We've just released the final version of the Vue 4.05 update. This update is available as an update from v4.04 Mac, an incremental update from v4.03 or v4.04 Windows, and as a full update from any previous Windows version. The fixes and improvements are:

• Now displays a warning when stopping a render and the render cannot be resumed later (Final or better modes only).
• The render mode would stay set to Preview when resuming render, resulting in the message "You are about to save a Preview picture..." when saving the picture (Final or better modes only).
• Glow not appearing around transparent objects.
• Transparent areas would sometimes appear white in volumetric lights.
• Objects disappear in locked layers.
• Views were not refreshed when dragging and dropping objects between layers with different status.
• Only one try was accepted instead of five when adding extra vegetation species.
• In Fractal Terrains Options dialog, pressing Cancel would not cancel the modifications made to the filters.
• Pasting or loading a material via the menu onto a group of objects made out of different materials would not apply the material.
• Materials mixed with other modes than "Full blend" would not exhibit bumps properly.
• Crash when removing all members of a Boolean Difference.
• Problems when rendering Boolean operations involving 3D Mesh objects.
• Saving an atmosphere without lens flare did not work, and sometimes made Vue crash when loading it.
• Vue crashed when setting lens flare intensity to zero.
• Space-dragging in the timeline wouldn't move the line representing current time.
• 16 bit RG encoded terrain data import fixed.
• Pict export has been rewritten on both platforms.
• Spotlights not drawn correctly in Wireframe.
• Changing the type of file in the file browser wouldn't change the extension.

Mac Specific Fixes:

• Now possible to add extra vegetation species.
• Nudge keys not working.
• Problems with wireframe draw appearing outside Vue (OpenGL disabled).
• Last selected item in browser not memorized.
• Drawing a selection box without background draw didn't work.
• Material and function previews were not always updated correctly.
• Vue crashed when rendering on disk very large pictures (>5000 pix wide).
• 16 bit RG encoded terrain data export fixed for all formats.
• Saving to a file at the root of a volume did not work.
• Application not updated correctly when restored after being hidden (Cmd H).
• Render progress hidden behind render when rendering to screen.
• Jpeg quality slider is now limited to 0 through 100%.

Windows Specific Fixes:

• BUM file format not working on some systems (thanks Sacred Rose!). Thanks to all on this forum who helped us get this update up and running. Enjoy! Steve.

I did a quick test and everything runs fine. No more transparent areas/volumetric light problem, and hiding or locking layers work now perfectly !!! Thanks ! the new import window is also great ! But there is one "little" interface problem : When rendering to screen a selected area in "final" quality or better, if I press "escape", an empty window appears with only a "!" and "yes" and "no" buttons : if I click "yes" the rendering stops if I click "no" the rendering continues The text should be then "do you want to stop rendering ?". But the window is blank. For normal "screen", "main vue" or "disk" rendering, "esc" button behaves exactly like in 4.03 : it stops the rendering directly. rem. : I did use the VUE4ResourcesUS to change the language (from french to english). Eric (running VUE on win2000)

Steve, I have also installed final 05 and it works fine. Also the plants :-). The two "bugs" I found until now is that there are no preview windows in the animation timeline window. Also mixing more then 2 materials don't work (see image). When rendering a selected area in final, broadcast or ultra to screen and then stop it by ESC, I get "If you stop rendering now, you won't be able to resume this render later. Are you sure you want to stop rendering ?"(and the YES, NO buttons). Guitta

• I have the same mixing material problem (3+ materials) : 50% mixing proportion produce a totally black material in "full blend (linear)", "full blend (bicubic)", "cover" and "color and lighting" mixing methods. - The animation preview windows are there... Eric

