I have been submiting bug reports since I bought the upgrade from v6inf to v7comp(Jan 2009).  I did not post here any of my communications with e-on thinking I ought to give them a chance to fix the flaws. I put an effort in my reports to try and narrow down what causes it, and I support it with images and  scene files.  So this required an investment in time. In effect I was a beta tester for them, without any of the benefits beta testers get.  It is very disappointing that it had so very little effect -so far only 4 bugs have been fixed. It is very unfair that I paid the full price they ask for the upgrade but didnt get a fully working program. My latest exchange with them following my  request for update on the situation :

Lee Randall: "Sorry, I don't have a list of bugs that will be fixed in the next update. When I get the list, I'll be able to answer this better.”

Pnina(me) “How long would that take? If it's a matter of 2 or 3 days I'll wait. More than that is not satisfactory after waiting months for these bugs to be fixed. If you dont know any more please refer me to someone else, as I requested over and over again”.

Lee Randall: “The information you are requesting is not available at this time, from any source. There will be a list compiled of fixed bugs when 7.4 is released.”

So I decided to stop 'covering up' for them. Below is a list of the bugs and e-on's reactions.
My reason for posting isnt because I think it will cause them to solve any of the problems- I have no faith in them anymore. It isnt to annoy them – I dont think they care. I'm doing it because I think it might help some users who may have similar problems, and because  I think it is fair for potential buyers to know what kind of product and service to expect.

If you encountered these bugs can you say so in the thread?
If you have any additional unfixed bugs – can you please add them?
(And say if you reported  them).
Information is helpful, but  please dont use this thread just to add non specific/generic rants.

Btw – I find bug No. 10 the most annoying/ridiculous bug and response. What's yours?

Posted by:    Pnina Osguthorpe
On:    2009/04/27 12:24:24

Hi,
Last time I heard from you is more than a month ago. I thought that perhaps if I leave you alone for awhile there will be at least some progress on the unresolved bugs. To my disappointment, nothing happened since. I reported one more bug since your update and that one wasnt resolved either.
So here is the status again - only 4 bugs resolved out of those I reported explicitely (not including most crash reports)
I state yet again: I paid the full requested price I think I should have a fully functioning product. If you cant make it work please let me know what you can do about it. (please see my previous posts for examples how other (descent) company handle customers in cases like that.
PLEASE dont ignore this paragraph again - I expect some sort of response to it. If you cant - please refer it to a supervisor or someone who can or has the authority to do so.

Bugs I reported so far, and e-on's reaction. ( I included the bug report numbers, but I doubt you can look at them, e-on doenst seem to think bug reports of one user are of any interest to other users, I dont see the logic even from their point of view)
1.Populate with objects which have the material 'volume shaded fuzz' causes crash  1233706551  Fixed

1. Eco's cleared randomly on unrelated 'undo' 1233114584 Fixed
2. Cloud settings (hide) not saved. 1235275127   Fixed
3. Render disappears after interrupt  1235768443     Fixed

Not Fixed (except for one, all acknowledged as bugs/problems):

    5.Revert to instances: 1232902464 
I can convert eco instances to objects and manipulate them. I should be able to revert back to instances, as I could in v6i, but this option disappered from the popup menue.  I reported this on 01/25, more than 3 months ago. I was told  on  01/27 that “This issue has been fixed and will be available in a future update.” It wasnt yet. Now I was told 'it was fixed but wont be available till final release.” Why? when would that be? isnt 3 months long enough to wait for something supposedly fixed already?
    6.Saving vob, clicking OK before thumbnail completed render causes crash 1235436940 (& 1233538976 &1233853492, took me a bit to figure out what causes the crashes) )  Still crashed on 4/27 -crash report 1240856555.
    7.Dislexia, Characters/digits typed in the wrong order: 1233423397
When I use a numeric/character fields (rather than slides/gizmo etc) the digits or characters I type in appear in the wrong order. E.g. I type in 91 it appears as 19. (I am absolutely a 100% sure it isnt me who is typing it in the wrong order). The responses I got were “As we releaes updates, we continue to work on the Mac interface.” and “The developers are aware of the issue and are working on it. ”
    8.Drop/smart drop (right/left click) 1233526410
Sometimes when I click for regular drop it executes a smart drop.  E-on(and some mac users on this forum) claim they  cant reproduce it, but if the developers are any good they should still have a clue were to look for an intermitent bug, that still occurs for me.
    9.Number overflow displayed(on render) -1233424438 & 1236646691
I get a huge number(19 digits) in the field that usually shows the number of objects/lights.The responses I got ranged from “ This indeed seems to be a display glitch, which shouldn't affect anything in your scene” to “This is a representation of the zoom feature.” (not true, it is not the same field, the zoom field is fine).
    10.Missing features – scale render, size in real units 1235082940
A.  There is no 'display true object dimensions' in the size section of the world browser.
The displayed units in the size section appear to be the internal units, not the real world units.
The manual of v6inf says "The Show actual object sizes ( ) is a toggle button that will display the real size of the object when selected (otherwise, internal dimensions will be displayed instead – usually not very useful, but provided for compatibility with previous versions)." I can understand if you dont want to keep this toggle, but if you admit yourself that the internal units are useless, why did you leave those units rather than the real units - meters yards etc.?
Having the size displayed in real world units and the ability to enter these values numerically are of extreme importance to me. It has implications in many instances. just as an example - if I use the new water, deciding on the value for average depth of foam depends on the size (and position) of the object. It just makes no sense otherwise.
I dont know if v7inf displays real world units for the size, but it would make no sense to have that as a feature available only to pros. EVERYONE needs sensible and consistent units.

B Resizing a rendered image. In vue 6 inf, on the top of the render- display/screen, the first 2 buttons are + and - for zooming in and out. These dont exist in the v7complete version. I did not see this mentioned in the comparison chart. It is not a problem I cant overcome - if it is a final image I read it into an image viewing/editing program and I can change the size there. However I use it a lot for viewing trial renders. Those are usually small (for quicker renders) and I enlarge them to see more details, even if the quality isnt good. It seriously disturbs my work flaw.

E-on's response “this is considered a product enhancement. Will be considered for future versions”
????!!!!????
 NO IT ISNT. These were included in V6inf, are not mentioned in the comparison list as removed in V7, so they should be in. They didnt say they are disputing these features  were in v6, and they didnt say they are disputing the features  are not in the comparison list? What then?
I'm not asking for something new, just what was taken away unjustly, unannounced.

