Hi, all. I'm going to ask a blunt question: is it worth upgrading to Bryce 5 from Bryce 4? The only new features I've seen/read about are the tree editor and networking capability. I'm not running a network, and there are plenty of tree models out there, so other than those two features, what does Bryce 5 offer that Bryce 4 doesn't? If that's all they've added I'd rather sink $150 into something else. Thanks in advance for any info.

Im still on bryce 4 and I dont think ill upgrade very soon.for trees i have xfrog, I have no network.Ok ,softshadows would be nice.Maybe later...

Bryce 5 is nice, I used 4 for about a year and just switched to 5 recently, you can almost completely customize your rendering with alot to make your scenes look better, up to 256 rays per pixel too,lets see, metaballs, tho not exactly a huge deal are still a great idea, they're just balls that melt together or repel each other, really great for making organic shapes the textures melt together just as smooth as the balls do too. and the tree lab is great, not perfect, but its really nice to have. and ok, so you get slower renders, but what you get from it is worth it most of the time, anyway, what i say is, Bryce 5, worth buying the program? no. the upgrade? yes.

From what I've heard about B5, it really is an excellent program, better than B4 in many ways. I personally am not going to upgrade until B6 (it shouldn't be too long before they come out with that, maybe a year and a few months, right?). ~JKS

Man-O-War, was that OSX running on G3 or G4? I'm hesitant to upgrade (at this time) but if those spead increases are true is true I might make the plunge a little sooner than later.

I'm in trouble! The first part of the MacOS X statement was WRONG. I meant to say the speed was "decreased". The second part was correct, on 9.1 seven minutes and on MacOS X twenty-eight minutes. All done on a G3 500 labtop (pismo) I apologize for the wrong info. manowar

BTW Regarding my post(s) on OS x, I think the vast discrepancy may have been in part the heavily fragmented partition it was running on. This was before coming across the X compatible Norton Utilies 6.0 disk doctor and optimization, these two components also available as a "trial demo." manowar

NO! I got it and cannot use it. There are some old objects I have that KILL the program along with my computer. I was having to save every 2 seconds. When it did blow up.....and it ALWAYS did....I had to reboot my computer, uninstall Bryce 5 and then reinstall it. I kept calling support, they said I didn't have enough ram.....I have 768 ram! PLENTY! My computer was BUILT to be a graphics machine! I am now using Bryce 4 again, feeling the sting of $150 blown out the window!!! Mind you, this is just MY opinion, but other people have been having similar problems! I would see if you can try it out first.

wow, thats wierd never heard of that happening before, anyone else have this problem?

man-o-wR, thanks for the info again RE OSX. I have the 400mgz pismo (don't have a labtop though!), nice machine. Think I'll wait on the OSX & go for B5.

DragonMagic59: I'm sorry to hear that. I think that Corel should try to FIX bugs rather then introduce new features and even MORE bugs. But then again, they are following Microsoft's lead... Anyhow, I've had the same problem with my sister's computer, it just bombs out with any of the old Bryce4 objects, however It runs bearly stable on my computer.. gosh I hate Corel. So I'm back on 4, bearly using 5, only if I have too, such as tree scenes, if needed.. Still waiting for Corel to get of their lazy butts and decide to do some long over due bug fixing to Bryce.

Well Shannara.....I'm sorry to hear you are having the same problems, but at least it's not just me. Corel has been less that helpful, I must say! Sigh, I will just make due with Bryce 4 till a patch comes out. Then I'll give them a second chance. If it don't work then.....well, I will have a copy of Bryce 5 for sale!!!

Ebay is the way to go if your selling it. But knowing Corel, a patch won't be out for years....But by then, they'll do something like release a patch, then release a newer version a few months later, complete with 2 - 5 more features and quite a few more major bugs to put under their belt. Yeah, I'm kinda angry at them. I hate it when people sale software that has not been tested before releasing to the masses. Which means, that everybody who is buying Bryce 5 are basically testers and have not bought a "stable" product. Mind you, this is only my PC experience, I have never tried it on Macintosh (sp?). I quit using macintoshes back in 1996, since they are really only good for video editing and streaming.. lol

I do 3D art on a "professional" level...my final renders of most of my work take an average of 4 to 6 days to complete. An additional 2.1 days in Unnacceptable...and after the bugs I have experienced with 4 I will NOT buy 5 and deal with more problems.

well... I've upgraded to five and havent had any problems "yet". You can check out my review of Bryce 5 at the 3d comic collective www.3dcc.com. Just click on the "software reviews" link on the left side of the screen. Doug Sturk