Well, after careful consideration.  I say, no.  The feature list is too short and the upgrade price from Vue 6 Infinite to 7 is way too high.  Who are they kidding...?  Good luck e-on but no more money from me.  Funny thing is the same thing happened to Poser.  

I think these programs have reached their limits.  They have nothing new to offer that has any real value.

To the new programs that usurp them. I hope they come soon.

Cheers!

Does anyone now if your plants and other purchased products from Vue 6 will still work in Vue 7 without having to re-download and re-install as I have heard from previous upgrade users???

There's a nice feature in the installer that asks you if you want to keep using them and takes care of it for you - at least that's how it went for me. I still had to point V7 at the old custom folders I had created for them in V6, in the objects list - as usual. 

JC, so Vue7 creates it's own folders and leaves intact your Vue6 folders, that would be kind of nice 8^D

Can anyone tell me how big the download is for V7 Infinite, I will be getting the upgrade as soon as my new super duper computer arrives on the weekend, set up and then I can start intalling my stuff again. Jan

Traligill,**
**cheers! :) thanks for that

Damn I splurged, didn't think Vue would be out to near Christmas! (bought CS4 Extended upgrade, and Fallout 3...damn is that game awesome, lol)

need ot check my rather small piggy bank. the sidegrade pricing if I went: Vue 6 Infinite --> Vue7 Infinite and then maybe later ot Vue7 Xstream, is crazy!

Silverblade, you really don't need xStream if you don't use it in a host app.
If used as standalone xStream=Infinite, nothing less, nothing more.

Python and layer support drive me to Infinite. Complete is sooo close to being the right SKU.

can vue 7 reduce the flickering of distant plant animations?

From what I can see, flicker reduction is the same as in Vue6. It already worked in 6 anyway.

@Thelby:
V7 leaves alone any V6 custom folder you previously created (which of course it knows nothing about) . It uses the same default folders it did for V6 (for Windows, dunno about Mac).

As before, you can tell it to install elsewhere on your drive, if you want to keep things separate. I didn't want to.

They're quick to ship - I paid late last night and have had an email this morning confirming it's been shipped out. :b_drool:

Mazak

good render ,how long you spend?

The scene is original 1200x1600 with radiosity it renders in Vue7 1.50 hours. The same scene renders in Vue6 5-6 hours.

Mazak

They both look nice, but the bottom looks more natural...maybe a bit blown out. A fabulous time difference though. Anyone wanna post some GI/GR with trees/water. See the time savings then.

Any normal mapping yet?

Thanks for the render examples guys; keep it coming...can't wait for the demo!

A real stress-test used to be animated Poser import.How good does VUE 7 deal with it?

Anyone know what an HD plant is? I Realize HD = high definition.  But in terms of improvements over Vue's other plants.  For example, are the leaf mats different, are they more detailed as in real geometry?

Thanks

Have been thinking that myself, again one of the promoted features, but not really covered in the presentation.

I wonder if it is like when Microsoft was going to release the new file system with Vista, then they couldn't really get it to work in time, or it wasn't what they hoped and didn't include it lol.

Jon

I see an HD tree for sale at C3d which is labeled HD & is really quite expensive IMO.  Which is part of my reason for asking exactly what the differences are.

You can stick the camera right up to the trunk and get nice details on the HD trees.  They also have more subsets, so you can have more colors of leaves per tree on the ones with leaves and they usually have more subsets for the trunk and roots too. 

Mazak,
what set is that you used in that image, if I may ask? :)
Maybe one I have, perhaps...(tons of DAZ stuff I've not used yet, lol)

Awesoem render time!

Bruno,
ah wel, ahve to wait anyways, sigh.

How long will the special price offer be on for? a month?

I don't have it yet, Debbie, but the one tree I saw has a huge polygon count - few hundred thousand. They warn that it should be used mainly as a foreground object as using it in an eco-system will really slow down your system.

Kevin

Thanks Peggy & Kevin :).  My system is up to the task(use Xfrog quite a bit).  I'll have to check it out...the idea of being able to alter more parts is a plus!

Edited:  Are there any  HD trees included in V7I?

Just got my dlnd links this AM which was to late for me - had to work.

Attached Link: http://web1278.freeweb.webhoster.ag/vue/Trinity_Atrium.zip

@Silverblade I ziped the atmosphere for you. Camera angle for the picture was 30 degrees.