1. No undo after align:  1235275732
   I use the align command (left bar) to align two objects. I try an undo (edit command, top menu) the align isnt listed as the last command. The operation listed for the undo is the operation before the align.
   (and to make matters worse, there isnt even a cancel)
2. Glowing water: 1237859408
   I opened a new (default) scene. Added a box and put the camera inside. The little render preview window shows a black rectangle as there is no light source in the box. I added a water plane. Now I can see in the render preview a light blue surface as though there is a light source. If I edit the water material (not the foam layer), in the transparency tab the 'fading out' and 'turn reflective with angle' are set to 30. If I turn the 'fading out' to 0 , it looks like the light source disappeared and the preview window is completely black again. Doesnt that mean that the  water turns luminous(glowing?) not only reflective?Note - This only happens if the 'auto exposure' is on. However it does not happen for other objects instead of the water plane. For example if I have the ground plane above the wtaer plane the scene is completely black whether or not 'auto exposure' is on or off.

Greetings ,

   I too have had numerous contacts with Vue customer support over my product ( now Vue 7 Pro Studio ) not functioning properly. From updates causing Vue to crash and need to be reinstalled to the very VOB save and then crash issue you mentioned above. I have recieved nothing but excuses from E-on customer service and they have not been forthcoming or even remotely apologetic for the issues that we the paying customers are experiancing.  I am frustrated as you and I am to the point where I begin to wonder why I keep paying for a product I recieve no support for , excuses and a only partially functioning product. I have paid now $ 100's of dollars for my LEGAL software I expected much more from this company. I love Vue but many issues exist and need to be resolved indeed by E-on before I would recommend this software to anyone.

** New Development **

   Something else I am noticing since upgrading to Pro Studio , My V4 Imports seem to be dropping their morphs and appearing as only a base V4 rather than morphed character they are saved as. This is VERY annoying as the 3D Import option is a great part of the reason why I bought this program.

Exporter module, not working properly, but this will apparently be fixed in 7.4

transcripts are on my site in my signiture if you want to read them :)

I have Infinite+Vista, a very different configuration, but I was curious to see if any of these unsolved bugs also happened to me. Truth is I hadn't noticed any of them before because my workflow never leads me in those directions that lead you to find those.

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, A, B - I just confirmed that don't have these bugs in my system.
11 - yes, I confirm the same behavior as yours. As I almost never use undo, it's not a problem to me.
12 - yes, I confirm the same behavior as yours. As I never use auto-exposure nor the preview window, it's not a problem to me.

Currently, I don't have any unsolved situation with e-on.

I've been dealing with several of these; 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 - BTW, the dyslexia one is the absolute worst!

Another one that I started getting after the last update involves importing Poser figures, specifically those with morphs. The imported figure appears at center and there are hundreds of thousands of 'rays' emanating from the figure's center in all directions. Same figure imports into version 6 with no issues.

Also on the unresolved list is an issue with the viewport wherein I toggle current view and four view mode, which should enlarge the current view and hide the four views, but instead the large, current view displays behind the four way view. This was a problem since I first installed 7.0 and the engineers have been able to replicate it, yet no resolution.

JCD, just to try to establish a pattern here, which OS and Vue version do you have?

Mazak

Mazak, what OS and Vue version?

Mazak

Mazak, you don't have auto-exposure on. That reported bug only happens with auto-exposure on.

Mazak

Auto exposure is fake so I did not use it. I would not report this as an bug.

Mazak

My system: Infinite last build 39290. Windows Vista.

Mazak

Mazak

I also saved an complex object and hit quick the save button no crash. Real world button works also.

Mazak

Quote - JCD, just to try to establish a pattern here, which OS and Vue version do you have?

I'm on Mac OS 10.5.6 and Vue 7 Infinite 7.21 - Build 39290

So, at least with this small sample, it seems that those in Macs have all these problems and those in Windows have not (or much less). This is consistent with the general feeling when we browse through the various forums: there are much more problems for Mac users than for Windows'. This seems to be this way for years so it's not very likely that it will change short term. If I had a Mac, I would definitely implement a dual boot and run Vue in Windows.

Yeah, I was so frustrated at one point I tried to run Vue 7 in XP via Parallels and while some things worked better, other issues surfaced and I gave up. I'm guessing that there are some driver problems with XP and my video card, an ATI Radeon X1900 XT, as everything that was going sideways was in the display department :(

Tough luck, JCD...
I've heard of others who had good luck using Bootcamp.

ArtPearl complaint about the missing zoom buttons, but this is an Infinite feature only. I found in comparative chart: User Interface: View option menu commands with optional shortcuts. Vue Infinite yes, Vue Complete No. So this isn’t a bug.

Over the years I read this forum for me it becomes clear that MacOS and Vue isn't a good choice. Problems are always fixed first on PC and later (or never) fixed on MAC. A few weeks ago a member asked for the Perfect Vue computer, I answered NO MAC. I know Mac user are love their computer but for use with Vue a PC is a better partner!!

Mazak

Boot Camp in general I've heard good things about, but what I don't like is that it runs either Windows or OS X and not both OS's simultaneously. I can use Windows when absolutely required to, but like to have the Mac environment running for everything else I've got going on.

And Mazak's right, Vue and Macs are no longer a good fit together. This isn't a dig at Apple or at Vue, but more an issue of e-on and how they are choosing to develop and support the Mac versions of their applications. Hell, I'd rather they ran a full version behind instead of releasing subpar versions of their software for the Mac... this wouldn't really effect me as I'm still using version 6 anyway :unsure:

Well, there's another choice: buy a PC just for Vue and connect the PC and the Mac to the same network so that you can move files back and forth easily. A quadcore PC with 8GB RAM and a good graphic card can be bought for less than $1000. I know, it's an expensive solution just to run one single application but... that would show if you truely love Vue! :-)

By the way, coincidentely, I was browsing through Zbrush forums the other day and I also saw several complaints about the Mac version of Zbrush. Apparently, it's also much more unstable than the PC version.

Quote - By the way, coincidentely, I was browsing through Zbrush forums the other day and I also saw several complaints about the Mac version of Zbrush. Apparently, it's also much more unstable than the PC version.

