Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 2, 2006. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
After the company DAZ acquired Eovia (formerly Metacreations) in April, it continued developing the Bryce software acquired along with it. At Siggraph, DAZ has now announced version 6 with several new features. Bryce 6 is to appear this year and be at the price level of the previous version.
The new version converts booleans into meshes that the user can then export without problems. The “Random Replicate” function distributes cloned objects randomly in a set area, either with random rotation or without.
In the Skylab module, there is now the ability to load HDR images in the IBL (Image Based Lighting) section and illuminate the scene with them. A small preview shows how the scene will look with the new light. The user can make settings for brightness and colour interactively.
The improved asset management ensures that nothing is lost when managing larger projects. Brushes for textures can consist of images, and the Bryce user can now also use greyscale images with 16-bit colour depth as finished textures. The newly added support for multiprocessor computers brings a significant increase in performance on corresponding hardware.
Version 6 also runs under Mac OS X, but not yet natively on Intel Macs. Only release 6.1 is to remedy this. The manufacturer still puts the release date of the new version somewhat vaguely at “very soon”.
Carrara, also a former Eovia product, received a small update to version 5.1. With the update, FBX import and export now work flawlessly and the new version already runs natively on Intel Macs as well. DAZ promises that the new version is to deliver an enormous performance gain compared with performance on a Power Mac G5, namely five times the rendering speed and almost twice the performance while working in the program.
The update to 5.1 is free for existing customers. Carrara costs 249 dollars new, Carrara Pro 549 dollars.
Further Links:
- DAZ
