I like doing figures in a landscape where the figures predominate over the background and I prefer using Poser. Is the RDNA Terradome world (with its expansion packs) a reasonable alternative to Vue in terms of ease of use and results, or is it better to deal with bringing Poser developed figure scenes into Vue?

I would go with Vue. More realism and more options.

Hi pisaacs - what version of Vue do you use?

I'd be using the latest.

I use Terradome now and again, but don't expect Vue-like results from it. Best add-on I bought for T-Dome was the Elevation script: you can feed height maps into it (as you can with Vue) and make more realistic landscapes.

Vue is a lot more robust and has all kinds of additional features, but I have Terradome & love it. In my opinion, it's kind of like saying, do you want a Ferrari or a Volkswagon. Well, that Ferrari sure would be nice because of the speed and features, but for getting around town, a Volkswagon is a lot easier, cheaper and safer to deal with (Volkswagon = Terradome, which is wonderful because it's native to Poser).

You can get some awesome renders out of Terradome. The built-in lights are very good for outdoor scenes as well. If you need more skies, you can also buy Flink's various skydome products (sold here at Renderosity). Just don't load the Terradome sky but add Flink's skydome and skies. You won't get custom lighting with Flink's like you do with Terradome-specific add-ons but it does vastly expand the variety of skies available.

If you go with Terradome, I recommend getting the add-on packs for morphs & surface textures. I've been pleased with them. Aquazone is particularly useful. You can create some additional ground textures for yourself by substituting their textures with some of Hobobo's free textures over at ShareCG (Hobobo has uploaded literally thousands of free textures).

I like Terradome so much that I've often thought that Smith Micro should buy it out and embed it natively into Poser, simply because it would make Poser seem more robust out of the box.

However, you can get some seriously gorgeous renders with Vue. And you have a ton of options for creating and manipulating terrains and the atmosphere. Keep in mind that there's a whole content market just for Vue. So, if you're looking to get monetarily bled dry for yet another type of content, well, there you go. LOL. Seriously, one negative of Vue is that Poser figures don't always happily go into Vue. I'll let someone who uses Vue talk to that pros and cons of that & Vue in general since I'm barely even a novice in Vue.

I’m a big fan of Vue & have only read about Terradome, but it depends. Cost wise, I’m not sure what the price is for the minimal version of Vue that will import Poser content, but certainly more than the RDNA product. OTOH, those Terradome expansion packs aren’t that cheap and could begin to add up if you want many of them. No matter how many you get though, you still won’t be able to match Vue’s versatility in terms of creating varied terrains, a slew of different vegetation, atmospheres etc. – and that’s not counting all the add-on content Unless you have a system powerful enough to run Vue and Poser in tandem then AFAIK, even with the latest versions of Vue, you’ll need to use Vue materials for everything (except image maps). That may be a major deal breaker, especially if you’re heavily invested in Poser’s skin rendering techniques. Vue has SkinVue but it will be entirely different – ditto for any other procedural materials.

From your description, it sounds like the landscapes will be mainly backdrops, so Terradome might fit your needs better. That is assuming that the product offers enough variety for your scenes. I think that might be the biggest factor for me if I weren’t already into Vue. The Terradome examples look pretty nice, it’d probably easier and faster than importing into Vue, allow you to work in a more familiar environment, cheaper, whether or not you already have Vue … So, I’d ask if those environments (assuming some more will be added), be sufficient for my scenery needs/wants in the foreseeable future.

I would agree, panoramic scenes, Vue hands down.  Backdrop, it would vary.  It all depends on how much detail is needed to complete the scene.

There's also the whole "are you willig and sble to learn a whole new program?

I've tried Vue in the past. And I've REALLY tried to understand it and like it, because it can make some seriously great renders ... but it just never clicked. I feel like a total idiot. And Poser compatibility or not.. I've never meen able to get the textures "right" in Vue.

OTOH I have TerraDome and I really like it.... And for renders where what you need is a "background"  and the persons are the focus, I'd say Terra Dome.

If you want to render vast landscapes, deep forests ect.. Vue. but for what is essentially a Poser render with a nice background, I'd keep it in Poser and go with terra Dome.

Here are a few vegetation option that may be helpful for you if you're using Poser, too. This really livens up Terradome and makes it a little more like Vue.

