Having now an up to date computer, I'd like to have a play around with an app like Bryce. Now, I know that it has been discontinued, so can I buy it for a pittance somewhere, or is there a cheap alternative that is easy to use?
Having now an up to date computer, I'd like to have a play around with an app like Bryce. Now, I know that it has been discontinued, so can I buy it for a pittance somewhere, or is there a cheap alternative that is easy to use?
Get Electric Image's Amorphium Pro. Nice, cheap program. It has subdivision modeling. Or get Carrara Studio Pro. You might like it because it has a Terrain Lab that's almost identical to Bryce's, and the camera controls are identical too.
How about Maya personal learning edition? Could I make convincing landscapes in a relatively short amount of time? It just seems too good to pass up, considering the commercial version costs exactly the amount I paid for my powerbook!
I think terragen is very impressive, if you want to make convincing landscapes in no time that is, looks like it's a winner, and it's free.
I have never used maya, and can not vouche for it's ease-of-use, but I'd fear even the personal version or whatever you are talking about, would still have a rather steep learning curve.
How about Maya personal learning edition? Could I make convincing landscapes in a relatively short amount of time? It just seems too good to pass up, considering the commercial version costs exactly the amount I paid for my powerbook!
Maya PLE is not easy, maya is the high end 3D app and is used by a lot of professional designers and film makers, Maya is not an option for an newbie in 3D, And if it happens you kinda like maya, it's not Cheap, one of the most expensive 3D tools out there, but i can recomend a app that is both high end and user friendly, and that is Cinema 4D,
...so can I buy it for a pittance somewhere, or is there a cheap alternative that is easy to use?
you can get the latest version of bryce from corel for US$70. however, you have to call them to buy it -- it is not available from the website.
i sent them an email saying "if sales of mac bryce is such a concern, did you think that REMOVING bryce from the web store would actually IMPROVE sales?!?!?" they said they would forward it to the appropriate personnel (i.e. they deleted it).
in a way, i understand their position -- with the MASSIVE price cuts in many high end 3D apps, it forced them to drop costs to a point where they had to sell LOTS of units against their development costs. so the windows version stays, and has to remain cheap, in the hopes that they can simply move more boxes. personally, i hope that they come to their senses and either revive the mac version (which is still possible, from what i have heard, if they receive enough feedback), or just sell it to another party to continue the product.
anyway, i would go ahead and buy it, so long as you don't expect to get much support for the product past the first compatibility patches for panther 10.3. but it IS only $70 now.
i think terragen looks impressive, but e-on software's Vue d'Espirit looks to be in the best position to pick up orphaned bryce users. the drawback seem to be that most of the really cool Vue functionality is tied up in plug-ins, but they sure look impressive. i have also heard many complain of its kai-krause-inspired interface.
Maya and Cinema 4D are both impressive packages, but they're full-fledged 3D applications, not "3D landscape programs" like Bryce and Vue d'Esprit (have never used Terragen - am going to take a look at it later on). That also explains the price difference.
Also, lun4tic, re: "maya is the high end 3D app and is used by a lot of professional designers". Maya isn't really used by designers. The Alias software used for design is the Alias Studio family (Alias DesignStudio, Studio, AutoStudio, SurfaceStudio) which unfortunately isn't available on the Mac.
Has anyone ever thought of starting a petition to port Alias Studio to the Mac?
Seriously, it sounds like terragen is exactly what this guy is looking for.
It's free, it dosen't have watermarks or anything, and creates some of the most impressive looking landscapes I've ever seen.
I remember when bryce 2 was the shiznit, it was unheard of ease-of-use to create a pretty stunning product, but they really fell behind with a lot of rendering and ray-tracing and post effects stuff, so the result nearly everything looked pretty bad, unless you spent a lot of time with it.
but with terragen you get a whole bunch of excellent rendering options, and the landscapes it creates are just stunning.
granted it doesn't have all the boolean or vertex modeling that other 3-d programs have, it still allows you to build landscapes really well.
