Hi all,

I wanted to see what versions of Vue people are using. I always seem to want the latest and greateast versions of Vue but it's not always possible. I tend to think my older versions of Vue is obsolete. Just curious what people are using and how often you update. My last updated version is 10.5 Infinite. Been using Vue on Mac since version 4.

Thanks for any responses.

danway

I'm still using Vue 8 Complete. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to get the latest version but finances won't allow so I'm sticking with what I have :)

My first string workstation Cameron has Vue 2014 Infinite.  She is my first choice for doing a big wallpaper render or an animation.  Cameron has ten RenderCows.

The second string workstation Galadriel has Vue 11.5 Infinite.  I use her if Cameron is already engaged.  Galadriel can use five RenderCows.

I still have my first PC, Sarit.  She has Vue 5 Esprit, and I import new models to her and save them out as VOB if I'm making a freebie, because everyone with Vue 5 and up can use the VOB.

I'm using Vue 10 Studio plus ecopainter module. I normally stay one version behind, but this year Eon did not have their usual big markdown of Vue 11 before the new version came out.

I am using : Vue 10 complite,Vue 2014 Pioneer, Vue 2014 xStream, Vue 9 Infinity, depend on what i need to produce. I still have Vue 4 and Vue 5 installed :)

I've got Vue 2014 Complete and Vue 6 installed on my laptop. On my render PC there's Vue 6, Vue 10 Studio, Vue 11 Complete and Vue 2014 Complete.

Quote - My first string workstation Cameron has Vue 2014 Infinite.  She is my first choice for doing a big wallpaper render or an animation.  Cameron has ten RenderCows.

The second string workstation Galadriel has Vue 11.5 Infinite.  I use her if Cameron is already engaged.  Galadriel can use five RenderCows.

You make me jealous, how does 10 rendercows on one machine even work and secondly..... would that be possible with Vue Complete (that comes with 5 render nodes) as well? What's even in a workstation like that?

    Use RenderCows for rendering with a networked group of computers, one RenderCow per computer (including the master workstation).  Because I have both an 11.5 license and a 2014 license, each of my computers has an 11.5 RenderCow and a 2014 RenderCow installed.  I would only have one or the other running at any given time on each computer.   This way, I can use my other computers to help either Galadriel (11.5 license) or Cameron (2014 license).  Cameron has an extra cow pack license, so she can use ten total cows.  With your license, you can jack four other computers into the same router with your workstation and use all five to help render tough projects.

     To add muscle to my network, I bought used/refurbed machines.  I bought two HP xw6600 (Eir & Kara) which have dual Xeon quad core processors (not HyperThreaded, though).  That is, two processors in each machine.  That adds a lot of rendering threads, eight per machine, and they were $420 each machine.  Now I have two Dell C1100 PowerEdge server blades with dual HyperThreaded hex-core Xeons (Cortana & Terpsichore).  These cost $772 each (blade, Win7 license, and a HD), and they add 24 threads per machine.

     So at the moment, if I have a massive scene to render at huge dimensions, I have Cameron network it out:

• Cameron     dual H/T hex Xeons     24 cores
• Cortana      dual H/T hex Xeons     24 cores
• Terpsichore dual H/T hex Xeons     24 cores
• Eir               dual quad Xeons           8 cores
• Kara            dual quad Xeons           8 cores
• Galadriel      core i7 H/T quad           8 cores
• Phoenix        quad core                    4 cores
• Firebird        H/T dual core                4 cores
• Pixie             dual core                      2 cores
• Valkyrie        dual core                      2 cores

     Cameron can bring 108 cores to bear on a render!  If Galadriel is functioning as the master, she can use the top five, and use 88 cores.

     With multiple networked cores, you can absolutely destroy a tough render, rip through it in a fraction of the time it would take a single machine to finish.

     So, put those older computers you have sitting on the shelf to work!  Use that five-cow license which came with Vue Complete and get renders done faster.

Thanks for making it clear :) I'm not sure where I would place that many computers though ;)

Quote - Just curious what people are using and how often you update.

I started with Vue 5 Infinite.  Kept upgrading through 6, 7, 8, 9... and stopped at 10 because of all the obvious bugs and the fighting with eon to get them fixed.  The burden of proof is placed on the user.  After getting the bugs fixed (about 6 out of maybe 9 that I found?), I didn't want to go through that again with 10.5 and later versions.  I have since stuck to using Vue 9.5 Infinite because it works the best with all my other apps and has the least number of bugs.  I can live with its slightly slower rendering, if it works better as a whole overall.

