Well, now that Curious Labs were bought by e-frontier, and e-frontier partnering with e-on, I think we are in for interesting times. e-frontier's Shade looks like a great program, comparable to Lightwave or Max. Why not an integration with DAZ|Studio instead? That one will be backward compatible with Poser. BTW, alvin, Scott did say that the new Bryce will have a particle generator, used either for grass or flowers or huts. Or even for hair. It will also have HDRI, a faster renderer... http://www.bryceformac.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12

-- erlik