Do you consider Vue d'esprit one of the best if not the best for 3D landscape, what about Terragen, Bryce, Worldbuilder, etc...

I'm not sure if one should/can say if it's the best or not. All the above mentioned programs have their pros & cons. I love Vue, have never had any problems with it & I find the interface very easy to learn & use, so to date it is my favorite.

I have Vue/Bryce & Terragen.

Terragen is still in it's infancy, but there are limitations as to importing/exporting. I havent learned this program yet..I've tinkered but have had a a hard time...trying to learn to many programs, can cause brain freeze LOL.

Bryce is on it's way after lying dead in the water for several years. Now that Daz has got a hold of it, it's abilities will soon catch up to the technology of VUE with it's next release due out before EOY. You can read about the upgrades over at Daz3d.com under the Bryce forum, 1st thread.

I guess the bottom line, it's what YOU prefer. I like having a lot of tools, since ALL programs have their strenghts & weakness. And since the above mentioned programs are relatively inexpensive, one could somewhat easliy afford all 3. Give them a try...see what interface suits you best. Look thru the galleries to get a feel of what people can do with each.

Right now IMHO...Vue or Bryce(once the upgrade comes out) are the way to go. Terregen at some point will have V2 out, that will be greatly improved...no idea on a date yet, sorry.

Hope this helps :)

Message edited on: 09/26/2004 09:22

Message edited on: 09/26/2004 09:23

Thanks dlk303341 I'm a newbie in this field and I appreciate when somebody with experience under his belt with this kind of programs reply to my questions, yes you're right when you mention "it's what You prefer" but with no experience it's very hard to decide which one I prefer.

It would really depend on what you want to achieve - what sort of pictures do you want to create? It is also a question of economics - as you say, you are a newbie to this field, so a more pragmatic approach might be to try out Terragen (it's still free, I believe), or download the free Vue demo version at E-on software to try it out, there is also a fully function version of Vue 3.1 doing the rounds as a freebie on some computer magazines at the moment. This will give you an idea of what can be achieved and how to do it, and may suggest to you which way to go.

Message edited on: 09/26/2004 10:17

Can't beat the price of Terragen....as in, free. It was one of the first proggies I played with; I didn't find it difficult to get to grips with. You can see in the Terragen gallery, some really incredible stuff. If Matt (?) even has the time to implement forecasted improvements, Terragen could really rock. I learned on Bryce 3, still have 4 and 5. I was disappointed by the rendering times in 5, and the clunkiness of the plant editor. It took me a while to learn the interface, but I enjoyed using Bryce. I've had Vue for a couple of years now; the interface was immediately understandable for me. I like having the 4 viewports, and being able to move and size meshes right inside the windows. The world browser is great, you have a handy list of the items in your scene right there. I think they all have their strengths...(never used Worldbuilder, but have used Mojoworld), but for the money, I think Vue can give terrific results with some practice, and is the easiest to learn.

I would suggest you try the demos :). Terregen you know is free, on a side note with the free version you limited to render size. I've tinkered with Bryce and am waiting for the update. As of this time the render engine so slow beyond the pale, you get good renders but you wait days sometimes for a pic to finish, but the render quality is good if have that kind of patience, which I don't ROFL!!! However with the upcoming update the render is supposed to be sped up & you will also be able to import PZ3's in the new verison. I find Bryces interface a bit confusing, but there again it goes to preference. I'm a dolt when it comes to learning things, & I found Vues manuel to be SUPERB & interface very easy to get a handle on. I still have tons to learn with Vue...there are so many embedded items within each editor, I've barely touched the surface, but that's my fault for just simply not having enough time.

I'm a newbie but I already try the free version of Terragen and I have the free version of Vue 3.1 from 3D World (I upgraded this one to the full commercial version for $40.00), to date I think I prefer Vue over Terragen, but the main reason for my post is I consider buying Vue 5 and it's a lot of money (for me at least). Thanks everbody for the time you take to reply to my inquiries.

I started with Terragen and thought it was great. (And still like to play with it once and a while). But I wanted vegetation. So I bought Bryce 5. It was fine, but I thought the interface was horribly hard to work with and was very frustrated. I then tried Vue4 and loved it. I think the interface is great, the vegetation incredible. I also have Mojoworld, but it has a steep learning curve. With Vue, I dove right in and loved the results.

I have checked the galleries of MojoWorld, and I saw not to much vegetations.

It's possible, but difficult (at least for me).

I have Mojoworld as well and want to sell it. Talk about mind boggling :(

At the moment, I still think Vue is the best. But it seems like Bryce will catch on sooner or later, especially now that DAZ is involved as the active developer. Things may change a lot with Vue 5 and Bryce 5.5/6. It all depends on the pricing too. In my opinion Vue is still overpriced way to much (I know lot's of people don't agree, that be so) and if Bryce will not climb in price to much when v6 comes, it may be a much better choice. Of course this will also depend on the features in Bryce 5.5/6 and Vue 5. We really have to see what the future brings, it's to early to tell which is best, the two major players ( imo Vue & Bryce) bith are releasing a major update this year. Be it that Bryce get's a 'half' update and Vue a full one.

