I am still looking for a DEM to test (16 or 32 bit)......They are very hard to procure....apparantly you have to have some converter to get it from the USGS. (I still havent figured it out yet)

I do agree Vue's down fall is the terrain editor. You can try and get detail in there with fractal and math nodes....but it soon becomes uncontrollable....FOR EXAMPLE...if you look at geocontrol...the errosion shoots of glaciers is killer detail....(Vue really cant do Glacier carved mountains)(Which leaves most mountains in LA out)

I did see an artist do Mt Mikinley for a movie...and it was pretty bad ass....even the snow mixed on the peaks of the rocks were SUPER advanced (beyond my procedural abilities).

So question is how do you get really tasty mouontains (ESPECIALLY If your not going to cover it with trees)?

I need to clarify saveing models and heightfeilds from where (and importing them into Vue)? I am a Maya user and I actually though about doing displacement in Z-brush....and bringing it into Vue.....(someone recommended geocontrol2)

So are you reommending I bring terrains INTO Vue FROM World machine, TerraFromer2, or Geocontrol2....(to get around V6 terra editor)?

Also where would I get 60 meter DEM tif file?  (These geological survey websites are really confusing)

Quote - I use a 32bit mapping system myself and with Vue I get no better results than if I used 16bit or less. Your Best Option would be to save your model or heightfield in Object format and then import it into Vue. You should retain most if not all of your finer details, but heightfields and picture based terrains only work about as well as a 60 meter DEM, ........... maybe a tad better, but not much. Vue is Impressive Indeed, but IMO it's big downfall is Finely Detailed Terrains as they look as they are exported them out of World-Machine or TerraFormer2, but even that isn't  to hard to overcome.