And IIRC, they actually did sit on that release forever which may go to show that even waiting to get it 'right' is no guarantee.

We were considering buying Vue xstream for Max, buit have decided against it based on user feedback.

Thanks,
David

E-on claims vue 7 works on Macs. My computer complies with the minimum requirements (+more). . I havnt   seen  any disclaimers even that it might have known issues. They dont say 'we recommend a PC'.  They dont charge less for a mac version. So  consumers may be forgiven for thinking it will actually work on a mac as well as on a PC.
So telling me to buy a PC may be a solution(I know you mean well by suggesting it as at a possible way forward), but not the right one. I'm not investing in a new computer now,  I only had this one a short while and I bought it based on e-on's specification for vue running on a MAC.

Saying that zbrush has problems with the mac version, is neither here not there. Depends how they treat customers reporting bugs and how quick they resolve it. I certainly dont expect perfection on release. I expect reported problems to be taken seriousely, and fixed in a timely manner.
Just as a balance I'l offer the example of Filter Forge software: if you test their beta release for the Mac version, and find bugs they can confirm, you get the software for free. (anyone can chose to be a beta tester for them). This way they can debug the program quickly and at the same time  there is some compensation to the customers for putting up with a flawed program. (and there is an open data base of reported bugs and their status, so you dont have to waste your time (and theirs) repeating reports of known bugs)
I understand e-on offers free software to their selected beta testers if they find a bug. Why shouldnt that apply to people who paid for their vue version and yet find so many bugs? It's most likely e-on doent have enought (or good enough) beta testers on Macs. Why shouldnt they take advantage of users who find bugs and offer them some reward for their trouble, wouldnt that  be a win-win situation?
And before you ask - I pointed this out to e-on, they ignored it.

I'm pretty sure they covered their behind against any law suits for not complying with 'truth in advertisment' laws (Not that I personally would pursue this avenue). I think they claim they are charging for the liscence, not the program. So even if it doesnt work at all they are still 'OK' - they gave me the liscence what else do I want?

But morally, this is as close to fraud as you can get- describing a product and its features, the platforms it runs on, the price they charge...but the product does not do what they said it will do, and they are not in a rush to fix it.

It's sad. I loved v6. I didnt have significant problems, even though I run it on a MAC. I would describe myself as 'almost a vue addict'. But the problems I had with v7, and they way e-on treated me and my reports, put me off using it almost completely.
Oh well. Shrug and go and do something else, pleasant.

Thanks for your responses!

As someone who develops software on both PCs and Macs I can tell you that it's much more difficult to get things working consistently on a Mac - particularly invovling threading, multi-core processing and true 64-bit operation.  Apparently, most of these issues are going to be addressed in Snow Leopard (10.6) which will support a true 64-bit kernel.  It will also require anyone developing 64-bit apps to use the Cocoa framework api instead of Carbon which is a nightmare in itself.  Not trying to make excuses for e-on or Apple but it is what it is.

Dave,
It doesnt really matter if it's harder to develop applications on the Mac - I'll take your word for it that it is.
Some application developers decide they dont want to bother with macs at all- eg-I wish I could use geocontrol, but there is no mac version. That is the developer's prerogative. But as I said, e-on sells a mac version of vue. No disclaimers, no discounts. So I expect it to work. Are they not fulfilling their obligations or am I naive to expect them to??

PS - some of the bugs they didnt fix used to work in v6, on a mac, so they know how to fix them... at least one of the bugs they claim to have fixed but several updates later it isnt in...My feeling is they are just not working on bug fixing  seriousely. They are focusing on new releases/new money not on issues with releases they already got the money for.

"As someone who develops software on both PCs and Macs I can tell you that it's much more difficult to get things working consistently on a Mac -"

*waits for 3dneo"

Quote - *"waits for 3dneo""

Hahaha! :biggrin: :lol:

OK, Let's take a look at these bugs one by one.

Quote - 1.Populate with objects which have the material 'volume shaded fuzz' causes crash  1233706551  Fixed

1. Eco's cleared randomly on unrelated 'undo' 1233114584 Fixed
2. Cloud settings (hide) not saved. 1235275127   Fixed
3. Render disappears after interrupt  1235768443     Fixed

All fixed by e-on for you. Good for them. Good for you.

Quote -  5.Revert to instances: 1232902464 
I can convert eco instances to objects and manipulate them. I should be able to revert back to instances, as I could in v6i, but this option disappered from the popup menue.  I reported this on 01/25, more than 3 months ago. I was told  on  01/27 that “This issue has been fixed and will be available in a future update.” It wasnt yet. Now I was told 'it was fixed but wont be available till final release.” Why? when would that be? isnt 3 months long enough to wait for something supposedly fixed already?

Sounds like a real bug. I don't know much about this one as I've actually never had the case to use this feature. What exactly are you trying to do? Perhaps I can help with a work around in the meantime.

  > Quote -  6.Saving vob, clicking OK before thumbnail completed render causes crash 1235436940 (& 1233538976 &1233853492, took me a bit to figure out what causes the crashes) )  Still crashed on 4/27 -crash report 1240856555.

Not a bug in the latest Vue Pioneer -> Complete on my systems (all PCs). Can't vouch for Macs. If you need a wordaround, let me know and I can suggest a sure fire way to keep from crashing ;-)

  > Quote -  7.Dislexia, Characters/digits typed in the wrong order: 1233423397

When I use a numeric/character fields (rather than slides/gizmo etc) the digits or characters I type in appear in the wrong order. E.g. I type in 91 it appears as 19. (I am absolutely a 100% sure it isnt me who is typing it in the wrong order). The responses I got were “As we releaes updates, we continue to work on the Mac interface.” and “The developers are aware of the issue and are working on it. ” 

Certainly not a problem on PC Pioneer thru Complete. I can see why this can be frustrating. I suspect it has to do with something called 'focus' for the field you are typing into. I might suggest as a interim solution typing more slowly between the first and second digit in a field. Though frankly I'm not at all familiar with this bug.
 

Quote - 8.Drop/smart drop (right/left click) 1233526410
Sometimes when I click for regular drop it executes a smart drop.  E-on(and some mac users on this forum) claim they  cant reproduce it, but if the developers are any good they should still have a clue were to look for an intermitent bug, that still occurs for me.

