New OpenGl engine? And Python?! Bliss. Thanks E-On, looks graet. Thanks too, for taking time to post in the forum. A lot of other companies wouldn't have bothered. Right, piggy bank at the ready, where's me hammer?

What about poser? I wanted to hear the answer to that question too. Can I export my stuff from Vue to poser. I agree that it is hard to put a figure in vue on a bumpy terrain. Love esther

. :)

Found this comment by "another company" elsewhere on this site (XFrog answering a question about a XFrog plugin for VUE Pro).

"Hi we are going to take a close look at Vue 4 Professional next week after it is released at MacExpo in Paris."

Better hurry if you want to Pre-Order :)

Lynn, Thanks for the answer, I realise that you're in a difficult position in telling us what features are likely to be in a future none-pro version. However since the period for which the reduced price for moving from Vue to Vue Pro is limited without adequate information its hard for a customer to make an informed decission about which product will best serve their needs in the long term. Will it be possible for a customer who upgrades to Vue Pro to sidegrade back to Vue none-Pro should, at a later date feature of Vue none-Pro now meet all their needs or the price of upgrading Vue Pro become prohibitive to their continuing to upgrade. Not an ideal solution to the situation but at least one where a user isn't trapped into a more expensive version. Cheers Mark

HOW DO I PRE-ORDER? Is the "extras" vegation Pkg included with Vue Pro, or is it still a seperate Pkg.?

I hope we get as many trees as Bryce has...I LOVE VUE, I only use VUE now..just want a bigger selection of veg/trees:)

Howdy all, A batch of answers: Release date. Folks, read the PR :-) Ordering. To begin soon. Vue Pro is in manufacturing now. Post Vue-Pro sidegrading. Vue Pro is a limb on the tree for Vue 4 owners. The Esprit product line has a future. If you side-grade to Vue Pro, you can still upgrade to the next Esprit when its becomes available. This is an option only planned for Vue 4 owners, by the way :-) Veggie bundles. Still separate. But with the plant editor, you are going to be able to achieve a lot, all on your onesome. The veggies are still going to be of incredible use because they follow natural laws (at least as we've interpreted them). Tree selection -- hey, you're getting a plant editor. The number of tree types you have is limited only by your imagination :-) Ive been hogging the forum a lot recently, so I hope you all don't mind if I go quiet for a short while, except for really serious issues and PRs. Once Vue Pro ships, beta testers are going to be able to give you even better answers about Vue Pro. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

I can't wait...:)

Lynn, you said "Vue 4 Professional will naturally integrate and extend all major 3D applications to provide a complete, professional natural 3D studio." Does this mean the Vue 4 Pro is not a standalone program? I see Cinema4D mentioned as one of the programs it will integrate with. I was thinking of getting Xfrog 4, but now will hold until I see if Vue 4 Pro will work as a module in Cinema4D. Thanks! Peggy

Djeser asked-"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 didn't see the answer to that question. I like to keep both Vue4 AND Vue4 Pro on my machine, just in case there are any problems with PRO, (somebody said Vue4 was buggy when it first came out). I'm not saying PRO is buggy, I just want to be careful.

Hmmm, is that two times the question about export to Poser was overlooked?

This is fantastic news :) Some time ago I was asking about importing camera data from LW, and now here it is. I only need to ask one question: Is there camera/light import and export? Oh, and the wind effect on the veg - superb.

