Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/about/press_materials/?page=..%2FPRIndex&date=August%202

One feature I didn't see in the long list of the vue6 page. - You can change where you want Vue6 to put your scenes, materials, images, etc... This is done at installation time and is set by default to 'My Documents'.

I'm most impressed with the Ecosys Painting feature; this is really amazing! Also the camera tracking feature; you can land your spaceship in your backyard with correct shadows :D  The Displacement Mapping rocks; a dream come true! Congrats to the E-on team for their excellent work on the broad updates!

Lets not forget the addition of the Poser shader support and the improved lighting for 'internal' scenery. V6I looks to be aiming to be that all around final stage renderer so many of us have been wanting. Now we've seen the menu. So...] Where's the Beef?! :P

The beef is slowly cooking :) You don't want to rush this kind of meat, or they get all hard on the outside and soft on the inside.

That's done about everything I wanted form Vue..omg..

I hope it works ok, bar that I see Vue6 as the perfect bloody app!

WOOOOOOOOOT! :)

...and all this good stuff without a single bug/unstability! :-D

Agiel, what about the Translucency feature? You announced it yesterday, but I can't see it listed amongst the new features.

Was it your mistake, or was it forgotten to be mentioned on the E-on presentation?

Anyway, that's an impressive list of features. I'm already drooling over it.

It's included in sub surface scattering. The Advanced Material menu has now a Translucency tab, with the option to have simple translucency or multiple scattering effect.

Godrays, Ventilators, REAL SSS, area lights... I have watched this video repeatedly and read the entire features documentation...

I am having trouble breathing... VUE is finally up there with the other big boys. I am so excited I don't even want to give details...

Yeah, the presentation video is nice...however...

I thought the same of Vue 5 and e-on's support was near non-existent for people who wanted to learn how to to do the stuff Philippe Bouyer did but they NEVER got round to tutotials telling you how to smooth out cameras, ect.

It looks cool.  However, I'm now skeptical of e-on taking the top few artists, teaching them how to do specifics, and them never relaying it to the common users.  I'm still extremely salty over their lack of documentation and help on camera movements.

Quote - It's included in sub surface scattering. The Advanced Material menu has now a Translucency tab, with the option to have simple translucency or multiple scattering effect.

Fantastic!!!!

Thank you for keeping us informed.

just wanted to add that from what I can see,  the sub-surface scattering results look absolutely a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

...so- is Vue 6 Infinite  shipping in 64 bit in the 3rd Quarter?

I noticed they raised the price of Vue 6 Infinite $100 ($200 for a floating license). I just purchased Vue 5 Esprit on July 1st so I could get a free upgrade to Vue 6 Esprit, but after placing plants manually and seeing ecosystems, I’m thinking of doing a side-grade to Vue 5 Infinite for $399 and saving $100 on Vue 6 because the side-grade qualifies for a free copy of Vue 6 Infinite.

My question is: Does e-on run special upgrade deals for the first month or so after a product is released? I’m a videographer and I also use Sony Vegas software and I know that when a new version comes out, Sony has a special low upgrade price for the first 60 days. Does e-on do something like this too and should I wait to see the deal on a Vue 5 to Vue 6 upgrade or upgrade now?

~jr

I have a question about licensing.

From the e-on presentation, I read this:

Vue 6 xStream and Infinite are available with both node-locked licenses (the program will only operate on the computer for which it is registered) or with floating licenses (the product can be installed on as many computers as you want, and licenses are handed out by the License Server on demand).

Does this mean that if I want my Vue 6 to be installed on my laptop, for those times when I'm away from my studio, I do need to buy a multiple license, although nobody at home is using the desktop computer?

Just a quick q:

I'm correct in assuming xStream 6 is not render-capable by itself, right?  I just got to thinking that I never asked this question but...

Is xStream Infinite AND a PlugIn for the other renderers or just the plugin?

...hopefully they are no longer hiding the post render options in an obscure location?

...There is a new floating browser- -so are the plants and objects in the browser view scalable- so that we don't have those TINY little browser previews since Vue 2-3?  Like the larger views within the V5 Plant Editor? ?

...and speaking of the plant editor- are there more plant editing features for further defining plants and plant shapes?

