DTE sucks utterly versus a node based material editor
sorry, but that is one part Vue kicks Bryce up and down on, folks ;)

if folk love Bryce, fine, no worries. But the DTE needs put down and something sane, understandable put in it's place. DTE and Mojoworld's material systems are reasons I loathe working in their deep material editors, *uuuuugh
*sorry I want ot make mats, I am NOT a maths geek, I laothe algebraic arcane crap, hehe! ;)

Beyce's basic mat editor is superb, but the DTE = ttotal disconenct from anything that is based on HUMAN PERCEPTION, which is in direct opposition to Bryce's entire ethos
i.e. Bryce's interface is mean o t be for artists, not  nuclear power plant engineering nerds like 3DMax's interface is meant for, hehe

Anyway, Vue, tutorial of mine, how I made a "dirt map" material
once made, I can copy the original material of an object, load in the dirt map material to replace it, then paste in the original material, effect is it gives procdural dirt straight away, to any mat
You cna also use UVmapped greyscale images to give it precise dirt mapping
try that in bryce without going nuts ;)

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/13.html

So you go form THIS, boring and not realistic plank texture

to this, with simple clicks and 10 minute sin a paint editor to make the UV map

this is small rez greyscale to drive where the dirt goes

I don't know how Bryce's isntancing will work, but in Vue I use it for a lot of things, not just plants...
In this pic, I duplicated (which in Vue are instances, but NOT ecosystems) several special lights
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1755936&user_id=7541&np&np
these lights were set to affect nothing and had custom lens flares...stars! ;)

So think out of the box, folk have used Vue instances and plants to make smoke, fire etc (replacing leave textures with transparency driven ones for fire etc)

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!