Back to Bryce after five or so years
gsm77
Posts: 23
I had used bryce for years and years on my mac. However when apple updated their OS on the macs i could no longer use it not having a windows OS . I really missed the terrain modelling and sky modelling elements of Bryce 7. I am thinking of buying a cheap windows 10 laptop soon. The idea is so that i can run Audacity and Bryce on it. The laptop that i will have a, itel i3 processor and a cpu speed of 1.2-3.4 hz and 4Gb of Ram. What concerns me is i think that bryce is a 32 bit application and that the latest versions of windows support 64 bit only. Will it be possiable to get Bryce working on a new version of windows 10. I have not used windows for about 10 years now but if i can get Bryce up and running again it will be worth the effort .
Thanks
Geoff
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gsm77 - welcome back to Bryce Geoff. Yes, it was unfortunate that Apple stopped supporting the PowerPC/Motorola CPU after 10.6 and the Intel CPU only. Bryce works fine also on 64-bit computers. I run Bryce on Windows2000 and XP (32-bit), two Win7 (i3, i7) and two Win10 (i7, i9) all 4 64-bit. Though Bryce is a 32-bit application and addresses only 2 GB of memory, it can be made large address aware (LAA) which means the full 32-bit = 4 GB, but a part is used for the operating system so Bryce can get up to 3.2 to 3.4 GB. I made Bryce LAA on the Win7 and Win10 machines, the XP and 2000 have even less than 2 GB of memory ...
Thanks for your advice Horo. i did not even know there was such a thing as Large Address Aware. I have just watched a video clip of it now by David Brinnen. When i get my laptop in a few weeks time i will have a go at installing Bryce.
Geoff
Good, David's video should get you going. I also recommend to watch my video on the subject because it goes a bit further - though still using the same tool. On my website, go to Bryce & 3D CG Documents > Videos (Links) > Horo > 19. Bryce Memory Shortage - and what you can do about it. It is also hosted on David's YT channel.
Thanks i will have a look at that
Geoff
I will be buying my new windows Laptop at the end of next week. It will be either a Levono or HP with 8GB ram and an i5 Processor. Looking in my Daz Account i have a windows version of Bryce 7 pro upgrade with a serial number. I also have a version of Bryce 6.3 also with a serial number.In order to install bryce 7 pro on my new machine do i need to have a regular bryce 7 serial or should i use the 6.3 serial?. Can i just install the bryce 7 pro version with its serial number without having to install previous versions of the program?
Thanks
Geoff
As far as I remember, you don't need to download 6.3 first... Just download the 7 Pro and you're good to go.
I only have 6.3 and 7 Pro (and serial numbers) in my account... So it worked for me.
I would for sure recommend installing the Extra Content though. The Pro materials and other extras are invaluable!
Just install Bryce 7.1 and use THAT serial number, the Bryce 6.3 number only works for 6.3. In fact, if you have an installed Bryce 7, there is a HIDDEN file named ".Bryce70.dta" and it contains in clear text:
username
<yourname>
sernum
<your serial number>
You could just copy that file into the folder where the "Bryce.exe" file is and you're good to go. But then, just entering the name and serial number once doesn't take half a day ...
Thanks . I will just install my 7 pro version and the extra content when i get my new computer.
Geoff
I have decided to spend a little bit extra and get a entry/ medium level games machine. I have after much deliberation narrowed by choice down to two very similar models.
The first model is an Asus Tuf It has an Ryzen 5 processor.
The second model is a Dell G3 3500 which as a intel i5 processor.
Both models have a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1650 Ti 4Gb graphics card.
What i would like to know is as 60% of my use for this laptop will be for Bryce. Does Bryce prefer Ryzen processors or Intel Processors.? I will also run an older version of flight sim that i have , i know it will not run the newest version of Flight Simulation.
One of the models is £50 cheaper than the other and comes with a store 3 yr Guarantee. I am finding it hard to decide on which model. Can you suggest which might be the best model?.
Geoff
As far as I know, Bryce doesn't care if the CPU is a Ryzen or an Intel, neither does it need it a sophisticated GPU. I've read Ryzen are a bit faster than Intel but I could never compare, I've always used Intel.
never mind
NGartplay - welcome back to Bryce. Sorry, I didn't answer because I just can't help you with the eyes, I hardly use Studio assets and when, old ones. We have Electro-Elvis here at the forums and he often uses Studio people. With a bit of patience, he will help you. I hope you're not too frustrated about the silence, because Bryce is fun.
NGartplay: Indeed, Electro-Elvis is the expert in using DAZ people. I know about issues with the eyes of people. I had the effect that some layer of the eyes should be set transparent, but was not. But I seem to remember that sometimes the eyes were too deep in the eye socket. But, checking the elements of the eye and then the textures will show you whether transparency is set (blend transparency). Setting that for the right part of the eyes might do the trick.
