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Jimco Software Reviews - Bryce 5.5 (continued)
The Interface
The Bryce interface (see figure 1) has remained pretty much unchanged for years. It's an interface that works very well for 3D applications. Along the left edge are the view and render controls, including a scene preview window for a preview of your scene without having to wait for a render. Memory dots for views are present as well, allowing you to store 7 saved views. Along the top edge, you'll find controls for creating and editing objects and the bottom edge provides animation and selection controls.
Figure 1 - The Bryce Interface
Along the right edge are small icons that provide for features such as the appearance of the interface, plop rendering, zooming, etc.
Creating a Bryce Scene
The Document Setup dialog in Bryce (see figure 2) provides for just about any document setup conceivable. Document sizes and other settings are simple using this dialog. If you choose a different setup later, you can always change it at any time.
Figure 2 - Document Setup in Bryce
Once you have a new document, you can begin adding objects. Object consists of primitives (cylinders, spheres, cones, etc.), terrains, planes, vegetation, etc. Once an object is added, small icons appear next to it that allow you to interact with it, edit it, etc. Figure 3 shows an example of a new terrain.
Figure 3 - A terrain ready for editing.
To edit this terrain, simply click on the small 'E' that appears to the right of the terrain. Other buttons available are 'A' for Attributes, a color button for setting the color used to show the object in the scene, a link button to link the object to a parent object, a button to track the object, and a button to apply materials.
Figure 4 shows the terrain editor in Bryce. From this interface, you can paint effects and otherwise edit the terrain as a grayscale image. Lighter colors represent higher elevations while darker colors represent lower elevations. Bryce can also import DEM data.
Figure 4 - The Bryce Terrain Editor
DAZ has added some new functionality here in the form of increased terrain resolution (allowing you to get a better view of the final result) and new performance enhancements. These are welcomed improvements to Bryce. In fact, Bryce 5.5 adds two additional terrain grid resolutions; Gigantic and Planetary. I think the names are enough to give you an idea of what you can expect.
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