Quote - Anyone else fence sitting trying to decide if the upgrade features are worth the cost?

I'm interested in the render speed differences, but more importantly in the new use features liek the ecosystem painting, and the the water foam stuff. if I can see things I couldn;t do with V6I, I might be more impressed, but I haven't really seen anything yet I can;t currently do.

I've got the money, but eon just hasn't justified the cost to me yet.

I need a faster Vue renderer and better radiosity.  I like the extra plants and the better clouds.  And if I am going to stay in E-On's upgrade path pricing, I have no choice but to buy the upgrade.

E-ON site seems to be down at the moment?

More people got the email.  So now everyone knows about Vue 7.  I hope to buy it today some time.

yep... looks like the site is down...

yeah, its down as its moving to a new server.
Autodesk just bought e-on and are relocating all files to autodesk.com

They are fixing the upgrade price from Vue 6 Infinite to Vue 7 Complete.  The price should have been a negative value.

Quote - They are fixing the upgrade price from Vue 6 Infinite to Vue 7 Complete.  The price should have been a negative value.

Uhh since when has *any *software company ever done that with an upgrade ? More to the point why should they ?

Quote - For LMcLean. Here in preview mode with 20% blur.

Mazak

Thanks Mazak. The render in "Final" mode looks to be improved from Vue 6,

Quote - Autodesk just bought e-on and are relocating all files to autodesk.com

Please tell me you are joking!

Quote - > Quote - Autodesk just bought e-on and are relocating all files to autodesk.com

Please tell me you are joking!

Of course he is joking :)

Jon

heh :)

I did not work a lot with previous version, but the 7th version is really impressive. It renders really faster than the Vue6 version (and that's why I didn't played a lot with it).

I searched... but as said, I'm a little new: where do you find the smoothing shadows for GI or radiosity ? I searched in the Render settings, the atmosphere and the light settings. DId I missed it ?

Thanks :)

Oh, and aslo impressive things(except render time): the new Infinite terrains and the water editor :D

Mazak

Thanks... I was looking for a check box :D

Dudes! Dudettes!!! MAN, I SOooo wish I could justifiably create a new thread JUST to say this:

I LOVE THE NEW ABILITY TO PAINT ECOSYSTEMS FROM ANY ANGLE!!!

YUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my GOSH, I've been WISHING for that!!! What a JOY to be able to do this in the MAIN VIEW!!! Or ANY view!!! I bought Vue 7 before reading all the new features and my mouth dropped when I started playing with this new version!

dances around Vue 7 Ohmygosh, I am in LOVE

Painting in all views is fabulous! - I'm using that feature as I type this in a new image I'm doing.  Has to be my fav feature so far :)

Quote - Painting in all views is fabulous!  ...

HEY! it's YOU again!!!    lolol  

How appropriate you should post now, as your constant encouragement kept my spirits up when I couldn't get my download last night! Again, I thank you!

And yah, it's AWESOME to finally be able to work with Vue 7! I think I'm losing it...
Every new thing I discover is amazing me! I can't stop raving, even to myself. LOL

Hmmm, Angelsinger, I really hope you are alone at the moment. Would be embarassing being caught dancing around the computer....lol!

Quote - Hmmm, Angelsinger, I really hope you are alone at the moment. Would be embarassing being caught dancing around the computer....lol!

Actually, the beau is away right now, so he can't see my shenanigans!!

Ahh, but he's so used to the dances by now: I have my "I hate this software" dance, and my "joy of joys! this proggie rules!!" dance! lolol

He wisely ignores both dances. hahahahahah

LOL Angelsinger! 

My only complaint so far with V7I is the render times & save times are abysmal :(.  Rendering in preview mode has taken upwards of 30m & with bad results I'm afraid, very grainy/splotchy(at this point only useful for checking object placement).  Going to final mode I have to spot render because times are so long.  Saving this scene I'm working on is taking 20M + to save & this is with resources at 88% & using the default atmos.

Oustide of render times I'm pleased.