I just can't get back into it. I'm running an 8-core CPU, and a GPU that can do full-body Iray renders in a couple of minutes. Bryce takes advantage of NONE of that oomph, and renders just as slow as it did when I stoped using it all those years ago.
vrba79 - Iray uses GPUs, Bryce uses CPUs. From Bryce 6 on, you can select the render priority. Click on the lowest down-arrow at left (below the render button). The 4th item in the drop down menu that appears is Priority. Click on it and you can select Low, Normal and High Priority. Low uses 1 CPU core, Normal half of the available CPU cores, maximal 8, and High uses all available cores, maximal 8. I have (among others) an i9 CPU with 16 threads. I noticed that it also uses all 16 threads when in High Priority but the clock speed is reduced a bit, nevertheless the render finishes in 2/3 of the time than with Normal.
Remember: you cannot compare a Path-tracer as Iray uses on a GPU with a more accurate (and therefore slower) Ray-tracer as Bryce (or 3DL in Studio) uses.
Thank you Horo and Hansmar, I haven't delved into fixing the transparency issue but I will eventually. I put George into the scene and just had him facing away from the camera...ta da.
Been following along with David Brinnen's YouTube tutorials. Lots of fun and helping me to remember what I forgot so long ago. Of course my results take 4 times as long as him and don't look nearly as nice but I get better with each one. Was also surprised that he still answers questions if posed to him even though these are old videos. So appreciated.
Thanks for all the help guys . I finally bought a PC the other day a Hp with 16Mb of Ram at the Black Friday scales .Bryce works like a dream. I followed your advice and installed the Large Address Aware app. The Renders are really fast now. Really impressed. After not using Bryce for over 5 years i had forgotten how amazing Bryce is at creating skies and terrain modelling. i am also now starting to look at textures.A great way to spend time during these cold lockdown days.
just wish that Daz studio woud have been as easy to to manage. I had no trouble installing daz via the dim. Problem was as i am new to modern pcs having only used a mac for 10 years, when i downloaded all my daz content windows installed them onto one drive which i did not want. It completly overwhelmed it. So i disconnected one drive, from this pc and completely uninstalled daz from this pc. I have now bought a very large capacity usb 3 stick and intend to re download daz again next week. i dont want to over whelm the SSD on this machine. Is there a way i can install all or some of the daz studio program on to the usb stick rather than the SDD.?
Geoff
There are quite a lot of threads about keeping Daz Studio and (especially) the content files off the Operating System drive in Windows. I'll try and look a couple out to link here.
Do you really want need to keep the Daz Studio program off your SSD, or just the (much larger) content files? My "rendering" PC is still on Windows 7, so I don't know all the compexities of Win10, one drives, etc, but you can use DIM settings to keep all or part of your content on an external drive if you want to.
The trick is to run DIM first time in "offline" mode and set up all your library paths for download files and thumbnails, the actual programs, your content files, the location of the Content Manager database, the location of manifest files (that tell DIM what you have installed and when) and everything. Personally I install nothing on my SSD - have Daz Studio on a secondary HDD, along with the CMS database, manifests and part of my content (the things I use most). The rest of my content is installed to another content library on an external (USB) HDD. My main PC is offline (for security reasons bearing in mind it's Win7) so I download everything using my laptop to an external (USB) drive, virus-check it all then connect it to my offline PC for DIM to install there. This all works perfectly well for me.
ETA: OK, so most of the threads I've found describe how to move an existing installation from C: drive to another. There is this one which is working from scratch, but not very detailed: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/184626/is-it-possible-to-install-on-external-harddrive
This is much more detailed: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/407716/moving-daz-content-off-of-c-drive-in-2020 - and some of what it says is equally valid for a new installation too. There is an addendum to it about keeping your "personal" DS content library off the SDD here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5703641/#Comment_5703641
What I will try to do later is post pics of my DIM and DS content manager setups, marked with all the things you need to consider, but I won't be able to do that for a couple of hours (I'm on my laptop at the moment).
PS: Sorry to the Brycers about hijacking a Bryce Discussion thread like this - but I hope you'll forgive me for trying to help Geoff!
OK, Geoff:
ETA: One thing I shouold have asked - are you using DIM to install Daz Studio, PostgreSQL, etc? If you are using the installer .exe. files from your account page then you get the chance to specify where to install during the process of running them. I originally installed DIM this way, so I could put it onto my HDD not my SSD. I then opened DIM in "Offline" mode to setup up all the information shown below. Then I installed Daz Studio through DIM, PostgreSQL and the bits and pieces that come with DS like Default Resources, Lessons, etc. Then I went into DS and setup the Content Directory Manager and check that all is looking good. Finally I ran DIM again to start installing my actual content. I'd suggest just installing a few products (maybe just the Genesis/2/3/8 Starter Essentials) and check they all go to the right places before you install a lot of content, just in case something went wrong.
