....is anybody going to clear the tumble weed from around here? ;) Ok...a question; Your most important "hidden" tip for using Vue? Cheers

Is there anything hidden? Lolol! My most important "must do" is the change of the black and oversized highlight from Poser skin imports to white and less big. Gives especially humanoids a so much better look! Ok, more detailed. Change highlight color from black to white. Change highlight size down to maximum 30% Unfortunaltely you have to do it for each material separately. But since there is "collapse identical materials" it is not such a big thing anymore. AND, it is only a need for body skin and head textures, lips, nostrils eyeballs etc etc i leave as they are. No real need to change them.

Since this is a problem: On import these particulars should be able to be manipulated like the bump map. Bump map intensity can be set on import so why not highlight paremeters.

"Who's steering this ship & why is it sinking"

I won't fall for the pointless game of 'this should be included' or 'it should be done that way'.... Instead, some more 'hidden tips' : - To change the intensity of directional lights (like the sun), set the light color to a shade of grey. - To move the camera around an object, select the object and use the trackball. Without an object selected, the trackball points in whatever direction you rotate to.

Actually that is a good idea about the added import functions and should be added.

It is a shame that people take it personally. It is only pointless if you make it pointless and you have. There is nothing wrong with customers talking out ideas unless the people start attacking the person instead of the idea.

Some will never learn that simple lesson.

Save imported objects (pz3s) as .VOB after editing the materials. You'll lose the connection with Poser, but the .VOBs are much less resource intensive - allows for more complicated scenes. Don't import a complex .pz3 all at once. Create different .pz3s (containing one figure and its clothes each) from the main .pz3 and import those separately. Reduce the amount of texture maps by replacing them with procedural materials wherever possible. Human skin: hook up the bump channel to the skin texture at strength 0.02. Replace cornea texture by a water shader without bump (and set the refraction index to 1.35).

Ecosystems are not rocks and plants only: I populated a flattened cube with a model I made in XFrog ( but the sea plant from the plants collection can be used, once edited), and voil a beautiful contemporary rug, complete with hair!

Ecosystems are great for generating background crowds. Set the overall scaling of an ecosystem to 2 to have the ecosystem objects at their regular size.

When Ecoing distant cities, do it in two ecosystems. On the first Ecosystem, for the center of the city have random rotation (but vertical). For the rest of the city, have all the buildings rotated in 90 degree increments only. Its a subtle thing, but most (European) cities have chaotic jostling inner layouts and more regular lined up layouts toward the edges. It will look better without you really knowing why.

A tip I use, that is more down to my personal preference than anything else; I always knock the ambience setting off in the atmosphere editor before I start a scene. For me the default ambient setting makes an image look insipid. Maybe once the scene is nearing completion, I will add just a little ambience, but 9 times out of 10 I will add fill lights instead. For me, using the default ambient setting makes an image lose depth, clarity and a certain punch. Cheers

Also makes the render quite grainy, and washed out. I kill the ambient light too, but not as much as you do!

very interesting thread! okay here's my contribution - I make my highlights for skin a light brown colour rather than white when i change from poser imported black. love esther