Real World Bryce 4

By Susan A. Kitchens

Book Overview

MetaTools' Bryce 3D enables users to create realistic 3-dimensional worlds. This manual explores all Bryce 3D's features and addresses the needs of day-to-day users. Updated from the previous edition,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201354381
• ISBN13: 9780201354386
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Length: 900 Pages
• Weight: 3.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 2.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

1000+ pages of gold

This book is amazing. It incorporates all aspects of the Bryce experience including terrain, sky, rainbows, haze, lighting, lattices, and more. I have Bryce 5, but this is still a great companion. Metaballs and trees (the big differences from 4 to 5) are pretty self-explanatory. If you're thinking about getting this..STOP!!!!Just get it.

Definitive Bryce manual

Bryce exists in the duality as one of the most loved/hated pieces of software available. Bryce die hards will go to incredible lengths to create gorgeous vistas, while others condemn its non-standard working paradigm. This discrepancy is illustrated most clearly in the user interface, which is as eccentric as its creators. Clumsy as it is elegant. Beautiful raytrace rendering engine is unsuitable for most kinds of realistic production deadlines (this is why powerful albeit free-for-download raytracers such as POV-Ray and Gritz' BMRT have been free for download for a long time). It is as easy to make something look cool as it is difficult to make something preconceived. What else would one expect from the person(s) who gave us a 4-dimensional fractal plug in for Photoshop? Why, for the love of God, it hasn't adopted a multipane interface after five generations is beyond me. The fact that it has survived over the years is testament to the accessible power of this software, and the fact that those early years was originally available on Mac only, a platform known for putting all but the strongest 3d programs in the graphics graveyard (swivel 3D, Infini-d, etc.) makes Bryce more than worthy of any 3d professionals attention.Kitchens and Gavenda explain the program well. Susan Kitchens was actually part of the team that produced "Planetary Traveler", a movie made with beta versions of (an animatable) Bryce, back when the only way for the typical user to do the same was to plot out a camera's trajectory along an enormous number of scene files and hope that your graphing skills were up to par. Bryce has roots founded in a fusion of science and art, and the book begins with an excellent insight to the genesis of the program, which includes such contributors as Benoit Mandelbrot (founder of the fractal Mandelbrot set) and Ken Musgrave. The size of the book alone nearly justifies its price tag, weighing in at over nine hundred pages and containing a beautiful full-color section of tutorial examples and feature work by seasoned Bryce veterans. This along with a CD that, although seems hastily assembled at the last minute as per several duplicate scenes with minute differences and a few missing files, is chock full of QT shorts and helpful presets, etc.The literature is invaluable. It corrects an unbelievable amount of erroneous information from the manual that ships with Bryce 4, and covers absolutely every corner of the software. Kitchens' in-depth knowledge of Bryce is so thorough, that the chapter in the manual that comes with Bryce regarding the Deep Texture Editor is based on the explanation she gives of it in her previous book, Bryce 2, back when it was a powerful undocumented feature. Those who want a thorough accounting of the documented and undocumented hotkeys and easter eggs will be pleased with this purchase.Although the information is premiere, the way it is conveyed sometimes becomes deterrent. This is suspect from the opening chapter when i

Excellent book

I've been a Bryce user for about a year, and have loved the program from day one. However, I always felt that the Bryce documentation glossed over certain areas, and another book I've read on Bryce was not very good. I received Real World Bryce three days ago, and haven't put it down since. It's very well organized, has a lot of really good examples and TONS of useful information. I've been reading it non-stop, (it's 900 pages!) sitting at my computer with the book on my lap, and I have a whole new appreciation for what Bryce can do.The accompanying cd-rom and website are great. You can view a ton of QT movies that let you see changes take place in front of you. And the animation examples are mind-blowers.This is a great book. Len Kaltman

Wow!

If you really want to learn everything there is about Bryce, get this book. I've learned more from this in just a few days of reading it than I have in the last month pouring over the manual that came with Bryce. As you read it, you can't help but keep saying, "Oh, so that's how to do that."This book will help beginners (that's where I am!) to advanced users. The included CD has lots of lessons to follow along with the chapters. All of the graphics are very helpful and give you tons of ideas for your own projects.

Late, great, and completely worth the wait

Painful rhymes aside, this book has been in the works for several years, and eagerly anticipated within the large online community of Brycers. To say that it was worth the wait would be to damn this book with faint praise. If you have Ms. Kitchens' first Bryce book, "Real World Bryce 2" then you know what you're in for: seemingly every possibility, every undocumented keyboard shortcut, and every trick that is available to the Bryce afficiando. Needless to say, much has changed since version 2, and this massive tome reflects that. Animation, the Deep Texture Lab, the Sky Lab -- all are covered in detail. And this detail is excellently presented, neither brain-twistingly confusing nor painfully obvious. I cannot overstate that, even in the seemingly most basic areas, such as camera manipulation, Kitchens and Gavenda are able to provide you with important, easily usable information. Kitchens was one of the writers of the most recent manual for Bryce, and her expertise shows. This also allowed her unparalleled access to the programmers -- many of whom are no longer working with Bryce after its, ahem, rapid divestiture from Metacreations and purchase by Corel.This is, quite simply, one of the best computer books I have ever purchased, and one of the few that I actually felt like I got my money's worth -- and then some. Whether you are playing with Bryce for the first time, or a seasoned veteran, you will appreciate the huge amount of work that has gone into this book.