When Vue 5 comes out, or at least when the feature list is released, I'm going to decide whether to upgrade from 4 to 5 or to Pro.

So PRO users, what PRO feature(s) are you finding most useful? Can no longer live without? If Vue 5 didn't have this feature, you wouldn't be at all interested in it?

And are there PRO features that turned out to be not as useful as you thought they'd be when you first read the feature list?

Thanks,
steve (kongorilla)

The renders are better because there are higher settings. Python scripts are cool especially the radiosity script. Plant editing is better and the wind is fun to play with. But the best reason is the automatic update of poser files in vue. Lights and shadows are much better with many more options. My favorite is to exclude objects from a lights.

Better control of lighting is the one feature I couldn't live without now. If I had time to learn Python it would be the second killer advantage because I want to automate some of the stuff that I do over and over but I havn't had time yet.

For me the most useful features are : - Materials explorer (being able to view all materials as a tree just like the World explorer) - Advanced lights (apply lights to selected objects only, change a linear light into a quadratic light, render shadow only) - Replace objects (turn an existing cube into a sphere of the same dimensions, in the same location) - Unlimited number of layers in the scene (you can decide to add new layers or not) - Render to screen of pictures larger than the screen resolution (no need to render to disk if you don't want to). Now this is not all pink and nice :) There are two major issues that you should know about : - alpha planes and transparent materials render as white materials in a volumetric light (this is almost fixed - the new beta is supposed to handle that but I did not have a chance to try) - difficult or impossible to import old objects and textures from Vue 3 and lower. I had to give up some older materials and objects. By the way, I ditched Vue 4 and replaced it completely with Vue Pro now :)

For me the single biggest reson to go pro was the synchronisation plugins for Lightwave, Maya & other high end 3D packages.

I really love the automatic update (works with all files, not just poser files) and I miss the Plant Editor a lot when I'm working in Esprit, especially with the additional Pro plant packs E-on has released in the last few months. Other than that not much, even though open gl works I rarely work on a scene that isn't so complex that it works fast enough with open gl enabled, so I just leave it off. Agiel's list is great too, I forgot about the "rendering larger than the screen size" thing, that's really helpful. And like bonnyclump said, there are more varied render qualities so you're not limited to broadcast or ultra, I almost always use superior now because it's a perfect middle ground without sacrificing the time for ultra.

I like the auto update feature for changed imported files best of all. But I've totally switched to Pro now that it is stable for me . . . I think that is the most telling comment.

Thanks again for the input, everybody. The way things are going for me (all work, no play) I might be able to wait until Vue 5 Pro. But with e-on, who knows when that will be. They do work in mysterious ways.

steve (kongorilla)