Thanks for all the replies, I don't quite understand e-on releasing a new version on a yearly basis and a .5 version six months after that.

When a new version is released the previous one is left hanging with bugs.

I don't understand that either, but you don't have to upgrade each time, depending on what version you use, it may be cheaper to skip a good number of versions :)

I had Vue 3, 4, 5 and 6, but got tired of all the bugs and mediocre updates and stayed with 6 for a long time. When I was ready to do some serious work with Vue again, I waited for someone that offered his/her license for sale, so I ended with Vue 10. The I upgraded to Vue 11 just before Vue 2014 was released and got that one for free. I'm going to stick to 2014 for a long time now. I decided not to use the maintenace plan (or whatever it is called) that was offered to me with Vue 2014. Going from Vue 6 to Vue 10 was major..... going from 10 to 2014 was mediocre.... as usual.

We still use the same terrain system for ages now... with some changes and improvements, but it's still the same. E-On should have adopted more advanced world buidling technology by now, but no, we still use a system that is decades old by now. My money will go towards a system that can build better terrains then Vue does, that is much better spent money then upgrading once again.

Same for trees. TPF is not for me, slow, annoying, way to demanding and really not fun. The money I was going to spent on it, I spent somewhere else instead, getting trees that look better, work better and don't bring my system to a halt. It's as simple as that. I'm going to spent my money on stuff that works, not on stuff that annoys me all the time due to all the bugs and shortcomings and problems.

I guess by the time Vue 2018 will be releases I may upgrade again, hoping they still allow me to puchase someone else's license :) Vue 2014 already offers more then I use and seems quite stable for what I do with it, so I'm going to be happy with Vue 2014 for a good number of years. The only I'd perhaps like to do is go from Complete to Infinite, but I'm not sure if that's worth the money.

How does buying someone else's license work? I mean, how do you find someone? Maybe that would be a good option for me to step up to at least Vue 11 Complete.

Check the forums at E-On and Cornucopia3D on a regularly, once in a while you see someone selling their license there.

You can't re-buy upgrade licenses as far as I know.  Just full version ones.

When you buy someone else's license, you get the full version license of the product they've bought or the last version they've upgraded to.

So, if I'm to sell mine, you would get Vue 2014, even though it's an upgrade. I started on 10, then 11, then 2014, but they buyer would only get 2014 and all of my products would be cancelled. I'd still have my Vue 6 license, since that was bought seperately from the rest.

Often when people switch from an Artist version to a high end one, you see them selling the artist license, since there's not upgrade path from Artist to let's say Infinite. Although I've seen E-On offering some buy back option when you've got Complete.

I bought Vue 10 Studio from someone who switched to Vue 11 Infinite. He had been using Vue for a long time and his last upgrade was Vue 10 Studio and that's the one they gave me, the other licenses were just cancelled.

I didn't know buying someone else's license was an option.  Good to know.

One learns a lot from a forum.

Vue 2014 Complete. The best Vue ever IMHO...

Quote - Vue 2014 Complete. The best Vue ever IMHO...

Just curious. Why do you think it is the best ever?  Features, stability or both?  Trying to decide when and whether to upgrade from Vue 10 Studio.

Stability and speed...at least IMHO. Others may agree or disagree. I've been using Vue since 'Esprit ver 4.0...

FYI.  E-on is currently running a 25% off promotion on Vue Complete and Vue Studio 2014 Architectural bundles until April 7th.  I haven't checked prices yet.

Attached Link: E-on Architecural Bundle Sale

Which version of VUE do I use?

Well, recently I've been using Vue 6 Infinite (aka V6i) to create some artwork. (see my Renderosity gallery)

Years ago I'd bought/upgraded to that version from a lineage of using VUE versions from way back in Vue d' Esprit days, to 5, 6, then 6 Infinite. And Infinite cost a lot of money for me, one of my most expensive online purchases in one instance, especially with the time of currency conversion with the Australian dollar always below the US dollar amount making any purchases more expensive for Australians.

However, I failed to be able to upgrade from there because of ongoing financial pressures here at home over the years, and so I unfortunately lapsed on the upgrade trail and receiving discounts. :-(

I was waiting to be able to afford a new computer, one that was powerful enough to use the newer versions of software I had and was getting with other upgrade pricings but it was always elusive and a struggle.

Finally, years later, we were able to afford new computers around November 2013 and would you believe it? - Just around that same time we ran into more hard financial pressures here at home.  - But luckliy we got our computers as they're going to serve us for years to come just like all our others have done in the past.

I'm using Windows 8.1 64 bit, with 32 gigs of memory, etc, etc.

