please don't hurt me

Hallo, my name is arry and I'm a long time Brycer.

That said, I am strongly considering investing in Vue 5 Infinite & wondered if any of you have it & your thoughts.  I'm not here to start a flame war (I feel both appys have their strengths), I'd just love some feedback.

Being a Mac OSX user & finding my beloved Bryce is more then a tad behind the times in relation to my OS, I think V5I would be a good match for my fantasy/landscape type renders.  I've downloaded the demo and although I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm liking many of the options V5I offers.

What I can't find is a definitve answer as to whether or not it's possible to import photo textures into V5I (although you'd think it would be) for when I don't prefer a procedural.  If so, are they as easy to edit as in Bryce? Does anyone know if this possible?

I can side grade since I bought Vue 4 back when they had that $99 offer for Brycers.  Due to bugginess with this version, it's sat gathering dust on my HD ever since.  But V5I definitely has some cool features so I'm very interested.

Any thoughts from any those here who use Vue as well as Bryce?  You don't need to be a Mac user but if there are any here with experience using V5I on a Mac, I'd love to hear how it's working for you.  BTW, I'm still using the latest build of Panther & Bryce 5......mainly because I've read Bryce 5.5 is buggy with Tiger.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

~arry

I dare you, while there is still time, to have a magnificent obsession. --William Danforth