Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Press/PR.php?date=January%2031,%202005

The announcement has just been made on e-on website. Here is a summary of the new features : A selection of features available in Vue 5 Infinite include: * EcoSystem technology to populate scenes with millions of animated plants, rocks or objects; * Single objects and complete scenes can be exported to major 3D applications, including 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya, Softimage XSI and others; * Camera and light synchronization with 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya and Softimage XSI for perfectly matching renders; * G-Buffer and Multi-Pass rendering with fully anti-aliased masks for advanced compositing; * Multi-layer PSD, RLA and RPF file format support for use with e.g. Discreet Combustion or Adobe After Effects; * Global Illumination and Radiosity, * High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) and Image Based Lighting (IBL), * Baking of indirect lighting, advanced illumination controls, * SmartGraph advanced function and material editor with Full shader customization, advanced time-dependent effects and non photo-realistic rendering; * Ultra fast OpenGL-based pre-rendering engine for quick and easy previewing; * Hybrid network rendering of single pictures or animations using RenderCow technology on Windows and MacOS X, including leveraging Apple RendezVous technology to easily transform a rack of Apple MacOS X Servers into a render farm; * AccuShadows advanced shadow mapping technologies; * Ultra-fast Hybrid 2.5D motion-blur rendering engine; * Procedural Terrains with sub-pixel detail whatever the viewing distance, * Plant editing technology with full export capabilities and animation support for simulating the effects of wind through trees; * Python-based application and scene scripting with full access to hundreds of internal functions and structures for customization and creation of new rendering effects; * 3D Text, Metablobs, pre-animated meshes, integrated post-processing, camera switching and numerous other productivity and feature enhancements. Follow the link to the full announcement :)

Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Products/vue5infinite/

And here is the link to the Vue Infinite page on the website.

Holy Moly!!!!!! WOOT!!!!!! I can't wait....this looks absolutely awesome :). Must calm myself...another month & 1/2 to wait LOL.

I am curious if the pre ordered wil ship first or will be held up like vue 5 was for some who had preordered. :) Lot great features listed with Infinite. I hope we don't have the problems with it that were with Vue 5 is my only concern. Also will it upgrade our Vue Pro or can we still use Vue Pro and have Vue Infinite as a stand alone application.

This looks VERY impressive. Especially the G-Buffer output and compositing capabilities! That's something you just don't get to great extent in any app under $1000. Sounds great! :-)

"Camera and light synchronization with 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya and Softimage XSI for perfectly matching renders" WOW. I just noticed this one. This alone could really increase it's usefulness as a "production" application. This is a feature that previously only WorldBuilder had been able to do. I'm definitely getting VueI. Glad I waited.

The details about Vue 5 were announced last year very close to the shipping date - maybe that is why pre-orders were delayed. I don't really know why it happened - could have been just production issues... it happens (look at ATI and Nvidia :) ). At least, this time, they will have more time to match supply with demand.

LOL, I just got shipment confirmation of Vue 5 pro this morning..... Actually, the ecosystem piece looks like the major thing that would be of use to me....anyone know if it will be made a module for us non-infinites? eric

No word on what will be the next modules yet, although ecosystem materials would make a logical target for a future module.

In case you missed it, there is a link to do comparisons down near the bottom. Vue has a ton of new features that even Vue5 or Vue5PS can't match. I think the best feature for me is going to be the EcoSystem as this looks like it will make it a snap to create a fully populated scene, instead of adding an object at a time. Awesome! Also: "Export high dynamic range images (including skydomes)" This will be awesome for using as HDRI images in apps like Carrara 3+. These two features alone might make me side-grade. Wow. Very Impressive Stuff. Regards, PaulG

I have preordered so maybe I can be one the few who are in line first with shipping. Looking forward to getting this version of Vue. Still want to know if we can use Vue Pro along side of Vue Infinite when it arrives. :)

iloco: Are you using Mac or PC? On the Mac I know you can have Vue 4 and Vue 5 installed at the same time. Likely this is the same for Pro and Infinite... Regards, PaulG

I am using pc. I hope that will be how it is. I have no problems with Vue Pro and want to be able to go back to it if run into problems with new Infinite. :)

Great news! It sounds very promising. Can't wait to try the Eco system.

