I feel Bryce has some good points and poor points. The lighting is the easiest to handle of all the 3D apps I've worked with(3D Studio Max, C4D 7 & 8, Vue 4) and it is not to difficult to make Photo real renderings if that's what you want. What I like is the ability to get a real painterly feel to images fairly easily without having to use a lot of filters post render. However, the long render times when you start using Premium settings is maddening. How many people here are willing to wait 21 days for an image to render ? In my opinion, the best out-of-box render engine is C4D V8. Forget 3D Studio, if you don't have the money to buy V-Ray or Brazil or some other 3rd party renderer. Besides it's one of the most maddening 3D apps around, great modeling app though, maybe the best. Vue d'esprit 4 is another story all together, it can produce some superior atmospheres, and on some textures it handles them better than Bryce, but it also has many quirks. Oh well, I still prefer Bryce to all others,.......because it's easy to use.

"Any club that would have me as a member is probably not worth joining" -Groucho Marx