I have two very important questions about what I quote now: "Post Vue-Pro sidegrading. Vue Pro is a limb on the tree for Vue 4 owners. The Esprit product line has a future. If you side-grade to Vue Pro, you can still upgrade to the next Esprit when its becomes available. This is an option only planned for Vue 4 owners, by the way :-)" Question number one: 1. Does this mean that Esprit will have new content, that Pro does not have? Must be so, else why upgrade Esprit if one already has upgraded to Pro. In that case, which are the areas in where Esprit will have more features than Pro? Sincerely, I would hate to spend 300 bucks on upgrading to an application that is going to lack features that the normal Esprit version is going to have in a matter of (probably) months... Sincerely, this marketing move leaves me wondering.... and makes me more and more dubious of giving you my money (the big money that you are asking) for Pro (a purchase that I was sure about only until a few hours ago)... you see, other companies have different products at different levels, BUT, like Maxon, the top line application of Cinema has EVERYTHING that the other Cinema editions have. I suspect there would be a revolution amongst the Studio Bundle owners if they found out that the cheaper Cinema options will have features unavailable to them... i guess you get the point now. Question number two: 2. isn't a bit too hard on Vue 4 owners, to ask them now to give you credit for upgrading at 300 bucks to a new app that (amongst other things) doesn't really have anything new in the rendering department, that is really oriented towards animation BUT still requires the further purchase of Mover (other 100 bucks) to get the most out of the animation possibilities, and, in case of Cinema and Lightwave, still requires the purchase of Ozone (other 150 bucks), to get the most out of the scene export format... AND... as I was saying... isn't really too hard now on Vue 4 owners to ask them to give you credit and 550 bucks (that's the cost of Pro plus Mover and Ozone which are sort of indispensable to it), and THEN AGAIN, ask them to furtherly pay for the upgrade to the future Esprit version? With all the doubts about it that I described in question one...I mean.... we're artists, not bank holders, you know. At the VERY (and I mean VERY) least, I would expect that the price for upgrade to Esprit for Vue 4 owners that already upgraded to Pro, could be just a symbolic price. More sincerely, I would expect it (at least the first upgrade to Esprit) that it could be free for Vue4-to-Pro upgraders. AND last but not least, I would like a clarifying word BEFORE the release of Pro, on which will be the degree of difference between the Pro and the Esprit version, with an at least generic descritpion of what will be in future Esprit, that the upgraders to Pro will lack in spite of their massive financial effort that you are now asking to them. Thank you in advance for the attention.

Lynn Fredericks said, quote: "Once we ship, all the beta testers can discuss their experiences." I'm amazed when I read this!! Here we have the proof that E-onsoftware is still Beta testing after their products are released...doh! I have this bad feeling that Vue d'Esprit Pro v4.12 (or v4.24 if you just add up) will be the first stable version. My guess is that this is NOT what the professionals are waiting for. If E-onsoftware wants to be successful in the professional market, then they have to deliver more stability than what they are offering for every new released product. Just my 2 cents...

I don't think this says that e-on is beta testing after release. I take it as saying the people who were the beta testers can start talking about their experiences with the product once it has shipped. They are not allowed to say anything before the product has shipped.

In some other cases, the beta-testers are barred from talking even after the product ships - E-on's is quite an enlightened policy.

Gaussian! what the hell are you talking about! It is usual policy for beta testers to be bound by a "NDA" while a product is in pre-release testing. Reading that sentence I can't see what you are up in arms about, but then again you either read it in a rush or you just didn't think before speaking. What I read in that sentence is "those involved in the beta testing up to the release of the product, can tell you all about it." All software products worth any standing are constantly being tested, usually by people bound by a "NDA" trying to break the product and experimenting with new features. Well, trying to break a product is what I do when I'm beta testing anyway :-) Cheers

Djeser asked-"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 restated it earlier because I didn't see an answer, Did I miss it? I like to keep both Vue4 AND Vue4 Pro on my machine, just in case there are any problems with PRO, (somebody said Vue4 was buggy when it first came out). I'm not saying PRO is buggy, I just want to be careful. Also it may be important if Vue5 up-grade needs to be "added" to Vue4, not Vue Pro.

Attached Link: http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/

Gaussian, I suspect something is wrong anyway given that I dont know any Lynn Fredericks. There has never been a middle "e" in my family name ;-) After Vue 4 Professional ships, then those who were beta testing it can talk about what its like about it as users. I dont know how to label your intepretation so Ive attached a link here for those interested. Philywebrider, Vue 4 Pro Sidegrade needs to be installed on the same system as Vue 4. My understanding is that you can still use Vue 4. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks <<-- no middle "e" e-on software

Hi Lynn,

"
-Single objects and complete scenes can be exported to high end 3D applications, including 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya, Softimage XSI and others;
[...]