It's impressive. It's desirable. Features are amazing. No question. No argument. But... What's that strange feeling in my pocket? Ah, it's my wallet being sucked dry. Again. UK Vue 5 Esprit users sidegrading pay an extra 30 per cent before VAT (tax) than US customers. 10% I can understand, 15% I could stomach but 30%? Anybody from E-On around to explain this?

Exactly ONE interesting feature as far as I'm concerned - the Ecosystem, obviously. Undoubtedly nice, but certainly not worth my 399 EUROS PLUS VAT for a v5e upgrade. (Actually, if I buy the two missing modules I will have v5pro and qualify for the 199 euro upgrade, which works out cheaper overall, ... or??) Isn't it interesting how e-on is able to calculate exchange rates between euros and pounds (274 pounds is about 403 euros, over 540 dollars that is), but not between dollars and euros? "Upgrade from $149,-" in your dreams. BigGreen, e-on is responsive to customers, but not on this issue. After posting it on their forum I was told they understood my frustration, but pricing policies should not be expected to change anytime soon. They did promise though that they won't change it either if dollar values rise above the euro again - which may happen under a next US administration, but certainly not under Bush... So be patient.

MartinPh. Thanks for the response. I too have contacted E-On on this in the past with no reply so I've given up. I jst needed to vent a little. Trouble is I'm hooked on Vue and have been since early v2 so I'll probably per order tomorrow. Ho hum.

That's got my order made ! =NOW= do you see how hard those of us lucky enough to snag a copy of the feature set were biting our tongues? Owwwiee~~!!

"Camera and light synchronization with 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya and Softimage XSI for perfectly matching renders"

Maxxxmodels: not a new feature, already in Vue 4 Pro see: HERE

Looking at the full feature list available HERE sold it to me as an animator!

NEW! Illumination baking.

NEW! Separate maps can be assigned to the background, the IBL and the global reflection map channels.

NEW! Time dependant noises (including basic 'Open Ocean' water node).

NEW! Rotoscoping (Use animations as texture maps).

NEW! Animated 2D import: Sequence of pictures, MOV (Macintosh only), AVI (Windows only).

NEW! Exclude ground from Alpha map option.

NEW! Create billboards that always face the camera (with a 'force vertical' option).

And, for those hacked off with having to buy Mover separately:
NEW! Animated Poser 4 & 5 scene import.

One qustion that does strike me though, whatever happened to the pre-animated meshes announced with Vue 5 Esprit? Edited to add missing x and n. Message edited on: 01/31/2005 17:35

Pre-animated meshes as a feature? It is listed further down the page as relates to Vue 5. It seems that Vue5i has everything vue5 has and more... PaulG

Has anyone bothered to download the QT files of the ecosystem cityscape and the animated water waves? Bloody. F*cking. WOW.... I can not -wait- to see what kind of demo Phoul is working on; that cityscape was incredible. I do have one question though. Poser folks, take a good look at it. Do not some of those modules look an awful lot like some of the Dystopia blocks? If they can actually use =those= as ecosystem modules, and on a machine with 512megs of ram... Wow... (even if they just look like them, that cityscape is incredible).

This looks fantastic to me. What I look forward to, is be able to populate a moutain with trees...That landscape looks just awesome...WOOOOOTTTT.....and those waves....I'm not into animating..but those waves...gonna have to learn that :) I just can't stop looking at that list & those pics...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Message edited on: 01/31/2005 17:49

"Mix an unlimited number of objects, plants, rocks and scatter them (randomly or controlled) throughout your scenes!" The ecosystem description says it - you can use any object, tree or rock and mix them in any way you want using the graph editor.

glad its finaly announced, and unless something majorly happens before march im buying v5I myself, and im real glad to see that we havent lost any features since the last time the feature list was posted :) anyway, v5I looks like an awesome step up from e.on and im realy, realy looking forward putting my hands on v5I and implement it with our production line.

Dale B. Thank you again for your nice words... ;-) The shot is called "Ecocity". At first it was "Dystopiafinite". ;-) You are right. I used the great free Dystopia blocks for Poser. Thanks to Mobius87 indeed!

