I just bought Poser4 & Bryce 4 from "Computers Unlimited" and I have installed them. Re the Bryce 4, a few minor moans or queries:- - (0) Buy 2 empty CD-ROM cases first. It comes on 2 CD-ROMs (one for the application, the other for accessories), but they come in paper envelopes. not in proper protective cases. - (1) How can I set up initial conditions? As with my Bryce 3.1, every time I start it up I reset the paper size to 640*480. But with Bryce 4 the initial screen shows discolored to imitate rough artist's paper, so every time I must reset it to plain white. How can I make this happen automatically? - (2) When I click "help" on the top of the screen, it only lists what is new in Bryce 4, and does not give a full general help. This is turdid and a bad nuisance. Where can I get a proper online help package for Bryce 4? - (3) When I was loading my Bryce 4, it said that I need Real Movie Export and Quick Time 3, which can be got from the CD-ROM. Which I did. But the Real Movie Export installer said that I need Real Movie Player, which I can't find. Where is it?

• (4) And copy its serial number onto as many separate pieces of paper as possible, for safety.

Anthony, I'm chuckling to myself. First about the serial number. I took the 'sticky' thing off wherever it was (can't remember) and stuck it inside my manual. Figure I'll ALWAYS need the manual, so there it is. I agree about there not being something other than paper holders, both for Poser and Bryce, BTW The paper thing is a pain. I thought I had it figured out--pretty much like Poser, setting it then going to 'launch to previous state'. However, if you change it in your current work, then I guess you have to redo it again if you have it set for that. Maybe someone has a better idea. I would also like to set my preferences for something other than 480 x window but it seems that it will always open to default on that. I don't know of an 'online' help for Bryce other than tutorials, which you know about. Maybe Fast Traxx knows. Diane B

Anthony, I can't help with the document size or changing the preferences. I can, however, point you to the Real Player. It can be found at www.real.com/products/player. When you get there, look carefully for the free download, otherwise you'll wind up paying $29.95. It plays both audio and movies. Hope this helps. Marybeth

On http://www.real.com/products/player , where exactly is the link to get the free download? I have chased about in their site, but the "free download" links that I have found lead only to the page that demands $29.99.

Here 'tis, Anthony--its down at the bottom--says Real Player Basic 7. http://proforma.real.com/real/player/player.html?src=991228choice&dc=120119118 Diane

The Bryce manual is available in PDF format on the program CD. Just copy it to your Hard Drive and leave it somewhere you can get to it easily. In poser, clicking "help" opens to the poser PDF manual, which by default is installed on your computer. In bryce, tha manual does not install on the Hard drive, but it's there. Frankly, I think metacreations got lazy and decided to just tack their manual on as the "Help" file for poser, and didn't even bother going that far for bryce. But then considering the amount of holes in their products, It's not surprising.

Anthony - As far as getting your paper and other settings to save - the best way to do this is to create all the settings just the way you like them and save the scene into a file called: default.br4 and make sure it is in the same folder that bryce is in. Every time it launches it will find the file called default.br4 and will open with those settings you saved. This is great for you favorite camera angle and any other things you can think of. It does have one caveat - be sure you do a save as of your current scene or you will overwrite the default.br4. Hope this helps. -Tuck : )

That's terrific Tuck. I never thought of that and will do it now. Save me a lot of time when I open. Diane B

Glad I could help. -Tuck

You can also, instead of saving as default.br4(which I couldnt find anywhere), set your workspace as you want, then goto Edit/Prefrences and set it to launch to your previous state.

The file "default.br4" is one that Bryce looks for when it launches, but is not included when Bryce is installed. Just make a scene with all the settings you want to start with, and save it as "default.br4" in the same directory as the Bryce program. Here's another tip. - You can make more than one default file if you have a few modes that you might like to use. You can save camera dots (views), screen resolutions, sky settings (and saved sky dots) - now just save the file as "default-2.br4", or whatever you want to call it, into your main Bryce folder. Bryce will still open with "default.br4", but you can open any of these other defaults anytime you want, to start a new picture.