Hi Vue-ers.

I'm looking at giving the Vue5i demo a go in the very near future (before a certain LW/V5i deal goes bellyup) and I've got a few questions after going through the V5i feature list on the eon site (haven't got to actually installing the demo yet). I come from a bryce background, so thats where my questions are sort of coming from.

[1] I didn't see any mention of displacement mapping - does it support it? Looks like it doesn't from the feature list.

[2] Rendering - does it allow plop renders (I couldn't find them mentioned on the feature list) - so that you can just re-render a small section of your image if you fix something up and not the whole thing again?

Also, can you import a previous render and then do a plop render onto that (its something that bryce does and I find it pretty handy).

[3] Lights - In bryce there are 4 different styles of lights - linear falloff, squared falloff, no falloff, and something it calls ranged falloff (where the light only illuminates out to a range and no further).

The feature list mentions Point light, Quadratic point light, Spotlight, Quadratic spotlight, Directional light.

The quadratic light falloff sounds a lot like the squared falloff bryce light, but what about the falloffs of the others?

[4] Now this is the tricky one that I'm really not sure there is an answer for ..... stability. For any bryce 5 users that may have read this - how does V5i compare for stability (my bryce 5 seems really really stable on the new pc that now has 2GB of ram). The e-on support forums are out of bounds for me (as I haven't bought the thing) and I suspect thats where the stability issues if any would be mentioned... and with the save disabled demo, I'm not sure I'll try too many "taxing" things with it.

Thanks for any help.

Message edited on: 09/28/2005 04:20

(1) Nope, no displacement mapping. Is on the wishlist on a top place (2) Nope - no plops. Not inside the software. Of course you can select areas to render but can't combine that with an old one inside (3) Lights. You are right, quadratic spots are the same as your squared fallof Bryce ones. Infinite light options on the other hand are way stronger than Bryce ones. You can manipulate almost everything. You can have lights that only apply to specific objects or vice versa - to everything but specific objects. You can define the falloff via a filter that is defined by yourself. You can change shadow intensity and/or use maps for that. And and and. Not to forget you can select the view from lightsource to position it precisely. (4) Stability. Well, this is tricky indeed. Some here do have problems, yes. Some don't. Me for example. It is very depending on your specific system so the only way to find it out really is trying the demo. (5) Of course there are some things that are big benefits. Like Ecosystems. Like native Poser import. Like export features and synchronising with the big players like Lightwave, Cinema, Maya and 3DS Max. (6) What is an issue for some people is the user interface. It is very different to Bryce and if you are VERY happy with the Bryce ui it can be an point. It was it for some Bryce users in the past, that's why i come up with it. Conclusion? Use the demo and get a feeling.

Thanks wabe. Your spot on about those lights - you can essentially have whatever falloff you want - could be handy. In fact, its the lighting (radiosity/GI/... that I'm really interested in what V5i can do) The UI is definitely different to bryce's - V5i's felt a lot more cluttered (until I offed a pile of icons and then it opened up nicely). Next couple of questions - is there a way to merge two scene files together (can it be done through the "open file" dialog? Next question - when you import an externally made object (in this case an incomplete building I've been making), is there any way to change the displayed mesh density? The mesh seems to import fine, its just that in the wireframe mode it appears as a haze of dots rather than a building shaped mesh. The bottom mesh in the above image is from bryce (when you turn the displayed mesh density up a bit in bryce - if you left the displayed mesh density low it looked much like the haze pile of dots) and the 4 image view is how it shows up in V5i. (And is there a downloadable manual for the trial version anywhere?)

To merge two files? Not directly possible. But you can of course group elements, save that as vob and load that into another scene again. Regarding display quality. You can change that for whole Vue in the preferences. Surprisingly under display options. You have two sliders that you should try out. But keep in mind how the original setting was - there is not really a reset! Try to switch of background drawing - this makes display slower and is not really necessary probably. No downloadable manual for the demo version, no. Only one for registered users.

The beauty of merging files (in bryce) is that you can set up one file as the base environment file, and a second file may have just your plants in it, while a third may have just your poser figures from one area in it... then you can just merge (the merge command uses the same coordinate system for both scenes so everything ends up in the right place) the files you want for rendering while keeping the system resources a little bit emptier by not having the other things you don't need loaded while making the scene. I expect the combination of Vue's scene layers (which look amazingly handy and they're something I really wished bryce had had on many occasions) and storing/loading 400MB vobs full of things would allow me to do do something like this. re - display quality - it ended up being the background drawing I needed to put up high to see the wireframe - I'd already played with the instant drawing slider yesterday and it had no effect (looks like instant only effects the mesh display while your moving the mesh) but I hadn't of thought of the object as the "background" so didn't touch the background slider. Oh well, works now, understood now. "No downloadable manual for the demo version, no. Only one for registered users. " Damn. That would've solved alot of these RTFM sorts of questions lol. Actually I'm quite impressed with the demo (though haviung cd symbols on most of the default-installed content is a little tiring lol) - and the ui (for me) seems pretty fast to pick up :) Once again, thanks for the help. Most appreciated :)

Flak, it is a pleasure to answer you - some of the things (like merging files) will go onto the wishlist at Cornucopia. Threads like this are the fun part of beeing in forums like that, in difference to the all time complainers. Regarding display settings for each item in a scene. I forgot, there are some things you can select under the last icon to the left in the windw where the item material is displayed. Or the numerical input is. Only switches (to wireframe display, wireframe box etc) but maybe better than nothing.

Attached Link: http://www.cornucopia3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=761

Hi flak, regarding light options you asked for in your first question block. At Cornucopia3D today someone started a thread just about that. I add the link to that here. You maybe want to look at that, there is already an answer from Eran that might interest you.

Now that I can get back onto rosity.... Thanks for that, wabe - an interesting read (view).