Good night!
It's late also here in Portugal, time to get some sleep. :-)

 Interesting debate. 

I can show my father how to do something 100 times, yet he only purchases understanding of a product or software by reading the manual.

I, myself, prefer video tutorials to 'get me started,' then read the manual only if I really like the program.

I think different people learn differently. 

IMHO, Vue 7 Pro Studio's manual (which also applies to all Vue 7 products) is very good.   It even answers some of the questions I had for Poser eg bucket size-smaller bucket size equals longer rendering times, better quality.  

One does not use the Evelyn Wood's Speed Reading course when diving into the .pdf because every word means something; for me it's slow and for comprehension that means retaining over 10 percent of what I read, I got to do it 19 times--It's probably the photo graphic memory thing that I sorely lack.

Saying that, the visual tuts are located on the Extras CD.  Simply bring them up and deconstruct.  There you will see what can be done with, for example,  Alpha planes that have textures of clouds-one can use these between mountain ranges, in valleys etc--AND you can use 50 or more---and best of all, them little buggers don't take up RAM or polys-neat quick fast renderings.  You then go back to the .pdf manual and look up alpha planes, read the info.  Same for lighting, making compound terrains, atmosphere, you name it.

I incorporate another approach, and its called the what if approach--that means click or double click on something in the scene or on the side and see what happens etc.

Jan

In the "good old days" of printed manuals, all high quality software used to come with three types of manuals,

a quickstart
a tutorial and
a nice thick referens documentation

All this you got both on paper (books)
AND as local searchable helpfiles

All that Vue got is the PDF file.

Vue's PDF manual certainly isn't a quickstart or even a tutorial. But is it a referensmanual?

Not a good one IMO. A referens manual is not made to be read from beginning to end but is constructed so that you can fast look up what you need. The Vue manual is too talkative with too much hype and do not go really in depth. It most definitely is nothing for the beginner, what THEY need is quick start and tutorials.

What??? No "make fantastic art" button?

they have quick start tutorial flash videos on their website, it's even in the program's file menu...though you need ot download 'em iirc ;)

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/tutorials/