Morning all . . . 8^) I'm very sorry E-On, but it appears that you may still have some problems with your latest patch release "4.05 Incremental Update", that I downloaded & installed this morning. I've only started to use it before finding these 4 bugs, so I didn't proceed any further. 1st: . . . To start with, when trying to import an object via the import menu: Double Clicking on the folder, will not open the folder in the menu. 2nd: . . . I am continuously getting a message telling me that the "F" drive is not accessible, even though I'm not trying to access that drive. It seems that Vue 4.05 is not reading the drive icons properly??? 3rd: . . . After working with the import function for a while I finally got the object imported into Vue 4.05. Going into the imported object properties, I switched the "double polygons" off for a test render, & I got color banding on my imported object. Right next to the imported object is a native Vue 4.05 sphere that renders perfectly. Both objects have exactly the same attributes & materials. 4th: . . . In the last image, I switched the imported object's "double polygons" back on, both objects have exactly the same attributes & materials, ( Volumetric / Thick Grey Smoke ), as you can see in the last image posted, there appears to be "0" transparency on the imported object, compared to the native sphere object. I hope this is not just with my system? If anyone else is experiencing any of these problems, would you be so kind to let me know, so I know that it is not only my system. I wouldn't have downloaded & installed this patch, ( 4.05 ), except it was listed as the final patch, so I assumed that it was bug free. Thanks in advance for any help, comments or tips & you all have a good one . . . Mark. . . . ;^)

PS: ( I forgot something . . . Windows 98SE / 512 ram / 16 Gig Hard Drive / DirectX 8.1 - If you need any further information please ask & you shall recieve ) . . . Mark.

Mark, best thing (by experience) is always to download the full update, not the incremental. Just try :-) Guitta

Well, I have alot going on today, but I did manage to d/l it and take it for a quick test run. Congratu;ations, Steve, good work. :) However, I loaded a Vicki from Poser, which had .BUM files on the head and body. They are the same .BUM files that came with the Victoria textures from DAZ when Vicki was first released, if that makes a difference. The figure also had Neftis' Casual Hair on it, which also has it's own .BUM files. I never before was able to load them, but the .PZ# scene NOW will loads the .BUM files alon with the hair model, but it will NOT load the Victoria .BUM files for either the head or the body. My guess is it's because the Casual Hair was made with the Poser Pro Pack, but that's just a guess. Also, I am not able to select render area now. it just won't let me draw a marquee anymore. Otherwise, looks good. :)

Looks like we want Steve to keep working a little longer. ;)

Poor steve.... you could at least wait a day or two before giving feedback about it :)

Did a clean install of Vue, did the full update....now it will not render to disk at all! Anyone with the same problem?

Mmm i did already reply to some email from Steve about that but if vue can now read .bum files now, the result bump image is corrupted with all kind of line patterns :/ Also, it can be either .bum or .jpg, i can see some kind of offset/scaling problem with the bump map (light one, it isn't the Y=-1 thing). I made these tries with vicky high resolution textures (also tried with down sampled ones)... the offset/scale problem is especially visible around the nipples (one can see the nipples bump translated a bit to the left)... Anyone else woth problems with bumps from poser?

This is weird...I already replied to this post and my msg isnt here.....oh well I'll try again. I just have a small question. the full 4.5update is listed as 6.2mbs on the website, but downloading it, it says its 8.75mbs (or something like that), and the incremental update is listed as 9mbs? Any ideas why the difference in sizes and the actual download is bigger? 2mbs bigger is quite a substantial difference for those of us on dial up.

And why is an incremental bigger than the full?

It isn't bigger. It's just listed backwards. I dl'ed the incremental and it was only 6 MB.

4.02 w/full 4.03 incremented to .05 on Win98: Nothing with .3ds extension imports. Have tried a goodly number from archive and all fail 'unable to read file c:' All other formats import fine, and 3ds opens fine in other apps.

Aaaack! Can anyone else verify this? I am so glad I didn't upgrade yet!

