E-on software Announces Vue 4 Professional PROFESSIONAL, NATURAL 3D SCENERY STUDIO TO BE RELEASED FOR APPLE EXPO September 8, 2003. Beaverton, OR. e-on software, the developer of award winning 3D natural scenery products, announces the forthcoming release of Vue 4 Professional, the newest addition to its line of products for professional 3D designers and digital video production houses. Professional 3D designers look for tools that integrate well with their workflow. Vue 4 Professional excels both as a final rendering engine and as a cooperative tool for high-end 3D and post-production applications such as Maya or After Effects, said Nicholas Phelps, president of e-on software. Vue 4 Professional will naturally integrate and extend all major 3D applications to provide a complete, professional natural 3D studio. Specifically designed for professionals, it provides a multitude of cutting-edge features that easily integrate in existing workflows. With an intuitive and production-oriented layout, professionals will be able to quickly create and enhance their production with incredible, wind-swept SolidGrowth 3 trees and plants, volumetric atmospheres and rich terrains in fully animated scenes. A selection of the features in Vue 4 Professional include: -Single objects and complete scenes can be exported to high end 3D applications, including 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya, Softimage XSI and others; -A full featured plant editor allows modification of any tree or plant or creation of entirely new species, with full export capabilities and animation support for simulating the effects of wind through trees; -Camera and light synchronization with 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya and Softimage XSI for perfectly matching renders; -Full support of industry standard compositing information, including all G-Buffer channels (Z Depth, Material ID, Layer ID, UV Coordinate, Normal vector, Non clamped color, Sub-pixel coverage, Render ID, Color, Transparency, Velocity, Sub-pixel weight and sub-pixel mask); -RLA and RPF file format support for use with e.g. Discreet Combustion or Adobe After Effects; -A brand new, and ultra fast OpenGL-based pre-rendering engine for quick and easy previewing; -Hybrid network rendering of single pictures or animations using RenderCow technology on Windows and MacOS X, including leveraging Apple RendezVous technology to easily transform a rack of Apple MacOS X Servers into a render farm; -24 enhancements to camera effects, lighting, shadows, depth of field, including new advanced anti-aliasing engine and new AccuShadows advanced shadow mapping technologies; -Over a dozen new animation and productivity features including a new ultra-fast Hybrid 2.5D motion-blur rendering engine, -Python-based application and scene scripting with full access to hundreds of internal functions and structures for customization and creation of new rendering effects. -Numerous productivity and feature enhancements. A complete and detailed list of features will be available when Vue 4 Professional ships. Vue 4 Professional ships on 3 CDs with a 460+ page manual, in a hybrid Windows and MacOS X configuration. Both platforms will ship simultaneously for Apple Expo in September, 2003. Vue 4 Professional will retail for $599 with a special introductory price of $499. Users of Vue dEsprit 4 will be able to sidegrade to Vue 4 Professional for $299 during the introductory period. More information and a movie trailer of Vue 4 Professional effects is available at http://www.e-onsoftware.com. About e-on software Founded in 1997, e-on software was established to develop and promote the highest quality graphics tools. E-on software was founded on the premise that powerful graphics tools should never get in the way of a designers creativity. E-on softwares product line includes the award winning Vue dEsprit 4 and the Ozone 2.0 line of professional atmospheric plugins. E-on software is based in Beaverton, Oregon. Press Contact e-on software 503-646-4857

This is great....for our upgrade who has Vue 4, do we get a new CD or just an upgrade that is downloaded? Sharen

...and how much will the sidegrade cost Vue 4 owners after the introductory period Lynn? At least I was about right on the price ;-) Cheers

I can't seem to find info regarding professional version on web site. I will look again. Sharen

This looks like a truly amazing step in the evolutiion of Vue, and I hope that e-on does well with it. And I have to say I'm shocked at the price... I figured it would be twice that amount!

Can you get the plant editor separately????

