I dont have either Bryce or Vue and I am trying to determine how I decide which to buy. What does one do much better than the other? Apparently Vue is superb with foliage, what about Bryces strengths? Thank you. Pinto

Bryce 5 has trees Bryce does many things vastly better then vue. Bryce is stable Vue is not Bryce rendering engine is more accurate and more powerfull Bryce has more support through out the community 100 times the users 1000 times the tutorials. Bryce has more free content Trees for 5, materials , skies Bryce anti aliasing is far superior to Vue Bryce can use photoshop plugins to make and manipulate textures Bryce can do abstract images as well as still life and nature Bryce 5 has a fully customizeable render, you can tweak each part of it to your hearts content Bryce 5 has multiple undo Bryce is harder ,and slower (because of quality) It truely depends on you look at the Vue galleries and look at the Bryce galleries here and elsewhere on the net. See for yourself what there is to like and dislike about each. check out bryce select gallery elsewhere on the net for some other pictures. Check out E-on's gallery. You will see the major differance in the galleries. (poser figures, and the ability to do many different styles of art) Download the demos

is it Bryce 5 i hear? i did'nt heard of bryce 5 being released although i waiting for it badly...please reply to clear the confusion! ceaser

Er... probably not released yet. Some beta tester(s) may be peeping up about it, and there are some details available from the Renderosity front page (scroll down). i concur with grigg's assessments. 0:^)

Bryce 5 is not officially released yet (July 11th). That being said, pcconnection had the upgrade for 119 but has already sold out (drats I missed it) also it is on the shelfs in the local compusa (full expensive version). So some people have already been playing with it for a week!!!!

1.) For each tree made in bryce, it slows down bryce tremendously for rendering, in Vue, it does not. Quality for rendering trees are the same in both Bryce and Vue. 2.) For more accurate and powerful, is highly in doubt. 3.) The tutorials and community for Bryce over Vue is higher, but not the said amount previously :) Vue is just not a well known product to the netizens. 4.) Vue is stable, depending on what OS you are running. With that said, Bryce is unstable on some systems. 5.) Bryce made trees, created in B5 cuts down rendering tremendously. Best off using model trees in another program and import them... Vue 3 has the advantage there. Except now, on Vue 4 it has a plant creation section also, I think Im going to have to buy it and do a better comparson. 6.) For some reason, it took a 3rd party to allow direct import of Poser files, VUE 4... Bryce and Poser was owned by the same company at one time, and they still had NO compatiblity between their own products... sad... 7.) Have to admit that Vue4 pics looks better then Bryce5 8.) Speed Speed Speed!! With high(er) quality then bryce5.. hehe and nope, I don't use Vue too often, mainly because Bryce5 offers multi-computer support :) and is a bit easier for me to use then Vue. :P Bah, maybe time to switch.. lol.

Warder what is the max ray depth in vue? B5 - max ray per pixel = 256 adjustable B4 - max ray per pixel = 16 depends on AA B5 - max internal reflections = 10 adjustable B5 - max ray depth = 10 adjustable These things have a direct real* and tangable effect on accuracy and final output. I would be more then interested in Vue's abilities in this area. http://www.bryce5.net/images/Gallery/674510813buddahglass.jpg This is what it effects glass and reflections sharpness and realisitic objects. If you can point us in the direction of a higher quality more realistic object rendered in Vue then I will agree with you on the accuracy part. my view on renders of the two applications (comming from a bryce and Lightwave owner) 1. default renders vue wins hands down 2. landscapes with little work vue wins hands down 3. landscapes with a lot of work tie 4. abstracts Vue isnt even in the race 5. surreal images ummmm.... wheres vue? again not even in the race 6. accuracy Bryce wins hands down 7. cheesy lense flares (boy are we in for a treat) Vue wins again I threw that last one in to just be funny :) Anyway that is my view I am sure others may see it differently. As for stability perhaps you have not had a chance to check out the Vue forum (its a mad house in there) but Bryce has not crashed on me in over a year.

