Sunset light ... Bryce 7 Pro. I could just as easily have titled this piece "My Kingdom for a Bryce Materials Lab tutorial my brain can wrap itself around!" Or, "When will someone model realistic trees for Bryce?"
Parts of this image are really neat...
...and as artwork, it's actually rather nice indeed. But if you were hoping for something photographic -- well, hmmm. So I guess it's a question of "horses for courses." Use Bryce for images where it works really well, something like this:
And use it for SF images, like this:
...and save up for a copy of Vue, with enough plug-in modules to make it interesting! The really odd thing is that Bryce was developed as a landscape generator, and in fact, landscapes are the thing it's least effective at. Or, perhaps it showed enormous promise in its day (up to 10 years ago), but today, with Vue offering vistas like this:
...well, I guess Bryce must take its place among the second or third tier programs -- because there are others that are awesome, like Terragen, and so forth. Oh, I know they're out there! And I also know (and confess) that the Bryce Materials Lab continues to defeat me! But I really do lust for the ability to generate really, really realistic landscapes. I feel a definite attack of Vue coming on. Mind you, it's coming on slowly, because I'll drop between $300 and $500 to get it all together, and I'm not quite so overcome with lust that I'll rush off and do it today!
Soon, though.
Jade, February 20, 2013
