Hello all,

I'm new to VUE5 but have enjoyed playing with it to get a "feel" for things but I have just one question... for the moment at least...

When editing a terrain in the terrain editor, how do you know where you are relative to a specific object (eg poser figure) placed on the terrain, as you can't see your imported figure...

thanks

Mike

Hmmm... good question. I think you are expected to place your imported Poser figure where you want it AFTER you complete your terrain.

Guess you COULD place a temporary mark on your terrain while in the Terrain Editor (dig a hole or such) and place the figure relative to that mark after you leave the Terrain Editor. Right-click on your terrain to go back into the Terain Editor, then delete your mark.

Anyone got a better idea?

_jc  'Art Head Start' e-book: Learn digital art skills $19.95
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I usually try to look at the moutainous areas and do a quick preview render.

Then spin the terrain till i get it where i want it :)

I am embarrassed by such things, too, so for real terrains, I use an ordinary modeler program. But such terrains are polygon-intensive, are not editable in Vue's terrain editor. The only way I found, to adjust a Vue terrain for example around building or such, was, to take a top-view render of the terrain, with houses, trees and so, load that into Photoshop, so I see who/what is where, crop that and keep only the terrain's representation, paint on a overlaid layer the areas I want to rise, (on an other one those I want to lower,) save those layers each, without the colour image, and then, in Vue's terrain editor, add these images to a duplicata of the existing terrain, using very low percentage. I draw that black/grey on white, so for raising, invert to negative. I never hit the ok-jackpot at the first try... Perhaps there are easier and more exact ways to do that ?

I once tried a quick experiment of exporting a Vue 5i mesh (not procedural) terrain as .obj and modeling it in Silo 3D V1.4, then back into Vue as .obj.

Worked fine. In Silo 3D, i extruded a simple wall from the existing Vue polys, then flattened the top. Could have done much more of course. Back in Vue, i added materials 

_jc  'Art Head Start' e-book: Learn digital art skills $19.95
'Art Head Start.com Free chapter, Vue tutorials, models, Web Tutorials Directory.

Good 'un jc...must try that

Thanks, Bobby. I think such methods of using Vue, plus external 3D modelers, leads to some very cool integration of Vue terrain with the Ecosystems + props and other objects. I'm also amazed at some of the work done within Vue, using only Vue's 3D modeling capabilities.

For example, that wall, which i extruded right out of the Vue mesh terrain, i also later broke away from the terrain into its own group. This allowed me to apply a different material to it back in Vue. It would also allow a separate Ecosystem application, like "growing" vines over that wall, adding human figures and traffic along the top, etc., etc. and/or applying various custom functions or Python scripts (big iron gate sliding up & down inside a portal?).

Lots of possibilites for even more Vue creative power here. Maybe this is the 'poor artist's/hobbyist's' way of getting something like the professional integration of Vue + 3D modelers that e-on has begun offering?

I've said it before, and i'll say it again: I've tried lots of 3D programs and Vue gives me more creative power and more creative freedom than any app i've seen. I'm still in awe of this thing, after a couple of years of use - warts and all.    

I know what you mean. I'm primarily attracted by the veg itself andthe ecosystem as well but that's newer,and of course the fine render engine. I haven't had a full ver for a while but even the demo has me saving money for it. I just wish that they'd implement some way, other than booleans, to model as I really like mesh working. It would open up whole new vistas in Vue if they did. Still it does import a number of formats I can export to so it aint that bad. It's just that in the program I use[Imagine3d], you can, within a model, create sub groups of faces[which you can't access in Vue as well] which allow for very detailed applications of procedurals and maps. I have to split my models apart into the relevant face sub groups , and re group as object groups to have that kind of access in Vue....small thing as Vue has fairly robust UV mapping which Imagine lacks[likely the reason for the sub groups workaround originally]

But ultimately you are correct, it certainly is one of the most versatile rendering programs I've tried.

Later

I'm all right with jc, that method works fine. But, as I said above, when re-loading such a terrain, one has no longer the possibility to edit it in Vue's terrain editor (or did I miss a feature somewhere ?) What I'm looking for, is a way to take a Vue editable terrain, fine-tune it in some external application, and then re-load it into Vue, editable as a VueTERRAIN inside Vue's terrain editor. So to go back and forth between the two, to finetune. Up to now, the only way to do that I found, is what I wrote higher up (transferring the whole terrain as a bitmap is sufficient for faeriescapes, but isn't precise enough for exact work). The ideal thing would be some external free program, that saves a 3Dmesh as a USGSdem, because Vue loads those as editable terrains... But up to now, I didn't find such a program... :-( Somebody got info on such ?

True, GPFrance, it's a one-way workflow. You can, of course save your work at each step and back up and do over. But you can't re-edit in the Terrain Editor, as far as i can tell.

Sorry, i don't know much about DEMs, or know of any such tool.