...How come NO COMMENTS or PICS of  Vue 6 Plants???

This was almost always the TOP interest and gripe about Vue 5... More ways to edit, modify and change plants...etc...

I haven't seen ANYONE posting new plant pics or describing how great the "new" plant editor is...WHAT did, or did NOT, happen???

Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_6_infinite/?page=7

All the changes to the plants system are internal : flicker free rendereding, local winds, etc

Follow the link for more details.

...so the new plants are basically about animation?

E-on talked about the new plants like there was going to be MORE editable features...kind of surprised about that...

Another topic- E-on said that the model, materials and scene browser allows for an EXPANDED preview- something I had suggested to them- and they said they added... Any SCREEN SHOTS of this new addition? ...and do you have to Re-RENDER each PREVIEW item again in order to get the larger size?...Is this something now controlled in the PREFERENCES dialog, or...?

You can adjust the material and texture map preview size in the world browser. There's a new control at the bottom of its window. I find no way to change the preview sizes in the material or scene browsers (dialogs).

Regarding the plant editor - I guess we should  put on the "nag to death" list for Vue 7 , I too would like more options in the plant editor - ie. adding branches/stems - the cactus - would like to able to add new extrusions....things like that.

Hrm. I hate to be a pessimist, but maybe they did not further enable the plant editor because it is not in their financial best interest to do so. It will not sell significantly more copies of Vue than will already be sold, and it WILL enable more people to get into the plant market.... and become direct competition to e-on.

Don't see how Rebel3d, C3d already sells a HUGE variety of solid growth plants(remember C3d & EON are the same basically)...If they enhanced the plant editor we could see a lot more more varieties :) In the solid growth area :) In addition, since the leaves are only alpha planes & not REAL geometry - they always look odd - sometimes floating(unattached) or turned so sideways they are flat.  So even though the species look good - they are far from real looking. No offense to the makers - just a fact due to having to use alpha planes & them getting all twisted up.

As a side, solid growth flowers are severely lacking - sure you can start off with the bonny clump - but if look at it the leaves are attached backwards LOL - takes a bit of fiddling to get those to look "normal" once you've redone the "hotpoint".

...yes, Plant Editing is going to become a BIG GRUMBLE when e-on rolls out the REST of the V6 line- like V6 Standard Edition... The V6i users are so INVOLVED in all the other features of V6i that they obviously haven't played with the plants very much...

...But when the lower end versions of Vue are released, WITHOUT all the Wiz-Bang stuff in V6i, people will be asking a LOT MORE questions about V6's lack of any new Plant Editing features.

One VERY SIMPLE thing E-on could have done is allowed leaf planes to be rotatable- this very simple and minor tweaking of the leaves and stems would BREAK UP the unrealistic look of FLAT leaf planes. It could be accomplished even by a subtle RANDOMNESS, in the same way plants are generated with subtle random changes in shape... It would NOT be a hard thing for E-on to do... very surprised they didn't add that!

E-on would not at all be competiting with themselves by adding more editable plant variations, in fact it would only deepen the interest in E-on's SolidGrowth technology and spur an even greater range of new plants for Cornucopia to sell...

Like I say, when you see the other versions of V6 coming out WITHOUT new plant editing features...you are going to hear a LOT MORE GRIPING, ...I predict!

It's more likely they simply had to make a choice on which area to focus their development resources (which are not illimited... both in time, people and money :) ).

Look at the comparison chart at e-on's website.

Vue 6 Esprit will have most of the new features, such as clouds, translucent materials, displacement maps, .. even ecosystems (which were not useable with vue 5 esprit).

With all of these features out of the way, they will have more room to expand on things like plants in the next version.

"With all of these features out of the way, they will have more room to expand on things like plants in the next version"

I should hope so. I am surprised it is not focussing on plants now though, since it is rather like getting the cart without the horse at this stage. Vue is all about plants, it is it's reason de' etre.

Does anyone know where to find the documentation, or any way at all, to learn about solidgrowth plants themselves? Not about modifying existing ones, but about making brand new solidgrowth plants that are new from the ground up, so to speak. It must be an L-system, like in World Builder, but unlike in WorldBuilder, I cannot locate any documentation on it, nor the facilities in the program's user interface to string these plants together. I want to make some solidgrowth plants.

...E-on is pretty secretitive about their Solid Growth plants- they won't let ANYONE create new ones- only let people modify the one's they have created, unfortunately...

...Just like they are the only major 3D app that doesn't allow Plug-In's...something that makes Carrara at LOT more useful, I think... I can't understand the logic behind E-0n's fear of 3rd party Plug-ins...