Mazak

dlk30341, I'm very surprised with those times. I have normal times.
Regarding saving time, are you sure you don't have "compressed" activated in the save dialog box? Regarding render times, are you sure you have "shadow smoothing" off in the light tab of the atmosphere settings? This is only necessary in special situations.
Are you sure you have light quality at -1 or even lower? This only needs to be above this in special situations too.

Nope - no compressed check(have never used that)

I'm using the default atmos & that's it - no lights other than the sun. I thought the shadow thing only applied to GR/GI.  I will check this as soon as the  eco I have going finishes populating & get back to you here.

XLT find Mazak - thanks for that!

Edited - nope shadows do not apply as the default atmos is GA.

I've seen various other posts around where people are reporting increased render times - wonder what we all have in common.

Regarding compressed, the default setting might have changed with the update. Just in case, it's worthwhile checking.
About shadow smoothing, it's active in AO, GI and GR.
What about the "Quality Boost" in the light tab, that I also mentioned? The default atmos normally have that in zero, which is far more that what's normally necessary. I normally render at -1.5 or even less (the higher the light balance, the lower this setting can go).

Quality boost is at zero. The default atmos is 50/50. Compressed is NOT on.  Quite frankly I shouldn't have to lower the quality boost below zero as I NEVER had these issues with V6I.

IMO there is definately something amiss here, as I've mentioned I'm seeing more & more posts regarding increased render times :(.

Render-times increased maybe with the new motion blur feature in eco-systems. I deactivated wind and breeze and turned off motion blur in render setting, but eco-system still render very slow.

Mazak

You can safely lower quality boost, trust me. You'll not notice the difference in quality in most cases and the difference in render times is just tremendous. If you see some blotches in the shadows, then it's time to increase quality boost.

There's another thing: the anti-aliasing strategy. By default, Vue 7 proposes Systematic and this is much, much slower than Optimized and, again, in most cases you'll see no difference. I just made a test render of just a sphere. With optimized on, it took 8 seconds to render and with systematic it took 55 seconds.

I'm finding the render times are much longer in 7.  I just set up a simple scene with jsut a few trees couple of terrains and a boat.
OK so I have godrays on but it's telling me it's going to take 7+ hours and that's only on at 'final' quality.

Similar scene in 6 would have been much quicker.

I love all the new goodies but I'm finding these render times a right royal PITA 

My experiences tell me the render times are considerably faster, not slower for Vue 7 scenes. Perhaps some of you can post your 'problem' test scenes and we can take a look at them for any issues?

Heck I'm just in PREVIEW mode & it's taking 45+ minutes just to get a preview - the more I add the longer it gets.  Resources now at 83%.  I'm going to hate the time when I switch to user settings!

Agree w/GillB - all the other goodies work as they should but these render times :blink:

I would be more than happy to email someone this file - I'm saving now but have no clue at this point what the files size is(it might be to big).  In addition, if you all don't have the same plants I'm using how does this work? I have painted items from Poser & a couple trees that weren't included in V7I(from C3d) + a road set from Poser.

The Vue scene file is 88,363 KB which is small(by my past standards), Most of my scene files in the 500's if not higher!

 Can you create a much smaller 'test file' in Vue 6, then render it in both Vue 6 and Vue 7 and then post the results? If the Vue 7 render is longer, then it will be easy to transfer the smaller file to others of us who can test it.

Or, try showing us pictures of your atmosphere settings. Perhaps we can help by viewing it alone?

The atmos is the default Vue7 atmos - no changes whatsover have been made to it.  So you can see that by just loading up that atmos.

While I do appreciate your willingness to help a smaller scene file IMO would be pointless as if it was smaller & less complex there wouldn't be any issues right?

The image was made in V7I so going back & redoing in V6I is a non starter.  That said you all can look at my gallery & see the images I've made in 6I & see the complexity there & realize in 6I preview renders were speedy - no more than 1-5m.  In 6I - rendering in final was no more than 30m-1 hour in 6I - using USER settings with high AA typically ran me 6 hours to overnight.  Only 1 image in my gallery took a week & that was during a 6I point patch when EON had a bum update out & when it was fixed I re-ran it & it ran overnight vs a week.

Lets keep in mind here I am in preview mode..........

