I remember life before Vue. Sure there was always some tool promising to give us the world. Vista Pro, Terragen or like software, but they never really captured my imagination or changed the way I work. I may have experimented with them and used them, but they were just sort of there.

I remember the day I encountered Vue 5 Infinite. I was working at a studio in Hollywood and the guys crowded around to look at some of the samples. We rendered one of the original sample scenes, the one with the large rocky cliffs and totally realistic jungle beneath, at some outrageously large resolution. It looked absolutely amazing. I was sold on the program. Unfortunately, subsequent attempts at serious animation revealed a serious flicker problem that kept it from going prime time, at least for our studio. On my own time, though, I was making anime style shows, and Vue seemed the perfect tool for what I wanted, so I pushed forward.

Later came Vue 6 Infinite, and everything changed! The promise of fixed flicker and the addition of spectral clouds. I think we got 5 copies for our studio. At home I had visions of those anime like Princess Mononoke or Macross Plus with the amazingly detailed hand painted backgrounds. I could do that now with Vue 6, even those incredible clouds some anime are known for. It changed the way I work. It changed what I felt I was capable of. It made me want ot make bigger and better, more epic animations.

What about you? How has it changed you?

I loved Bryce, but it was very limited in realism and many other areas, but it had the right idea for the design of the program and UI for me as an artist.

Vue, I cna now create the fantastic battles and weird fantasy scenes I dream of! :)
In RL I can't do so much any more cause of health issues, but with games I can run over rooftops and blow up Nazis like Indiana Jones meets James Bond (yes I've been playing "The Saboteur" hehe) and with Vue my mind can be free to create.

I remember life before Vue. Since finding Vue I realise how wonderful Bryce is and why I'll never change!

Quote - I remember life before Vue. Since finding Vue I realise how wonderful Bryce is and why I'll never change!

Coming from the assigned moderator of the Vue forum, maybe you should find a replacement for yourself?

I've used them both (Bryce and Vue)  Vue gave instant and gratifying results.  Bryce was something you had to work at to get even near the same results in a short time.  Bryce sits on my computer, Vue is used.  Now days great stuff is coming out of Bryce, but.......

As for the moderator loving Bryce,  that should (operative word here.."should")  make him impartial )!

Bryce was one of the apps with which I started my CG passion. I battled with Bryce for a few weeks and then I found Vue. What a difference! Everything that was difficult and twisted in Bryce, was easy and logical in Vue. I never opened Bryce again.

Vue opened up the doors from my imagination. I was finally able to put on screen the images from my mind. That's what changed in my life.

Oh I was only kidding. 
I have every respect for Vue-ers. It's all I can do to load Vue up - never-mind get a render out of it.

I, about 2000$ poorer. E-On software, about 2000$ richer.

well for one thing its made me spend a lot of money uprating my hardware.   it's also made me realise how short life is, how much can we really fit into a second?  how many sleepless nights trying to finish an image due to the fear of crashing when saving? how to maximise profits from a software package?  how totally user-unfriendly is e-on?

on the other hand its taught me lots of techy stuff and terms i didnt have a clue about, introduced me to methods and techniques i would never have dreamed of on my own, given me the tools to finally kick some of the stuff out of my head into the real world.   when i was young i was very artistic, but havent drawn or attempted to draw anything for 20 yrs, choosing a more pragamtic lifestyle, then i discovered vue and i even see in 3d now, when i walk the streets i see texture maps and displacements, i count the polygons in the park, even the skies are a source of renderestimation lol.

good stuff, specially now @ vue 8.    introduced loads of people to it and theyre all as hooked as i am.  its made me nearly bald and given me ulcers but i have to admit i love love love the %!$)@^ thing.   sigh

btw looked at bryce for about 3 days, laughed it off

 Like Artur, Silverblade and others, I first discovered CG art through Bryce which I got from a magazine cover disk. For months I had fun putting shiny spheres over water and making primitive space scenes. It was pretty cool. But then one day I got another magazine with a great palm tree in it and a copy of Vue 2. I loved that palm tree.  I've been with Vue ever since. However, I still use Bryce for abstracts and texture harvesting. ( I don't throw anything out of my toolbox. I just get a second toolbox lol..) But Vue led to my growth as an artist and now I use it as my staging application for everything from mural work to exhibit design and work for architects. It also led me to the somewhat lucrative sideline of content creation for which I am very grateful.