Again, Vue blows Poser away in the area of vegetation, but if you want to use Poser, here are some ideas (if you haven't already heard of them):

• EvilInnocence's Digital Alchemy: Somewhat random plants and trees that can populate your Poser scenes. Not exactly terraforming but a nod in that direction. I do not have these products so I don't know how well they work. This is a relatively new product line. Also sold at Content Paradise. >> http://www.evilinnocence.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=DIGITAL+ALCHEMY&x=-1355&y=-15&mode=list&limit=all

• Flink's Trees, Flowers, Meadows & Grounds:  Flink has some lovely products here at Renderosity. They tend to be a little resource intensive (load a lot and you end up with a lot of polys). But they're quite nice. I use his products regularly, especially the skies which are superb. >> http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/Flink

• Dinoraul has some excellent trees for sale here at Renderosity. >> http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/Dinoraul

• Lisa Buckelew has created her fabulous Lisa's Botanicals which used to part of DAZ3D's Platinum Club. Most have been removed but will soon reappear at Hivewire3D (new store coming soon). What a loss for the Platinum Club!! Her products are quite good. I use them in every outdoor render.

• However...still at DAZ3D are lots of interesting plants, including those by Predatron, Merlin, etc. >> http://www.daz3d.com/environments-props/plants/

• PowerAge has a Forest Generator for M.O.M. which seems most useful for very distant trees. The trees are just flat planes with textures & transparency maps applied, so I wouldn't use them up close. >> http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/m-o-m-forest-generator/94456#

• Traveler over at RuntimeDNA also sells lots of plants (most are older products) in his Modualz, Naturals and other collections. >> http://www.runtimedna.com/Traveler/ (he has a lot of stuff; it requires a lot of weeding through products to find the plants - pun intended :p)

• Here's a link to Hobobo's free stuff that give you additional textures for grounds, etc. And, he has pz3 and other straight backdrops, too, if you're looking for something photographic. >> http://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=hobobo

The challenge is that buying all of this gets a bit pricey. I have no idea how this compares to buying content vs. what content is embedded with Vue.

** I hope this helps & that this information wasn't too obvious or too off-topic. Just trying to show you some options of how to make Poser a bit more like Vue without losing all the Poser goodness we're used to... :)

P.S. Don't forget that Bryce exists, too.

Vue definitely does add an entire layer of work to the workflow.  Everything imported in from Poser needs to have the materials adjusted, which can be quick or very time consuming depending on the image.  V4 and M4 do import in easily and quickly, though.

If you're looking for the challenge of adding something new to your skill set, it's a great program.  Depending on which version, it can get very deep.  You'll also need/want to start collecting goodies for Vue, the same as Poser.

But if you want something much quicker and more budget friendly, I'd say go for Terradome.  Another option is using HDR images in Reality, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get that background to look like anything other than DoF on steroids.

Poser does have free legacy rocks and plants created by Traveler.  A good start to populating a scene quickly and inexpensively.

If you import your Poser scene file into Vue while Poser is running it will use the Poser materials for your figures (depending on your version of Vue and Poser, eg. Poser 2012 -> Vue 10). It's really hard to beat a good Vue render if you want to put your characters into a landscape.

There is no doubt that Vue is a stunning program for landscapes and no Poser product is going to give you the same quality or options.

I used it for quite a while but I stopped uodating it because of the cost.  You either have to buy the full package or buy a cut down version and only add the packages you feel you need.  I have no problem with that but then found that they would not work with the next version of Vue.  The only option was to buy the add-ons all over again which is the point I opted out.  I still use it on occasions but as it gets more and more out of date I use it less and less.

Vue is a first class program with nothing to touch it.  Great if you have a lot of money and lots of time to learn.  It also eats memory as if it is going out of fashion so unless you have massive amounts expect the odd memory warning and be prepared for some very long render times.

I own the latest version of Vue Infinite, and love it.

But if you are just looking for a background for your figures, you may be happier with the Terradome. 

While Vue is somewhat Poser compatible, there's something of a learning curve.  As others have said, the materials need to be adjusted.  Yes, Vue can read Poser materials, but the results are not ideal, especially for things like human skin. (Though there are products like Skinvue to help out.) 

Vue's treatment of Poser's dynamic hair is also less than ideal. 

Honestly, even though I have and use Vue, I still use things like the Terradome sometimes, because it's quicker and easier, and often "good enough" when the focus is on the figures.

Actually now that Vue will use Poser materials from inside Poser there's not really much tweaking required. Except when Vue goes insane and decides to eat itself, of course...