It looks like a lot of enhancements have been worked in to the product. A couple of questions (if answers are available): Will Vue now be sold in two versions? For the average hobbyist dabbling in landscape creation, the 'vintage' Vue that could be had for around $200 was a great deal. Five or six hundred is a much different story, and it sounds like some of the new features will only be useful to people working in a true studio environment. Hopefully, the moderately priced Vue we've all grown to love will remain on the market to continue to draw hobbyists. I'm sure some people will complain bitterly that all of these new features should be rolled into the standard Vue, but they need to realize they've been getting a lot of power at a very low price for a long time. Will a demo of the Pro 'sidegrade' be available to existing Vue users? It would be nice to at least see all of the new features in action before deciding if its personally worth it to purchase it. In the future, it might be worth it to look into releasing enhancements to modeling, animation, and rendering as separate plug-ins or 'packs' (similar to Mover) and releasing integration capabilities separately. I think almost all Vue users would pay for the plant editor and the wind animation, but not all need the synch with other packages, compositing enhancements, etc. Really looking to seeing more of this....

Hi all, Ill try to answer all questions so far: Stuff you get with the Upgrade: It will include CD(s) and manual. Im not sure yet if we will be sending the full box shell or not with the upgrade. Vue 4 Professional is too massive a product for a downloadable upgrade (three CDs). Post Introductory/Price for Upgrade: Cannot say yet. Best to buy sooner -- it wont be lower than the introductory price ;-) Plant Editor: We dont have any plans to separate the plant editor. If there was a high enough demand for it I suppose we would consider it, but the tools in Vue 4 Professional together represent an excellent value for the price. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Great news Lynn ! One thing I noticed was the missing mention of Carrara support, which is surprising considering previous announcements of partnership with Eovia (if my memory serves me right...) Can you provide any comment about this ?

And this will be available when? Sharen

Mac too?

More answers -- Ill pop in throughout the day :-) Vue 4 Professional is a new product with a different target customer orientation. So yes, Esprit will continue as a product line. Regarding eovia products, we have offered bundles with them in some markets and we have very good relations with eovia, but nothing technical. Ill pre-empt another question Im sure is coming -- Mover 4 will have an update so you can reinstall and use with Vue 4 Professional :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

already saving my pennies,,,

Yes, seriously, I would buy the plant editor separately. :) If not I can hope that I get paid or win the lotto while it is still on special sidegrade price.

Agiel, I think that the Eovia support was a Curious Labs partnership deal. I must just say that this is going to be a killer app...as long as there are not issues with Vue pro as there was with Vue 4 when it was released, then I think the people at Digital Element have much to worry about. Smooth intergration (without issues) with Max, Lightwave etc straight from the release will determine if it will make a large impact in the Pro market....first impressions last. After Effects and Combustion intergration is also important...ease of post production editing is crucial IMHO. Cheers

Just making sure that Professional would still work with Poser stuff? ;)

Why the heck are you calling this Vue 4 Pro? This should be called Vue 4.5 Pro. :)

Sounds good but how long will the introductory period last where we can buy the sidegrade? Need a few months to save up for it.

Curious about this
"complete scenes can be exported to high end 3D applications, including 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya, Softimage XSI and others;"
Maybe somebody can answer this, but don't those programs render quite faster than Vue? I remember a long time ago somebody (was it Audity?) who rendered two similar figures, one in Vue and one in C4D. The speed in C4D of the render was like 500% faster. I would think that exporting may be the way to go for render speed if that is the case.

Mover 4 will have an update so you can reinstall and use with Vue 4 Professional

I gather from this that you will still need Mover 4 to import Poser animations. Will you be able to export Vue Atmospheres to Cinema 4D or will you still need to get Ozone 2.0?

Is there going to be a Mac demo while the introductory price is going on? Thanks - Dan

Back in.... Demos. There will be demos for both Windows and MacOS X, but I dont have a solid release date for them. But it will happen. Mover 4. Yes, you'll still need Mover 4 if you want to import in Poser animations. C4D. Ozone 2.0 for C4D works directly within C4D, whereas Vue 4 Professional is a cooperative product. You will want Ozone 2.0 for C4D if you need any real granularity over atmospheres. Introductory rate. Introductory pricing usually lasts about a month after a product hits the streets. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Your timing is perfect! I have some animated stories to complete this year, all of which require rich outdoor visuals, and Vue Pro meets my needs dead on! I am so very excited about the compositing capabillities you have added, which will make Vue a viable part of my workflow now, right alongside Maya, Lightwave and After Effects. Well done E-On, and much thanks! I'm chomping at the bit to get the update and get to work! BTW, I think the pricing is very fair for a product with these capabillities.