-Full scene export and tree export will include all texturing.
"

I don't want to sound like a party pooper, but--alarm bells are ringing. I definetely hope there will be a demo of Vue 4Pro out during the sidegrade period. As is, the listed render applications have vastly different approaches for procedural textures and shaders, often varying even between different versions of one software package.

Unless Vue simply converts all texturing into bitmaps (not acceptable), I can't see any technically feasible way to import Vue's prodedural textures in any other render app without either a lot of hassle on the end user's side to tweak textures after importing a scene, or lots and lots of development and support time on e-on's to write plugins for all listed "and other" applications to even support stuff like Vue's "influence of slope" mapping option. I won't even mention the "procedural types" and mixing algorithms.

But then, I wouldn't mind being pleasently surprised. :) I'll definetely keep my eyes open for the Demo.

All in all: Great news! So please excuse my scepticism.

93,
-Sascha

Attached Link: http://www.knucks3dstuff.com

Sasha: I'm both a LightWave-7.5c(LW) user and a registered Vue (4.12) user. I have the same questions about importing Vue terrains and procedural textures. Some LW plugins can operate within the LW rendering engine (Sasquach, Combustion, etc.) I'm wondering if VP is doing this as well, or, as you suggested, VP is converting the Vue procedural textures to images (.bmp, .tif, or whatever). As you said, if they are converting to image maps, that would greatly reduce VP's acceptance by most of the LW crowd. If "VP-to-LW" retains Vue's procedural texturing, VP should be a big hit amongst the LW crowd. If not, I, and many others, will not buy it. While I obviously can't speak for "ALL" LW users, I can say that most of them would prefer to work within their chosen app, be it LightWave, Max, Maya, or whatever. If Vue forces users to do some things in VP (outside their chosen app) many users will not accept this. What I'd like to see, is some examples of Vue scenes rendered in LightWave. Or at least have a demo available to see how VP works in LW. I don't know of any LW user that's willing to buy a program or plugin that they can't test, or at least "see" how it will work. Remember, we're talking about what amounts to a "terrain generating / texturing import" accessory to these high-end programs. I have little wish to setup and render a scene in Vue, only to have to composite it in AE, if I can do everything natively in LW. No matter how good the hype, camera, light, and motion matching is seldom a perfect match. I've experienced this with both "World Builder Pro" and "World Construction Set". There always seems to be a slight mismatch. Any time that a job can be done in a single app, time and energy is usually saved. The $299.00 or $599.00 price range is not a problem. Many LW plugins cost more than that. I, for one, would rather wait for a demo and pay full price, than buy early and get an app that may not do what I want. As tempting as VP looks, I won't spend anything until I can "see" some VP-to LW results. I think that lots of other users are similarly inclined. And to whomever asked about rendering times, the high-end apps (usually) render many times faster than Vue (or Bryce, or Poser) for the same basic scene. Another reason why most users would prefer to work in their high-end app. Just my take on it Knuckle (Knuck) Martin

OK, just read the datasheet to Vue Pro. Textures are converted into (bitmapped) UV texture maps. You can chose the level of detail you need, and Vue will export the textures "with a minimum of distortion." But the wind looks nice. Might still consider getting Vue Pro. 93, -Sascha.rb P.S. be sure to download the demoreel from www.e-onsoftware.com. It's quite something. -.rb

Knuckle Martin - Having read the details, as well as scrutinising the 5 minute version of the demo video it looks as though LW will NOT use VPs procedural texturing algorithms, but as nggalai said will UV map them. It also appears (as again nggalai said) that the resolution is user definable, so basically we choose how large we want our scenes/models to be. Couple this ability with the camera & light syncronisation and I think most every problem can be overcome. Vue will I think always render its scenes better than LW but if you want to put an LW sequence in, just need to export the landcape for shadowing/occluding purposes only. Plus, it'll be a great vegetation tool.