What is the Bryce equivalent of wishlist@curiouslabs.com to send complaints and suggestions to? I now have Bryce 5, and I have noticed these misfeatures:- (0) RADIOSITY. What does it mean when Bryce 5 says ray depth = 6 (or whatever I set it to)? Does it mean that rays can be reflected or diffused up to 6 times and still be detected? If so, when I put a sphere just about the ground plane, and made the ground plane 100% reflective, and let the sun or a light shine on the area at a low angle, WHY didn't the ground plane reflect the light up onto the underside of the sphere and illuminate it? I know that Bryce 3 and 4 only let a ray be reflected or diffused one time before it must enter a camera, but I thought that Bryce 5 would be different here. If we do have (optional) radiosity, so that objects with a finite size can be light sources, it would be useful if there was an extra line in the Texture Editor to specify the object's "luminousness", i.e. how much light of what color an object emits. That would help to make the light from fluorescent tubes and powerful raygun beams display and illuminate things properly. (1) When I import an .OBJ file, I still can't specify a scaling ratio, but I must put up with the ancient nuisance of everything being scaled so that max(xmax-xmin, ymax-ymin, zmax-zmin) = 20.48 . After that, when I click the A, I still can't easily rescale it in X Y Z by the same amount to that a particular one of its xsize ysize zsize becomes a particular value, without getting a calculator out. (2) If I import an .OBJ file that contains materials, Bryce still calls the resulting parts e.g. mask_1 mask_2 etc instead of mask_faceplate mask_strap etc. When importing an .OBJ file which was made by Poser, that is a nuisance. (3) In the Texture Editor and the Deep Texture Editor, when I click to choose a color, why do I still get that imprecise small imited-set 2D color display?? Why after all this time can't Bryce call instead the proper standard Windows color-selector function ChooseColor() like Poser and my utility FACES call? (4) I would like to be able to switch shadows on or to less intensity or off, or to vary their softness, for the whole scene at once instead of having to do it one at a time for every component that has its own texture.

Well I haven't experimented in Bryce 5 with most of what you mention here, but as to number 2, it's the way the object is exported I believe. I just recently imported a whole bunch of figures/props into Bryce 5 from various sources including Poser. While I can't speak for the other programs, when exporting from Poser, make sure you have the first box checked in the export options (Include Body Part Names in Polygon Groups). This will allow Bryce to properly put in the names in the Mesh list.

1: This means the number of reflections a ray can extend before bryce stops and decides that a pixel is "x" color. B5 allows you to increase this so that you can have more than the old 6 reflections. There is no radiosity in Bryce. There is what can be called glow, but not radiosity. That is the "true ambiance" setting in the render options. It will allow an object with higher ambiant settings in the material lab shine a little light on near objects. However, high ambiant settings do make an object look odd. 2: This is a gripe of mine too. The best you can do is a quick rescale by dragging one of the corner black boxes of the selected object while holding the shift key. When it snaps twice, it will be closer to a real height (if you are using 1 bryce unit = 1 inch) 3. Hold down the alt key and click the color swatch. 4. In the sky lab, the second window at the top. Click and drag left til the value reads "0". Shadows will be off for the whole scene. (careful with this...it can mess with your head later..heh) luck BT