One of the things that bugs me about a lot of 3d apps is that they attract developers who think they need to reinvent the GUI, drafting or worse both.  Then someone learns to work with app X and comes across an app that doesn't reinvent the wheel and complain about it having a none standard interface.  Give me three views and a 3d view and I'm half way to figuring your app out.

I got excited when the new version of 3DS Max was announced because it sounded like an API free version was coming out for a lot less money (circa £400).  The first serious 3D tool I used was Max.  I'm no expert but I could get it to do what I wanted normally.  Now I see the API less version has gone back up to the you have to be joking range.

I do have to sympathise with small companies that price their products to keep the user base to the proffesional market.  Having to support a few hundred users who on the one hand demand support but on the other hand don't expect a programme to do the impossible has a certain logic.  I have a friend who teaches a CG course at degree level each year and each year there are one or two self declared experts at the start of the course who've used every app and know everything.  Its one of that group who fail to hand in by the deadline because their render is still trying to cope with the unoptimized textures on the over complex mesh with every render setting cranked up to the max...

Anyway Vue does what I was looking for and as long as it keeps on doing that I don't need any other landscape app.  I especially don't need an app that makes renders that don't include plants and that are too crisp or of dull, uniformly textured rock formations.

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