This is a scene that might be earth billions of years hence. The sun has used most of it's hydrogen and starts to compact heavier elements, growing colder and larger. By then radiation pressure will have pushed earth far away enough not to be enveloped. Earth is now a desert where the day and night bring extreme temperatures and fierce winds that cause rapid erosion.
Though kind of rare, I like the science fiction that attempts to deal with this far scenario, though man has hopefully left for the stars by then, the life of our star system being barely a hundreth of the universe's history. Clark Ashton Smith's "Zothique" is one of the best, IMHO.
Got Bryce 4 on a CD with a computer magazine I bought and so decided to try it out. I'd been unimpressed with earlier models, but this one seemed to render at a decent speed. (slow, but not snail like compared to TrueSpace)