Got my Bryce 5 upgrade package today! Having read all these complaints concerning installation and expected upgrade advantages, all I can say is: I installed over a former MetaCreation Bryce 4 version without no trouble at all. Maybe I was just lucky...? It renders faster than before. I have that memory-poor-treating Windows ME OS but Bryce still renders faster than before. The possibility to have my own libraries show up is a hit. No more library import fuzz... The Tree editor is just as good as or better than expected. It just takes a little practice... There are so many more features I like but it would take up too much space to cover it all in a thread. What I did NOT like is the new interface color scheme. The old one was more tasty. -Zoot

I'm interested in the tree editor myself, one of the things I felt Bryce was lacking big time before. How much creativity does it give you, how's the quality???

I got my upgrade last week, I agree with you the tree editor is very nice, a good addition, I don't mind the interface, I think you can change it if you want.....I also had Bryce 4 and my installation went like a breeze, I had been following up on all who posted bad installations, but no problems here either, and again, my rendering is faster also. I am quiet satisfied with the upgrade, I love the new wood textures also. Sharen:-)

So your results on rendering speed are interesting. I used a file from http://www.gauchito.com/bryce/render_times/ to test Bryce5 render times. On an 850Mhz laptop with 256Meg of memory running under Windows ME, the render time was 7:55 under Bryce 5 and 6:52 under Bryce 4. This was using the standard antialiasing. Are you guys running standard AA or something else? In the less measurable category, it seems to take longer to access the file comands at the top of the screen. The 'close window' actions on the various labs also seem to be noticable slower. Except for the tree editor and some spit and polish, I'm wondering what I bought. I am interested in some of the features such as soft shadows and the ultra-high resolution rendering and network rendering, so I am willing to accept the shortcomings in this release.

Jambra: The tree quality is very good as soon as you get the hang of it. ;) There's a lot of bark textures, there are leaf textures and a lot of predesigned trees like maples, cykamores, oaks a s o. I didn't find that the trees slowed down the rendering that much either. I am completely satisfied with my B5 upgrade so far and that's not only for the Tree lab. -Zoot

Thanks for the response, I've really been wondering about that!! Now to break open the piggy bank...and do what I must!!

I continued that render benchmark at: http://www22.brinkster.com/brycebench It's a bit slow ('cause it's a free page) but at least it's more "up with the times." -Brian

Anybody have any results for a mac using os 9.X?

Douglas re the slow access to the menu. I've heard others say this too. I think it's from two things (1) if the thumbnail is previewing it's going to be slower for the menus to come down and (2) the hit area is smaller than in Bryce 4. You have to hit the top of the screen then the menu pops down. Hard to describe, but what I do is swipe my mouse up as far as the cursor will go and it works. If the thumbnail is rendering, I swipe the mouse up there and click. HTH Spit