Flash forward to now and since the computer was capable and had plenty of memory, I wondered how Vue 6 Infinite would fair. I got it installed (after having to download a fresh copy from my account from e-on's site since I couldn't find my own burned-off discs of my previous downloads from years ago), and I had a go at using it.

I'd forgotten how much I liked just playing with VUE, doing stuff and enjoying how things evolved with an image or inspired something else. However, I've had horrible display problems with V6i. Most of the time I struggled to see properly in the program where I was placing things etc, and since I now use Poser Pro 2014, the only way I could use Poser stuff was exporting it from Poser as OBJ's. - I wondered if I should dig out my old Poser 7 and install that to get Poser compatibility again but I finally decided to see about getting the current version of VUE to get back that interoperability.

I saw that great purchase offer from e-on about their "Architectural Bundles" but at the time glanced over it mistakenly thinking it was for a lesser version of VUE. (I'd previously investigated and decided I wanted "Vue Complete 2014" because it contained what I had in V6i and was used to, never minding the vastly more features and capabilities that the newer version had of course.)

So a few days ago I bought "Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle" because it was on sale and even with the Australian dollar only being around 90c of a US dollar, I saved well over a hundred Australian dollars when compared to the normal download price of what I wanted anyway, I got the 2014 COMPLETE version of VUE, and got a bonus Sketchup export/import plugin should I be so inclined to use it to get so many of those free Sketchup models into VUE to use.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/news/blog/index.php?post/2014/03/21/Save-25-on-the-VUE-Architectural-Bundles

***** The SALE price of the bundle offer ends on the 7-JAN-2014. *****

My download of that purchase was Vue Complete version 12 build 12002151 (that's what the program says in it's 'about' splash screen box)

You get Vue Complete as a download and it's the entire thing. (There seems not to be any special 'Architectural' version of it, it's a bundle deal of seperate products.)

The downloads are made available as standard ZIP files so you can safely save them off. - The downloads will all easily fit on a single ordinary blank DVD.

The 3 downloads you are made available to during the online purchasing process are:

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Application) -- The download file is called "Vue2014Artist" which gave me a heart attack at first but I suspect it's named that because it's in e-on's  'artist' line of products.

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Extras Disk) -- (a 2.5 gig download, a single file which you can expand out out later on your hard to about a 3.9 gig in size)

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Sketchup to Vue Exporter) -- containing the $49.95 product from Cornucopia's site. (I haven't played with this yet.)

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=8911

And in case you wondering if you'd ever use that plugin, here's a link to Sketchup's repository of free models online. So many made by users of all sorts of things and in varying quality.

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/

So for me right now it means I'm back to learning how to drive again a program that I'd only just started learning from years back with an older version but at least I know a little of what I'm doing and not coming into things from scratch. :-)

I'd made artwork before with V6i and what I liked best about it was the ease of making more natural or more credible landscapes. I no longer have any display problems with using this version of VUE, and things seem slick and smooth though it DOES crash at times much like every version of VUE I've ever used.

My next big investment (when I can afford it) will be e-on's "Plant Factory Artist", the cheaper 'speciality' version of that plant/tree making software that integrates into VUE itself.

Incidentally, e-on's own store as well as Conucopia3D looks and operates much better than it did so many years ago when I used it. The idea of a 'buyers club' at Cornucopia3D is good which gives plenty of scope to obtain products to use with VUE at cheaper pricings and is what I'll also get into, (just like with DAZ, and Renderosity, both of which I'm also a member of).

BTW, I've bought several great VUE products from Renderosity's own store but I've noticed that a lot of them have now evaporated and are no longer available at least from the Renderosity store. If they work okay in this current version of VUE then I'll still be using those purchases from years back with it.

And in case you were wondering, yes, those old Renderosity purchases from many years ago, even if they're no longer available in the store itself are still available to download from my Renderosity Account section. Which comes in handy when I can't find my burned-off discs of my store purchases. :-)

Lastly, there's also all those free Poser and 3D models on the net (such as from sharecg.com) which I have used and will continue to do so, made by great people who share their stuff for free.

I made the step from V6 to the newer ones as well and the newer versions are awesome. So much new things to discover and to learn. I had to follow a number of training videos to even get the hang of it.

I've been looking at the plant factory as well, but I'm not going to make that step, the bugs and newness keep me from doing so. Also the rendering times people get with these new plants scare me away. For now, not my thing, who knows when V2 will be released, I may look into it again.

I'm using V10 C, V11C and V2014C

I use Vue 10 infinite, I can't afford to upgrade to the newest version, but I have used a trial version of Vue 2014 and there not a huge difference. Its just as tricky to use