If you can't provide a reliable recipe then there's an excellent chance not only can they not produce it, but I suspect they'll instead focus on those bugs they know how to find. I might suggest you try the command-key sequence or menu item and see if it still misperforms. If not, then there's your workaround.

Quote - 9.Number overflow displayed(on render) -1233424438 & 1236646691
I get a huge number(19 digits) in the field that usually shows the number of objects/lights.The responses I got ranged from “ This indeed seems to be a display glitch, which shouldn't affect anything in your scene” to “This is a representation of the zoom feature.” (not true, it is not the same field, the zoom field is fine).

I have seen this one on occasion, but I don't remember how I got there. In anycase, for me, this is not a huge issue as I typically watch the resource level more than polygons. I seem to remember Walther mentioning something about that number is now tied to OpenGL polys and not scene polys. This one's certainly not a show stopper.

Quote - 10.Missing features – scale render, size in real units 1235082940
A.  There is no 'display true object dimensions' in the size section of the world browser.
The displayed units in the size section appear to be the internal units, not the real world units.
The manual of v6inf says "The Show actual object sizes ( ) is a toggle button that will display the real size of the object when selected (otherwise, internal dimensions will be displayed instead – usually not very useful, but provided for compatibility with previous versions)." I can understand if you dont want to keep this toggle, but if you admit yourself that the internal units are useless, why did you leave those units rather than the real units - meters yards etc.?
Having the size displayed in real world units and the ability to enter these values numerically are of extreme importance to me. It has implications in many instances. just as an example - if I use the new water, deciding on the value for average depth of foam depends on the size (and position) of the object. It just makes no sense otherwise.
I dont know if v7inf displays real world units for the size, but it would make no sense to have that as a feature available only to pros. EVERYONE needs sensible and consistent units.

Internal units have been with Vue since early on. In fact, only in the recent versions of Infinite have real units also been supported. Internal units are extremely important for many functions, including Python scripts and proper image mapping. I'm sure you are aware of the conversion factors. If not, they are very easy to figure out, just go into the Preferences, change the display units to your preferred one, then object's centers are shown in correct display units (in, feet, meters, etc.). You can do the math if you like. While not a bug, I suspect this should be implemented soon.

Quote - B Resizing a rendered image. In vue 6 inf, on the top of the render- display/screen, the first 2 buttons are + and - for zooming in and out. These dont exist in the v7complete version. I did not see this mentioned in the comparison chart. It is not a problem I cant overcome - if it is a final image I read it into an image viewing/editing program and I can change the size there. However I use it a lot for viewing trial renders. Those are usually small (for quicker renders) and I enlarge them to see more details, even if the quality isnt good. It seriously disturbs my work flaw.

Certainly not a show stopper.

Quote - 11. No undo after align:  1235275732
I use the align command (left bar) to align two objects. I try an undo (edit command, top menu) the align isnt listed as the last command. The operation listed for the undo is the operation before the align.
(and to make matters worse, there isnt even a cancel)

I appears you're just using this control incorrectly. You can click on any of the radio buttons to see in the 4 views what the alignment choice will do. If you don't like it, just click the 'none' radio button on the bottom of the column for the alignment you previous clicked on. This will effectively 'UNDO' your changes and all will go back to normal. You can use the close box on the upper right of the palette to close it.

Just like other programs, there are a number of things which can't be 'undone' in this program. Try saving a vob, then undoing-- you can't. The same is true for MS Word-- you can't save a program then undo. Different programs implement different levels of undo. I believe Vue satisfies the need for preview and undo in the palette on this one. Of course, they could implement another level of undo, but IMO it is no big deal.

Quote - 12. Glowing water: 1237859408
I opened a new (default) scene. Added a box and put the camera inside. The little render preview window shows a black rectangle as there is no light source in the box. I added a water plane. Now I can see in the render preview a light blue surface as though there is a light source. If I edit the water material (not the foam layer), in the transparency tab the 'fading out' and 'turn reflective with angle' are set to 30. If I turn the 'fading out' to 0 , it looks like the light source disappeared and the preview window is completely black again. Doesnt that mean that the  water turns luminous(glowing?) not only reflective?Note - This only happens if the 'auto exposure' is on. However it does not happen for other objects instead of the water plane. For example if I have the ground plane above the wtaer plane the scene is completely black whether or not 'auto exposure' is on or off. 

There are a couple of issues of concern with this bug report. First, the geometry you are creating is a constructive solid geometry (CSG) box with zero wall thickness, pretty much an impossible rendering exercise from the start. Those who render closed interiors are aware radiosity effects need wall thickness in order to render correctly.

Secondly, you need to understand what auto-exposure does. It's a leveling algorithm applied to maximize the contrast and overall level a histogram of the image. This has the effect of 'correcting' poor lighting in renders, which is good for newcomers as lighting is one of the harder things to master in any 3d app.

Sometimes, it provides a very nice addition to the render. Other times it makes no sense of a render. As others have stated earlier, a person may find working without this feature turned on will make them better at lighting scenes. I know I rarely use it. ArtPearl, if you can describe the type of picture you're looking for, I can probably provide you a scene file which demonstrates best how to set it up.

I understand you say you have multiple agendas for posting your bug list. My answers are based on my desire to either provide workarounds, or point out misconceptions. I hope those who read your posts continue further to see what some of us have to say about workarounds and the relative severity of the above bugs.

My own view, is that you certainly have a couple bugs above which may make things a bit more difficult-- but I personally didn't see one show stopper. Furthermore, for anyone else reading this far, I find if you really want a bug fixed, provide a dead simple recipe for displaying it (Mostly ArtPearl did this). Also, be aware most bug databases have priorities assigned to bugs like:

crash, block, major, minor, tweak, suggestion, feature.

If you consistently submit 'minor' or 'tweak' category bugs, you may find they don't get fixed as fast as those which are crash or blocker bugs. Also, if an existing workaround is known, the bugs priority might not be as high.

