OK, I know I'm too late to convince you to buy bryce, since you seem to have already decided to, but hey, I'll put in my two cents worth anyway (just to show what an annoying little git I am) Bryce was the first 3d modelling program that I could actually use, although as far as creating original shapes go, it's more pain than anything else. But some of the effects it can make, especially with water and skies....wow drools What I tend to do is imagine the picture I want, create the models etc. in other programs, make everything right in my mind, then export everything, and import it into bryce (too bad bryce can't import the textures/colours instead of you having to manually set them). Then I set the lighting, few touch up effects, and render. So bryce plays a very small role in my renderings, but it's one of the most important stages...I'll have to make a demo of a scene with/without bryce so you can see the difference (and yes, it is huge) Also, what surprises me, is if I have to create a texture for something, more often than not I'll start up bryce, create the texture with bryce's texture maker, then take a screenshot and copy/paste...I'd expect myself to be doing the reverse...oh well, best to make full use of the resources available 'eh? =)