"WHAT EXACTLY does version 5.5 have that 5.1 does not have?"

The DAZ Studio app linked directly to Bryce - when it works it's a much easier way to get Poser content into Bryce but it fails so much that it often negates it's value.

Multiple undos as opposed to one (or was it two?) undos in 5.0.1.

Larger preview sizes in the Terrain Editor.

Faster render speeds on the PC when using Image Textures. Sometimes as much as 20% (but this is very scene dependent, so it's actually slower then 5.0.1 in some cases).

A new .OBJ importer which doesn't crash when the path to a texture is incomplete (like Poser .obj paths.). .OBJs also load a heck of a lot faster -close to 50%.

5.5 reads .OBJ material groups. 5.0.1 only did mesh groups. Although I prefer Material Groups many don't. Wish they'd added an option to choose which to use.

5.0.1 used to scale imports to be all the same size. 5.5 now uses the actually dimensions specified in the imported file (well sort of ;-) ). Of course if you use real world dimensions in your modeler for say a building it comes into Bryce extremely large but multiple imports come in with the correct relative size.

Lots of 5.0.1 bug fixes, especially the Light Gel setting getting stuck "on" and Sun Soft Shadow setting that wasn't saved with the file. And the PC Task Bar problem.

A whole bunch of new Bryce content.

5.5 runs under Mac OS 10.4.X. With 5.0.1 none of the file selectors (like Open and Save) worked.

Having said that, 5.5 introduced a whole new set of bugs which in some cases makes 5.5 unusable (like clobbered image textures on the PC or the failure to reload large saved scenes on the Mac).

I mostly use 5.0.1 unless I'm using Poser stuff or very large .OBJ imports. Then I use 5.5, save the file and load that into 5.0.1.

While that's not a heck of a lot (that's why it's a "dot" update), the DAZ programmers did a pretty good job with a code base that, in some cases, is 12 years old, poorly documented, patched to hell and back again and which had none of the original Bryce team to give them insight into Bryce's "intricacies". I'd hoped that DAZ would do what Corel did and bring on some of the original Bryce team as consultants - I think things would have gone a lot quicker/better!

Best;
Dan

Message edited on: 03/21/2006 13:32