Vue7i  39290 MAC OS X 10.5.6

This is the list I reported over the last two months:

1. Can not render to TIFF

2. HyperVue does not clean up temp files after finishing render

3. Animated alpha plane (image sequence) render time is 30x longer compared to same static image

4. Material set-up is wrong for newly created alpha planes. It uses bump map settings, reflections, etc of last used material

5. Using an alpha plane in an Environment Mapping atmosphere causes a fringe where the image goes from opaque to transparent and has the atmosphere as background

6. Z-depth is calculated beyond the Alpha Plane and projected in front of the Alpha Plane (On Z-depth map)

7. Added objects to library from outside of Vue do not show in library

8. When "Show red wireframe when selected" is deselected in the preferences, selected object in the viewport disappears

9. STEP Keyframes behave like linear keyframes though the graph shows the correct behavior

10. Changing an animation behavior (loop, once, repeat, etc) changes the animation length of an object.

11. Looped animations, like spin, stop after the last non looped animations even though the Render Sequence is set to go beyond that time

12. If a keyframe is changed in position or value the keyframe type changes back to smoothed

13. Every time I click an object in the browser the timeline will jump back to it's preset scale and position

14. When you set keyframes manually (or use copy paste) in the timeline it is possible to create two keyframes on top of each other with different values for the same parameter

15. After grouping animated objects, preparation time before rendering starts goes up dramatically from 1 second to minutes. In one case I had to wait for 30 minutes, and that was a preview render!

In the past I got replies of Lee, Randall and Matt. Now it looks like only Lee is left.....

That might explain the lag in response.

Cheers!

Chipp,
I'm impressed by the effort you put into checking the bugs I reported, thank you. Unfortunately I have no time to go into all your responses today, maybe not this weekend.
I have a couple of quick comments:
-could you perhaps use your connections (if you have any) at e-on  to ask them to open my bug reports to the public( at least to people who bought their software)? The descriptions I posted in this thread are a condensed version, so as not to put off readers.  as it was my post was really long... If you are going into disputing my reports(even when e-on accepted them and forwarded them to the developers) it would be helpful if you had access to the whole story. It is a waste of my time to repeat it here again.( But I will if I have no choice)

• Thank you for offereing some workarounds - that isnt the point. If I report a bug and its acknowledged as a bug it should be fixed. I didnt look at the details, and  theremay well be wisdom in your suggestions, but I'm not a complete beginer, I can find workarounds, avoid the use of some non-working features, use v6 rather than v7, Not use vue at all and do any of the other million things I like to do...
  None of that absolves e-on from their responsibility to fix bugs. I payed what they asked, I  expected it to work.  They arnt very considerate/helpful towards me(and it seems others as well), why should I be charitable towards them?  "fixed' bugs arnt implemented for 3 month? no one there can tell me what the progress is? no one can say what and when (if) acknowledged bugs will be fixed?

If it is a show stopper for you or not isnt  relevant at all. At least  the bugs they acknowledged(the vast majority) they should fix. A bug is a bug, and its their responsibility to fix it.
Avanz
Seems like you have discovered more bugs then me... congratulations? comiserations? :)

Quote - 1. Can not render to TIFF

I just ran into this one last night and verified it again with a couple of tests this morning. Rendering it TIF doesn't work at all, so I'll file this one with e-on as well.  

 Thanks for all the informations I`m getting here on Vue bugs :-)

 Jacob,

Just wondering why you render to TIFF? Is it for the 16-bit format? Do you find it significantly better than BMP or other lossless format. Just curious.

Actually, I normally render to the PSD format, but when doing composite renders, I tend to select TIF for the layered elements as the final render automatically comes out with the transparent areas knocked out. It's like selecting the alpha cannel and deleting the ground/sky areas, but without having to do that.  I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed ot work, but that's how TIF's have always come out for me, even when you don't include alpha information.

It's not a huge deal or anything as I can easily just include the alpha information in the PSD file and knock out the assets, but  was surprised to see that Vue 7 was rendering TIFs as grayscale, sometimes squished and almost always with vertical lines in them. Go figure :)

The tif issue was a Mac only problem in earlier builds. I thought it is fixed but have not retested it in the last one. Here it seems gone in the build i use now.

I'm afraid this will be a long post. I'm sorry. I'll put first some general comments, and at the end refer to comments made about specific bugs in my list(so you can skip what isnt relevant to you)

Why am  I doing this at all? - Making  a stand for customer's right.
Initially I just wanted to inform e-on about bugs I found. I didnt think it will be a big issue, I thought there will be 1 or 2 points and they will be resolved. But that didnt happened. With time it appeared  more and more that they dont consider fairness to customers and customer satisfaction an important issue. They will fix(if at all) what they want when they want to. Initial response is almost always quick, but then - it all fades away and the customer isnt even kept informed properly.
So now for me It's still about solving the specific problems, but also a matter of principle. I believe if I pay for a product, it should work. If there are problems with the product, its the company's duty to fix them in a timely manner.  If you dont believe in this principle – we have no common ground at all and there isnt much point in me trying to explain it, or you trying to convince me I'm wrong.

Posts in this thread, and elsewhere (in this forum and in other ones) suggest I'm not the only one who feels e-on has a responsibility to deliver a working product and feel let down. So I wanted to emphasize this point, and make a stand publicly. I think it's important.

In addition to the reactions in this thread I also got some private responses – from both extremes, supportive and... well, not suportive to put it mildly...
I just want to quote parts of one message from a person who starts by explaining why he stopped posting on similar issues:
“... Chipp enjoyed trying to debate me and I was never able to put words with my thoughts.
 I don't have the education to try and fight him or Rutra.
I am so glad you are willing to take up the fight and prove your self correct when you make a post.
  I do know how e-on and its system works and you are 100% right with your not getting any satisfaction for the money you have spent.
Workarounds don't get it in my book.  If its advertised to do a job then it should do it.”

That by itself, being a mouth to people who feel they cant stand up for themselves, is good enough reason for me to keep defending this position. Customers have rights, and I intend to express them to the best of my ability.

I also got as 'feedback' that my position is 'petty',  'destructive', 'full of hatred'. Some comments here, although not as explicit,  could be interpreted similarly – if the bugs arnt 'show stoppers' or do not relate to features some of the posters see as useful to them, surely those bugs arnt important objectively and thus I must be a petty/negative  person...
My position is completely void of any such emotions- purely intellectually driven. I dont hate vue,e-on, people who work at e-on or users who are happy with vue & e-on. In fact if you have no problems or the bugs I and others found dont affect you – great. I'm not trying to get you to submit any tickets. But you cannot tell me what is important and what isnt. I dont do any animations, does that give me a right to say that Avanz's bugs arnt show stoppers? I rarely export objects other than as vob's does that mean that Rich_potter's bug is not important?ALL bugs need to be fixed as a matter of priority.  All customers should be kept well informed about the progress about their bugs.