First attachment shows DIM Advanced Settings Installation tab - here you can select where DIM will place download files and thumbnails. Click the "..." at the end to change from the default location to one on your new drive. The Package Archive location will become very large unless you tell DIM (on the next tab) to delete after installation. Thumbnails is only populated if you as DIM to bring down thumnbails and is not very large - I have over 8,000 products installed but my thumbnails folder was only 86 MB but then recently Daz has started giving enormous thumbnail files instead of the tiny ones it used to deliver and the latest 170 products I bought have already added another 55 MB. I choose to keep all those files on my second HDD, not my SDD.
Second attachment shows the DIM Installation tab - here you can define your chosen location for manifests (my 8K products give 250MB of manifest files) and where software (like Daz Studio itself) should be installed. You could leave these to go on your SSD, but I prefer put them on my other HDD. My DS4.12 installation takes about 2 GB and I believe the latest version 4.14 is even bigger. DIM itself takes about 60 MB, the CMS programs only 230 MB or so and PostgreSQL database software about 65 MB. There will be a speed improvement loading DS if you let it install to your SSD, but I don't find it particularly slow myself. You also set the location for your content library(s) here - this is obviously the most important part. Click the "+" button at the bottom to add a new location, give it a name and use the drop-down list beside "Content Path Shortcuts" to direct DIM to install in the place you specified. You'll see I have a multiude of content libraries spread over my main onboard HDD and an external. You can just use one, of course. I like the flexibility of separating out different types of content - and my total content amounts to over 1.4 TB (yes, TB) so no way was I going to let defaults be used for that!
Third attachment is the DIM Applications tab - here you need to define the paths for each program you use DIM for. That's where plug-ins, etc, get installed. You'll see I have Bryce, Carrara, Hexagon and Photoshop defined here. I've given the real paths for DS, Carrara and Hexagon, but the Bryce path is just a holding library where I let DIM install my Bryce products, then manually move the bits to where they need to be, since DIM isn't clever enough for Bryce!
Fourth attachment is inside Daz Studio's Content Directlry Manager. You need to make sure that the CMS Cluster Directory matches where you told DIM to put it, and that your Content Library(s) are defined to match where you installed all your content.
Many thanks for your very helpful and detailed advised Melanie. I will have a read of it all over the next few days.i intend to have the actual program on my ssd drive and the contents on the usb stick to save space on the computer ssd.It seems quite involved, .I need to get familar with a windows pc again after not using one for over 9 years since i retired. I still have my mac machine, its a shame that since apple updated there os a few weeks ago that daz studio does not eork any longer. I believe that they are aiming to fix it sometime next year. I will ponder a while longer over whether to install daz studio on my pc just yet or wait. im just delighted to get Bryce back i reaaly missed it.
thanks
Geoff
I hope that if you go ahead it will all work well. Feel free to ask any questions - I hope I didn't miss anything out, but it's a while since I installed from scratch.
I love Bryce too - I started with DS (a freebie version on a magazine cover disk) so I've been using it for over 10 years. I got Bryce rather later and still find DS easier to use (just familiarity probably) but find Bryce fascinating once I get my head round the UI. It's a good feeling to be able to create something from "nothing", which is not a strength of DS!
Hi NGartplay
Sorry, I have quite late realized, that you sent me a message. I answered it now. Unfortunately my first attempt did not accept any pictures. Nevertheless I hope my explanation my help a bit.
Cheers
Hi Electro-Elvis, thank you. I look forward to reading what you wrote and appreciate the time you took to do it. I used to know how so I think that an explanation will jog my memory. Cheers!!
All sorted now. Decided to install it all on the built in SSD dive, after having an early spring clean of some old programs and files. Disconnected one drive first before the re download. Total size now of my combined daz files only about 10Gb. Getting back into Bryce again i had forgottenhow easy and intutive Bryce is . On my new PC it works really well, much better than it did on my Mac five or so years ago. Looking forward to the Galleries opening again.
Geoff
gsm77, look forward to what you create. Please share.
wow, geoff!!!!!!!!!!!!!! creepy boy around :-)
last time i used bryce was 2006 but now with i9+rtx3080 it's great fun - we wasted half a life earlier waiting that renders are finished
i+e+d i was earlier
Erich - wow a lovely, let's say cute render that brightened my day, Thanks
erich : lovely, indeed.
Erich - welcome back to Bryce. Very nice render.
it is not a bryce-render, made with poser a calendar for my mother with photos of my daughter; Creepy was (and maybe is) one of the best friend's of Geoff, already curious when he pops up again