Way back when I used DS2 I had skin shaders set up in DS that were ready to use in Vue without any alteration and they looked great. There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth when I bought DS3 and then discovered the DS2 shaders no longer worked I can tell you!

That was one of the reasons I moved to Poser when PP2012 came out - better compatibility with Vue. No more exploding V4 - yay!

Thank you all for the replies. I really appreciate it! I have Bryce and have never been able to do scenes the way I want so am afraid Vue will be the same for me. I'm only comfortable in Poser, maybe because it is more object/figure oriented vs. environmental. And I have lots of Poser content, e.g. Lisa Botanicals, Dinoraul, and some Flink. So since TerraDome is on sale now I will give that a whirl and try out some of the ways to enhance its content that have been suggested.

Vue supports PoserFusion, which means you can import your Poser scenes right into Vue. It has some limitations but overall its really useful for working with Poser.

TerraDome is really useful but options are very limited. There are lots of packs out there, but its not like these have the same flexibility as Vue. If there's a pack available that you like and, you are just showing a character with a little background, TerraDome is going to do the trick.

Vue on the other hand is a best of class software for natural scenery. I use it all the time in my marketing renders, and I can whip up something that doesn't look terrible pretty quickly.  With Vue, you can create really convincing looking outdoor scenes, import characters and other objects and make the most of our computer resources. I use it also extensively for interior scenes too, and setting up cameras, etc are a snap. Poser is just not suited for complex scenes that aren't specifically focused on the character.

For example, see my image below, which shows a render of an interior area of my Tower of Conjuration, a model in the Towers of Magic series. Its not really great, I know. But just setting up the camera and lights took me less than 10 minutes, and the render took about 55 minutes. I could just as easily have set up a seated model and placed it on that throne.

You need to decide what is important to you in terms of your art. Vue is very much a pro tool. For a pro tool, its really not all that hard to use. But its much more expensive than TerraDome.

Also - as a side note - I find the lighting in Vue is so much easier to get right. It just works. Lighting in Poser usually makes me start yelling very quickly. So hard to get it to look exactly how I want.

Actually - as you mentioned Bryce and having used both - I'd say it's far easier to get a scene looking good in Vue than it is in Bryce. Vue is so much easier to work with. Bryce with its little shiny unexplained buttons always makes me think of that scene in Demolition Man: "How's that damn three seashell thing work?" :biggrin:

Doesn't vue have a trial version or something that you can try for free to see if you feel comfortable with it? Then if you deside it's not for you then you can go for terradome.

They should have one - though maybe they've just switched over to their PLE versions.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/?page=try

Attached Link: Good Evening

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2418992&user_id=158008&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2448139&user_id=158008&np&np

One is linked above; appologies, haven't figured out how to do this exactly.

I'd say that for Good Evening if you mean outside the window, Vue would be nice but probably overkill when an image on a plane/dome might do fine. ForJungle Goddesswith closeup vegetation like that, some discrete props might do just as well if not better than Vue, which shines on massive amounts of vegetation. In the past some have felt that the textures didn't necessarily hold up as well for closeups. Of course that was many versions ago and things may have changed - and of course, YMMV. I think someone may have mentioned that you can also use Vue to render HDR or LDR panoramas and use them on one of the Poser domes.

I'd definitely go for the free or demo version of Vue and just play with it a bit.  There is a lot of add-on content available but… Unlike Poser which is primarily a content consumer, Vue has everything you need to create just about anything you might want - depending of course on how in depth you want to get.  For some good free Vue video tutorials, try GeekAtPlay.

In the past few days, I've rendered some "outdoor" images. All in Poser. And I'd say whether or not Poser is "enough" depends on several things, most important: Do you HAVE a proper scene/collection of plants for Poser or not :)

As an example, this is made with Terradome: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2451939 (WARNING: NUDITY)

And these are both made with Stonemason's Enchanted Forest: 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2451562

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2450902

All of them right inside Poser. And btw all three of them using "canned" ligtsets that came with the scene/TerraDome. So the lighting was also super easy (and I do SUCK with lighting if I cant' find a canned set to use or modify L)

Vue has ecosystems which makes a massive difference for creating landscape vegetation. And you can actually get away with throwing a quick ecosystem together and having it look Ok.

If you want to see which is better for what you need then probably the best thing is to look through the Poser and Vue Galleries and see which most suits the style you're aiming for. MassiSan does a lot of jungle/woodland type landscapes in Vue. (Actually looking at that Gallery tends to depress me a bit! LOL!)