You had me at: "You can now paint EcoSystems directly onto the surface of objects." :)  That and the meta clouds.  Oh and displacement maps.  Oh and... :)

I watched that small tutorial clip that shows ecopainting in action. WOW!  That right that won me over!  Amazing.

edit clip working now...wow

Rendering of Poser Meshes Using the Poser Shader Tree

Poser uses its own special shader tree for rendering. When you render an imported Poser figure inside another application, these shaders are “translated”, and the results are often noticeably different. Thanks to the strong relationship between e-on and e-frontier, when Vue 6 renders Poser objects, it accesses the Poser shader tree directly*, which ensures that Poser materials will look exactly as if they were rendered inside Poser.

I wonder what Olivier Vinet will think if his amazing Art Materials Vol. I and II (special Toon and Art shaders) will be showing up in Vue 6 scenes from P6 scene imports?

Re-Posing of Poser Meshes inside Vue

Place a character's foot on a rock, make it lean on a tree… The days of guess work and re-importing are gone: you can now re-pose any Poser figure directly inside Vue*! Simply double-click on any body part, and you’ll get all the Poser dials directly inside Vue.

Look's like they got a neat idea from Carrara... but adding the Poser dials- now that IS a nice touch.

Vue5I upgrade to Vue6I $299 yeah right.  Does that mean I could buy the baby version Vue 5 esel and get free vue6I?

comeon I already have Vue 4, 5, vue5i.  Kinda rediculious.

agiel - I'm sorry I missed meeting you yesterday.  I did try to find you.  :-)  This was my first time at Siggraph and wow!  What a deal!  That was freakin huge!  I mean the whole thing, wow!

I saw Richard's demo on animation which was very cool.  Then he let someone else take over, pulled me aside and showed me the new EcoSystem.  Holy Trees and Flowers, Batman!  I almost drooled on the keyboard!  Then he showed me the Translucency and egads!  He showed me the new atmosphere, the realistic clouds and the God Rays!!!!!  I swear, I thought I was going to have to light a cigarette by the time he was done.  I soooo can't wait for this.  I spoke at length to Nicholas who is a super guy and very open and friendly.  I can tell you true, I told him honestly what I really like about Vue and about the issues I had with Vue.  I was not snotty, nor was I snide.  I was open and very non-hostile and as a result, he was very receptive to what I had to say.  He felt that some of the issues I was experiencing were being addressed in Vue 6 and that there is going to be Displacement mapping support as well I believe?  Anyway, he's the type of President of a company that impresses me.  Why?  To most of the world I am a nobody, and everday average Joe who is not going to buy hundreds of licenses from him.  But he did give me his business card and asked me to email him after I've been using Vue 6 and he would like me to give him some feedback.  He said he would very much like to hear from me.  I also met ChristyK who is a really great lady.  And was also interested in what I had to say and my thoughts about Vue. 

I hit the Rendo boot and met Lillian and Clint who are totally awesome and really friendly.  Lillian is very much a southern lady.  And Clint reminds me a lot of a good friend who's a musician.

I also missed meeting Bob who created Skin Vue, I would have loved to say Hi to him as well and ask him some questions.  But I know I can catch him on-line.

Veritas - I hope like heck it does mean that.  :-)

"User-defined thumbnail image for saved items"

...O.K.- looks like they FIXED THAT ONE (I hope)! 

Sorry to have missed you elektra. As you know now, it is difficult to stay in place at the SIGGRAPH expo. I kept going from e-on's booth to Renderosity's and everywhere else in between. And I did the same this morning ! :) there is so much to see. I took a few pictures of e-on's booth. I will put them online when I get a chance.

Quote - Vue5I upgrade to Vue6I $299 yeah right.  Does that mean I could buy the baby version Vue 5 esel and get free vue6I?

comeon I already have Vue 4, 5, vue5i.  Kinda rediculious.

You cant buy Vue 5 Easel and get 6 Infinite free. You would have to buy Vue 5 Infinite or upgrade to it and then get the corresponding version free ie if you bought :-

Vue 5 Easel - Get Vue 6 Easel Free
Vue 5 Esprit - Get Vue 6 Esprit Free
Vue 5 Infinite - Get Vue 6 Infinite Free

Thanks
Jon

Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_6/?page=3

E-on seems to have addressed virtually every suggestion -- sometimes in a less-than-suggestion  tone, that I made (as well as many others did -- I'm sure), with Vue 6I.  It's obvious they rewrote much of the code from top-down, as there is little of Vue 5I in the demo pages -- many principles are still there, but the tools appear much different (and better!).  They even saw the light with terrain layering (a powerful feature in Carrara 4 & 5).