Oh my. That ecosystem opens up the field for some ideas I've wanted to commit to render, but simply would have involved far too much postwork to make practical. And you're welcome, Phoul...although I should thank you, as well. It was your demo's with Vue4Poser4 that got me off of playing with stills and working to learn to animate and use cinematography tricks to create living shots. Still learning, but one day intend to have something decent enough to show (now to get back to learning After Effects... Particle Illusion can wait until I can composite things...)

I'm totally speechless, that ecosystem tool looks incredible, I'm just wondering how memory managemant is going to work with billions of polygons. Just looks incredible though!!

Billions is quite scary...since at times we've had trouble handling low-to mid millions.

At least I have time to upgrade a few things. Was planning on new VC/AMD 64 & heavier Power Supply and more fans LOL. Not upgrading mem at this point......

Sigh..I've been upgrading EVERY year now for the past 3 years at the 1st March..this will be no exception. Maybe after this upgrade I can let my puter rest for 3-5 years. Looks like I'll be adding Ram Rocket to my program purchase list as well.

Message edited on: 01/31/2005 19:56

Just beautiful, I just got my copy of Vue 4 Pro and they release a new updated version of Vue 5!!! Just my friggen luck!!! Will I be able to upgrade to Vue 5 Infinite or will I have to buy a complete new version???? Any one know???

$149.00 to upgrade to V5I if you have Vue4Pro.

Wow, this new version looks absolutely amazing, I'd love to get my hands on it, but..... until E-On deals with this euro and pound prizing issue, I'm not buying. Don't like the feeling that I'm being cheated somehow.

"Maxxxmodels: not a new feature, already in Vue 4 Pro see: HERE" Ah, that's cool. I don't have Vue 4 Pro, so I wasn't aware of it. Thought only WorldBuilder supported that. As an animator myself, the most exciting new features have to deal with the extensive G-Buffer output. As far as I'm aware, it will incorporate new capabilities in this area that were not previously possible in Vue. Makes working in AfterEffects and Combustion much easier and provides more control. That alone sells me on this product.

aeilkema I can understand how you feel, truly, but I think if you don't get it you will be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Eon won't care about one customer and you know you want it - go on, just complain and vent but get it. You'll be happy you did. Well at least I hope we all will be. Sometimes things in life aren't fair, and we just have to make the best of them. Maybe if you have a friend or relative in America they could get it for you and then post it to you? I guess with every new version and upgrade and beta upgrade we all hope all the problems will be gone. I have a good feeling about it this time. Yours optimistically, esther (from australia)

I agree with aeilkema on the fact that we are being messed up on the pricing, but I'm gonna get it asap. It looks absolutely amazing!! Why do we get screwed on the money side of things?

Absolutley fantastic, except I guess we'll have to wait for Vue6 for particles. I was really hoping they would include a particle engine in Vue5 Infinite.

aeilkema i think the currency issue is something we all struggle with. Almost all companies does this. The standard argument is taxes, translation costs, shipment costs etc etc. You would not complain if the relation between Dollar and Pound/Euro would be vice versa. So that you get it cheaper here than in the States. This was so a while ago and nobody offered to pay more volunteerily. Not as far as i know. I think Adobe Photoshop is a good example. Is almost double the price in Europe than in the States. Is that fair? No. But business is not fair. Never. Your decision to make a deal or not. But as much as i know from this new feature it will be a killer. Incredible what i have seen so far. Something that will revolutionate the galleries, i am sure!

Yeah.... I can already imagine the debates :) Ecosystems vs hand placed plants. 3D objects vs billboards. And we thought we had problems with alpha planes of clouds :)

I'm absolutely stunned by the new Vue Infinite features, but I've lived without for years now and Vue 5 does suit my needs pretty well. As for many businesses treating us that way, I do agree, that's why I do not do business with them. Got Poser 5 paid a fair price for it, now that they've changed their policy, I will not buy again. I do not have adobe photoshop, but do have an alternative. I use TrueSpace, just because of the pricing issue. I could continue with alternatives. As far as Vue is concerned one can buy it here at Renderosity just as well, avoiding all of the pricing issues :-) !!! Unfortunally I haven't seen the modules yet, I'll hope that they will be available here too, so I can finally purchase some of them.

