Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved.
he
complete Bryce 2 from Metatools
is finally available for the PC. I originally started this
review 7 months ago in October 1996 only to discover that the Bryce 2
I received was incomplete! I finally received the full version in
January 1997. Bryce runs under Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 and
Windows NT 4.0. It requires about 24 MB of hard drive space and,
according to the box, can actually creep along with only 8 MB of RAM
on a 486 although the 300 page manual highly recommends a Pentium
with at least 16 MB of RAM. I found my 133 MHz Pentium with 64 MB of
RAM to be very sluggish when rendering an image. I think it would be
exceedingly difficult to have too much RAM or too much speed when
running this application.
he
installation from the CD-ROM is simplicity itself and takes just a
few minutes. An uninstall feature is also available in accordance
with Windows 95 standards. Bryce 2 does not have bubble help but
descriptive text does appear in the lower left corner when the cursor
is placed over an icon. The manual is for both PC and Mac users and
addresses the needs of both. It includes a "what's new"
section that lists 70 new features Bryce 2 possesses over Bryce 1.
This doesn't mean much to us PC users since we never had a version 1.
There is also a Quick install brochure that lists install procedures,
a few operation instructions and a picture of the interface that
breaks down all the icons, buttons, etc. 
Many of the palettes and icons are hidden and only appear when the
cursor is moved over them. All the icons at the bottom and right side
of the interface are in this category as is the very top. I managed
to get a screen shot of all of them by rapidly moving the cursor over
all 3 areas then quickly making the screen shot. I have to say that I
don't care for this design. The "out of sight out of mind"
principle applies, at least for me. As a user of software I want to
see all the options available. Of course fly out menus accessed when
clicking on a visible icon are OK but hiding stuff from the user is
just too esoteric for me. I think it is self defeating in the long
run. I suppose it's OK if that is the only software you ever use and
you get used to the peculiarities but otherwise I think it is not
good. There are 2 CD-ROMs that shipped with the final version of
Bryce. The first CD-ROM that has Bryce on it also includes a huge
number of interesting stuff such as animations (even though Bryce
won't do animations), Pagemaker 6 and QuarkXpress templates for
creating calendars from Bryce images, a quick show utility that
provides screen shows of dozens of images in the .jpg format and a
variety of other interesting stuff. The second CD-ROM is called the
Bryce accessory kit. This second CD-ROM contains many sample images,
screen shows, MetaPhotos and 8 tips that are in Adobe Acrobat format.
The tips are worth investigating. Among other things they describe
how to map text on to objects.
he
manual has no comprehensive tutorial. There is a page and a half in
the first chapter devoted to a very quick, simple image creation that
comprises 13 steps. First you click on the terrain, sphere and cube
objects in the create palette at the top of the interface. This
action creates default, wireframe terrain, sphere and cube. The
sphere and cube are moved up from the terrain and separated from each
other. The sphere is resized with an icon from the edit palette. 
The
edit palette is activated with a click on the word "edit"
at the top of the interface. This causes several editing icons to be
displayed. The resize icon is selected and the sphere is resized. The
cube is rotated with the rotate icon. The sky & fog presets are
then accessed via the tiny triangle just to the right of the sky and
fog palette. I counted 38 different sky and fog presets. Many more
can be loaded from the CD-ROMs. A sky of your choosing is selected.
The sphere is then selected and the materials editor is accessed via
the small triangle just to the right of the edit palette. There are
10 categories of material presets. Simple and fast has 48 presets.
Planes and terrains has 36 presets. Rocks and stones has 33 presets.
Waters and liquids has 18 presets. Clouds and fogs has 22 presets.
Wild and fun has 64 presets. 
Complex
fx has 15 presets. Miscellaneous has 27 presets. Glasses and metals
both have 30 presets. A material of the user's choosing is selected.
The same action is then performed on the cube. The ground plane is
then selected using the primitive selection palette at the bottom of
the interface. This palette is normally not visible until the mouse
pointer is moved over it. This palette allows the selection of a
particular primitive in a scene. For example, if you had seven
spheres in a scene you could select all of them with one mouse click
on this palette. It also allows the selection of objects that may be
obscured by other objects. After the plane is selected, the shift key
is held down and the terrain icon is clicked. Now both the plane and
terrain are selected. The materials presets are again accessed and
the same material is applied to both the plane and terrain. The scene
is then moved by positioning the view to the user's taste via the
control palettes on the left side of the interface. Then the scene is
rendered by clicking on the largest ball in the center on the left
below the control palettes.
he
manual contains 8 unnumbered chapters and four appendixes. Most of
the chapters have what's new, what's changed and hot tips sections. 
The
manual also has a serviceable index and a comprehensive table of
contents. The first chapter is a getting started chapter that
describes the interface and details the previously mentioned
"tutorial". The second chapter deals with objects, their
types, placement and sizes. The create palette at the top of the
interface is where objects are created. 
You
simply click on whatever object you want and it is placed into your
scene. There are 3 infinite planes: water, ground and cloud. The
water plane is placed just above the ground plane and is assigned a
random material from the waters & liquids presets. The ground and
all the primitives are assigned a gray color. The sky is assigned a
random texture from the clouds & fog presets. The terrain object
is a unique fractal object. Stone objects are assigned a random
texture from the rocks & stones presets. The symmetrical lattice
is actually a terrain object that is a mirror image of itself.
Imagine a mountain with a mirror image of itself stuck to its bottom.
There are 16 primitives available. Primitives are spheres, cylinders,
cubes, pyramids, torus and cones. Metatools has also squashed and
stretched these primitives for the user which should enhance
productivity. The manual states that textures will map differently to
a cylinder that is turned on its side as opposed to one that is
already on its side. You can assign Pict textures with alpha channels
to objects. This process is discussed in detail towards the end of
the manual. Lights come in 4 types: radial, spot, square spot and
parallel. They have icons at the right end of the create palette. The
preset object library is accessed via the small triangle just to the
right of the create label. This library has 4 categories of objects. 
There
are 90 Boolean preset objects. There are 30 mountain preset objects.
There are 30 rocks and trees preset objects and 31 imported objects.
A larger view of each preset at the upper left area of the palette is
displayed whenever a preset is selected. This view can be panned by
clicking and dragging it. The view can be zoomed by holding down the
control key the clicking and dragging. Some descriptive text is
displayed to the right. This text can be edited by clicking on the
text area. The changes will be automatically saved if you accept the
object by clicking on the check icon at the bottom right of the
palette. There are 2 additional object libraries on the accessories
CD-ROM. Preset objects the user creates or imports may also be added
to the objects presets libraries. For example, I imported a .dxf file
of a female figure from Poser and added it as a preset.
All pages copyright© Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1997
Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.