Im about to purchase either ray dreams 5.5 or Bryce 4. I was wondering which I should get first (in time I plan to get bouth. The picture is here to indicate were I am right now (as far as skill or lack of)

Bryce 4. I assume you have Poser, and Bryce 4 would add so much in the way of backgrounds, rendering your characters, lighting, special effects and such. Raydream is more for creating characters, morphs, props and such. Please correct me if I am wrong, for I have only dabbled in both; and this is the impression I get from the options, and what others have told me. Radart.

well my friend that really depends on what you are going for. If you want the capability to fcreate morphs and your own 3d Obj. files to use within poser and create "original" models then I would go the way of Raydream. Raydream is also good for indoor type rendered scenes although I think the cmera and lights are much more of a pain to manipulate in this program than in bryce or poser. Now, If you want a piece of software that will help you create large environmental scenes and very nicely detailed renders of you poser figures in a "world" environment then Bryce 4 is definately the way to go. I would also have to say that out of all three pieces f software (bryce, Raydream, and poser) Bryce create the cleanest and smoothest renders. So it really depends on were you want to go first. I know I use Bryce much more than I do raydream as I really can't seem to find the time or the patience to create a bunch of morphs or models. Unlike some of the modeling masters on this forums. I just like to try to create pretty pictures.

Agreed. Bryce is a far more powerful engine - but you really need a good graphics machine to render things in a reasonable amount of time.

Hey Mock.. For the quality of the rendering and ease of use Bryce4 is the way to go..:)