I heard a rumor from a friend who has a friend who works at Corel and is part of the Bryce team. Apparently Corel is currently developing Bryce5 with Kai Krause and there could be a release date as early as May. No official word about it or even a hint otherwise. I can't name names because I wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble. If it really is true this is great news. They are supposedly reving it up to work better with faster CPU's like the G4 and PIII. There will be major improvements to the animation features as well. I am completely stoked that they are investing in the future of Bryce. I already dropped Corel an email requesting to be a beta tester for it and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Anyone else excited?

Yup I am , in fact there's a beta tester application on the site to fill out if you wanna have a chance of testing v5b.

You have the link for that application? I was at the beta test news site at corel and there was no application posted yet. I even did a site search for it. I sent an email to the beta team, but the page says they will announce it in the want ads when they need testers and then the application will be available. I definately meet the requirements for equipment and experience. I'm going to check the site regularly, but if you have a link I'm all ears.

What is the email address directly (rather than having the message relayed and re-relayed through Corel's office hierarchy) of the team who are writing Bryce 5? Any idea when Bryce 5 will be out and what new features etc it will have?

The email address is betateam@corel.ca. from what I understand the beta team is in Canada, but the Bryce team is in Sandusky Ohio. The URL for the beta news page is http://www.corel.com/betaprogram/index.htm I don't know too much about the improvements but I have heard that render times will be shortened dramatically because of the new architecture. I also heard that real time fly arounds will be possible in rendered state and not just in wireframe mode. Anything that makes it render faster is ok with me. I'll keep you posted if and when I hear more (at least until I sign a NDA, hehe)

But will there be any better public availability to the internal details of that confounded Area-51-impenetrable .OBP / .BR3 / .BR4 (and .BR5?) Bryce file format? It would be useful if Poser could export to Bryce and preserve transparency information. That could be done in two ways:- (1) If Poser 5 could write and read .OBP format. (2) If someone added a feature to Poser and Bryce's dialect of .OBJ + .MTL file language so it could carry transparency information like it now carries color and bump information.

I really don't know more than that. When I export figures from Poser4 to Bryce4 I am able to bring my transpareny data over. I have to reapply the texture as I load them but I use all the transmaps I use in Poser. There's no reason why you can't get exactly the same textural look that you do in Poser, it just takes a little more work.

I definetly would like more animation effects, perhaps some sort of particle system which I am sure we have all been hoping for.....or want, but a better renderer:) that would be GREAT! Lord knows it brought my computer to its knees many a time......

While we are talking about our wish list for version 5 please please let them improve the modeling tools too.

Well I got a reply back from them saying that they have several hundred applications already but they will keep me in mind if they need more testers. Keeping my fingers crossed.

crossing fingers for Alleycat169 just make sure you give us all the details if you become one ;)

Yes!! That's great news! Was wondering about when and if Bryce 5 was coming out. Just got Bryce 3D with a back issue of 3D World, and was itching for Bryce 4, but willing to wait for Bryce 5.

Things on my wish list : Select by material function, the ability to put the sun under the horizon without it turning into the moon (useful for space scenes), have the open gl preview recognise boolean groups, and of course - instantaneous rendering!