I’m very impressed, and only hope that the major bugs have been squashed, as this was my major complaint with V5I, especially when creating complex scenes to be rendered at high resolution.  Although V5I is pretty much a stable product now, the first 6 months was very frustrating for me!

I will say that E-on really raised the bar  with this release – I doubt anyone will be able to match Vue in the pure landscape department, certainly in the foreseeable future(?).

I will be upgrading – damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

One thing I do wonder about is if the V 6I upgrade price of $299 gets you the "Vue 6 Infinite Floating license," or the  "Vue 6 Infinite Nodelocked license?" I do NOT want a nodelocked application!

I am excited about the program, but I find the pricing very obscure.

I now have Vue 5 Infinite and I have seen the new pricing but have many questions about it.

1. what if I want to upgrade from Vue 5 Infinite to Vue 6 Xstream? How much do I pay? I can not find this option listed

2. if I buy xstream plugin now, and I already have infinite 5, how much do I pay for 6 Xstream complete? It says plugin upgrade is free (?) do I understand correctly? But then how much do I pay in total?

3. do I have to buy xstream plugin NOW if I want to upgrade to 6 xstream later? If I don't buy the plugin now am I forced to upgrade only to 6 infinite and not 6 xstream?

4. I can not find option to floating license for the upgrades. Does that mean that if I want to upgrade, I am forced to upgrade nodelocked? What if I want to turn floating?

Sorry, I really understand little of how it all works. I wish it can be made clear. It is going to be an investment and I need to plan the money output in advance and see how much I need to save. So it would be great if Eon could make all the options clear by now.

I just upgrade lightwave to v9.  I'm not going to spend $699 for xtream v6 lightwave plugin and then $299 for Vue6i upgrade.  Sorry, maybe the best thing since sliced cheese but the pricing is a bit much for me.

I was kidding about the vue 5 easel.  I have vue4, vue 5, vue 5i, I've paid and paid and while the new features and the xtreme plugin for lightwave is promising is way out of pricing for the benifits.

And it's Vue.  I'll wait a while for people to actually use vue6i and see if it works, I don't have time to hunt major crashes anymore, vue5i crashes on me a bunch.

Glad they are looking and doing new things, on paper Vue6 and xtereme 6 read very impressively.

Just wanted to stop by and add my drool to the puddle... or is it Lake Drool by now? Havin a good year work wise, and can't wait to spend the extra cash. Now, where is this V6I... let me at it! :-))

Quote - Machineclaw - here is a link to the pricing page from e-on. You need to buy Vue 5 Infinite ($599) or Vue xStream bundle ($995) to qualify for a free upgrade for vue 6. The offer is not available for upgrading from easel.

I dont think that is correct, as their own homepage stated if you upgraded any Vue 5 edition to a higher one in the Vue 5 range you would get the corresponding Vue 6 version free. Like I upgraded from Vue 5 esprit to Vue 5 Infinite, I will get Vue 6 Infinite free.

I did post a question in e-ons support about this and they verified that to be correct. Unless you are talking about something else, in which case apologies.

Would be nice for someone at E-on to give a launch date rather than Q3 though :(

Thanks
Jon

"If you buy any of the Vue 5 Products now*, you will receive your free upgrade to the corresponding Vue 6 product when it is released (download version, node-locked)"
(this was for somebody who asked if it was node-locked version)

Here is an odd pricing situation.    I have Vue 5 esprit.  I can sidegrade to V5i for $399 and get v6i for free.  If I want to just sidegrade to v6i it would cost me $499.  Does that make any sense to anybody?

I still do not see and good water tools, EG easy to build rivers and lakes?

^^ You cant give users a launch date.   If the date passes, people begin to call for their heads, there's flaming on forums, ect.  I think they dont want to rush anything to meet some rediculous user 'deadline'.  And I'm glad too.  I wont be getting it on the date it comes out.

V5I was too unstable in the beginning.  I expect Vue 6 to be the same.

I want to know if real world units are in again.  I have to import DWG (well 3ds) files and the units are just crazy.  Sometimes I'll have a 200 ft building in there and when imported it encompasses the entire area of vue.  This wouldn't be too big a problem if it wasn't for the fact that ecosystem use doesn't work outside vue's world area.  Resize it in Vue, and if you need to make a change in the 3ds, you're screwed because you no longer have the right size and location.