Maybe this is just my own lack of skill...but I find Poser renders skin much better than Vue.  Using Poser materials in Vue will get me something perfectly adequate, but it lacks the "pop" of a Poser render.  With SSS, EZskin, and the Envirodome, you can get some really striking results, which I can't get with Vue.  In particular, for images like "Good Evening," which is mainly a closeup of someone's face, I'd stick with Poser. 

I also find using Poser materials in Vue is very slow and kludgy if you have several figures.  Poser seems to handle it much better.

I am completly away from Vue, finally. Vue has a huge potential and it is a must have for outdoor scenes, BUT ... . I use vue from version 4 on, and Vue use to behave quite funky sometimes. Till v10 camera is uncontrolleble. Sometimes don't know why,  my camera just blasts into nowhere. Scenes especially with lots of plants STILL have problems with antialiasing. This is not just my problem. Check out the Vue gallery here and pick out the most impressiv renders. You will allways have that grainy alliased Vue-look. Carrara renders even with the lowest antialliasing settings look way better. You can have indeed photreal render results in Vue, but your render-times will go straight through the ceiling. And e-on tries to force me to buy Vue11 in order to use all PoserPro2012-SR3 features. The Vue10 Poser SDK just supports till SR2. Vue give amazing results but the path is filled with aggressions and nervous breakdowns.

Quote - Maybe this is just my own lack of skill...but I find Poser renders skin much better than Vue.  Using Poser materials in Vue will get me something perfectly adequate, but it lacks the "pop" of a Poser render.  With SSS, EZskin, and the Envirodome, you can get some really striking results, which I can't get with Vue.  In particular, for images like "Good Evening," which is mainly a closeup of someone's face, I'd stick with Poser. 

I also find using Poser materials in Vue is very slow and kludgy if you have several figures.  Poser seems to handle it much better.

The thing to remember is that although Vue uses native PoserFusion (so does Shade 3D), which exposes a lot of Poser functionality in Vue, some tricks are accomplished only within the native environment - for the same reason that many raster image textures do not look better than native shaders.

There is an add-on for Vue called SkinVue which is supposed to do something for imported character skin - http://www.skinvue.net/ I havent used it but the results look good.

I have to say, after getting Poser 2012 Pro, I have rendered more in Poser in the last year than I probably have in the last five years. But that's just if the scene is very character centric.

Yes, lighting is tricky between the two programs, but my solution to that is to create the background in Vue, make a 72 dpi spherical render and use that to control lighting in Poser with the environment sphere.

Of course, post work is required to integrate the images, so that adds another layer of complexity. (For that reason alone, it's probably easier to use Terradome.) But you can get decent results using the method I've described above. The attached image was rendered in both Vue and Poser, using Photoshop to integrate the pieces.

Actually just been trying a figure in Vue and got to say ParrotDolphin's Poser materials look amazing in Vue. Way better than they do in Poser! I don't usually have any problem with skin in Vue (I don't have SkinVue), although it's still not as good as it used to be with the old shaders I made for Vue in DS2. Hair is what tends to need fiddling with in Vue for me. To get the best results with renders in Vue you need to go tweaking settings, esp. for antialiasing and atmospheres. Take a look at Cream of the Crop on Cornucopia 3D! Yes, the renders can take a while if you're after realism. But if you want a quick portrait render then Poser is very much faster.

Quote - Vue is vexing, prone to crashing and doesn't render Poser textures very well. Though I use Vue for backgrounds and create skydomes for BB's envirosphere, I far prefer the way my figures look when I render them in Poser.

That is my experience as well.

Quote - Yes, lighting is tricky between the two programs, but my solution to that is to create the background in Vue, make a 72 dpi spherical render and use that to control lighting in Poser with the environment sphere.

I've been doing things like that as well.  Been thinking that it might be good to use the terrain that comes with the Terradome and other similar products, with the Envirosphere (with Vue-rendered image applied).  Might cut down on postwork. 

Quote - I've been doing things like that as well.  Been thinking that it might be good to use the terrain that comes with the Terradome and other similar products, with the Envirosphere (with Vue-rendered image applied).  Might cut down on postwork. 

Wouldn't you still have to "blend" the terrain into the background?

Quote - Wouldn't you still have to "blend" the terrain into the background?

I think there would be less.  I have textures that I can use in both Vue and Poser that could tie the two parts together.  Wouldn't have to worry about shadows and stuff like that.

