Well- just step right in! It took only 23 minutes to do this 1024 x 768 TransPond (RDNA) Roman Villa- using a HDRI Light Probe. There are NO LIGHTS at all used in this image.

However, you can ADD other Vue lights to a HDRI image (like point lights for candles, etc.) And, YES, you can render outdoor scenes, including terrain and water- in fact water can look particularly beautiful with HDRI lighting.

In this image I used BountifulKnight's "KnightSky 360" product found here in the Renderosity Store. It provides a great 360 sky and you can use his terrain- or add your own Vue terrain, plants, etc. The 360 sky prop comes with its own photo background- which I used just because I wanted to see a quickie render of the TP Roman Villa...

Very nice render...cant wait to get my hands on Vue5. It opens up so many more possibilities, and finally the renders look a lot more realistic, as opposed to thepainted` look of vue 4

23 minute is pretty long and impatient.

I used "final" to render this, but use preview- and usually a 320 x 240- to do test renders. And these only take a couple of minutes. Plus the Open GL is really great now, so it is not hard to get a nice render set up right fairly quickly. But actually I render my true FINALS at a much higher resolution- since I have a use for these beyond just a hobby. Waiting for a high quality render is worth it!

Please post your system specifications.

Hey, that looks like my place... :) Great render and yes, this makes those of us that still haven't gotten Vue 5 to think about it some more... Thanks for posting...

I use a P-III and Athlon 64, with loads of storage and the latest graphics cards- My Athlon uses an NVidia GeForce- an excellent investment if you are serious about rendering... Anyone who thinks 23 minutes is "too long" to do a complex architecture render in HDRI hasn't done something like this before. Sure- more expensive 3D software can do it faster, but I use several machines- so I can use another one while one is rendering. If I want really hi-rez- like 4072 x 4072, I let it render overnight. Eat diner, drink some wine, watch TV- lots of things to do while stuff renders!

I also set up a lot of my scenes in Poser first and then import them into Vue. So Poser is often what I'm doing when Vue is rendering a big scene...

Uh? still images probably works for you. I was talking about animation. Lets say 30FPS, that is 1800 frame per minute. So with your scene it would take 690 hours 28 3/4 days to make just 1 minute animation. Who want to do this project? eh

And if you want to make 90 minute movie. Here is the math: 1800 frames per minute 90 minute for a movie 162000 frames in total 20 minute per image, 3240000 minutes in total equivent to 54000 hours or 2250 days or 75 months or 3.125 years I am running away from Vue 5

Well- head on over to the MAX or Lightwave forum...

Hey Veritas, funny isn't it, how people expect the new whiz bang technology they just got to do everything including making you a cup of tea, in about 3.7 seconds flat? Heh :) People who have never done hdri renders before are going to have to learn a lot of patience. Oh.....and by the way, you don't make an animation or a movie using hdri renders folks. Hollywood doesn't........they use all sorts of tricks and techniques. One day I'm sure, but sure as hell not now. Just enjoy what your technology can do and don't sweat it.

Funny farm people. I can say to you guys, "Head on over to senior citizen homes after you do some few animation projects" :) Time pays.

Hmmm, would rendering an entire 90-minute 3D movie (in HDRI) on a SINGLE home computer really be that much faster on MAX or Lightwave? I've always assumed you'd need a render farm (not a single PC) to make such a project not a VERY long (like the 3 years mentioned) affair.

Thanks for "KnightSky 360" tip, Veritas. I'd been messing with an alpha plane in the background of HDRI renders to represent a sky, but this looks like it'll be easier.

Ah, nevermind, I see the render farm/animation question is discussed in this thread.

Message edited on: 10/12/2004 10:58

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12368&Form.ShowMessage=1958959

Yes- it seems pretty ODD to me that someone is considering VUE 5 to do their MAJOR ANIMATION PROJECT! (heh!) NOT WORTH even trying to address that any further... The above Roman Villa is a VERY LARGE scene that the HDRI lighting is calculating. There are beautiful soft shadows throughout the entire building complex (if you could only see the higher-rez details in the original render- plus the soft shadows that are lost when this image was reduced and JPG'ed fairly heavily.) Its an extremely beautiful image to look at when you can look closely into all the details. For me, Vue 5 is doing an INCREDIBLE job and completely worth the cost of $149! Hollywood often renders just a car in a larger STILL scene (frame by frame) so the only object needing rendering is just the CAR- not the majority of the scene. As many know- Hollywood animators render fore-grounds, backgrounds, etc.- often by independent rendering teams, and then they are composited together LATER by another TEAM. Its a LOT of TEAM RENDERING on ultra-fast SGI machines and rendering farms...

Wouldn't it be nice to wish that they boost Vue renderer speed?

Actually I've very rarely gotten anything to render in 23 minutes in final mode in Vue4Pro, so I'd say that that is pretty quick to do all that raytracing. Excellent render.