The only complaint I have about bryce (ONLY) is the renderer... I wish that it could use render nodes & rendering agents like YAFRay or POVray or Renderman or FinalRender... Bryce would be so much less under-rated if only its rendering ability was better. If you then added a nurbs/patch/spline modeling tool... Bryce would be at the top. But, there are ways around the substandard rendering agent, unfortunately they require large render times that aren't suitable for animations etc. I tried maya learning edition and in my eyes, it's overly complicated, and doesn't let the user bring his or her vision to life as bryce does. You can do anything with bryce, from cartoonlike renders to complex photorealistic renders. It's all up to the user.