If there is smoothing under TA 'light', I'll buy it. If not, not.

I can't believe I didn't get that straight away... I blame beer.

Huh? If you're trying to connect 5/5/05 with 5.5, it's been done.

I'm sure it has. Nevertheless, the official DAZ announcement is that Bryce 5.5 will be released on May 5th. Maybe it's been ready for weeks, but they thought they'd be 'cool'.

Does that mean Bryce 6 is coming out in June of next year?

sure, make a note of it lol

Aye, I fear that even WITh TA smoothing, the process and the technique is so underpowered as to be nearly useless for anything other than tech-demos. TA is entirely unanimatable, unless you had a 100-processor render farm, and is so far behind current technologies I'm using in Maya as to be a total joke. In the time it would take one of us to animate a scene using TA, you could easily work off the $7K pricetag for Maya Unlimited at a local convenience store. And mental ray will render TRUE caustics, Global Illumination, and unlimited other effects in mere minutes, nay, seconds... So consider this when you're spending countless hours waiting for Bryce to render scenes that take other software mere seconds: What is your time worth? I'll tell you right now, and it's the same answer to 99% of ALL questions worldwide : Money. I'm not naysaying Bryce itself, I love it and will continue to use is for many, many years as my favorite art program. But something like TA smoothing, which SHOULD have been implemented by Corel anyway when they released Bryce 5 in the first place, is not worth a single penny to me. The concepts and techniques I've learned from Bryce are propelling me forward in Maya and Rhino at an alarming rate, but nowadays I can't justify not modeling in Rhino, and rendering in mental ray is a snap compared to waiting for Bryce's "Premium Settings" to creep along at a god-forsaken pace... I understand application loyalty, for years I've been ALL about Bryce! But there comes a time when you have to ask yourself : Am I sacrificing time, energy, and money just to remain loyal to a piece of software? As a hobbyist, I've loved and still love Bryce. But with 3D graphics as my career choice, I can't justify wasting my time waiting around for DAZ to catch up to current technologies. As it seems, Bryce 5.5 and even what's slated for Bryce 6 is a total joke. There is not ONE empoyer in the world who is looking for a Bryce artist. There are dozens, if not hundreds, who seek talented modelers, texturers, animators, and skilled users in all of my other applications, including Photoshop! (just had to get that off my chest, sorry if I seem negative about DAZ and Bryce, but from my POV, there's nothing positive about it)

That's all true enough, Lord S, even with your rather extreme example of Maya ($7000!); even though I have no desire (or ability) to become a 3D professional (ghastly, sticky business). But there's still one thing Bryce has over all the others for me - I can use it. I've tried most of the others in one form or another, and they all befuddle me. It's not just familiarity; there's something about the Bryce working environment that clicks with my brain. It's almost certainly the same thing that makes most 3D techies hate the Bryce working environment. Add to that my having little to no interest in animation (Bryce has no motion blur, so it's bloody useless anyway) then Bryce still has plenty of appeal to me. Once I'd figured out how to use True Ambience to achieve almost radiosity lighting standards, I figured this tool would last me ages. I don't mind waiting overnight for a render; I usually spend three times longer setting a scene up. But when I realised that TA was grim on figure meshes ("Poser"), optimism fell away. So if DAZ have added smoothing to the TA 'light' function, then I'm definitely in. But I'm not waiting for Bryce 6 for it. Poser 6 already has a (similar) radiosity type feature, and it's smooth (around the edges too, not just on face on polys). And it's got motion blur, etc, etc. I already have Poser6 (which came with Shade7, which has real radiosity...) and I'm very impressed with it. I can almost use it, though the advanced features are doing that befuddlement thing. I have no application loyalty. I'll use Bryce as long as it remains the best tool for my needs. If something substantially better comes along, I'll use that.

Heheh... If this is true... Then I predicted it a good while back... Just ask anyone @ Rendergods IRC chat. LOL! I suppose I won the bet, too bad there wasn't any real money involved. :p Besides 5.5 released on 5/5/5 just seemed too obvious. (Now will this release be the kid with the stick or the pinata?)

Am I missing something really obvious about that image - that's the second place you've posted it? Flak potentially dumb and dumberer today

The image contains the announcment of the official release date for Bryce 5.5. That's where I spotted it on the DAZ website. Congrats pauljs75, but shame about the non-money bet. Of course, if that's the 'official' release date and it's coming sooner than we might think (something they've also said) - who knows?

Ahhh, thats what the image is about. Here I thought there was something more subtle about it lol.

Nice image. If anything, my next 3D program will probably be one of the cheaper Vue programs or SILO.

ZBrush for me. And, DAZ Studio already accepts 16-bit displacement maps, Poser does not, btw. AS