Now that you mention it, lun4tic, I will have to really back up Cenema 4D. The current version, R8, is one heck of a deal, and while the base version it doesn't compete with Maya, it is expandable as heck. You can buy the base release, and then buy the Advanced Render 'module', the MOCCA character animation module, Pyro, the fire module...and you can even add Maya's famous texture-painting capabilitis with Maxon's own Bodypaint. If you want a good deal, you can buy one of maxon's bundles. Oh, and if you are an educator/student, you can pick up maxon's Pro bundle (normally a whopping $1600) for [B]$300[/] at creationengine.com. But if all of Cinema 4D's capabilities are wasted on you or you just don't need them, terragen is awesome. But I like Bryce also, and you can get killer edu-discounts on that, too.
Comments
Originally posted by iMacfan
Hi,
Having now an up to date computer, I'd like to have a play around with an app like Bryce. Now, I know that it has been discontinued, so can I buy it for a pittance somewhere, or is there a cheap alternative that is easy to use?
Thanks,
David
Vue4 from E-On Software
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Products/vue4/index.php
Terragen Mac
http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/mac/index.shtml
Originally posted by hmurchison
Terragen Mac
http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/mac/index.shtml
Can anyone tell me if Terragen has anything to do with the old Amiga/PC app VistaPro? It looks almost identical to VistaPro.
David
Echo "Anyone-one-one-one"
Tumbleweed blows past.........
I have never used maya, and can not vouche for it's ease-of-use, but I'd fear even the personal version or whatever you are talking about, would still have a rather steep learning curve.
Originally posted by iMacfan
How about Maya personal learning edition? Could I make convincing landscapes in a relatively short amount of time? It just seems too good to pass up, considering the commercial version costs exactly the amount I paid for my powerbook!
David
Maya PLE has a big-ass watermark.
from maxon
www.maxon.net
one of the most inexpensive too, but there is also a lot of free 3D apps out there...
here is a list of some of them... Enjoy
Some apps
I am not 100% sure of wich of these apps that is for mac too, but Wings 3D is one of them....
And i can also mention this forum for those who dont know of it, a LOT of pro's put up their artwork here and may give you some inspiration.
CGtalk
And a 3D applicaton searcher
Here
Originally posted by iMacfan
...so can I buy it for a pittance somewhere, or is there a cheap alternative that is easy to use?
you can get the latest version of bryce from corel for US$70. however, you have to call them to buy it -- it is not available from the website.
i sent them an email saying "if sales of mac bryce is such a concern, did you think that REMOVING bryce from the web store would actually IMPROVE sales?!?!?" they said they would forward it to the appropriate personnel (i.e. they deleted it).
in a way, i understand their position -- with the MASSIVE price cuts in many high end 3D apps, it forced them to drop costs to a point where they had to sell LOTS of units against their development costs. so the windows version stays, and has to remain cheap, in the hopes that they can simply move more boxes. personally, i hope that they come to their senses and either revive the mac version (which is still possible, from what i have heard, if they receive enough feedback), or just sell it to another party to continue the product.
anyway, i would go ahead and buy it, so long as you don't expect to get much support for the product past the first compatibility patches for panther 10.3. but it IS only $70 now.
i think terragen looks impressive, but e-on software's Vue d'Espirit looks to be in the best position to pick up orphaned bryce users. the drawback seem to be that most of the really cool Vue functionality is tied up in plug-ins, but they sure look impressive. i have also heard many complain of its kai-krause-inspired interface.
Also, lun4tic, re: "maya is the high end 3D app and is used by a lot of professional designers". Maya isn't really used by designers. The Alias software used for design is the Alias Studio family (Alias DesignStudio, Studio, AutoStudio, SurfaceStudio) which unfortunately isn't available on the Mac.
Has anyone ever thought of starting a petition to port Alias Studio to the Mac?
It's free, it dosen't have watermarks or anything, and creates some of the most impressive looking landscapes I've ever seen.
I remember when bryce 2 was the shiznit, it was unheard of ease-of-use to create a pretty stunning product, but they really fell behind with a lot of rendering and ray-tracing and post effects stuff, so the result nearly everything looked pretty bad, unless you spent a lot of time with it.
but with terragen you get a whole bunch of excellent rendering options, and the landscapes it creates are just stunning.
granted it doesn't have all the boolean or vertex modeling that other 3-d programs have, it still allows you to build landscapes really well.
Just check this stuff out, it's awesome
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bianco/sea.html
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bianco/monts.html