Attached Link: http://www.cornucopia3d.com/galleries/thumbnails.php?album=lastupby&uid=1216507

Bryce, I'm like you, nver did get any decent scenes out of it. I look at some of the promo images and always wondered how people did it, I never get mine looking as good as theirs. I stopped fighting with Bryce and simply gave up.

I invested in Terradome, bought everything there is to get for it. I love and hate it at the same time. There is one hige problem with Terradome, I always seem to end up with 'dark', apocalyptic, steam punk like landscapes/scenes. Nothing bright and summer like and so. It's a great system, but it's geared at a certain group of users. Seeinbg who made it, that's not even strange. I've made some great storm scenes with it, apocalyptic ones and even some scifi stuff and it's awesome for that. Whenever I want to make nice and bright scenes, I do fail and Terradome suddenly shows it's weaknesses and doesn't look as impressive anymore and you need to do a lot of work and tweaking to even get some mere OK results. I often go back to good old IC3 for my brighter scenes, I get more usage out of that. so, if I want 'dark and more creepy' scenes Terradome is my pick, but unfortunately I prefer bright sunshine ones more, so I hardly use Terradome.

Then there's Vue..... Bought Vue 11 Frontier just after Christmas. I've used Vue in the past, Vue 6 Easel (a bit like frontier), but it was a bit like with Bryce, no stunning results for me. When starting up Vue 11, I was lost at first, but through some of the many tutorials available I did get the hang of it rather quickly. A few weeks later, I got Vue 10 Studio with some extra modules, acquired a license from someone else, E-On allows users to sell there license to someone else. At the beginning of this year some offered it and I bought it. All I can say is that Vue is awesome. Whatever scene you have in mind, you can do it and yes, it makes lovely summer day scenes, nice and bright :-) The only thing that I would advice is following tutorials, it really help to get used to Vue and create lovely scenes. Check out my gallery and see what is possible to do with Vue after using it only a few months or even better, follow the link to all of my images. I'm impressed how well it works with Poser stuff as well, but you do need a good computer to handle it all. Vue requires a lot more power and memory then Poser does.

I've been thinking things over and everyone's replies have been very helpful. Benjamin A (aeilkema), I really like your Vue gallery, especially Hills Chalenge 3, which is so painterly, and Trekki, your Stonemason image with the plants has great texture and feel. I love landscape, did many as a pastel artist and some oil, but for me personally I seem to have trouble translating that onto a 2d computer screen using 3d constructs. I think for now at least I'll stick with Poser using Flink's skies and a land morphing tool I found over at Daz by FirstBastion and develop my approach. Maybe then Vue will work out. I had the feeling that TerraDome was not going to produce the kind of landscape I was looking for, confirmed by aeilkema. So thank you all very much.

I like dark, brooding apacalyptic scenes.  Maybe I should give the Terradome a try.  (I don't own that particular background system, but I have a bunch of others: IC, Microcosm, Cyclorama, Millennium Enviroment, etc.) 

I also own several of FirstBastion's ground props.  Thanks for reminding me of those.  I'm going to try using those with the Envirosphere and Vue-rendered background images.

Nice gallery, Aeilkema!

Pisaacs - if you like landscapes have you seen these? Very Constablesque.

www.cornucopia3d.com/portfolio/dominic

I actually still quite like Bryce for Scifi landscapes, even if it is confusing to use. I still fire it up occasionally.

Originally I used Terragen (from Planetside software) for landscapes, but as it was so impossible at the time (may be better now) to import objects into the scenes I looked at Vue instead and was hooked. Can't see myself ever going back to Terragen, although I still think it takes some beating for landscapes!

Thanks :-) Dominic's images are awesome, love his style, I wish I could do that..... who knows, maybe one day.

Ah, those Davison landscapes are beautiful. If you like Terragen, have you looked at TerraPak - designed to make Vue images look more 'hyper-real' ala Terragen.

Regarding stability, I can't really say that Vue (6) has ever glitched other than occasionally from memory starvation, but that was oa a machinme with < 1GB of RAM, I've decided that it's pretty much impossible to judge how an application will run based on other people's experiences as I've seen it go both ways on too many occasions.

I remember when Mojoworld was the next big thing in environments - don't know whether it's still around.  

Quote - If you like Terragen, have you looked at TerraPak - designed to make Vue images look more 'hyper-real' ala Terragen.

I just looked at it ($22.95 at C3D), and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed.  The sample renders look very Vue-ish.

