cool! It's about time. ;-) Now I guess we get to pay to beta test it huh? hehe.

I run all my PC 3ds files through MacConverter before I import them. Otherwise I find that the textures don't import pre-applied.

My favorite setting are 85mm for the face camera and 55mm for the main camera. I've been a photographer for over 30 years and that has been one of my biggest peeves about Poser since day one. I'm glad someone else mentioned it too.

Yup, I just posted in in the forum news too. How long do you think it will be before someone comes out with a "genital morph" retrofit for the millennium kids? (kidding)

I use an 85mm lens setting for the face camera. I don't know where you got 105mm as portrait standard. I've been a photographer for over 30 years and I would use (in 35mm format) an 85mm or a 135mm. The higher the focal length, the more it flattens out the face. Poser's default is at 25mm, which is almost "fish eye". Meaning it causes maximum distortion. Even the main camera setting is too low at 38mm, it should be set at 50 or 55mm for best results. As for the face, I'm guessing Toni Braxton, but I'd have to see her boobs to be sure. ;-)

Imported textures and greyscale images for terrain or lattice ARE allowed, as mentioned before, since that is "Pre-render" work. With regards to Sipapu, don't be discouraged. I recall when I was just starting out EVERYTHING was a challenge. ;-)

You know...it wouldn't be too hard to make that into a '64 and a half convertible with a little more work. ;-) I can't wait to see it finished.

I don't know what the hell you just said ;-/, hehe. BUT, it seems to me that no post work, means no post work and that should include "compositing" in post to create a depth of field effect. What's to stop someone from "touching up" these layers, in fact the act of blurring the background layer should be considered post work in itself. So you don't have Bryce5, too bad. Not everyone rendering in Bryce5 is going to do a depth of field effect, so why give special favor to Bryce4 users? It just seems like we are making too many exceptions because of an upgrade. Importing textures and bump maps into Bryce is not post work, because it happens before the render. Allowing folks to chop up their image into layers is blatant post work. Let's not dilute this challenge too. I don't want to bring up last months challenge again, but we're getting a similar pattern. Last month Bryce5 users submitted all metaball work because that was the main theme of the contest. That theme was amended to allow Bryce4 users to enter with booleans as opposed to metaballs. Apples and Oranges IMHO. No offense or sour grapes intended Humorix, your image was gorgeous, no doubt about it. BUT, had the challenge been booleans for all the results might have been different. Metaballs are still fairly new to us Bryce users, and while many of us are old hands with booleans, Metaballs present a whole different set of challenges to create something presentable. The main challenge being Metaballs, that's what Bryce5 users did, while Bryce4 users got to take the "relatively easy" route with booleans. In that case it's really not a fair contest because you are working with two completely different objects. Which is why we should have had two winners, one for Metaballs and one for Booleans, but that is water under the bridge. I think the rules for this challenge were already defined and redefined. Let's not keep changing them past the 12th hour. No post work means NO POST WORK. Let's not handicap or penalize the Bryce5 users again...please. ;-)

No offense Wolf359, but I can't read your text at all. Between the neon colors against my slate blue background, and your tiny italicized fonts, I can hardly make out a word of it. What's wrong with standard text color and font size?

Sounds good, I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

"Ummmmm would you be a lawyer by any chance? ;-) " No, but my father was. ;-)

Now here's another one. What about imported textures and Pict textures? Do all textures have to be Bryce native? Just getting these things out there up front. ;-)

I guess the "No Imports" rule would mean no imported greyscale images to create custom terrains or symetrical lattices as well?

hey it was just a suggestion ;-)

The one that ports to Mac first is the one I will buy, and tell all my friends to buy ;-) So far they're both PC only so I can't recommend either.