Dear Customer, E-on software has decided to continue its technological cooperation with Eovia and, as a result, have combined their two flagship products Amapi Designer 7 & Vue d'Esprit 4! The profits of our continued partnership, wherein the technology of both our software is integrated, will benefit the users themselves and the productivity of the software as a whole. Amapi Designer 7 is a high-end tool used for the conception, modeling and assembly of 3D objects and scenes. Creative yet precise, this product lets you produce free-form objects, landscapes, scenery and fictitious characters for illustration, video games and multimedia creations. It is also very powerful for conceiving precise models and life-like objects for product or industrial design, architecture or landscaping. Amapi 7 by itself costs 597 Euros (inc. VAT). Amapi Designer 7's advanced 3D modeling features combined with Vue d'Esprit 4's 3D layout, environment and lighting capabilities allow graphics artists to create astounding and infinitely rich images. To celebrate the plans for a continued partnership, both companies will market both products Vue 4 and Amapi Designer 7. The promotion price for Amapi Designer 7 is 299 Euros (inc. VAT). Furthermore, Amapi Designer 7 is available in English, German and French and is an hybrid product (compatible with Mac OS X and Windows 98, 2000, NT 4.0 and XP). Please feel free to visit our website at www.e-onsoftware.com/Products/Bundles/AmapiBundle/index.php You'll find great illustrations created with both products and an order form if you are interested. Best regards Cecile Laurens

Wow that should be outstanding. A modeling program combined with Vue. Very cool. Thanks for the updat Gebe. :O)

It's more like a support of Vue for AMAPI that we can import its object just like 3d Max And is not combined with Vue, Is it?

You mean I will be able to import Pz3, 3DS, LWO in Vue 4 and do all kinds of new things with these files, yet still not be able to export them? (Ha!)

Well, a lot of corporate mumbo-jumbo - but no clear words. Will both programms be fused into one programm? Will Vue d'Esprit get a direct interface to Amapi? In the first case, I would probably buy the update - in the latter case, I wouldn't buy Amapi. Hey, I own my own copy of 3D-Studio Max - why would I need Amapi? For once I would love to get clear words from Vue d'Esprit.

Joerg, that is the way I took it both programs combined. Heck I would love that! But, I maybe wrong. I guess we will see. `shoop

With all due respect for other's opinions, I happen to own a registered seat of Amapi 3D Version 6.1.I purchased it at the Siggraph 2001.It seemed so easy when the demonstrators were showing it off( along with Carrara). After working with it on several projects, imho it was not very user friendly. The manual was poorly done and did not explain things thoroughly. The learning curve was steep. I even find Max more user friendly than Amapi 3D. But of course this is just my thoughts and possibly didn't want to fuss with it much longer.

I hope this is just a marketing speak mix up (again) because I have yet to be impressed by Amapi.

It seems more like a bundle than integration right now, so I think I'll stick to LightWave for modelling, too :)

amapi is a dreadful thing -(

Don't panic all. This is a bundle offer currently only available in Europe and not a technology tie up. North American PRs come our of our office here, and despite the otherworldly atmosphere of the Northwest we havent switched over to Euros :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Great! I really love my Vue the way it is - expect for the crashes...

I'm still having nightmares from when I tried to use the free Amapi, version 4.something. Talk about a bizarre interface!

I have the free and excellent Wings3D for modelling and Vue for rendering. What I need and hope for is more power in Vue. I mean stuff like particles, ability to use Darktree textures, more possibilities for animations by using skeletons, morphs etc or maybe by the possibility to integrate with Motionbuilder, more lighting options such as global ilumination etc and functional OpenGL that at least is usable so 'we don't have to turn it of' on the mainstream OpenGL cards. Can I hope for this in VUE 5...;)

And hopefully a more... optimal implementation of trees. I would rather have them grown in full detail at render time rather than when I add them to the scene, because all I would need in order to place and rotate them and all is proxies, not fully-detailed trees and whatnot. Wind dynamics and FBX import would rock :) So would the ability to export entire scenes, complete with foliage, though. That would be even better, IMO -- even if it requires the use of a plugin like Ozone to host the scene in another package.