E-ON SOFTWARE TO DEVELOP MAC OS X 10.0 VERSION OF AWARD WINNING 3D GRAPHICS PRODUCT e-on software Announces Development of Vue d'Esprit 4 for Mac OS X E-ON SOFTWARE TO DEVELOP MAC OS X 10.0 VERSION OF AWARD WINNING 3D GRAPHICS PRODUCT May 14, 2001. Beaverton, OR. Europe and France-based e-on software announces Vue d'Esprit 4 (Vue 4), the next version of its award winning 3D scenery animation and rendering software. Vue 4 advances a new ease-of-use architecture and adds a long list of advanced realism features for the creation of ultra natural 3D graphics. "The user community has been clamoring for a Macintosh version of Vue d'Esprit for years. The advanced architecture of Apple's Mac OS X 10.0 operating system provides both stability and ease of use that 3D graphics designers love. We are very excited to finally be bringing Vue d'Esprit to the Macintosh, a platform we have long admired for its ease of use," said Nicholas Phelps, president of e-on software. Vue d'Esprit 4 for Macintosh will include hundreds of new features over the previous Windows only Vue d'Esprit 3.1. Some of these new features include: -A whole new volumetric atmosphere system that closely captures the complex interactions of air and light; volumetric clouds, materials and lights -Lens flares, stellar and Atmospheric objects - planets (moons and other planets of the solar system), stars, rainbows and ice rings -A new Terrain Editor with real-time 3D preview, random rock generator, symmetrical terrains -SolidGrowth 2, an advance on e-on software's amazingly realistic tree and plant creation and rendering technology that creates unique natural objects within a click, all within an extremely small memory footprint -Direct import of static Curious Lab's Poser Scenes for inclusion of complex animal and human models Other new special effects and new functions include: Luminous and glowing materials, light gels, unlimited transparency depth, several new shadow features, backlighting and anti-aliasing options for higher quality rendering. Vue 4 will add MPEG 1, MPEG 2, Quicktime, RealMovie, Quicktime VR, PICT and TIFF import/export filters. "The Poser team at Curious Labs is excited that Vue 4 will allow immediate inclusion of Poser scenes. We are sure the Poser community will be excited about how well Poser and Vue work together to create complex, naturalistic scenes with humans, animals, vegetation and atmospheric phenomena," said Steve Cooper, President of Curious Labs, Inc. Long-time Vue users will welcome a new interface with even greater ease of use features, such as high quality OpenGL scene previews and a real-time thumbnail render of the scene. Vue 4 will also feature a completely rewritten rendering engine that will increase rendering speed by 40%. The Vue 4 interface underwent a complete redesign so that design environment is so easy to use, very few users will have to open the Vue d'Esprit 4 manual. Vue d'Esprit 4 will be available in English, French, German and Japanese language versions, with an estimated street price of $199. The Mac OS version has a target release date of Q4 2001. Additional information about Vue d'Esprit and other e-on software products is available on the e-on software website at http://www.e-onsoftware.com. See some preview screen shots from Vue 4 at http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Press/Vue4Peep.htm, including a sample rendering with some of the new effects. Information about Curious Labs Poser 4 is available at http://www.curiouslabs.com. About e-on software Founded in1997, e-on software was established to develop and promote the highest quality graphics tools with professional strength features. Established by graphics enthusiasts for graphics enthusiasts, e-on software translates its passion for art into tools for the graphics community. E-on software has offices in Beaverton, Oregon USA and Paris, France. The company has achieved worldwide reputation for its award winning 3D scenery generator Vue d'Esprit. Contact e-on software USA 503-646-4857 e-on software Europe 33-1-431-42815

Wheehoooeeeeee!!!! Great news!! :D

Isn't it though? Gonna get mighty busy around here before too long!

I think, as Mike hinted, its going to get REALLY INTERESTING- all over the place! Break out the champaign and the flak-jackets...

Y'know, when they announced all that MPEG and Quicktime compatibility, I was wondering if they were working up towards a Mac version. But wow, I hadn't suspected it would be v.4 for the Mac! This really is totally awesome! :)

pop gurgle gurgle... hic Champaigne for all! Now I'm going to bed...... :)

So, does this mean in addition to the pc version, they're going to come out with the mac version?? Are they going to delay releasing the pc version to go along with the mac release? Do you guys ACTUALLY use macs?? I'm just curious... :)

Ok, I see, 4th quarter of 2001 for mac version...

We interrupt this great news for a quick spelling lesson: Champaign is a town in Illinois. Champagne is the stuff that tickles your nose. :) Paul, I believe it means that along with the PC v.4 that we've been expecting, they will also be releasing a Mac v.4, giving Macintosh users an ideal choice of rendering software! I don't have a Mac here, but I spent several years working daily (online) with Mac users that nearly outnumbered the PC users. What makes this announcement so terrific is that it means Vue will no longer be limited to just one OS, and there are a LOT of Mac folks who've been waiting for this opportunity. :)

An additional note... have you noticed how they say "an estimated street price of $199"... Now, I'm not trying to create problems but, at $199 MSRP this software is expensive as it is... Are they trying to say that MSRP is going to be $250?? Just wondering....

Eeps, you're right! I'd missed that part. -- The Mac OS version has a target release date of Q4 2001. -- I wonder when the target release day for the PC version is!

I think they're saying that $199 is the recommended retail price. Usually, distributors who go with a different price will choose something lower than MSRP. So I don't think you need to worry. :)

Does any one at 3D Commune know about this yet, Mike?? If not someone should like let them know over there too, as there are many Mac users over there!!! S Verdie : )

I think they secretly lurk over here, so not to worry...

That's Michael Wagner's turf. I'm sure he was made aware of it....

Well, thanks for the re-assuring words about the price Varian... And yeah, this should definitely make a lot of the mac folks happy..

Now I wish I hadn't sold my Mac so I could see how Vue runs on it :(....oh well, I have a lot of Mac buddies who I'm SURE will let me know of every little bug and annoyance they run across...LOL! All the Mac folks over at Big-i are really excited about all this. One of the guys wanted to try Vue so badly that he ran it on his Mac under an emulator! I'm sure it wasn't easy going, but now he can be satisfied with a true Mac version. Woweeee! Laurie

I want a DUAL Pentium 4 running Windows 2000 (or XP if its as good as they say it will be). That's my next machine...