Hi, here is a question to all of You brycers who have some experience with Vue dEsprit but still prefer Bryce. Why do you like Bryce better than Vue ? (I will post the opposite question in the Vue Forum.)

Because Bryce is so versatile, I know Vue can do a lot too, but mainly I'm just used to the interface, it's so intuitive once you get used to it. Bryce is an all around 3D program, and I love it. Vue is cool too, but to me Bryce is so much easier to use. Absinthe huh? I've had some absinthe in my day, dangerous stuff! But MMMMM.. so tasty. kaom

The reason I would use Bryce over Vue is in abstract scenes and indoor scenes... REcently I did a project where i had to do get a look as though a bottle was being photographed on a table.. Bryce did the job marvelously with almost no effort... Vue just couldn't do it.. Also, the metals in Bryce look better... It's just easier to get that abstract look in Bryce... I like the trees in the new Bryce too.. So, I still love Bryce but I like Vue a lot too...

The terrain editor is Bryce is more versatile when you want to use for more than just creating terrains, particularly is you want to do objects and stuff or effects...

I think there are things each program can do better. For me though, the number one reason would have to be versatility. The number two reason would be stability. Bryce is a rock! :) That versitility translate into the abiltiy to do fantastic abstracts all the way to photorealistic. To me Vue pictures do not seem very real. They look more like realistic paintings then photo's, with Bryce you can do either. If you are looking into getting either program my suggestion would be to spend a good amount of time looking around the net at galleries for both programs. I think that after a few days or so you will see the versitility I am talking about. There are many more reasons I pick Bryce, too many to list here things like higher resolution terrains and others make it a long list. For you that list maybe different, each of us have different requirements in a program. Give the demos a whirl (Bryce's demo is hobbled with a slow renderer), Vue doesn't have a demo for ver 4 yet but has one for 3.1. Griggs

Wow -- good responses, it's nice to see a "they are all tools" type stances. I am a long time Bryce user, I've had lonewolf design up for several years now (lonewolf.tierranet.com). I love Bryce. I recently purchased Vue 4. As for Bryce, I can definetly agree that the metals are better, and can add: wood. There is just more presets to choose from. I think Bryce has a much larger user base than Vue. So just comparing web galleries may not be too accurate. Check out Eon's image of the day gallery -- I think many of them are very photo realistic. As for indoor scenes, hmmm, not sure if I agree with it being easier in Bryce, but that may just be preference. I think Vue 4 and Bryce 5 are huge counterparts. I love doing abstract work in Bryce and it would probably be easier in there. The terrain editor is a bit better, too. But Vue's interface, as a graphic designer, hands down is better than Bryce. To constantly have to switch views in Bryce drives me mad. Vue also has poser imports, which is a big plus for me. The lighting, in my opinion, seems more realistic, and I like the lens flare editors, planets, etc. Vegetation is closer in this release, I like that with Bryce, you can have much more control via the Tree Lab. However, I think I still prefer the vegetation in Vue for the robustness it offers. If I need a really specific tree to match my scene, I will Tree Pro and import it, whether it be Bryce or Vue. If you've mastered Bryce's DTE than Vue will seem a little more limited. If you've always been baffled by it, you'll probably enjoy Vue's approach -- it may not be as powerful, but because of the way it works I find that I can get better results (meaning less random) by fiddling in Vue than I did with Bryce. But that's because I haven't mastered the DTE. As for atmospheres. Hmmm ... tough one. Neither can do stars very well. I'd have to give the point to Vue -- I like Bryce's interface, and I know it better, but the unlimited cloud layers in Vue, with additional planets, makes it pull out ahead IMO. I think the tools compliment one another well. To be honest, I see Vue taking over as my favorite tool in the collection soon. But this is just my opinion... -Brian

Stable as a rock.. i donno, usually, when a computer runs out of ram, on say, loading something, windows and the program automatically uses the swapdisk file.. Bryce, does not, which equals, bryce crashes and locksup when loading a program that is bigger then the ram limit.. which is NOT good, which means that bryce is not solid as a rock :)

Not sure why I am responding to you warder. You can't blame Bryce because you don't have enough ram or a stable operating system to run it on. I can import obj files that run into the hundreds of megabytes without a problem. My guess is you either need to upgrade or have a problem with your computer. Griggs

Lets see... Windows 2000 is the most stable OS there is out there, besides NT4. So it's not the OS. Ram is no problem 512 is more then enough. Computer is config'd properly, 3DMax runs wonderful. Speed is not an issue. So no, bad guesses Griggs.. lol, It is not the computer, nor even close, it is Bryce, and if you ever decide to actually read this message board more often, you will see tons of posts by people who are having the same problem with Bryce's instability. This is for both Bryce 4 and 5.

I run win 2k also with 786 megs of ram and have 0 I mean 0 import problems even with objects over 100 mb in size. I have run bryce for over a year with no crashes, even when I had less memory. Do you have enough room on your swap disk? you are definently doing something wrong either you are importing bad objects or something else. I have talked to several people running win2k with they all say the same thing no problems what so ever with imports period no matter what the size. Griggs

I have had problems with import size as well...some obj. files had to be broken into several pieces before I could import properly...and NO...there is nothing wrong with my system either. Bryce is awesome...but, not flawless.

ya there are no perfect programs, but out of the ones I do own (there are quite a few) Bryce is the most stable.