I cant tell you how many times I've been burned on this.  That and not having enough precision in texture mapping, nor being able to set it to a specific unit size.

Features look great but I'm a bit concerned about their new licensing policy. I am a hobbyist user and use Vue-I on my laptop and desktop at home only.

Their current scheme is fair, as I'm only ever using the product on one machine at a time. But, if I have to pay another $100 and set up some sort of 'license server' on my home network just for Vue, then I'll probably look to another package. Then again, I can wait and see. I hate using Lightwave because of their stupid dongle, which is prone to getting lost between laptop and desktop. I'm not sure this license server thing is any better.

And speaking of license intalls, I certainly hope they won't make you install your 5 Esprit product, then intall your 5 Vue-I upgrade (which I currently have to do) then install the ver 6 Vue-I upgrade.

I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope they don't brand all of us as PIRATES and force us paying customers to jump through too many hoops to just use their new product. I hate it when a company does that!

I've been following this announcement closely for quite some time.  Based on what I've read and seen, I think I will take advantage of sidegrading from Vue 4 esprit to V5I tonight so I can get V6I for free once it's released.  The deadline for receiving V6I for free via a V5I purchase ends tomorrow and I'd rather not miss this opportunity.

So if y'all can stand having a long time Brycer in your midst, please be ready for lots of n00b questions.  I still love Bryce, but for my foliage type of renders, feel Vue will be a good marriage for me.
~arry ;)

Having just got back from Siggraph(and thanks Elektra for allowing me to take your place in the drooling queue...LOL), I just have one word for VUE6I....

UNBELIEVABLE...

and IMHO well worth the upgrade price...OK! A few more than my promised one word '-)!

I must say I went in with a bit of trepidation, wondering if there would be enough new features for a non-animator/non-XStream user like myself to warrant the $299 listed upgrade price, but all those qualms were quickly dismissed after watching Eran and Rick's demos and catching a bit of agiel's playing around! Hey! The guy can't be "working" the whole time he's there...8-)

The eco-paint "tools" alone may have been enough to sway me, but that is just the tip of the iceberg here. This is a definite no-brainer upgrade and I, for one, can't wait for it to roll out!

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! But bug--free, of course, too...LOL!

Steve

Quote - I've been following this announcement closely for quite some time.  Based on what I've read and seen, I think I will take advantage of sidegrading from Vue 4 esprit to V5I tonight so I can get V6I for free once it's released.  The deadline for receiving V6I for free via a V5I purchase ends tomorrow and I'd rather not miss this opportunity.

So if y'all can stand having a long time Brycer in your midst, please be ready for lots of n00b questions.  I still love Bryce, but for my foliage type of renders, feel Vue will be a good marriage for me.
~arry ;)

You may be surprised by how many former Brycers are hiding here...... ;)

Thanks for deleting my post, Agiel...

Unless it's about "drooling"- it get's deleted.. let's see if you can get THIS ONE in under 3 minutes...

Will a printed manual be available for purchase for people who downloaded V6I for free?

You're welcome Veritas. I thought I made it clear that there was no place for making unfounded accusations against e-on on this forum, but then again, maybe I was wrong. Once again, I have no problem leaving discussions about e-on's decisions such as pricing, as long as it is argumented and reasonable. I have no tolerance for posts asserting e-on is out there only to screw people among other things. Bucket - I will relay them your question about the manual.

* cntrl-Z hide mode*

Feature list looks quite good.... merge scenes - good to see a bit of bryce making its way in :) Have a feeling I'm going to be looking for some new hardware to use it thoroughly though :/

From those that have seen it (presumably) at Siggraph - how responsive is the 4 window (or even when in single window mode) view panes when compared to V5i when you move start moving stuff about? I found it a bit syruppy in V5i (when using the same single model in single view pane mode "0" with the same observable wireframe density, bryce, as an example, seemed a lot smoother when you were moving your point of view about the scene).

And a trickier question - does it import LW objects of greater than 65000 polys effortlessly and seamlessly?

Z hide mode

Agiel, please ask about the pricing if you see fit. As of now it looks like if one upgrades from vue 4 pro to vue 5 infinite it will be cheaper than upgrading from vue 5 infinite to vue 6 infinite since one receives vue 6 infinite for free it is upgraded to vue 5 infinite. Is this correct? The program looks like a good upgrade but I can't tell if there is much of a difference between vue 6 and vue 6 infinite? They look the same except for the interface and the animation graph.