About workarounds – I dont want to seem ungrateful, I do apreceate the effort people put into suggesting temporary ways to alleaveate the effects of some bugs – thank you. But that isnt the point here – the program should work. If I buy a new washing machine and it leaks  - I can stand there with a mop and sock up the leaking water, I can try and plug the leak with bubble gum, I can wear dirty clothes for awhile – everyone can see that's not the point! I payed for a working washing machine that's what it should do!
Why is it different for software?

Just a general point about the bugs below-  as I said in my op, except for the drop/smart-drop and the 'missing features', e-on can reproduce my results and acknowledge that these are bugs. So my added explanations here are just for general information, not me trying to validate that they are bugs.

Bug 5:
Useful when I want to adjust position or material of sone of the instances in an eco, and then return then to the eco to conserve  resource.
Copy from Ticket:
If I create an eco-system and want to change things of a few instances in it, I can convert them to objects . (Edit->select eco sytem instances -> manipulate->convert to objects).
After I move the converted inst-> object items around and position them where I want, I should be able to "put them “back” into the EcoSystem they belonged to, using the Revert
To Instances command that appears at the top of the 3D View popup menu." (in the words of the manual). I did this a lot in v6inf. I just tried it in my new shiny v7 complete - I can convert to object OK (in any of the windows, isnt that great?). But I dont get the 'revert to instances' command in the popup menu. (In none of the windows.)
I attach a screen capture from v6inf, the way it should work. I did exactly the same thing in V7comp and the first line on the top of the pop-up menu isnt there.
(PS - I asked in the renderosity forum, and other v7comp users couldnt do it either, but it seems OK in the v7inf version)
The thread I refered to is
How to move Ecosystem painted plant?    http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3373212

Bug 6:
I thought it was fixed too, and there might be an improvement, but I still had a crash after it was supposedly fixed. I sent the crash report itself, maybe that will help, I dont know what that includes in addition to my verbal description.
“If you need a wordaround, let me know and I can suggest a sure fire way to keep from crashing”
Sure – I dont need it right at the moment, but it might help in the future. I dont dispute the helpfulness of workarounds, just saying it doent absolve e-on from fixing it.
(I know one workaround – save it as a vue scene rather than vob and then merge scenes.

Bug 7:

It's not likely to be a focusing problem. That would determine which  window/field will get the typed in characters.So the symptom whould be that I type in one “field” and the characters (would apear in another “field”.
My unsubstanciated theory-
This is likely to be actually the keyboard handler. The keyboard doesnt send each character  as it is  typed, it buffers them up and sends a packet. Macs can have a disordered input from the keyboard, but there is a time stamp with each keypress. Perhaps in  windows it is always delivered in the right order and they didnt implement something to check the time stamp?
If I type slow (3 sec between each char) its OK, but it sooooo isnt a solution, not even a temporay one.
Believe me , you would not like to work with this bug no matter how loyal you are to e-on.

Bug 8:
I realize it's harder to sort out an intermitant bug. Particularly frustrating that  other users could not  reproduce it. But it does happen to me every now and then. I had a whole fleet of boats floating on their side in one image:)...But as I said, someone with good knowledge of the program should have an incling what would cause the confusion, and where to look for a solution. As long as it still happens to me it stays on the list of bugs.
It happens when I use keyborad shortcuts or the icons. I dont know of any workaround except lowering it manually. That's not a bug fix.
Bug 9:
It isnt the polygons/resources field. It isnt the zoom field. It is in the field allocated to the number of lights and objects(between the 2). The numbers in the adjacant fields are still reasonable.
'Show stopper' is no argument for me. It's a bug, and although I havnt noticed it having an effect on anything else, how do you know it doesnt? It is an overflow of some sort, and those can badly affect anything. If it appered in a program I've written I would look for a hole in the ground to be hide in shame and embarasment.
Bug 10:
Units: I selected meters at my units in preferences. Position and pivoting  units are displayed correctly using the metric system. The water editor uses real units. But the size -only thing in vue I've seen in  internal units. So nothing I can do allows me to see scale in sensible & consistant units. 
I'm sure there is a simple conversion factor. I cant believe you are suggesting the USER do the conversion in his head(or even calculator) If the Vue needs it internaly, the program can calculate it.
(and it does in some versions)
All they need to write is
Size_intrnl = Size_real*Factor ;     (3 times for x,y,z).
Python programs can do it too.
I quoted e-on's description of the internal units “usually not very useful, but provided for compatibility with previous versions”. Not useful. Their words. If for some obscure technical reason its useful for a pro, they can have it.  In the artist line, if you give us no option, take away the 'not useful' option.
Maybe not a bug in the sense that the program does what its told, but a useless choice.

Resizing a render:
It is very much a disruption and hinderance to my work. This is actually one that annoys me a lot.
If you dont need it – you dont have to use it, obviousely. I relied on it a lot in v6. I didnt see it mentioned as an omitted feature – so I would like it back.
Mazak claims that this is what is meant by “User Interface: View option menu commands with optional shortcuts. “  I dont think so. 'Shortcuts' are the the technical term for using keyboard combinations to replace clicking on an icon. If they took away the customised keboard shortcuts for complete, it doesnt mean they take away the icon action too.

Bug 11
If I'm still in the align pallete I can click the 'non' botton to change what I selected first(eg center or min)I agree this in effect is a cancel, but isnt what the main bug is. As you say when I think I'v finished I click the x to close it. Once I do that there is no undo, either immediately or as part of multiple undos.
Yes, some operations cannot be undone, like any type of save. But why should align be one of these?
It is only a 'move' , and you can undo move commands in vue.
If its a big deal to you is irrelevant. I would like to use it, you dont have to.

Bug 12

Using a box – I use it fairly often, and it is extremely useful. I know some other users (at least one of them considerd a 'guru')  that use it too. The purpose of using it is to have good control on lighting. If I enclose everything, including the camera, in a box, I know all the light come from the lights in the box and that's it. I dont know why you call it a solid – it isnt. It has 6 planes surronding it and that's it.  Sometimes I use a sphere – same thing, it is hollow inside and I know exactly what the lights do.
It may give leakage if I use radiosity, but I dont always use that, and if I need radiosity I can replace it with something with thicker walls. Anyway, this is a red herring – if I used a room with thick walls but no windows or doors the bug will manifest itself too.