Wabe , when a few years ago the exchange rate differed in favor of the dollar , E-on had no problem in making us pay the correct amount , this time round they don't make that "error" because as a European company they would lose to much on the deal. Since there's no upgrade from V$ to V5 inf I'll probably get the full version for $599 when I'm in the US visiting the kids, the $400 price difference will pay for the planetickets for me and the Mrs.

Looks like a lot of cool featurs for Vue5i. Got my preorder in! If it ships March 14, I may have it by my birthday!

yes, it looks very cool, but i can't seem to understand the upgradings - if i have Vue d'Esprit 4 i get no upgrade?? anyway..... ever since i looked at the announcement, all i can think is.. I Want It lol

LO at Agiel...I thought the Billboards was a fancy new name for alpha planes.

Billboards pretty much are alpha planes, except that it looks like they've made them so billboards always face the camera, whereas alpha planes have to be manually placed/animated to do so.

Also, on the whole ecosystem thingy and billions of polygons, Eon has an animation on their website that says it was created and rendered on a 512mb system, so in theory Eon is saying you don't need to upgrade your system at all for ecoystem to be used. I'm still curious as to how they can possibly make the memory management of those particular material/objects so efficient that the polygon count would be irrelevent for those objects (as that is how they make it sound).

I'm Still really really excited to get it though, I can think of a billion things to do with that tool that have just been a pain to do (or downright impossible) in any of the existing versions. It's times like these I really hate having a house to pay bills for :)

Message edited on: 02/01/2005 10:56

yep i hate paying my bills more then ever right now :) v5I + one more brand new ass spanking computer..... + bills....... oooo i guess my girlfriend will kill me next month and ill just have to live with it, such a harsh world :)

I just received my emails (2) for Vue 5 Infinite and like everyone esle here, I was severely impressed. Without a doubt, I will be placing upgrade order tonight once I get home. One thing I am impressed with the ecosystem, the images look awesome and i hope its easy to get good looking images. One thing this reminds me is World Construction Set 6.0, WCS has both Ecosystem and Billboards are uses for showing the trees and such. I would expect that V5I will be a lot easlier to use and better looking then WCS. My copy of WCS 6.0 sits along with its dongle. The lighting sounds very interesting also, I have use Surface Baking with Lightwave and its quites power, I am interested in how V5I imaplements such stuff. Can't wait till the package arrives at my house. I do hope the that e-On has tested it with latest version of Lightwave. Newtek recently gave out a free 8.2 Update.

I'm on it. Can't wait to get started.

But... where is the modular version?? I don't need all the modules and I thought I could get a basic V5I, and then get just one module and at least, as a plain old V4 user, I would get a break that way. $600 ?? it is a toy for me... I want it badly..but really cannot afford $600... and I THOUGHT I read all about modules? All I want is the ability to import pz3's... I don't NEED a plant editor, since it has a plant generator... I think..I do NOT animate at all... all the vues are very confusing! Help!!?? Were the modules only with Vue 4 Pro.. or 5 pro?? But I want that thing that generates multiples of the same object... ooooh dear... :(

Lyne - You can view the modules as packages slices of Vue Infinite that you can add to enhance Vue 5. They are designed for Vue 5 and already included in Vue Infinite. If you are only interested by ecosystems, you will have to wait until e-on creates an ecosystem module for Vue 5 (if enough people write to them about it, it would make a logical choice).

Agiel, I just read on the e-on forum that there was no plans for more modules for Vue 5.... I am a bit shocked, I thought we had the chance to upgrade at our own pace with modules.... Guess that won't be the case. Elaine

I read the same. I believe if enough will post in e-ons Vue forum they may change their mind. It may not be practical to have the econ system as a module is reason for them saying no more addons. :)

YES, YES! REAL WAVES! I can't believe I am FINALLY seeing this come true! INCREDIBLE! Absolutely will be my KILLER 3D application... Plus Cel Shaders (YAHOOO!) and great Photoshop Compatibility- this is EVERYTHING I could ever hope for!!! Geez- I'm flying over to Paris to get my copy ASAP, HEH!