Just as I start to think things are not too bad, and I thought that I had got to grips with the volumetric atmosphere, Vue decides to kick me where it hurts...again! I started a forest scene, and of course I'll need to use the alpha planes...but as you see I can't. Volumetrics are set to the highest quality, as explained in the manual, and it still did not make any difference. Even with a non volumetric atmosphere with fog you can see the edge of the plane. Looks like I will be upgrading to WB after all...and render Vue veggies for use as clip maps in WB ;) Cheers

If it's any consolation...the kentia looks good! ;) I know that's not what you wanna hear tho...sorry :( Laurie

From what my friends who have the new WB tell me, if its pain relief your seeking, you are going from the pan to the fire. Good luck. Unless you are technically minded and say enjoy working in something like 3D Max your learning curve will be extremely steep. I'm a neophyte but my friends are experienced modelers. All of them decided it was money wasted on the new WB. It would take them much too long to even begin to get back to the level they already are in other programs. So unless your already using WB and are simply going to upgrade to it, you may want to rethink changing.

LOL Laurie :) Actually you are right, the Kentia is a lot better in version 4. As I say, I'm starting to get to grips with the atmosphere, and I'm really starting to like it...it is just that that when things like this pop up, I get all depressed and frustrated again :-/ zstrike; Agreed, WB is complicated, but I have previous experience...and my experience with Max is errrrmmmm...well lets say, people pay me money to work with it :D Cheers

There's got to be something wrong in the refraction index of your transparency. Give me a sec before you go and buy WB...I'll figure it out, because...I WON'T BE STOPPED! :) -SMT

LOL Stephen :D I checked the refraction index just to be sure, and it is firmly set to 1.00. What I think the problem is, is that the alpha plane is quite big. If you can come up with a solution for it, I WON'T STOP YOU ;) Cheers

smallspace the crusader! LOL!! :D Laurie

heyas; cheers, i dont understand what you're using an alpha plane for in this image. which piece(s) is alpha plane and which is the real atmosphere?

Hi Bloodsong, it's the tree at the back and furthest to the right...the first of what was going to be a forest of hundreds, but I never got that far after seeing this effect. It is mentioned in the User Guide, that you may encounter this problem, but all their recomendations for improvement did not work in this case :(. Regards, Cheers BTW. The alpha plane is the "square" with the blue sky on it.

Ok, this will probably get rid of the effect... Go to the material editor for the atmosphere, go to transparency, lower the value of the fading out until the ugly effect above dissapears... I know that worked for me when doing a scene in vue 2...

PS, the above worked when doing an underwater scene and I was affecting the water... What I'm saying is, you gotta affect the atmosphere... Really I would have thought that they would have had that problem licked in Vue 4...

I took a typical crappy little bitmap and alpha and made an alpha primitive out of it...

...Then I scattered 20 copies in a scene...

...then I rendered with the a volumetric atmosphere and the sun facing the camera

...Then with the sun behind the camera...

...Then with a regular atmosphere...

While this is admittedly a poor quality bitmap, I didn't have the same problem you have had. I've got to ask. What format are your bit maps? Did you make them yourself? Are you editing the dafault alpha plane material? are you sure the white is pure white (256,256,256) and the black is pure black (0,0,0)? Have you tried any other maps? -SMT

Whats with the lens flares??? Lens flares are technique mistakes by the photographer who then claims it was an intentional artistic affect!! LMAO Someone told me it was a default?? No way...thats not true is it? If it is its dumb and tacky...why would I want my picture to look like it was a photo taken by someone who didn't know how to use a camera and never heard of a lens hood or filters? LOL But GOOD JOB smallspace. But I like the one with the flares, it would have been great if they weren't there.

LOL, yeah it is the default, but it takes un-checking one little box to turn it off. -SMT

They made lens flare the default?? What are these people thinking?? Also, is there a preferences for what you want to load up with the program?? Anyway, great job Steve for explaining that with the alpha maps...

Hi Stephen, Thanks for the examples...it gives me hope. My alpha planes where just a tree rendered in Vue with the colour and alpha channels saved as BMP. They where then loaded onto a default alpha plane and then just proportionally (sp?) resized to taste. Something has just occured to me though. I rendered the alpha plane bitmaps at 96 dpi, and the test renders for the scene at 72 dpi...I wonder, I'll let you know. Thanks again Stephen and everyone else for taking the time to try and come up with a solution and offer ideas :) Cheers

Can you recreate what you did, but render just one tree, so we can get a better idea of what is going on? -SMT

heyas; cheers... if you stack a bunch of those planes so the trees overlap.... then won't the overlapping cover up most of that default? for one tree, yeah, it looks awful; but for one tree, you might as well just use a real tree. if you stack them, you won't be able to see as much sky around/between them. no?

Hi bloodsong, You are right, but at the moment doing that seems to produce, what looks like, the blue gunk at anything less than using the highest quality atmosphere setting. The render time shoots up, and it would be a lot quicker to render using "real" trees. I'm sure it is just a matter of finding a balance to get good results...but it is turning out to be more hassle than it should be :( Cheers

return of the evil blue gunk!??!?! i KNEW it wasn't totally eradicated! just waiting until we all become complacent and unwary, to spring back out and devour us!! (yeah, okay, so i have had too many blue gunk nightmares....) ;)

I just DON'T understand what all the excitement about these volume things is about!! In bryce, many users found out how costly they were (and had no real effect that I could see, good or bad) in terms of rendering... Here in vue the volume stuff seems to just be more trouble than it is worth! It's downright ugly and makes bad things happen... I did make a new post asking to see some of the new mountains and trees... I REALLY want to see what vue 4 CAN do!! I want to be assured that the wonderful natural looking skies are still there...that there ARE new plants and trees, looking just as good or even better than the ones in 3.1... So I look forwards to the replies to my thread... and I do send all of you best wishes for a speedy recovery from this volume of stress! :) Sara

If it isn't a refraction setting as Paul suggested, my idea would be to recheck the alpha image...maybe somehow the sky was also rendered to the alpha? Yeah, I know Cheers has more experience than to do that, but that's how it looks to me in this shot, as if the sky portion is part of the image object. :)