Hi all, I've had Vue about a month (ish) and think it's ace. I posted here a while ago asking Bryce 5 (I have Bryce 4) or Vue4. Well, took the advice and got Vue4 - isn't it good! Anyway 2 questions: 1) is there a book like the one Susan Kitchen(s?) does for Bryce 4 and 2) Is there a reason why Vue crashes/freezes during very long renders. I did an image messing around with volumetrics and light and all that and rendered to see that it would take a few hours - got up this morning and it was crashed!! - I was going to post that one too!! Be good Poll

First of all, did you download the update for Vue, it is on there web site, it is 4.03, if not you should do so, it might clear up all your problems. I have not seen a book like Susan Kitchens, I have that too for Bryce. Good book, but I have not seen one for Vue. Sharen

I don't think there is a book about Vue, but you can find plenty of excellent tutorials to learn from (starting with renderosity) and tons of images to be inspired by in the gallery.

Sharen: Yeah, I've got 4.03 - it was the first thing I did before using it !! - I've now got a feelinbg that my motherboard is at fault - it's gone wonky before - but ta anyway. Agiel: I've had about 10 tutorials from here alone, so I probably don't really need a book - it's just that the one by Susan Kitchens for Bryce4 is so good that I'd probably buy one anyway. As to the images here they are just fantastic - it kind of almost puts me off posting any - mine seem so inferior to some that I've seen.

Polld, unfortunately, there are no third party books about Vue... but there a couple of sites with great tutorials, the best ones are Guitta's and Varian's....

I was in Barnes and Noble the other day looking through the graphics books. They had books for Lightwave, 3ds Max, Poser, Bryce, etc... Books on every Macromedia product ever created, Photoshop, Painter, Paint Shop Pro...Windws, C++, Python, Java, Office, blahblah blah.... Everything you could imagine except for Vue. I even asked, and a computer search turned up nothing either available or soon-to-be. My guess is that eventually there will be a Vue book. For that matter, someone could probably write one with all the info in the archives in this forum alone. :) Which is another good way to learn things here, actually: Click the Archive button, and then the Search button and type in something that you want to see if it's ever been brought up and then sift through the answers. Or just ask a new question. :) As far as still images are concerned, I think we've hit on about every subject by now. Our weakness here seems to be in animating, because I don't think alot of people are doing animations with Vue. For that matter, Vue creates beautiful animations, but all but the shortest take quite a while to render. OK, I'm rambling now.... Glad to hear you got Vue, Poll! Sorry to hear about your troubles with crashing while rendering. >:( Did you have any glowing or luminous materials in your scene? One thing you might try to safeguard a pic you really like is to render in segments. Start a render, let it go for a while, then hit ESC to stop the render, save the scene and the picture, overwriting as you go, then close the render screen and under the Picture menu, select Resume Render,and your picture will take up where it left off. If you have a crash, you can restart Vue, and the render will still be where it was at at the time of your last save, so you can hit the Resume Render button again, and it will continue on. Unfortunately, you can't do it if you have any "glowing" materials in your scene, and possibly with luminous materiasl as well. >:[

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/~vue/

Sorry Poll, but we are just creating a list of all the bugs in Vue 4.03 and crashing after a hugh render is a bug we all (or most) have. But it should not crash or freeze while rendering. It can be a problem with memory of your computer, because if you use really lots of volumetric lights (15 or so), hm... Another bug seems to be that, if you render over night, you absolutely have to unable your screen saver or any monitor or HD economy (how do you call this in english ?). Otherwise, we have seen that, Vue renders, but in the morning you cannot see any more your image or it is frozen and you cannot save it. Guitta

About a book : I think it is just to early to create a book for Vue. Maybe it worth the time when Vue 5 comes out. From version 1 to 4 are so many changes in such a short time that, if we had a book now and Vue 5 comes out next year (just an idea), the book will be right to throw away. We are expecting most (and hard) a global illumination feature and if we get this, every thing will change again. Guitta

Hey! You Lot! Thanks to all of you. I really do mean it - there is much goodness in the folk at Renderosity. It's a shame about the book but I e-mailed e-on the other day and a chap there said there would be one 'soon'. How soon 'soon' is is unknown but will I need it then. This place is brilliant for tuts and stuff and I went ot the forum annex aerlier today [should have been working ;D] and there is some really useful stuff in there. To Guitta and Varian - I looked at your places too - all I wanna say is - Bloody Superb. Anyway I am rambling now so.........I'll be off . Hope to post some images in the next few days. How do Guitta and Varian make so many Quality pics? That's what i want to know!!!! ;-)

Hehehe, thanks Poll! Guitta began using Vue when there first was a Vue. I started with version 2. So we've been working at it for some while now. There are a few other (really old) vets around here, like karlm and bloodsong and others. I learned a whole bunch of cool tricks from Guitta's website; it's a treasure-trove. :)