca1c1 and https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=e6a5cfa27017c3a1ae6363a26cef94fb

But there are lots of other New Orleans items:

French Quater items:https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=French+Quarter+New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

and New Orleans in general: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=New+Orleans&backendClass=entity

depending on how detaikled you need it and your skill level with file formats, there are a few at the google warehouse in collada format

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=NARROW+BOAT&rsi=sbis&backendClass=entity

Thank you for all the advice.  

Yes, I am actually setting up everything, including clothing/hair with its original textures and poses first in Daz Studio and exporting it as an .obj (wavefront) and then import the .obj into Bryce.  In some instances sending items via the bridge I have lost textures (i.e. Genesis' body mats turns up grey in Bryce) and the other way round works better.  But then, I don't have to use the original textures and can just as well use mats from Bryce itself.  I just have to play around and do more testing to see what will work/not work to try avoid out of memory and crashing issues.

I wish there was more variation of fabric materials in Bryce.  I am actually now searching for seamless textures to use in Bryce to use on clothing.  The textures on the building and interiors/vehicle used in the above render are the original SketchUp textures which I am glad it imports greatly.  But for the characters I have to look out for more mats.

been my experience that sketchup models from the warehouse are more of a pain to cleanup and not worth the trouble since they are designed with sketchup and that specific use in mind. As much as users around here have issues with just switching between 3delight and iray shaders, most would really be putoff with the work invloved in getting a decent sketchup model working in DS.

I do like some of the furniture...and most of what I've done I spent more time rigging them than actual cleanup, so I think it's a fair deal, because if I didn't rig them, they'd work just fine as solid prop pieces...minimal texture work, etc.  Just tweaking the surface settings, but I do that with just about everything, anyway.

It's the vehicles and buildings that really drive one close (or over the edge).  I have much better luck with ones from Blendswap...especially buildings (there's a really sweet house over there).

been my experience that sketchup models from the warehouse are more of a pain to cleanup and not worth the trouble since they are designed with sketchup and that specific use in mind. As much as users around here have issues with just switching between 3delight and iray shaders, most would really be putoff with the work invloved in getting a decent sketchup model working in DS.

I used to use some Sketchup models but found them to be too low poly and most of the textures very low quality. I use them if I have to for background stuff, although I haven't in awhile.

3D Warehouse has a large number of free 3D models but they are all in Sketchup (skp) and conversion is sometimes a problem  However there are various free plugins or converters to export an obj file

 The new version (2016) of the free Sketchup Make is now available and installing it will give a free 30 day trial of Sketchup Pro which will allow you to export obj files for 30 days. This free trial seems to work even if you have had previous versions with free trials. Just unistall the old version fist. While this seems to be the best converter, once the free trial is over you can go to 3D extension warhouse and install the free Lipid obj export plugin directly into SketchUp and/or you can downloed the TIG obj Exporter as an rbz file from SketchUcation and then install the file in Sketchup.

Also Babel3D and Greentoken are online converters which can be used to convert the skp file to obj.

Have you ever used Sketchup Pro? If not you can download a 30 day free trial. Then you can open the model and export as an obj file that can be imported into DAZ.Studio

http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-pro

NOTE: This function is not available in the free Sketchup Make;  Only Sketchup Pro exports obj files but if you haven't used up your free trial you can go  that route:

The translation is not quite as good but another method would be to use Babel3D to do an online translation to obj format. The first 100mbs per month are free.

https://www.babel3d.com/

https://www.babel3d.com/pricing

Note it may take up to an hour or more for the translated model to appear in your account; so be patient

 

I am now seeking a dual cockpit for a heavy aircraft (i.e. 737 or 747). Is there anyone that knows of a free one? Please and thank you.

If you can convert from Sketchup here is one for a 767:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=87c3fffe5e403084cc14f1e6f4f4f49b

Ahh unfortunately it didn't work. The file converter that I use doesn't covert sketchup files but I was able to download a .dae file from the site. That one didn't work either. I think it may be such a large file that it can't handle it. However, thank you for your time and possible lead.

I am now seeking a dual cockpit for a heavy aircraft (i.e. 737 or 747). Is there anyone that knows of a free one? Please and thank you.

If you can convert from Sketchup here is one for a 767:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=87c3fffe5e403084cc14f1e6f4f4f49b