Hi all, I'm currently a Bryce user and I'm not complaining. But I recenlty heard and read more about Vue and now I'm doubting... Maybe I'll buy Vue, mostly in order to get to nature scenes more (I love the nature renders I've seen.) In order to be sure to make a good buy, I'm especially interested in the landscape features like the plant-lab, terrain-lab and the rock generator. Are they really better then Bryces? I couldn't get anny screenshots of the plant lab and I read there come plants with vue... Are they edditable and if so, is it a powerfull plant/tree lab? Do the rocks look realistic? Are the terrain sculpting options better then bryces? Thanks for anny insight fomr experienced users. Johannes

I cannot speak about Bryce because I don't have it. The plant editor you are speaking about is only in Vue 4 Pro, not in the normal Vue d'Esprit 4 version. Vue Pro comes with 30 plants and you can purchase a bunch of about 10 more at e-on's site. All plants are editable, configurable. To all plants wind can be applied. Not one plant of the same species looks like the previous in Vue d'Esprit AND Vue Pro. Every plant is different. So it is for the rock generator. The terrain editor is fantastic in Vue Pro too. You can use your mouse with an air brush, but also a graphic tablet to edit or create your terrain or object. To have general comparison between Bryce and Vue, see our Backroom above. Guitta

Or download a demo at e-on and see for yourself. But demo is only available vor Vue 4, not for Pro - as far as i know. Walther

Is pro worth the extra money? I saw that vue was rather cheap in the markerplace here, and since i'm a student even cheaper... But I would have to pay a lot extra for pro, since that one isn't here in the MP I noticed in the gallery by the way that a lot of trees obviously have 2D planes with voilage maps on them? Does the rock generator generate high res rocks? does it create both smoot boulders and ridged rocks? I'll look into that demo :) Thanks for the tip Thanks, Johannes

Woooot, I just checked the price of pro on the site... That is for europe 299.00 euros (about $330) Compare that to the $149 of Vue It's more then twice as expensive, I don't have that much monney to spend on 3D software :( Does anyone know how the MP works? e-on software's online store is more expensive when you are in europe, will the mp price be more as well? And will I get my software on a CD or should I download it? Johannes

ok, sidegrade is meant from Vue 4 to Vue Pro. As far as i can see, you do have Poser. There is a special deal right now for Poser owners to get Vue 4 really cheap (as far as i remember). Look down the messages list, it must be on page 3 i think (or 2). Has something like "great offer for..." in the headline. Maybe you'll have a look into our backroom for all the comparings with other software, There you find a lot of information. Walther

The sidegrade means you are already a registered owner of Vue d'Esprit 4, and you can "sidegrade" to Vue 4 Professional. Vue 4 Professional is a new product line, not an upgrade of Vue d'Esprit 4. Some people use trees on alpha planes in Vue, I very seldom do, in fact, not in a long time. But alpha planes let you pack a whole lot more stuff in a scene since they're so easy on polygon count. Not sure what you mean by "high resolution rocks"...I find that the rocks in Vue d'Esprit can be a bit low resolution, but between smoothing them and texturing them, you can usually hide any problems. There is no way to "edit" the rocks (edit the actual meshes) to get ridges and stuff like that (at least as far as I know), you would have to do something like that in the terrain generator. I have Vue 4 Professional, but am still using Vue d'Esprit 4, so don't look at Vue d'Esprit 4 like it is a bad or outdated application; you can still do a lot of cool stuff with it. I'm a former Bryce user, seldom touch Bryce 4 or 5 since I started using Vue.

Vue 4 is shipped on CD. The student version is exactly as the normal version, but you cannot use it in a commercial way. Vue 4 Professional is, as it's name says, for professionals. A student version will not exist. The rocks in Vue 4 are not "high resolution", the terrains are as hig resolution as you want. The rocks are smooth. You can increase the smoothness. Yes, Vue's plant leaves are created from 2D images with alphas. This means that , even in Vue 4 you can use your own scanned leaves. The Market Place works the following way: Click HERE and scroll down in the "select a market place category" fild until you find "Software: Vue d'Esprit", click GO Click the picture of the educational version. On the next page you can add it to your cart and so forth. Continue and you will see how much they will charge you for shipping before you click the buy button:-)

20 dollars of shipping cost... Quite much :( Well, thanks all, I'll start serious considderation from this point on :)