I've seen some people get Vue renders that look photoreal, without that graininess I associate with Vue renders, but I don't know how they do it. 

(And don't get me wrong, I love Vue.  I have Vue Infinite with the maintenance contract so I get all updates as soon as they are available, and I consider it money well spent.)

Thise Davison landscapes ARE amazing, Constable & 17th c. Dutch. Need another lifetime!

Klebnor

I have that "Carrara 3D Express" product DAZ used to sell.  I don't think they do any more.  It came with skin shaders. (Didn't look as good as Poser, judging from the promo pics.)  I played around with it a little, but found the learning curve was too steep.

Very nice image Klebnor. I usually mention Carrara as a good alternative because of its features and compatibility. I didn't think much of its landscape abilities but DustRider showed some very nice stuff he'd done in that area. I have often found Carrara renders somehow a bit pale or undersaturated is the best way I can describe it. Again, there are certainly examples where that isn't the case. In your image, it works very well and gives it a nice light airy atmosphere.

We have to remember that each of these application's render engines has its own distinct "signature" look, at least out of the box. Depending on one's tastes and the techniques used, that may be percieved ad under saturated, grainy etc. Usually, there are ways to alter that in the settings or even post effects like film grain. Whether you like  that siignature look and how easy it is to change varies  a gread deal I'm sure. I've never been one of those 'I can always tell V4' people but looking through freestuff, I can 'always' tell a Bryce item and often a Vue one as well. A lot of that is probably down to people using default settings I  imagine.

In my experience, the undersaturated look is the result of leaving the gamma correction at the default of 1.8.  It can be turned off (expecially for dark, contrasty noir type images) or reduced.  The above image was created at a setting of 1.4, and it is still pretty light due to high sun light value.  This was rendered with full lighting (4 bounces) and that is, of course, also adjustable.

You are quite correct that Carrara can be washed out using default settings, however, this is easily overcome by tweaking.

Regarding landscape abilities, let me start by admitting to absolutely no knowledge of Vue, so this is not a comparison.  Carrara has a pretty funky terrain editor, but you can import a grey scale image and use it as your base reference.  One thing I really love is that you can cause multiple instances of any object (trees, plants, buildings) to follow a terrain.  This allows you to create a forest sprawling across a hillside with a few clicks.  There are some excellent tree specimens available from third party vendors.  To further enhance this, you can create a mask on the terrain so that the objects stay in certain boundaries (think no trees in water or roads).  Also, you are not limited to Carrara native plants, I use poser trees and plants frequently.  When distributing them, you can have them randomly rotated so they don't all face one direction.  Lots of fun!

With respect to the OP's desire to use Poser/DAZ content, Carrara allows you to simply attach multiple runtimes to it's browser and immediately import content.  I have to say, after using Poser for years, it amazed me that there is rarely a delay or "deep search" for textures.  If it can't find something, a window pops up which lets you browse to the appropriate folder and point to the missing item.

Finally, the ability to take an object and quickly modify the mesh is fantastic.

Klebnor

BTW, this is what a real pro (HowieFarkes) can do with Carrara in terms of realistic terrain/vegetation:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2377017

Wow, that is stunning! I see that he uses Vue as well. It would be really interesting to hear his thoughts on the relative merits of the two applications. I only have Carrara 6 Pro - I believe it was on a magazine disk a few years ago.  I haven't really looked at the landscape stuff beyond the sample scenes. The gamma thing sounds likely. I've jiggled with the various settings, - don't remember whether I messed with that one or not. I always say that for the price, Carrara is a great package that can do a bit of everything and maybe with a more familiar interface than Blender. I've heard people complain about it being crash prone but it's been solid for me whenever I've used it. Ditto for reports of Vue crashes - though I don't hear that as much these days. Either I'm just lucky or these apps are actually more stable on marginal hardware or I just don't don't push them as hard as people with powerful systems :-)

I use Terradome mainly due to the fact I don't have the sort of money for Vue though would like to get it though if I did no idea what version would be good for me at a good price..

I do have Carrarra 8 Pro when it went cheap and I do have Bryce but that be it..  

Here is an image I did a couple of years ago the landscape was purchased, I think it was called Secret Lake, and I added V4 and the space craft with very little difficulty.  Not saying I could do this from scratch but it shows what can be done in the right hands.

I use both but I will often create the background in vue and then map it onto the BB envirsphere too as in the above post.

I wouldn't want to be without either thing though.