Ok . . .I deleted the sun, I turned the ambient light to black but I can't get rid of the blue horizon light way in the back of the scene. I want to create a scene that is just lit by point lights. Is there a way? Thanks

Yeah, that one's easy enough... In the atmosphere editor, make sure that the Fog and haze settings are at zero. That's what it is...fog. OK, but you'd think that would do it, right? No. In the atmosphere editor, under the Sky tab, at the bottom under, "Fog in the sky", turn both those sliders to zero, and that will remove it all.

The sliders are titled, "Thickness" and "Max Altitude". by default, thickness is set at 100%, and max altitude is at 10.

And just for the sake of saying it, you can have alot of additional control over the Fog by using these controls. :)

Hi datastorm, Yep, just as Mike said. If you like, send me an email at martin@the3dscene.com, and I can send you a totally black Vue 4 atmosphere I use as a starting point for product visualisation and still life images. Martin

Attached Link: http://www.the3dscene.com

In fact if anyone wants the black atmosphere they are free to mail me at martin@the3dscene.com ;) I will get my Vue atmospheres uploaded to my site, as soon as I've figured out, how to incorperate Vue materials/atmospheres, bitmap textures, Poser textures and Cinema 4D XL shaders all together, without utter confusion to the visitor LOL! Martin

You too, Martin? I have such a thing, but mine's a medium gray. I made a Vue scene with that as the starting point, with no sun, fog, haze, etc, and it has 8 cameras in straegic positions all labelled according to position, and a couple of point lights with shadows disabled (just for lighting for positioning--- I don't want shadows slowing down my scene previews until I'm ready to start seeing shadows). Saved it as a .VOB, made a desktop shortcut to it and then dragged it into the toolbar, so when I open Vue, that's what I get, instead of the normal blank Vue 4 opening scene. Well, Max offers the ability to create and use a "maxstart" file, and Vue should too. Gotta make our own for now though. ;)

Err...a couple of corrections: straegic= strategic I actually saved it as a .VUE scene file, not a .VOB model file. Stupid typing fingers. ;)

Hm, I have both a fully black atmosphere and a fully white one. I'm pretty sure they both came with Vue, version 3 and 4, possibly even v.2. Check the "Other" category of the Atmosphere library. :)

Yes, me too Mike ;) My pet hate is the 40% ambient light given to everything...nothing could be more unnatural. I can see the reason behind it, but the placement of a couple of fill lights instead, gives 100% better results. I still do use some ambient light on materials in complex Vue scenes, to make up for the lack of Area lights and Radiosity/Global Illumination...but the less ambient light I can use the better. It just seems to make images so flat. Ahhhh, two of my wishes there...Area lights and Radiosity ;) Cheers ;) Martin

Yes I noticed them already Varian...but ;) they have ambient light, and fog applied to them :( Martin

Yeah, that white one is simply choked with ambient light. yechhh. I understand the reasoning for ambient lighting, and it's natural that it exists, but it's a poor substitute for radiosity, which I think it's trying to mimic. I see some of those Cinema 4D and Lightwave renders, with radiosity, and I have to think, "Hmmm...if only E-on were to..." Ahh, but then again, they don't have the skies and the Solid Growth. ;) But, a Vue (5?) with true radiosity would be amazing!

heyas; i always start with the 'no atmosphere' atmosphere. it has a blue sky, and it has ambient lighting etc. but it doesn't have any fog or haze. i usually load or work on the atmosphere last.

99% of the time I build my atmosphere from the ground up, so to speak. I don't even start with any of the presets anymore, and I think it's best that way. It's the best way to learn how to use all of the atmosphere toolos, for sure, and when you really dig into them, especially the origin points of the clouds, fog/haze heights, falloffs and settings, light, etc., you begin to really know your way around the atmosphere editor so much better. Making drastic changes gets alot quicker, too.

heyas; you have to start with a preset, it's the first thing vue asks you when you make a new scene: what atmosphere to use. ;) you're probably like me, you stuck the blank blue one in your default scene setup and use that all the time. heh heh!

Ah, but remember...I made my own preset, saved it, and set up a shortcut to it on my desktop and dragged it into my toolbar. I don't even HAVE a shortcut to Vue4.exe on my desktop. :P So, I don't ever have to start a "new" scene, either, since my Vue4startup.vue scene is always near the top of my recent files list. But yeah, I'm sure it started as a preset and was stripped down later. So, ya got me on that one..... I'll get you back though, bloodsong, mark my words. ;)