Again I do appreciate everyone's willingness to help - I'm just not willing to dumb down a scene just so it will render fast(or for testing).  I could do that myself, but don't want to sacrfice my image for it & testing a smaller file would be futile & wouldn't really prove anything as it's not what I'm working on.

The default render settings might have changed from V6 to V7. Again, did you make sure you're using Optimized strategy in AA instead of Systematic? The difference in render time is huge. Maybe in V6 you were using Optimized and now you're using Systematic. That could easily happen.

... although that wouldn't explain the difference in preview mode, since it doesn't have AA...

Quote - The atmos is the default Vue7 atmos - no changes whatsover have been made to it.  So you can see that by just loading up that atmos.

While I do appreciate your willingness to help a smaller scene file IMO would be pointless as if it was smaller & less complex there wouldn't be any issues right?

So, if I am correct in understanding what you say, the smaller scenes have ZERO problem and this happens only on larger scenes? If so, I would deconstruct the larger scene, bit by bit, until I found the 'culprit' issue-- whether it be a poser character, a texture map, etc..

Quote - The image was made in V7I so going back & redoing in V6I is a non starter.

So then, without an apples to apples scene comparison, it would seem to me to be difficult to say Vue7 is signifcantly slower? 

Quote - I'm just not willing to dumb down a scene just so it will render fast(or for testing).  I could do that myself, but don't want to sacrfice my image for it & testing a smaller file would be futile & wouldn't really prove anything as it's not what I'm working on.

Well, that's the only way I know of to try and figure out why your scenes render slower and other people's scenes render faster. Good luck.

Correct Rutra.  I am in only PREVIEW MODE at this point.  I might have come onto something - not sure though.  I have one terrain in the back that is set to dynamic eco this takes forever & as I watch the bottom bar it says something to the affect of calculating the dynamics.  My other 3 terrains where populated the old fashion way - these render fast.

I've tested using render selected objects only.  The dynamic by itself(long time) & the other 3 terrains grouped by themselves & the render times are vastly different.

Looks like the dynamic calculations are consuming a good chunk of time & resources.

I'm just guessing at this point by it seems to be the culprit to date.  More research needs to be done here I do believe.

That makes sense. With dynamic population, it's populating and rendering. So, the time that you saved by not populating you're now spending on the rendering. There's no free lunch... :-)

LOL Rutra - so true - I'll go back to the old method for now - this could be an issue that still needs work since it's a new feature.

Let me add this - while it's rendering on the dynamic terrain my internet viewing(video display) is beyond slow & my typing here is about several seconds behind what I type for it to appear on screen - this is a first!

Thanks for everyone's help :)

4 Color Variation... Woah!!!

Dynamic population is computed at render time, right before sarting rendering, acutally, and if you use an infinite terrain, it will of course take quite a while to populate. But this will always be the same amount of time, whether you are in preview, or ultra, it's like "preparing" radiosity. Maybe e-on should add an info text at the bottom left of the interface saying what's going on, instead of just "preparing".
Now about your display, maybe you could move the instant draw slider a bit more to the right and see if the terrain previews faster. But I agree, these inf terrains are slow to redraw.

Quote - "while it's rendering on the dynamic terrain my internet viewing(video display) is beyond slow & my typing here is about several seconds behind what I type for it to appear on screen"

I also noticed that Vue7 is much more aggressive than Vue6 in what concerns CPU usage. With Vue6, I could be rendering and still use other apps perfectly well. But with Vue7 is not quite like this. Sometimes, Vue7 seems so hungry for CPU, and its process seems to have such a high level of priority in the system, that working in other apps become sluggish.
Fortunetaly, I have two computers... :-)

This one took only 30 minutes in V7 against over 2 hours in V6

Then this one took an hour and a half, but then re-rendering with different anti-aliasing strategies, render settings etc. with re-use indirect lighting only takes seconds.

Those images look great and quite good render times too.

Mazak

That number is formated in a strange way. Why are there only two digits after the last comma? Fraction of polygons? LOL

Quad core Q6600 with 4GB Ram on Vista 32

I can't really see the water/land interaction there, am I missing something?

Jon