Mazak

Yes, looks like major enhancements to the V7 radiosity solution - but also even more controls for fine-tuning that (like in the user render type quality adjust "edit" - photon mapping, etc.).
 
A good explanation of photon mapping parameters and such is in Jeremy Birn's "Digital Lighting & Rendering 2nd Edition" book. 

Notice the new Collada 3D model import? I tried it with DAZ Studio (instead of my usual .obj import" and it worked fine. I have V7i.

Did the fix the tree textures from V6I? There wa s free set of testure someone released here to fix all the tree materila issues.. I wonder if those fixes were included in V7I, or if we need to fix them again for V7I?

Stabdard trees now use different materials for trunks. Most of them use the new fractal nodes. And there is a metanode called the Bark generator, so you can create your own barks too.

Vue 7 seems to be an enhancement to Vue 6, not a revision. In the nuclear industry we would call this a "pen & ink change." I’m wondering if this upgrade is worth the cost. One thing, if one does upgrade, and you have an 8 core workstation, get Vue 7 Infinite, as the “Complete” version has a 4 CPU cap – it won’t see an 8-core PC. I also wonder why, for such a steep upgrade price increase, the Mac version doesn’t support the 64-bit Mac OS?

Since Carrara Pro seems to no longer provide much competition in the digital landscape application area, and Bryce is a distant has-been, Eon is now in the digital landscape software driver’s seat. Eon can now charge a premium for their unique software. Carrara 6.5 has some excellent capabilities in landscape creation (not to mention modeling tools), but it certainly falls short of Vue 6 in the “pure” landscape realm. And since DAZ now owns Carrara, the emphasis seems to be making Carrara a content vessel for DAZ stuff.

The example renders I see posted, comparing Vue 6 to Vue 7, seem to generate a more washed-out render with Vue 7, albeit at a much faster speed(?). I’m sure making some lighting changes will nullify my perception of that, but will it cost more render time…?

At this point, I personally need more information on Vue 7 Infinite to justify the increased upgrade cost. As the features of Vue 7 seem to be mainly enhancements, and not much of a real revision over Vue 6, I’ll likely wait a bit. In the meantime, I’ll bet Vue 6 users can create most if not all of the scenes that Vue 7 is capable of. It’ll probably be more a matter of how long it takes, rather than what one cannot do with Vue 6, but can do with Vue 7.

Attached Link: http://www.geekatplay.com/vue7.php

Mazak

WOW, Gotta Love that Water and Foam Editor. That is an Outstnding Feature!!!

I'm intrigued by the bark generator - can't wait to give that a whizz !

Gill do show us a screen capture of that Bark Interface will ya?!?!?!
Oh Wait, You ordered the Boxed version didn't you? SO maybe someone else will be so kind and show that to us!!!

Bark Generator...I missed that one...but thats not unusual(;

I hear it's Bark is worst then it's Byte....

Quote - > Quote - From the newsletter:

Point-Five Releases

In the course of the coming year, we will be releasing Vue 7.5. This paid-for ".5" release will introduce new features and technologies. These new features and technologies are undisclosed at this point.

Service Packs (former software updates) will remain free of charge for everyone.

**This statement here has me most concerned.  Does e-on think I'll give them money now for software down the road with features not listed.  This is pure snake oil.  See through sales bull.  **

ehhh you only pay for the .5 release when it's released.  No doubt Eon will be forthcoming on what's in it in due course.

They are not asking money now, they are just saying the features are undisclosed now. For sure that when they release 7.5 they will announce the new features so that the customers can decide whether to invest the money or not. It wouldn't make sense any other way.

Quote - Gill do show us a screen capture of that Bark Interface will ya?!?!?!
Oh Wait, You ordered the Boxed version didn't you? SO maybe someone else will be so kind and show that to us!!!

Yes, boxed version ..... I'm getting bored using Vue 6 already now!

Screenshots would be great if someone would oblige

I missed the bark generator too. What's that? Where do I find it?

Yes, I had to read the manual to understand a bit more about this metanode thing. Quite powerful indeed!

This is the complete function "unwrapped" with all the componentsof the metanode available. There are fractals and noises connected to simple color nodes to determine the bark colors, and constant nodes to determine the mixing of the colours, and the bump function.

You don't need to connect the color output to a color map using this metanode, it already has it's own set of colors, that you can modify from the published parameters, or from the metanode graph itself.
Not sure I'll create such complicated nodes any time soon, but it's quite interesting! Oh, and the water editor uses such nodes too.