Dear Friend: I would like to know how I can cerate my own unique Eco-Systems using Vue 6 Esprit. One of the problems that I am having is that the Eco-system tab is either grayed out or it is not availble in the "Type" material tab of my Vue 6 Esprit. So, How can I set unique Eco-Systems with my Vue 6 Esprit? Sincerely, Fidelity2.

Vue 6 Esprit does not include the ecosystems, but you can buy it as an addon module.

Once you have the Ecosystems module, creating new ones is actually pretty easy.  I did one this morning for an image I'm working on and it didn't take any time at all once I figured out some of the details.

Yeah, ecosystems is like having a million plants with just a few clicks. Here's an example, took a few minutes to set up the ecosystem, longest part of it was loading the plants due to the high res textures.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1414029

The example looks great. Stefan.  You know I'll be happy to beta test it for you.

I can help out too if you need more testers.
Marque

When i checked v6 esprit and then the eco system 'addon', it sent me to V6Pro. Does the eco system make it V6Pro?

BillyGoat

It's a module you have to buy.  I did and it works great in my V6E.

Fidelity2 - If you purchase the Ecosystems module you'll be given a serial number, not a download which I expected. Your ecosystems is already in your modules folder, you just need to buy the license to use it. I felt a fool for not realising this!

Yeah, the ecosystem module rocks totally, and I am just learning to use Vue. But it is very simple, and very much worth the $99 add-in prices. The only difference between V6Pro and V6E is that Pro includes all the modules and a unified serial #, where in V6E, you can buy the modules you want one at a time (but do have to manage different serial #s). It costs more to do this if you are going to buy all the modules, but if you are on a tight budget (like me) and want to get going, V6E, and adding in what you need later, is a good way to get there. Pity the Ecosystem is the most expensive module, but as I said - well worth it. Sorry for the ramble - not feeling well, and brain is mush.

My next two will be the LightTune module and the Deep Access module.  Right now I don't have a need for HyperVue since I'm not on a network but when my partner gets here and we set up the network I'll be adding that one, as well.

I guess I can't really figure out what the big benefit for the Deep Acccess module is. I've read the listing in the manual and on-line, but can't exactly figure out what it would do, other than maybe keep me from making a few extra clicks? Am I missing something?

Deep Access is the one you would want if you intend on importing foreign objects into your Vue scene.  It allows you to synchronize the texture mapping so that if you retexure in an external program the new texture would automatically be loaded without having to reimport the object.

This is the module that will let you make changes to texture maps in something like Poser and not have to re-import the model for the new textures to take effect.  That feature, alone, makes the $39 price tag well worth it for me.

Ok, granted, that might be useful, but I can't imagine how often I am going to do that - just my natrual work flow, I guess - I am going to get my character right before I export it. Other than that, what else does it do? Not trying to sound snippy or stupid or anything - genuinely curious about how I can make my life easier in Vue.

I don't know much more than that about it but I have found that a character may look right in Poser but when I import to a Vue scene the texturing might just not fit the scene.  I like the idea of being able to go back into Poser, tweak the texture using the shader nodes, save it, jump back to Vue and not have to import again.  That's just me, of course, and it's not an endorsement that everyone needs Deep Access but it's something that I'll use a lot.

So I I buy Esprit I would have to place each tree one by one to create a forest?

Pretty much, yes. You would also run into memory issues rather quickly; Eco-systems is an instancing system that uses programming tricks to swap content in and out of active rendering memory; when people talk about scenes with billions of eco-polygons, that is just the total -if they were all in active memory at one time-. Building a forest by loading one tree at a time will put those millions of polygons into your memory. Boom-crash. Deep Access is just that, Victoria; it's the file handling system that was native in Vue 5 Infinite, so it takes the limit off the number of layers you can create for your scene. The file access tree expands to show =all= the named objects in the scene, and a right click on that object brings up the texture info. It's one of those modules you don't think you need...until you get it and try and do without it. ;)

Thanks for the confirmation, Dale B.  That's exactly what I thought and, because I love to import from Poser and continually need to tweak textures, I know I'll be using this one a lot - at least until I upgrade to V6I

The Deep access module also allows you to edit ecosystem materials, which isn't possible otherwise. And it lets you reload imported objects/textures that have been modified in other apps, as said earlier. It's not as "in your face" as the ecosystem module, but it's a time saver.

I may have to put Deep Access on my wish list now, for some reason I just never thought I'd need it. I guess I should read up on this module more at e-on.
Thanks for the info.

I bought the Deep Access module a few days ago and its already proving to be indispensible. One area I've found it makes a huge difference is being able to retexture rocks when they are used in an ecosystem and to me that already makes it worth the asking price.

"retexture rocks when they are used in an ecosystem"
Oh yes, I can definitely see the advantages of this!