For the umpteen billioth time I can't enter the E-ON restricted zone unless I re re re re re re re register. Yes I have my cookies switched on, no I have redone anything since my last re re re re re re re register on monday, ofcourse depending on the mood of E-ON on some days they'll accept my 2.0 registration and sometimes my 3.0 reg and on those very very special occasion sometimes even my 4.0 registration and that's the one that should take me to those V4 updates. When I'm finally allowed into that hallowed area I enter in an endless loop which takes me everywhere but to the updates, throw a couple of "illegal" scripts and it's time to give VUE 4.05 the onefinger salute. I'll shop the warez sites for this update, they have a faster and better service.

AAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHGGGGGGGG!!!!!! Yeah, I'LL confirm the .3ds thing. It ain't happenin!! Well, that's no good at all...nope, no, no no... WE just CANNOT have that sort of thing going on!! Sorry to hear about the problem with the site hein. I agree, it's not exactly the most surf-friendly place around.

Well, I'll tell y'all what: It's not importing Lightwave .lwo 5.6 objects anymore either. And there is nothing wrong with the objects I used, and I've used them in Vue before, both in versions 3 and 4. One of them was a bar and bar stool I made just the other day, as .3ds objects, and I imported them just fine into Vue, before this new patch. The Lightwave .lwo objects are downloaded and/or been converted in 3D Exploration. Vue never has been able to deal with LW 6+ objects, bur 5.6 has always been just fine. I have, on many occasions had to convert a .lw0 6+ object to a lesser version, and I usually use the .lwo 5.6 format. Why not, right? They've always loaded just fine. It'll import .OBJ just fine, but it seems to be doing so much more slowly.

Ohh dear :( A very disappointed Martin

Strange... I don't have these problems :

1. I can render to disk as espected
2. I can import *.3ds, *.dxf, *.obj and *.lwo files without any problems

In fact, I only have one or two GUI troubles...

I did the 4.05 Fullupdate, it seems like the incremental is full of bugs...

Eric

Having the full update : I also can import 3ds, dxf and obj without problems and render to disk works fine. Guitta

Audity: because you have changed the default language of Vue, you need to download the new language conversion resources to fix the empty message problem.

Gebe: you can only mix materials that are themselves mixed if you use the "Simple blend" mixing mode. This isn't new to v4.05; it has always been the case. Please refer to the manual for details.

Kruzr: Can you give me the full path to the folder that refuses to open? By making your object "single-sided" you are actually making it infinite; the render engine never finds the end of the volumetric object, hence the color banding.

Roadtoad: is the error message really saying it can't find file c:, or did you cut out the path and filename (e.g. c:mymodel.3ds)?

Hein: if you send me your registration details privately (e.g. through an instant message), we will check your registration information to try and find out what is wrong.

MikeJ: please tell us what you don't find surf-friendly in our website so we can maybe improve. Can you also confirm that the OBJ loads more slowly by timing 4.03 and 4.05 under identical conditions? Nothing has been changed in the OBJ module, so we're a bit puzzled...

Steve.

thanks Steve, I just downloaded the new VUE4ResourcesUS, and it's now corrected.

about the not so friendly e-on website's interface, this a good example : these language files are not in the download area but somewhere else. We have to go in the F.A.Q. pages, and in the answer of the question "Vue 4 is in French or German since I downloaded the Vue 4.02 update" there is the link. Besides, this file has been updated recently but still has the same name that the one I downloaded a few weeks ago. This can be confusing.

One other thing :
to get an update we need to go in the restricted area. Once inside, there is one button on the left called "update". Logically we would click on this one to get an update, but it bring us back to the "software update" selection page. To go to the page with the downloadable files we have to use the arrow at the bottom of the "inside the restricted access area" page.
This is not self explanatory as these arrows, in your layout, are normally used to access other versions, products, items or images ; and not to confirm a choice.

The path from the the main page ("home") to the downloadable files is too long :
home > download > updates > VUE d'Esprit 4 > restricted area > VUE d'Esprit 4 update > download..

It could be shorter :

1. click on "download".
2. click on "update".
3. choose : VUE4 update.
4. select a file from the list and download it.

