Hi all...I know, been a dog's age since I stopped in; real and virtual life has been keeping me busy. But the main info I wanted to pass on...

Bryce was sold last year to DAZ (Digital Art Zone) by Corel, who had no plans to update it and in fact were looking at trashing it. After loud complaints by worldwide Bryce users, DAZ picked it up. DAZ is mainly known for supplying meshes and textures for Poser (character creation/rendering). Well, DAZ is just releasing Bryce 5.5. From DAZ website:

Features
New in version 5.5! Dramatic Render Speed Increase: Render your favorites scenes over 30% faster on average with no image quality loss at all!
New in version 5.5! DAZ|Studio Character Plug-in - easily load and edit thousands of 3D figures, vehicles, wildlife and more.
New in version 5.5! Enhanced OpenGL Support - see, in real time, the texture maps applied to objects in your scene in 8 different display styles.
New in version 5.5! Bryce Lightning 2.0 - With a new interface, this network render application speeds up processing time by utilizing advanced image compression for improved rendering over either a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN).
Plus, all the following:
Improved! Terrain Editor - enjoy greater visible detail with increased resolution coupled with an improved default display style while editing terrains, fully scalable 2D and 3D image previews, and a time line for controlling the progression of animations.
Tree Lab - place realistic trees in your scenes, specifying details such as tree type, branch density, leaf or needle density, coloration and more
Light Lab - enjoy robust control over lighting direction, intensity, and tinting from one or more sources to ensure a more accurate production of real-world environments
Texture Editor - easily import, create and edit preset textures then save them as new textures for future use
Rendering Options - achieve a new level of realism in your scenes with Soft Shadows, Blurred Reflections, Blurred Transmission (frosted glass), True Ambient Lighting and Depth of Field. Plus, take advantage of optimizations designed to speed up the creation of architectural scenes.
Metaballs Support - save valuable time with Metaballs technology that lets you create organic shapes without the need for high-polygon modeling
Intuitive User Interface - take advantage of handy palettes to create and edit objects, design scenes and render final images quickly -- a great way for new users to learn Bryce!
Presets - explore a virtually infinite number of textures and landscapes with preset collections that include terrains, waters, skies, rocks, clouds and fog
Landscape Creation - quickly and easily produce remarkably realistic landscapes, impressive fantasy worlds and other dynamic scenes
Image-Editing Tools - import 2D images from a variety of formats, transform them into 3D objects, then incorporate them into your scenes
Animation and Web Capabilities - create Web animations, generate thumbnail images and preview them in storyboard format, and create virtual tours using QuickTime[TM] VR
Also Included:
Bryce 5.5 Content Kit, Volume 1: available with Bryce 5.5 for a limited time only!

So if you're a Bryce user, you might want to check it out.


DAZ3D Bryce 5.5

Hope all are well!