I started with Vista Pro.  Then dabbled with Bryce 2.  Then Bryce 5.  Carrara was a step backwards for landscaping.  Then Vue was a leap forward.  Vue is the most used app on my computer.  I still have Bryce and Carrara for standby.

I just do space scenes now that Vue does planets.

Yes, i can remember time before Vue. I was crazy about Terragen when i found it. For a geography student it was a great toy. Then one day I saw advert for Vue 6 in 3d world magazine, the one with the beautiful beach and bench in the grass...and the rest is history :) I still got V6, cant upgrade yet but I just love it. I am trying to learn as much soft as i can but Vue is still the most important and still will be :)

Monsoon
you just HAD to make chrome spheres with Bryce, didn't ya? :p Was sooooo kewl :)

 You betcha....I think I still have a couple laying around my hard drive somewhere lol...

Monsoon,
hehe, here ye go ;) Bryce chrome sphere from back when, with MY tweak :p

I started way bk before Ps were fast enough to Computer Graphics, with an Amiga, I had Vista and Imagine for the time they were really good programs. Imagine was a well thought out program a day of rendering and the results were wonderful, Yeah I have thrown a lot of money VUEs way, but that has stoped now way to much money for a broken car.

I started with Terragen about 9 years ago ( which Vue has only recently surpassed terrain wise I must say (; )

Moved to Bryce and shortly realised something was missing, and that something was Vue. I have been at it since V4 Pro and cannot love it enough. Although e-on is doing some pretty rtotten and greedy things lately with the upgrades and pricing, it is still my software of choice without a question.

Pre-Vue , hmmm I remember that, we just about started worrying about the millenium bug and then there was Vue 1.20, paid $89 at I-US, download only and NO manual to speak of, so what's new. Since then It's been one of the staple programs on my computer(s) together with Xara and Ultra-Edit , I may not use it for months and I haven't fineihed a complete picture in the past few years, but it has to be around, just in case.

 After I bought vue 4 I wanted to people my scenes and then I discovered poser.  Poser has lead me on to wanting to make my comic with poser instead of hand drawings.
Love esther

I went from Bryce to  Carrara to Vue and little terragen in between.

Until Vue 7.4 or 8 all apps including Vue seemed to be missing something I wanted.

For me the last Vue annoience to go bye bye was the grainy looking clouds, with the only way out being horrenously long renders or postworking the sky. Once that annoience was out of the way, I felt Vue truly has it all

I think Vue is something I can stick with. Normally if I find something I really like, they quit developing or slow to near stall within months.
It does not look like they will quit (just the opposite) they are on the fast track, but they might price me out of future versions if they keep upping the upgrade price. I'v already had to reduce from Infinite to Complete.

But the question was How has Vue changed you.
I think that with Vue 8 added to my existing software I now have all I need to produce any image I can think of in a reasonable amount of time.

The change is that now I can't say crappy software or some lack of a feature is holding me back from creating what I have in mind.

Now it's only me holding me back! Can't blame the software anymore :(

Vue is Awsome if I can just learn some of it's difficult things such as the FE and push through some other difficulties I'll be cranking out some cool stuff. I'm already happy with some of my more recent results:)

I started with Bryce too.  It was fun and exciting to learn 3D, but it was hard work and sometimes reading a tutorial where they mention click the pinkish button next to the triangle drove me nuts!  The interface worked, but I never was happy.  Then I found Vue 4 and been happy ever since..    Moved on up each time to Infinite.  I love Vue.   :biggrin:

Quote - Bryce was one of the apps with which I started my CG passion. I battled with Bryce for a few weeks and then I found Vue. What a difference! Everything that was difficult and twisted in Bryce, was easy and logical in Vue. I never opened Bryce again.

Vue opened up the doors from my imagination. I was finally able to put on screen the images from my mind. That's what changed in my life.

That really mirrors my experience, except for the Bryce part. I never used it because i saw what others did in it and was never attracted to it. But "Everything that was difficult and twisted..." in other tools I tried became so easy in Vue and I could finally create the images I wanted to create.