Have just spent several days playing with my new Vue 4. I tend to agree that, if vegetation is where you're going, it far exceeds Terragen. But I'll have to see if the sky/terrain capabilities of Vue can do some of the astounding things I've seen done with Terragen. As for the interface... well... I have Poser, Terragen, Blender, Lightwave 7.5, and have played with Anim8tor and a few other lightweights. I think it's a very nice interface, theoretically, but with the following observed problems: 1) Vue distance inits have no relationship with reality that I know of. Kinda like Poser that way. Why can't folks trying to do 3D modeling software understand the foot or the meter? 2) I run a 3 gig CPU with 3/4Gig of RAM and a display board that supports Open GL. I STILL have to wait up to ten seconds to get my display updated after a trial-and-error attempt to rotate an imported Poser model. And then the display sure as heck doesn't look like Open GL, even though I clicked the box on the appropriate options page. Anybody have any ideas why this might be happening? Despite not being able to figure out x/y/z in Vue (no sweat in Poser or Lightwave) nor understanding just how Vue sets its rotation axes (roll, pitch, yaw) it IS possible to import a Poser figure and even innovate a way to fit it into a Vue terrain/veggie environment. T'aint simple, and very time consuming. Can anybody say if Vue 5 or Vue Pro would help me out? Thanx for listening...

bmoritz, for the Open GL issue, check the FAQ at the top of the page. There are a lot of problems with Vue's implementation of Open GL with various graphics cards and drivers. For the x/y/z, if you load an object into the workspace, and click on it in the world browser, at the top right you'll see a 3-tabbed window that shows the currently assigned material. If you click on the second tab, you'll see the x/y/z orientations in Vue. Not sure what you're asking in the rest of your question.

Like most good 3D programs, Vue recognizes the difference between global coordinates and object-oriented coordinates. For example, a human "body" can be moved on the set using "global" x/y/z coordinates that tell us the locations and relationships between the set objects. If I want to rotate the body in "global" space, I can.

Now say I want to move a limb on the body. Using IK with Poser, the x/z/z coordinates are in reference to the orientation of the BODY (i.e., NOT the set). So I know, for example, that moving a foot in the "z" axis moves it forward or aft with respect to the direction in which the body points. This is a nice feature.

As a pilot, I KNOW roll, pitch, and yaw... at least from a global coordinate perspective (my own rolling, pitching, or yawing while seated is something else).

Now I want to roll a character I imported from Poser into Vue. What is the roll axis? One would think that yaw is rotation about the axis along the length of the body (say, for argument, a line between the center of the hip and the center of the head in a human); pitch uses an axis parallel to a line between the hips, so roll is like a sailor's walk.. rotation about an axis perpendicular to the yaw and pitch axes.

Well... I spent a bit of frustrated time trying to figure out how to position my Poser character in a Vue scene. It seems (I'm NOT sure of this) that using the little windows at the upper right of the screen MIGHT be relative to the model, somehow (OH HOW I WISH I COULD CONFIRM THIS AND USE IT WITH PRECISION!), whereas I KNOW that using the four view panel object orientation controls refers to global coordinates.

Either way, everything in the windows disappears when I try to rotate an object. So I can't see what I'm doing. Trial and error, with more error than patience.

Vue 5 SEEMS to address this issue. Can anybody vouch for the fact that it does? Because right now, I LOVE the render engine in VUE, and am learning to use its materials and foliage, but actually building a total scene is a pain in the nether parts. I've attached a thumbnail image of one result I was able to FINALLY get.

After I get myself a bit educated on VUE, I will consider upgrading to Vue 5 (alot of it's features seem rather excellent). Can't decide on 5PRO because have no specs. As for mover... well Vue basic's internal animation is simple, but it can't easily do things like make tires rotate when autos move (see, however, the EXCELLENT video on Vue 5 on the e-on website). Do I do my final animation in Lightwave? Will I be able to import my scenes (including foilage... but without the fractal procedural textures of Vue 5)? I think not... but I keep hoping and waiting.

The ideal would be an e-on product that worked hand-in-glove BIDIRECTIONALLY with other 3D products. POSER excels in animating creatures; Vue excells in fly-through animation and procedural terrain textures, and has an excellent renderer. And lightwave (modeler) is the way models can be built and textured, and it's animation capabilities (except for fractal and scale-based procedural textures)are better, IMHO, than the others.

NO product I know of (include that I can afford) does it all. How can we get the manufacturers of 3D software to make interoperability a priority?

Thanks for listening to this diatribe. I'm still stumbling around in the dark looking for an answer that allows be to be ARTISTICALLY (not programatically) productive.