Well, I got into this whole digital thing starting with Poser and Painter, and was quite naturally directed to this site, and subsequently to Bryce which was the first experience I had with raytrace rendering. Tell you the truth, I didn't like it; it confused me, and I found the interface just..well...stupid. (sorry, die-hard Bryce fans. :)) So one day I'm complaining about this on some Poser email group, and this guy named Orio and this woman named Guitta tell me to try Vue (version 3 had just come out at the time), and all of a sudden making 3D pictures was FUN... can't say I ever had any "fun" with Bryce, albeit I admittedly didn't try for long. Nevertheless, Vue was sooo much easier to get a handle on, and where Bryce might have caused me to lose interest in CG forever, had I had to continue with it, Vue only served to enhance my interest. Now, of course, some people do some amazing things with Bryce, just as some people do some horrendous things with Vue... I guess it's the Big Competition Thing 'tween the affordable rendering packages, but this Bryce vs. Vue thing seems to have been going on for quite awhile now, although it does seem to have become more civil. My advice: Get LightWave.