I understand what autoexposure does. People who do not want to use it can chose not to – although I really hate the fact that it is on by defualt. The point is if I have a ground plane in my box and autoexposure on, there is no glow. Why should there be a glow when it's a water plane?
I'm not saying this will hamper my work for every single image, but I wasted a weekend trying to figure out where the light comes from when I first discovered the bug.

Finally – bug categories: those are usefull to know. I would love it if e-on had a searchable public  bug database and these cataergories were assigned to each bug. In addition, an estimate when it will be fixed would be helpful. Unfortunately e-on keeps bug reports a secret,  and dont tell even the person who submited  it what category their bug is.
It isnt true that they fix severe bugs quicker than little bugs.  Most crash reports I submitted via the automatic submition, didnt even get an acknowledgment. ( I didnt even include those in my list).
The dislexia bug is severe. No sign of fixing. The 'revert to instances' is severe – claimed to be fixed, but not implemented...
I'm not even sure it is a good idea to delay small bug fixes – some of them would be trivial to fix and yield happy customers.

 Pnina,

I am not a Vue programmer, so I cannot fix your bugs directly. I know you know this, but I say it to hopefully point out while I can't fix the bugs, I can help you with possible explanations and workarounds, along with verifying if they are also issues on PCs.

That is what my post regarding your bugs was intended to provide.

I believe I have tried to help and make clear each of your bugs and feature requests. I have added my own opinions where I believe are warranted.

Your definition of 'show-stopper' and mine differ. Typically, when managing a bug database for a software product, show-stoppers are considered 'blocker' bugs which completely prevent the accomplishment of any sort of task and have no known workarounds. It is not meant as a judgement to your perceived bug severity, but more as an absolute definition. I apologize, I should have used the word "blocker."

best,
Chipp

PS, Yes, the boxes are indeed CSG, as a boolean operation will verify. Unlike some solid modelers, Vue correctly can convert them to inside views, but it is not recommended, especially when trying to render accurate interiors with zero wall-thickness. I hope this helps.

Yes, I too hate that auto-exposure is on by default.

Chipp
I didnt expect you to fix the bugs. Although,  I wish you were in a position to do so- I rarely buy any additional content for my cg applications. but I have terra-pack, its impecable. Sometimes I worry about the wisdom of you defending e-on's faults - I hope it doesnt rub off on you and your reputation.
I do value your suggestions and  temporary solutions. I'm sure others would too.
The major point of this thread wasnt to seak solutions to the bugs, it was  to bring to light how little e-on does to fix them.
The things I added about specific bugs came to clarify issues you and others raised. They are secondary - e-on accepted that these are bugs. E-on  needs to fix them.
I never claimed any of the bugs I reported prevent me completely from using vue. They are still bugs.
E-on needs to fix them all.

Quote - The major point of this thread wasnt to seak solutions to the bugs, it was  to bring to light how little e-on does to fix them.

I'm sorry for your negative experience.

ArtPearl, step back a little bit, take a deep breath, and gain a bit of perspective on your bug situation.  You are too good of an artist to be so impatient.  As I see it, since you installed Vue 7 four  months ago, you have reported 12 bugs.  5 of these are already fixed and working (if you include bug 6).  1 is fixed by e-on but coming out in a later build (Bug 5). 1  isn't a bug at all but changes in how Vue 7 works (Bug 10).  Another one (Bug 12) isn't a bug period.  1 bug can't be reproduced (Bug 8).  1 is a feature request (Bug 11).  And so you are left with 2 bugs as yet unresolved:

1. The Dislexia bug (Bug 7) sounds like an important one to get fixed since this will have a major impact on your workflow and can lead to unwanted input errors.  Are you using a wireless keyboard by chance and perhaps getting some interference?  I had this happen to me on an older PC wireless keyboard that would sometimes go batty when my cell phone rang. 

2. The number overflow display (Bug 9) does absolutely nothing to impact your workflow or the integrity of the scene.  It's a user interface display annoyance to be sure, but would understandably have a very low priority to get fixed.

So as I see it, you have one high priority bug that you should be focused on (Bug 7).  The danger you are going to run into is the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome by insisting that all of these bugs are indeed issues that demand an equally high priority.  They don't and they shouldn't.  Invest your valuable time and energy on the high priority items and have a bit of patience and understanding on the ones that aren't.

Dave,
First, thanks for the compliments about my artistic ability -nice to know you think so.Truly. Something good came out of it.
I guess you dont believe in the my premise that e-on is responsible for fixing all the faults in their product. That's your choice. I dont  intend to adopt your stand. Would you be as lenient  if it was any other product? a car? an appliance? even your computer? would you think 4 month is a reasonable time to fix your faulty products then?
I never claimed all the faults I reported are of the same severity. All of them need to be fixed. As I said I cant see any logic in the order the bugs are fixed. I have severe ones not fixed I have easy ones not fixed. If they implemented some transparancy  in their bug handling it would help at least psychologically if not practically.
No disrespect intended, but it is really not for you to decide what hampers my work and what isnt.  I dont intend to keep explaining what the bugs are about. They were acknowledged by e-on as bugs. I am just listing them for the benefit of other users and for the benefit of prospective buyers. Every one can reach their own conclusions and act accordingly.
The problem with the boy who cried wolf was that there were no wolves till his last cry. In my case all my cries involved wolves. Some seem like small ones, some of biblical proportions and alien monsters - all wolves.

(I dont use a wireless keyboard. I dont have problems with any other program but v7, not even v6)

However, Dave, you will get your wish for awhile - I will step back as I have no time to deal with this anymore now.
I explained my point of view and backed it up, the rest I'll leave to the readers.

Oh well, let me add some thoughts too.

I agree with you ArtPearl that the Mac version of 7 is not perfect and needs a lot of improvement still. Especially the OpenGL situation is a major issue, as long as you do not have the right graphic card (unfortunately I have not found out yet which one this is). So all that do not work (for long, some of the guys who replied here have a Mac in their fleet) on Macs probably do not understand what you talk about.

I have not read through all of your bugs word by word, but I have the impression that most can be "reduced" to the OpenGL situation, even when it does not look like it directly. The drop issue is one of those, probably because without noticing you clicked too long and therefore did a smart drop instead of the normal one.