There are very responsive as far as I can tell but I can't really answer that for several reasons Flak. The demos at siggraph are using the current beta version of vue 6. Not all features are available in that version yet and performance cannot be expected to be the same as final, production code. The demos themselves are kept to simple tasks for reasons of time - each demo runs for about 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of questions. The windows PCs used for the demos are dual processors running in 64bits to show that Vue 6 can also run on these platforms. Those machines are by definition faster. The macs used for the demos are also fast, but I noticed much better response time of vue under mac OS X than vue under windows, so I tend to attribute that to the OS (vue 5 on my small mac laptop runs a lot faster than vue 5 infinite on my windows XP, especially during renders). I'll relay your question about LW objects to the beta testers.

Ah ok, thanks for that (yeah, responsiveness is going to be dependant on so many things, and it sounds like they attempted to max out those things for the demos).

Thanks for asking about the LW stuff.

Well- Agiel, it's TOO BAD you can't leave my post stand- and let others make their own minds up if I'm insane, vicious, etc. I felt it reflected pretty well what I have been reading in several other forums (which aren't being censored.) 

I didn't use any profanity, personal attacks, etc.- I've also previously made some pretty fair and favorable remarks about Vue 6 as well- so I'm not on any Anti-Vue 6 tirade... I think I and others just don't like the really ODD upgrade pricing scheme, higher than expected upgrade pricing, node-locking, etc... 

Like Deja Vu- this seems like the Cornucopia Store fiasco- all over again...

Okay, Agiel, I'm pretty sure I've got this straight as far as pricing:
I currently own V5I - bought it around a year ago - so I'll be paying $300 for the upgrade.
I also have C4D 9.6 so I REALLY want xStream - so I'll be paying another $995 right?

I guess I'm just not sure, but it seems the xStream is just the "bridge" between the 2 apps, right? If it actually has V6I as the product itself, wrapped in the disguise of a plug-in, then I think I'll be saving $300.

And side note: I have NO problem forking over $1,300 for this - I already use V5I for background extensions in my product photography, and plan on doing more FX work with independent productions, so as a professional user it's a no-brainer - and STILL cheaper than many other high end apps anyway.

For hobbyists, that is a scary number, but for professionals - you'll be making that money back. E-On is very aware of this, it isn't some kind of money scam - they put the high end features in the version that costs more to reflect this (and recoup investment on the R&D of said high-end features to be used by professionals), just like any other business with multiple tier products (as far as 3D, think of Maya and XSI where you can pay $2k for the stripped down version or SEVEN GRAND to get all the features).

Could be worse, price-wise - you could be talking about upgrading your copy of Houdini...
-Lew

That sounds about right. xstream is more than just a bridge. It allows bi-directional communication between the renderers of both products. The host application displays vue objects and say, c4d objects. Each application takes care of editing its own objects. If you edit the materials of a vue object from inside c4f, you will see the vue material editor come up. Objects from both scenes interact with each other (occlusion, reflections, etc) xstream coordinates both rederers to work together. Vue objects are rendered with vue's render engine and c4d objects are rendered with c4d's engine. The 'bridge' allows information about reflections, illumination, radiosity, shadows, etc.. to be rendered together. Since each bridge is really a standalone application (one for each host application), and since the market for this kind of bridge is relatively limited, the pricing is understandable.

Yah- I personally do not care AT ALL how much E-on wants to charge people for X-Stream! Charge them $1000 a copy- that fine with me! Since these people using PRO software are used to high ticket prices- SO WHAT... Charge them up the.....for it and buy Lamborgini's for everyone on the E-on staff...

But me and a number of other people like me- do NOT plan on connecting Vue with MAX, LW, etc.

Our other main software is POSER- so it's a totally DIFFERENT ball park.  That's what REALLY irritates me about this- E-on is treating the people who came up from Vue 3-4 and got Vue 5- and then Vue 5 Infinite- PRIMARILY for the eco-systems feature-- like we are now all MAX and Lightwave users. I don't need no stinkin' Lightwave or MAX- and most of the ORIGINAL Vue user base is like that!

So now that E-on has gone "Hollywood"- they are treating their original user base like ...., I think.