Ok, so I've been searching this forum and have seen a VERY FEW mentions of this, but it always seems pretty vague... so I'll come right out and ask;   IS THERE ANY WAY TO MAKE TREES BEND, MOVE, RUSTLE, SWAY, OR IN ANY WAY act as if wind is affecting them  in Bryce  5.5 ?!?! 

I almost feel stupid asking this, because animating a tree to move slightly seems like a no-brainer for a 3D application, but I have been trying for days to figure it out or to find some answer on the web. Or at least has anybody found a reasonable "work around"?

Animating a scene where everything is moving except the trees looking rigid is pretty stagnant.  Any help, please?

Sorry There is no physics in Bryce. I was thinking you could change the randomness or gravity by a percent to make the branches move but there is no animation line in the tree editor. Whatever change you make goes through the entire animation. The only way to do this is render a frame, shift every tree by hand. render another frame, and stitch it all together.

You can try rotating the tree or moving just a unit in any direction. Shifts like these will animate. The problem is trees don't jump they sway. The other possibility is animate the texture so the dark and light on the leaves shifts.The problem is this is probably going to look directional or way too kenetic.

That's what I was afraid of..  but thanks for the quick reply!  Is it just me, or is this a GIANT oversight? As I said before this seems almost basic....  (sigh)

Carrara has had this feature since ver. 5. I recently picked up C7Pro and a copy of Mimic on the cover disc of 3DWorld for the price of the magazine. Not putting down Bryce at all. I recently bought B7Pro and I love the updates, especially the volumetric clouds, which IMO beat Carrara's all to heck. Different apps, different strengths.

Bryce trees are spawned via metaballs, its in the works for a new vegitation lab, right now if you have Bryce pro and the newest Daz studio, you can rig a tree object in D/S then bridge it over to Brycepro, but it is being developed.

Vue has had this ability for quite some time now. It is called Solid Growth Technology, and only works with solid growth vegetation.