I found out today that Bryce 5 is now on the market, but it is, as usual, available for north americans only. Have a look at these stores: http://www.TigerDirect.com http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pcstop These poor webstores can not supply customers outside USA. How long do we Europeans have to wait? - Zoot

I ordered the update at amazon.co.uk today.they say it will be shipped on the 11.7. and shipping will last 3 days.if you are from europe like me and you need the english version , try it.no probs with the custom or something like this

Thanx, Pervers! I purchased it on the double. So no I'm waitin', waitin', waitin'. - Zoot

tap,tap,tap.....waiting....waiting lol

I am extremely disappointed with what Corel has given in Bryce 5. I don't think it's worth the upgrade from Bryce 4. For the price of a full version of Bryce 5 you could buy an actual modelling program and expand what you can do in Bryce 4. A vegetation maker is not enough to justify upgrading,I was hoping for so much more. I'll just stick with Bryce 4 for now, It's like the difference between Bryce 3 & 4,(not that big a deal). Your money would be better spent on Carrara or something else. $159 for the upgrade is not a deal, Corel is taking advantage of the upcoming new bryce users, $319 for a new boxed Bryce? Are they crazy? Bryce 4 was $199. I will not be buying the upgrade anytime soon, until the price comes down significantly, like down to $50 for the upgrade, because that's all it should cost, there isn't enough there to make it worth the inflated price. Shame on you Corel!!!

the vegetation editor isn't all that great it usally adds 5x the render time per tree and the over all interface isn't as responsive as bryce 3 or 4 still kinda buggy needs,i'm sure they'll fix it in the next update. what shocked me is the 2 discs that it came on most everything- is old scene files,animations,presets from bryce 3 & 4.I was expecting everything new,or at least more new than old but other than that the rendering is better and softlights are cool

My opinion is the same that Kaom. I think i neve say this, but i miss metacreations time. Corel think i am going to update to bryce 5 for the almost same price i buy bryce 4. I think the price for the total version is very very expensive... $319 (5) $250 (4) It is my opinion, I paid 319 for a new bryce if it bring to me many new things. A tree generator and improve a time render is mot enough.

Interesting thread. I'm a dedicated B4 user, but my time and machine power are both limited, so the faster renderer in Vue 4 is tempting, too, even if the interface is less appealing than that of Bryce. The veggie generator and better lighting/rendering, including soft shadows are (AFAIK) the main selling points of B5. If anyone would offer a few comments like the above on rendering times, bugs (if any) and, well, whatever else, I'd appreciate it. Thanx in advance.

Yeah, guys, you're right! Corel sucks, that's for sure! Money, money, money... But...since I'm an addicted Brycaholic - what can I do? I tested Vue a couple of times and for me it's not even close to Bryce. Diving into that interface feels like coming home, ya'know. - Zoot

The price for the upgrade is a bit high but not much higher than any software upgrade in this price range. The new features sound terrific and I have seen some amazing images done with bryce by the beta testers and those newer users who already have it. I think it has allot of great sounding new features and I upgraded. The reviews I read were also excellent. I like Bryce and I cant wait for the new version. The gallery at bryce5.net has some good examples of what it can do if anyone is interested. I visited all the beta testers galleries I could find and read reviews before making my decision and even personally asked a few beta testers, both of which gave it excellent reviews as well.

I'm more interested in the metaball stuff, has anyone played with that yet?

I can't even find a description of what Bryce 5 has in it. Corel site only has a picture and place to type in your e-mail address for updates. I can't find anything that tells what the new features are in it. I will assume they still haven't done anything special with the water. I kept hoping B4 would have crashing waves and waterfalls, but no. All they did with that was a minor tweak of the Sky Lab. Why so much focus on the skies? I want to see more water effects. Anyone know where I can read a full description with screen shots of what Bryce 5 has in it? Melanie

Attached Link: http://www.macconnection.com

For Mac users (and Windows users too--the CD is cross-platform) you can get the upgrade for $119.95 at MacConnection. It's backordered, and is supposed to ship on or about July 20th. If you can wait, it's worth the savings.

The one glaring flaw about Bryce is the fact that there are no plugins for it, I don't even know if they can be done. If there were there could be plugins for waves, water, rivers, or whatever was needed. That really bothers me, no plugins, can it be done? If so why have there been none? kaom

What kind of plugins are you looking for? Bryce does a lot of the photoshop plugins.

What Bryce 5 is offering isn't worth the upgrade price if you have B4. No improvement in render times--unless you're on a network; no true vegetation--just trees; no Poser import. I wonder, do you still have to know a bunch of secret key combinations to do certain things? I'm getting Vue 4. It has faster render times, true vegetation, and imports Poser scenes. I'll get the Bryce 5 upgrade when it shows up on eBay for $50.

Corel spent a lot of effort in getting the render quality to equal some of the more expensive packages. They've cleaned up some things, stabilized code, and added the trees. i'm not sure why they added the trees the way they did... i've found them to be kind of weird. Given the kind of competition they face, i'm not sure i could have made better decisions on what to upgrade. Vue seems to have sacrificed the ability to do some basic good 3d modeling with primitives for the vegetation thing. Oh well. There are inexpensive models and Plant Studio, really. B5 does pep up their terrain editor, mat editor (now there's a USER mats category!), and lighting editor. And they have soft shadows--not to be sneezed at, friends, as the harshness of Bryce lighting renders was quite the achilles heel.

griggs, I'm talking about 3D plugins, like other 3D programs have. Not Photoshop plugins,plugins that expand the capabilities of the application itself.Like a plugin that could make a wave or a plant plugin. I know all about the Photoshop plugins, but thats not what I'm talking about here. kaom

Yes, the super-capability plugins, such as that plant builder--didn't i read about a really nifty one somewhere in these forums? And something that makes ripples around a shore or waves... there's a program like that for the Mac, i think. But what a major code overhaul! ((sigh))

plugins would be the icing on the cake I think. I am waiting for a little while before upgrading to B5. I own xfrog so plants are not something I would use to determine the useablity of a renderer. Though I believe B5 offers alot in the way of improvements, especially in render quality. Perhaps B6 will have plugins lets all hope! Poser imports have always been easy in B4 so no need to for me to directly import a pz3 file if no animation is imported with it who cares if its a pz3 or a 3ds or a obj? Besides who wants fast if quality has to suffer, Never used the no AA setting for a reason. It will remain to be seen what people can create with the tree editor and metaballs, I will go out on a limb here and say you will in the long run be able to create more real plants with good use of tree editor and metaballs then vue would ever dream possible.