Hmmm... which is better, Bryce or Vue? Okay... what flavour of ice cream do you prefer, vanilla or chocolate? It's really the same kind of question. We can compare specifications until we are blue in the face. But at the end of the day it all comes down to the quality of images produced. If you take a good look at what people are doing with both programs you will see some superb work. Don't go just by the average work because that's all it is- average and neither program has an exclusive on mediocrity. In some things one program may make you work a little harder than the other but that's par for life anyhow. On the whole, I think it is easier to create more natural looking landscapes in Vue but Bryce 5 may change that. On the other hand, surreal effects seem more readily achieved in Bryce but then Vue 4 may change this. But I agree that for abstracts Bryce definitely appears to have the advantage. I'm not saying Vue can't handle this but I have yet to see anything by it that rivals Brycean efforts. Unless you have a particular interest in abstract art I really don't think you can go wrong with either choice. Besides, when the next versions come out it will be a whole new game again.

jval, Exactly what do you mean by abstracts being superior in Bryce? Does that mean flat surfaces and reflections? Thanks Pinto

Hi Pinto, Remember that this is only personal opinion so take it for what it is worth. It is not so much that Bryce gives superior abstracts. It is more that the possibilities of abstracts within Vue 3 (maybe 4 is different) appear extremely limited in comparison. Admittedly I have not used Vue a great deal having only experimented a bit with that of a friend's. In creating abstractions I typically use reflections, volumetric materials, harsh or unusual lighting, extreme perspectives and viewpoints, and so on. The range of possibilites within Bryce appear to exceed those within Vue. Perhaps this is because the ones who designed Vue did not anticpate that people might wish to use it for non-landscape or non-realistic imagery. I have spent considerable time viewing personal web galleries. I have only occassionally come across Vue based abstract imagery and in no instance did they have the intensity or variety found in the many Bryce abstracts on the web. I would expect that within the vast Vue community at least a few would have indulged themselves with abstract art. The paucity of same leads me to conclude that either it is not really feasible as it is with Bryce or, at the least, extremely difficult. I don't claim these are great but you can see a few examples of what I mean at: http://www.fractalus.com/jack/ Look at the abstracts section. I have also attached a somewhat different style for instant gratification. Except for a single Poser figure this image was done completely in Bryce with no post processing (except for resizing and making the jpeg).

i hate this questions. What is better Bryce, AWB, vue... What is better Max, lightwave,.... Well. Enought. The important thing is the work you do, not the program you use to do it. I use Bryce 4, I like it, but other people like vue more, well, that's ok...

Well, the original question did not ask which was better. Pinto only wanted to know about the relative strengths of each program. It is probably better to research this before you have spent your money thereby reducing potential disappointment after the fact. If more people did this there would probably be fewer moans and groans about software inadequacies.

jval, The real strengths of a forum like this is the vast amount of real experience and knowledge available, and the generosity of those who share it. One would be foolish not to take advantage of this knowledgebase, particularly when buying new software that may or may not fit your needs. Thanks again. Pinto

Actually, one of Bryce's selling points to me was its ability to use Photoshop Plugins. I use Kai Power Tools all the time for textures, etc. On the whole, I'm not really into abstracts so I would have to say they are relatively equal when it comes to realism. So far, no one with Bryce 5 has mentioned how good the plant function works, and there has been no mention of the metaballs modeller. I'm wating to hear. I want to be able to export models, and from the lack of any mention, I have to assume that neither vue nor Bryce can export. Oh well. I'll still probably upgrade both of them.

I've only had VUE 4 for a few days, but it's very easy to learn (I hate reading instructions anyway). I have Bryce 4 and it just seems I get more done faster in VUE 4. Plus the ability to import Poser directly is fantastic. I would ask which is better too, but I imagine it still comes down to a strengths and weaknesses comparison. VUE renders FAST! Even with super resolution. And it takes advantage of dual processors. But I have to assume that Bryce does too. I'm not going to race out and buy Bryce 5 unless there's some major advantage over VUE 4. I'd really like to know about that specific issue. Doc

Pinto I have and have used Bryce 2,3,and 4 and more recently-Lightwave 6.5 and 6.5b. For abstracts? For me Bryce wins HANDS down over Lightwave-which is the "better" program. With bryce you just "get in" and start playing. Lightwave requires constant thought and planning and does not encourage playing as much. THe modeler and "layout" are separate in LW. You dont directly interact on your scene the way you do in Bryce. And yet- Bryce is limited in many, many, ways compared to Lightwave... With sufficient effort a Brycean landscape can be made in LW, with fantastic skies and water. AND either from scratch or importation of a poser figure-LW can animate a character to walk, swim, crawl or fly around the bryce style terrain. I have learned to create such terrains in Lightwave, create realistic water-(more "real" than in Bryce)-but it is NOT as direct in an artists sense of immediate feedback. I would LOVE to see Bryce funtion within LW as a plugin... Eric Walters

LOL...when you put AWB into the equation the answer (without discussing price) is definately AWB. Apparently it can import Poser...blah blah blah...and it literally creates a virtual world, not just part of it. (again from the way I am understanding what I read...I could be wrong) Not picking...just thought that was funny as hell...kind of like the old "Cola Wars" between Pepsi and Coke. Independant studies proved the RC Cola was picked more times than either of them.