.

Thanks to all who helped. Alas, the reinstall from the Poser 3 CD didn't work for me (I must be one of the unlucky ones). So I deleted the directory, removed the icons, and searched through the registry for occurrences of "Poser 3" and deleted those subtrees as well. After a reboot, most everything seemed to be more or less cleaned up, and I was able to install Poser 4 and get on with the fun. Thanks again!

Yep, I did indeed install the 3.01 update. I'll hold off a little bit longer to see if JeffH happens to come by with the definitive answer. ;)

Corel has also reported that they are working on a 4.1 patch that will upgrade both their version and the Metacreations version (with some fixes and features above and beyond even the Metacreations 4.0.1 version). They said something about finishing it by "the end of the summer". But until then, Corel Bryce users are unfortunately stuck at version 4.0.

Oops, Toad already suggested that, and I missed it. Sorry!

Or maybe he should just change the name to "After the Storm"? :) Especially if he could get the ground textures to look a little more "wet" (might be just a matter of darkening them).

I believe Joanna's original post to the corelsupport.bryce newsgroup (hosted on Corel's server) in the "Bryce Patch News" thread specified that the 4.1 patch will be able to upgrade all Bryce 4 users (both Meta and Corel). Check it out for yourself and see if you don't agree.

From reading their announcements about the acquisition of Bryce and other Metacreations programs, I'm under the impression that one of Corel's intentions is to broaden their market base for the products, so I would think that french and other international versions are likely. (I'm not a Corel rep, though, so this is just a guess.)

What's the link to the admitance by Corel? Look in the corelsupport.bryce newsgroup on the cnews.corel.com news server. There's a thread about this from over the past weekend, and the latest response from one of the C_Tech people indicates this fact.

Did you insert the Bryce 4.0 Cd like you needed to with the MC patch. Of course! :) Multiple times, in fact. And in case you missed it at the top of this thread, Corel has already admitted that the 4.0.1 patch doesn't work with their version of Bryce.

"Would a Corel Bryce patch be able to patch Meta Bryce as well?" Impossible to say, of course. However, I suspect that IF Corel makes a 4.0.1 patch that works with their version of Bryce 4, such a patch probably wouldn't include anything beyond the fixes and enhancements that were in the Meta 4.0.1 patch, so the current patch would still bring Meta Bryce owners up to the same level. I honestly don't see them spending a significant amount of time fixing anything beyond the 4.0.1 sources (which I presume they should have on hand, since they purchased the program), when they are apparently already working on the next version. Unfortunately my concern is if Corel is even inclined to take the comparatively small amount of time to whip up a version of the 4.0.1 patch that's at least compatible with their own CD. (They sure aren't making it easy for anyone to report problems.) So if you have the Meta version of Bryce, for the moment I'd count myself as pretty doggone lucky if I were you. I for one will certainly not consider upgrading to any future version of Corel Bryce unless they first provide the 4.0.1 fixes and enhancements that I was expecting to get (since they are listed as features on the Bryce product page of Corel's website) when I purchased the Corel version of Bryce 4 last week. The jury is still out for the moment, but if they don't rectify this with a working patch (NOT a paid upgrade), I'm afraid I'll have to consider this to have been a bait-and-switch tactic on their part.

Corel has indeed done something to the software itself ... something minor, but that's all it took. When you start up the Corel version of Bryce, you see the Corel logo, and the menu options are changed to point to Corel's website. Both of these changes occurred in files that the patch program apparently wants to update (such as "menus.dat"). The patch program then sees those files as an invalid version (since they need to be byte-for-byte exact before a patch programs will work) and just gives up on the process. Also, the Corel Bryce 4 EXE may not be precisely the same as the Meta Bryce 4 EXE in some other minor unknown ways, as the version numbers are also different. (Bryce's original release was 4,0,0,16, whereas the Corel release is 4,0,0,13.)

Related question: is there any way to have the sun and moon appear in any position other than 180 degrees opposite one another? Obviously this is seldom the case in real life. I was hoping to create a "twilight" image with the sun just having set and the moon visible in the image not too far above the western horizon, but as far as I can tell this is not allowed in Bryce 4. Is there any way to do it (or at least fake it)?

Bee - Yep, I ended up sending one via that address earlier today. Only problem is that it's supposed to be for comments to the webmaster only. I wrote him to ask about the normal tech support email problem, and also asked him to forward my message about the Bryce patch to the proper department. Hawkfyr - I agree. Can't understand why they wouldn't ship the latest version, in the first place. But then simply posting the old patch to their website without actually testing if it still ran against their rebuilt version ... hmm. I guess very few people have purchased the Corel version of Bryce thus far (how long has it been out, anyway?). Anyway, now I guess I'll just have to wait and see if anything comes of my queries. Thanks all ...

Bee, If you have the Metacreations CD of Bryce, then I believe the current patch (the only patch that's ever been, actually) should work. I'm pretty sure it's still the same patch that Metacreation originally put together, as it has a date that's way back to last fall (and that's exactly the problem). If instead you're like me and have one of the new Corel Bryce CDs, then we're out of luck unless Corel issues a new version of the patch. I for one will be watching closely to see what transpires.