wabe,
It's still rendering and I expect it to do so over the weekend (started it at work and it will definitely take a LONG time to stop rendering). Then again, I used about 100 lights in the Bryce scene (a little bit overdone ;) and as far as I can see, the Bryce result comes out slightly better than the Vue.

The result is what counts for sure. That's why I'm working with Vue mostly these days. It's NOT because Vue is doing it faster but because the render engine is better to me. I can render at night and I don't mind if I have to save it in the morning and then continue rendering (yes it's possible to save during a render in Bryce and then continue rendering again, so who cares how long it takes in Bryce?)

But when you try to use options that are simply not working because it's so darn slow in Vue then it irritates. Yes, I know there are work-arounds and if Eon says that this is the only way to work really well with Vue then so be it: DROP the options that are not working!

But... Why wouldn't it be possible to make Vue's interface work 100 times smoother like Bryce and still have Vue's render engine? The really slow interface is exactly what irritates most ex-Bryce users (including me) once the number of objects goes up. Change that and Bryce won't stand a chance anymore.

As it is now I see a lot of really good artists (way better than I) keeping Bryce. Simply because they work with it for a long time every day. They feel that the need for a better interface than Vue's is more important than the render engine. If needed they have tricks to come up with the same results.