Bryce 6.1

Unity Engine
1

I am considering buying Bryce 6.1 for sky rending and was wondering if anyone had any experience with it. It’s only $27.99 at Daz but there doesn’t appear to be a demo/trial version. Also, the new version appears to be Intel Mac friendly.

I would prefer Vue but its considerably more expensive.

2

Hi Shawn, I have brought it some time ago.

Its really no different to the free version, 5.5 which is available at download.com. Wasnt 5.5 Intel friendly too?

I’d save your lira if I were you, theres some enhanced terrain brush options, Image based lighting for rendering (HDRI) but nothing that will enhance your unity skyboxes.

Theres cheap versions of vue that will render skies.

Check out the skies on cgtextures.com too

AaronC

3

For $27.99 I don’t see how you can go wrong even if you only use it once or twice. Bryce can make some good skyboxes… haven’t used it in years to be honest, but it doesn’t look like it has changed a whole lot.

Vue is of course nicer, but the price tag reflects that. Another option is Terragen for $99, which I find cumbersome to work in, but the results can be quite good.

4

Thanks for the info. I tried the 5.5 version of Bryce and don’t think the results are quite what I’m looking for. Nothing on the webpage suggests that they’ve been improved in the 6.1 version.

I’ve seen great images come out of Terragen but agree with you that it is cumbersome to work with.

cgtextures.com looks like a great all round image resource. Thanks for the link.

I think Vue has changed their pricing structure. I thought that there used to be a version for around $100. It looks like the current cheapest commercial version is now $200.

I have Lightwave so I’ve played with SkyTracer2 a bit but have never gotten great results.

Any other suggestions? What else are people using for skyboxes?

5

I found an interesting potential solution. There’s a free Open Beta version of Vue Pioneer 7.

This version places a large logo on top of any renders but you can buy the RenderUp module for $69.00 which removes the logo and lifts the render size limitation.