Hmm so if the apple expo is Sep 16th and the introductory lasts a month, that means I will have till Oct 16th to get it for the lower price.

Dang. Not enough time. :( Had I known a few months ago, I would have skipped on some other purchases to save up for this. Looks like I will have to pass on it. :(

Oh well, will be a great deal for those of you who can get it during the intro. :)

I find the $300 ($299 rounded) upgrade to be a bit steep especially when I have to still purchase Mover 4 and Ozone 2.0. Dont get me wrong Vue Pro has a lot good feature such the Plant Editor and Export features, however I which the price was a little lower. I hope they extend the introductory pricing period to more than a month. I would still like to get Vue Pro but will need more time to save my pennies.

Another thing, will Vue Pro render any faster than regular Vue?

Couple more questions: Will the plant editor create plants compatible with Vue 4, or only Vue 4 Pro? And most importantly, what does $299 equal in other currencies (GBP here)?

$299 = 188 GBP $299 = 269 EUR They could of course always price the package differently for different regions.

Well, quite - I was assuming the conversion would be closer to $1 = 1 = 1.5, unless they are very unusual!

I was just using today's currency exchange rates. A US Dollar doesn't go as far in Europe as it used to. I don't have any info on E-On pricing policies.

I dont have the Euro price yet, sorry. Ozone 2.0 for C4D is $149 (vs $199 for everyone else) for Vue 4 owners. Im pretty sure we can extend this to Vue 4 Professional, letting you shave off $50 of of Ozone 2.0 for C4D. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Lynn; Any information on whether Vue4Pro -can- import Poser files? And to what level of communication, if it does? (Yessss, we wants dynamic cloth we does, preciousssss). Hopefully the 'Pro' designation isn't going to preclude that, as far more pro's use that nasty lil program far more than they prefer to admit.... ;) Aside from that issue.... W bloody OW!!!

I have a question Lynn. Assuming I had several scenes created in Vue 4, when Vue 4 Pro comes out, would I be able to simply open up my V4 scenes and add dynamics, wind, etc, or will those elements need to be completely recreated to take advantage of the new features? In other words, if I put in a lot of time now working on scenes, will I need to do that work over again? Thanks so much.

And of course if you (Lynn) don't mind to spent few seconds giving me some specs on standard (not the minimum) Hardware/OS requirement. Just want to see if my old machines can handle V. Pro. or I'll be needing new mechine!

Being a newbie, I really don't know enough about the Vue Pro program, ( even reading the specs ), but the one line I need to ask about is this one. "A brand new, and ultra fast OpenGL-based pre-rendering engine for quick and easy previewing;" Currently Vue4 won't permit me to use open GL. The question is will the new "Open GL" work with XP.

Another batch of answers: Poser import. Vue 4 Pro wont support Poser import except in the same way as Vue 4 does now. We are still working on the Poser 5 support. The basics for Mover 4.2 should be done fairly soon (we wouldnt have exposed the beta to you if it was a complete disaster ;-)) Vue 4->Vue 4 Pro. Files will come over seamlessly. Its hard to say about dynamics, but anything you've created with Vue 4 (Animation Wizard, etc) will be fine. Vue 4 Pro Specs. Pentium III or higher or G4. NT4/2000/XP, MacOS X 10.2+, 512 Ram, 250 MB HD, 16+bit video card, 1024X768, CDROM Drive. It may work on other hardware, and it may work on ME, Win98SE, or <10.2, but no guarantees. Its still a 3D app, so "more and fast" = better. OpenGL. This isnt a factor of XP, it can be a combination of a number of issues, videocard drivers, etc. Once we ship, all the beta testers can discuss their experiences. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Thanks, Lynn! Oh, a question. I'm suddenly having some trouble importing one item from Poser; many of the 3rd party hair pieces give a 'cannot open resource XXXXXXXXXX.obj'. Is this a known issue, or does the dev team need a list of pieces that this has happened with and my system specs at the e-on board?

How about Windows 2003 support?

Can you pin down the actual release date a little?

You just couldn't have waited until November, could you? :/ Maya... yum. If I exported from Vue Pro in OSX and imported it into Maya 4.5 on the Linux box, should all still be kosher? /P

299 US 409.78 Canadian then add the high price of shipping, and the other goodies and it's out of my price range. Ahh well.

