I have Bryce 3 and 4. The 4 upgrade was a little disapointing as it seemed to be more of a patch than an upgrade. Is Bryce 5 a true upgrade and worth the $$$'s outlay?

Many will say no! I say yes!

I love the new Bryce... quirks and all. Worth the upgrade if you can get it onsale.. not worth it at $379 for the new package... upgrade for $99...sure!!!

I agree that the upgrade from 3 to 4 didn't give me gobs of stuff 'new'. It did improve on a number of things. In the 4 > 5 upgrade though, you get Metaballs, which is cool by itself. The treelab (using metaballs) is very slick too. And then the lightlab with the new options there is another plus. All in all, I like the new version. :)

In terms of being able to do (useful) things you couldn't do in the previous version, Bryce5 is much more of an upgrade over Bryce4 than 4 was over 3. Bryce4 was essentially a repackaging con trick, a cynical marketing ripoff. Bryce5 does suffer some marketing nonsense. The changes to the look of the interface are all about making it appear new and different, and nothing to do with improving workflow. But 5 has got quite a lot of real 'stuff' that adds something substantial to the artist's toolset. Bryce5 represents a serious and genuine effort on the part of Corel to improve a niche product that is inately difficult (apparently) to improve. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this is a pudding you can eat for free and with no obligation for 30 days, via the fully functioning, non restricted demo. That's what I did. I went in as a 'doubting Thomas', and as the demo ran out of days the need to buy the upgrade package became stronger.

I like Byrce 5. Corel seems to have improved on MetaCreations Bryce 4 I never used Bryce 3 so I dunno about this upgrade vs new version stuff, but I do remember bitterly the Photoshop 5.5 to 6 new version, so it would seem most programs will be largely the same in new versions. I might be wrong, but it sure does seem to render faster (and render time is always the base line for me). I also noticed there is much less post-production work neccesary. IMHO, the new interface is hard on the eyes compared to MC's Bryce. I think the grey/blue/chrome look makes everything fade to grey after a while. I tried it for a week and got the full version. The trial renders very slow.

Two thumbs up! Render speeds might not have improved tremendously, but you can customize the render a lot more, and the new tree and light labs make it easier to create what you want to create.

Thanks everyone. Your oppinions are very helpful. I think I will buy.

I dont know, i like the little improvements like when you click the little hand icon, to pan, it doesent make you do it in the tiny window, it does it with the main window, that in itself is almost worth it for me. The rendering has improved dramatically, they could have tried to improve the textures though, and i got let down when i found out "bryce lightning" is not an app for making photorealistic lightning in bryce.

Hey, I say definately go for it. The best addition has to be the Tree Lab (as quirky as it may be . . . )

Well I must admit it ain't bad. Whilst we all know the interface is quirky does it really matter chrome or clay, depth of field is great but the same can be achieved in PhotoShop in a fraction of the time. Do that many of us network render? Truth is I shall keep and work in 4, 5 to render when I think it is special but only when I can afford A CrayStation