But now a word for e-on. In my last life (20 year ago) I was developing graphic simulation software. I had a major job to fix bugs in a software a colleague has worked on for five years. I can tell you this was a really hard experience. It took me almost two years to find the major ones and get them out. Even when it looks obvious for the users, to find the cause in millions of lines of code  can be pure horror.

Means? Well, when we find a bug and report it, it is not a switch e-on has to move and all is wonderful. It can take time and sometimes, even worse, it creates other bugs that you (as developer) do not expect. I can write stories about exactly this, I tell you. 

Means? Time, patience and a lot of re-reporting to make the developers understand that the problem is still there. I just did this today with three bugs i have reported (differently from yours btw).

Walther, you are obviously a very nice guy with a lot of patience ad understanding. It is your prerogative to be as forgiving as you like, but it is still e-on's responsibility to provide a working program for the money they charge.
On their web site, in the company profile section they declare:
"E-on software's products are available worldwide ... for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Computer's Mac OS X platforms, making full use of the native software and hardware acceleration."

They dont say 'the mac version is inferior', it isnt cheaper, so why shouldnt customers expect the same performance?
I do appreciate that fixing bugs can be really hard, I've been a programmer myself, but it is no excuse. Either they can make a working product in which case they can take my money, or they cant in which case they shouldnt sell it (or fix it in a reasonable amount of time).
What other type of product would you accept under these conditions? I imagine its quite hard to make an appliance so that all mechanical and electronic parts work as specified, but you wouldnt accept a flawed appliance?

Couple of specific points-
-"The drop issue is one of those, probably because without noticing you clicked too long and therefore did a smart drop instead of the normal one."
I thought of that, but no it isnt, it happens when I use the keyboard shortcuts too, and those are very different - on the mac you need to press the ctrl key in addition in order to get the smart drop.
-What bugs did you report? it might help to know so that other users dont waste their time with them too.

Mazak,

Quote - ... The first I tried was undo align. It work.

Mazak

I think I discovered why the undo of the align worked for you but not for anyone else (that puzzled me a lot)-
you didnt use the same type of align. If I use the align icon from the left hand side bar(as I described originally) or I use edit->align->alignment tool, I cant use the undo afterward. If I use any of the other alignment options under edit->align-> (such as any of the 'align center...' or 'align ...side) the undo is available and works correctly. I presume you must have used one of these not the alignment tool.
So it's a bug - there is no reason what-so-ever why some of the align options should be undo'able
and some not.

General comment just FYI:
I was not informed about any more bug fixes since I opened this thread. I got a short message from Lee Randal telling me I might be interested to know 7.4 is available and suggesting I check the improvements listed online. I did. None of the points mentioned could be interpreted as fixes of the bugs I reported. Except for 'improvements to the interface' which can cover almost anything in the universe:). I asked for a more specific list as I cant believe a software company wouldnt know what specific fixes they made. I received no answer.
I'm not keen to implement 7.4 while its a beta - I have enough problems with versions which supposedly work...
Oh yes, although I didnt use vue a lot lately I discovered 3 more bugs, reported one so far and its 'forwarded to the developers'

I have just discovered a bug, where Vue Infinite 7.4 continues a process even after quitting the application.
Because of this my PC won't go into standby mode. The only way to stop it, is in the Windows Task Manager. I've reported this today along with my clouds not showing up in the 3D preview, even though I have this feature enabled in the Open G L options.

BTW:-  I have XP Pro 64 Bit.

@ArtPearl Good news for you. In 7.4 build 42999 they Added backup event for align tool.  I already tested it and it works :biggrin:

Mazak

Mazak - Yes , there was some progress this week!
Just when I decided I wouldnt touch  Vue with a barge pole anymore, I got an update about the status of my reported bugs. According to this info 3 or 4 additional bugs were fixed (including the undo after align, he only claimed to have fixed it on Monday and it's already in an update! Wow). However I'm using V7 complete not infinite so I'll wait for the new update for that  to come out before I use vue again and check all the good news:)
They claim 'revert to instances' is back and also the use of real size(rather than internal) units has returned. I'm quite happy about those. I am still disputing their response about 3 bugs where they claim things like 'this is not a bug it's a limitation' or 'we havnt encountered this' and 'this is a v7 infinite feature, not complete'.
They still did nothing about the worst bug - the dislexia. Without fixing that  they really cant claim vue is working on the MAC it's a horrible horrible(and may I add -horrible!) bug. They claim they are still investigating  it, but that is of no help to me and other mac uers.
I suppose there is some good in their news.Well, better than a poke in the eye:)
Of course meanwhile I found(and reported) additional bugs, so the overall balance of bugness is maintained(maybe it's a law of nature, like conservation of free energy in the universe):)

PS - The moral of the story -REPORT ALL THE BUGS YOU ENCOUNTER ! YOU PAID FOR THE PROGRAM, IT SHOULD WORK FULLY. sooner or later the machinery at e-on gets into gear and a fix or two are produced.

Quote:
"... I'm pretty sure they covered their behind against any law suits for not complying with 'truth in advertisment' laws (Not that I personally would pursue this avenue). I think they claim they are charging for the liscence, not the program. So even if it doesnt work at all they are still 'OK' - they gave me the liscence what else do I want?

But morally, this is as close to fraud as you can get- describing a product and its features, the platforms it runs on, the price they charge...but the product does not do what they said it will do, and they are not in a rush to fix i t..."

I was about to make the transition from Vue 6 to Vue7 xstream when I read your post.  Given that the upgrade charge is hardly insignificant, one would assume that the software should work.  That said, the fact that they are selling a "License" should not absolve them of their fudiciary responsibility, to wit, I offer the Uniform Commercial Code, better known as the UCC.

See below:

The Uniform Commercial Code Article 2B

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) governs most contracts for the sale of goods in the United States. Courts treat sales of packaged software as a sale of goods and apply Article 2 of the UCC (the Law of Sales) to disputes involving packaged software. The courts treat the development and sale of custom software as a sale of services, that is not covered by the UCC ...

What this means, in simple terms, is that the seller attests to the mercantibility of the product or "affirms or promises that," in this case the software, should live up to their functional claims!

Now, it is possible that they have covered themselves via some other loophole but the mere fact that there have been ongoing issues with the Mac version even prior to the current release speaks volumes about the developer's concern for their user base ... they just lost a $935.00 sale!