Hmmm $499 will buy me the XFrog 4 upgrade plus Cinema 4D 8, that covers the plant and tree angle, the rest of VUE Pro's exciting features makes it a Deep Exploration clone, it's nice to see E-on giving a buy ASAP warning to excisting customers, I upgraded to 4 on the day it was released, so far my worst software investment, after 2 years V4 is still buggy as h... but please buy the upgrade asap.

Looking good so far:) Just one question, will there be any type of cel-shader or toon-shader in Vue Pro?

Hi Lynn, Sounds pretty exciting! E-on HQ must be jumping these days. Thanks for info on minimum hardware specs, and the fact that you can open Vue 4.12 scenes and import Poser 4.03 figures. A question regarding upgrading/sidegrading; I might be interested in sidegrade, as I am a registered Vue 4.12 user, but is the "sidegrade" the complete Vue 4 Pro package? Could I install it on a separate but networked machine from Vue 4.12? Or a separate machine that's not networked? I mean, a single licence of Vue 4 Pro, a single installation of it. Just not on the same machine I have Vue 4.12 on? Or is the sidegrade dependent on being installed over/with Vue 4.12? I am quite interested to see more open information on the features of Vue 4 Pro, and wish you at E-on much success on it's release!

hein said: "the rest of VUE Pro's exciting features makes it a Deep Exploration clone" errrmmmmm, I think you are being a little unfair with that comment hein. A software that includes dynamics etc to a file translation/browser app is stretching the imagination a little ;-) BUT..I can certainly understand your sentiments about buying Vue 4 on its release and how buggy it was/is. I just hope e-ons beta testing policy has changed since pre Vue 4 release. Like I say, I will wait 6 months and see how the land lays..."once bitten twice shy". I still hope it does live up to expectation, because it has been a bold move on e-ons part, and boldness deserves success. Cheers

Just exactly what export formats are supported? Are full texture pathways supported for the export, or do textures get copied to the same folder as the exported file? -SMT

Hi, I'm certainly interested in Vue 4 Pro but since I've been burnt buying software from other companies in the past I'd just like to check which, if any, of the features announced for Vue 4 Pro are likely to appear in the none-pro version at a later date for a lower upgrade price? Good luck with Vue 4 Pro. Cheers Mark

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Hi Lynn, this is great news... I guess my only question now is, if you export the tree in question, are you going to get the textures and the leaves exported as well to import into whatever other program you're using?? Also, do we have the option to export in 3ds, OBJ, etc???

OK. You are saying that full Vue scenes in Vue 4 Pro can be exported to other 3d programs, right? So does that mean that I can export the scenes (including trees, terrian, rocks and all their textures in one fell swoop to Poser 5, allowing me to incorporate my Poser Characters from that end, and thus still make use of the cloth room after all?

"So does that mean that I can export the scenes (including trees, terrian, rocks and all their textures in one fell swoop to Poser 5, allowing me to incorporate my Poser Characters from that end, and thus still make use of the cloth room after all?"

I would like to know this as well but for Poser 4.

For me, it can be very tricky trying to pose a figure in poser then import it into Vue and see how the footing does not line up with the ground. This leads me to have my ground usual flat when I have figures on them or I hide the foot going through the hill with some bushes. This would stop this problem as I would be working backwards(make the scene in Vue, export it into Poser 4 for people placement)

OK, I'm done dithering about this all night. Will just have to put off some other purchases. So, Lynn, how do we pre-order this puppy?

Howdy all, I guess I should have checked the forum last night :-) Some answers will be incomplete, either because I dont know or that we dont want to release the information prior to release of the product (I expect we are being watched carefully by some other...companies). -Full scene export and tree export will include all texturing. -Features appearing in other non-pro products. I cannot comment as we cannot talk about other products that arent close enough to fruition to talk about. Could features "trickle down" to other products? Sure they could. But if we did that too much, then noone would want to buy Pro, and we certainly want folks to buy Pro! -With exports, provided that the target file format is completely cross platform I dont see a problem with moving to Maya for Linux. But it wouldnt be possible to synch directly between a Vue on MacOS X with Maya on a Linux box located on your network. THe question is, can you move Maya 4.5 MacOS/Maya 4.5 Linux/Maya 4.5 Windows files between each other without any problems? Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software