Will I be able to draw something and view it in a reasonable amount of time (compared to Vue or Poser) before the final render? I've read so many complaints about Bryce rendering times that I'm unsure.

Bryce's render times aren't that bad :) Most of my images (barring anything with DOF in it) don't take that long. Some images do take a while, it depends on how complex they are and the lighting in them. I've used Poser only for figures that I import into Bryce so I'm not sure how long a complicated scene would take in it and I'm really not sure about Vue.
It just kind of depends on how long you're willing to wait for an image to render :) I find if one's taking too long, I'll open up Poser or another window of Bryce and do something else while one's rendering. There's always the "plop render" function if you're really itching to see what a particular area will look like.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Rochr

Follow this link please

Well, I actually have Vue now (won it) And, I have to say this so far about comparable render times; Vue does gives you some further options as far levels of quality in your render meaning, it's possible to sacrifice some quality for a slightly faster render. But, all in all, when both are cranked up to best quality, they seem to both render around the same. This opinion will vary of course, beacuse one person doesn't render the same thing in the same way, but that's just my 2 cents. AgentSmith

SUBURB work Rochr! I long to create interior scenes. Vue is not very friendly about making interiors. It seems that Bryce does great at making Interior Scenes. What's everyone's opinion about using Bryce for making those beautiful surreal interior images?

I've had some pretty good luck my past couple of pictures of doing some interior work, although not as good as Rochr! It's taken some getting used to for me but I finally got the hang of interior scenes. I'm currently working on image #3 in my building series, another interior...and it seems to be getting easier, but ya still gotta play around a little to get it to look halfway correct. MD

I haven't tried interior scenes yet but looking at some of the images on here I'd say it's well worth buying Bryce if you'd like to try them :)

Question....what kind of computer specs do you have Stevie822? (CPU speed, RAM, OS) and maybe we can give you an idea of rendertimes.

If you are interested in interiors in Bryce you should look at a couple of images Doublecrash did recently they compare really well to what the so called high end programs produce. Catlin

Agree with AgentSmith on render times. I've done mostly modest artwork with bryce, but what I've done hasn't taken longer than two hours render time yet. True Catlin, Doublecrash has accomplished the best interiors IMHO, using bryce alone! Maybe we all should start voicing our desires at Corel. Make them see how valuable bryces setup is. I have had absolutely no technical problems with bryce5. Only when my memory runs low, does anything wierd happen.

Buy it. You can render fast or quality in any program. Your choice. You get what you wait for. I have EIU which has probably the fastest render engine of any 3d app. I still love Bryce and I still render in it.

stevie822, Ill throw in my 2 cents too. I love Bryce, my fav 3d program above all the highend ones. But there is no sense in sugarcoating its faults. It has an incredibly slow rendering engine. The slowest out in the market (that I am aware of). But I still use Bryce, which should show you that its positives exceed its negatives by a long shot. Ive used it for 4 years on and off but always come back to it. So, fo $79, it is well worth the buy. Im pretty sure Ive gotten my moneys worth out of it :-)

I've had pretty good luck with Bryce and Bryce only in my scenes...really the only outside work I do is make a terrain map for my walls, but texturing, modeling, placement, etc. are all done in Bryce. I take pride in being able to do everything in Bryce with as little or no postwork as possible to learn further areas of Bryce plus that way I know in the long run if/when I need a good effect and Photoshop or something makes it easier, I'll certainly do that. MD

It can depend on the number of lights and the number of mats you employ, and the complexity of the mats as well (some of the mats take a few seconds even to come up in the DTE..;). Most of my stuff averages about 4-20 minutes at most, and that's mainly because I'm throwing lights in odd places to highlight features I want to bring out.
I've heard that Bryce is going for $70-80, right now, so unless you're a Mac user in Europe, it's probably not too much to ask..;)

I ordered Bryce this morning for $80! I'm convinced that Bryce will be a great tool. After seeing how everyone here feels about Bryce, I'm anxious now to use it. My computer is a Dell 2.4ghz w 512 ram. My wife's is an HP 1.6ghz w 224ram. I'm thinking about using the HP for final big renders by CD file transfers. I've seen Doublecrashe's interiors and many others too. It's not so much the interior detail, but the moody surreal type that I hope to make w Bryce. I've seen many fantastic examples of those and I'm sure Bryce can do it. The surreal abstract things are imporatant because I offer free 3d wallpaper at my site, stefanosdreamscape.com Any advice on what to expect regarding inporting Poser figures?

Bryce has silly rendering options, at least Bryce 5 does! It's always a quality/speed equation, but Bryce 5 only lacks a hybrid renderer. I prefer Ray-tracing all the way through, myself. And if you want it faster, network render! (costly, but worth it) Most machines, no matter how slow, can run Lightning. Pull out that old P-2 and put it to work!

Attached Link: Grouper 1.4

Importing Poser figures into Bryce; Expect it to seem like a pain at first, but once you get the process down, it will get automatic pretty fast. Also, use a program called "Grouper". It will make the process of your textures following your figures from poser to bryce a much more painless ride. Read about it and download it at the link, it's freeware. AgentSmith

Thanks Agentsmith. It's the first addition I'll get when Bryce arrives.

Attached Link: http://www.knucks3dstuff.com/benchmarks.html

With that computer render times should be pretty quick and since you have 2 computers you can set-up a network render for really complicated scenes. You can go to the above link and download a benchmark scene to see how you computer will compare to others. There was another site with a more complicated scene but I can't find it right now. I have a 1.67Ghz AMD and it rendered at 4m49s