Eric

Yeah, that's what I would say too. When I first did it, I went through the revolving door download thing several times before I noticed that little arrow at the bottom of the page right before the actual download. Well, as I said, Vue 4.05 is not importing .3ds or .lwo. And yes,I downloaded the full update, not the incremental. What seems like a slower speed by me could not necesssarily be true, but I just said it seems that way. I don't really use the .OBJ format much anymore except in Poser. Anyway, knowing full well I was taking a big chance, I tried to revert to 4.03 using an old Back folder contents. Now I can't run Vue at all, and the 4.05 update attempt fails when I try. So it looks like I'll be reinstalling....

I did the incremental update, and have no problems importing .3ds objects. I don't appear to be having the mixing problem either. I guess I should consider myself lucky.

Well, I tried the full and the incremental updates, and Vue will not render to disk with either one. Imports objects fine, though. Funny, it will ask me if I want to overwrite the file ( I had, in a previous version rendered a test ). Frankly, it seems to me, that E-on must test their software on a couple of computers, then let her rip. As for the BAK folder, this time I just copied the contents of the Vue directory to a new folder. C'mon, e-on, jive us a break!

Ooops, sorry Kurka, I forgot. I was going to test the render to disk thing, but I forgot all about it. I just spent the last hour trying to reinstall, with no success, so I just ended up having to backup everything I wanted to keep and uninstall/reinstall. Lots of weird stuff going on in the process, but I made it successfully back to the good ol' 4.03-02 version, at least. Gonna try the incremental update now...

Well damn, now the links to both of the updates aren't working. I knew I should have downloaded them both. Oh well....

We took down the update until we find a fix for the new problems.

Thank you Kurka for your suggestion about testing on a couple of computers. FYI, dealing with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP in English/French/German and Japanese simultaneously is no simple task.
We do our best to provide bug fixes and improvements regularly. Sure, we screwed this one and I'm sorry about it. I still think we do a reasonably good job of servicing our software. The more people we have participating in the beta tests, the smaller the chance it will happen.

Just give us a couple of days to find what this new problem is and fix it. Thank you for your understanding.

Steve.

Hi Steve Bell,
In the 1st post I entered the path after c:, but forgot html is on..
anyway.. reading the lwo error, I recalled having a few tucked away and tried - they don't even show in the file menu to open.
Also discovered that while I can pick my way down through nests of folders toward a file, that won't happen on desktop folders - I can go 2d level (cwindesktopfolder1, but no deeper.
..and did you change the color scheme in that file-open menu? files seem fainter, and with a big monitor with a high-refresh, the bright white makes me feel like I need shades and anti-radiation creme - sure wish we could preference colors.
..the manual's rather skimpy index doesn't show anything about this restore from back, so I'm hoping best guess will save me from reinstall of 4.02/4.03

Well, I'm feeling adventurous today. ;) So I patched the 4.03-02 up to 4.05-02, and tried to render to disk. Nothing happens. I'm only mentioning it to confirm what Kurka asked. Strangely enough, now I can select a render area in the normal way. I swear, it wouldn't let me do it yeterday! We know you work hard on it Steve, and we do appreciate your efforts. You do however have to expect some people to get upset, and blow of steam. We know that we are in essence your beta testers. I for one, am glad to do it, but take, for example, your reply to me, above. You asked me what I didn't like about the website, and how long does my .OBJ import take, but have said nothing about what I was really concerned about, i.e., the .3ds and .lwo imports, not to mention my report that the older (still Poser 4) .bum files that I have don't work. I didn't say anything about it, but I wanted to scream, "Why are you not ANSWERING me?!?!", LOL! :) BTW, you are right. Since I was back in 4.0 mode, and then 4.03 mode, before going up to 4.05-02, I did try this one particular .OBJ. It turns out to have a much higher poly count than I had expected, and took the same amount of time, roughly, in all versions of Vue 4. The problem was, when I built it in Rhino, I had copied/pasted the mesh on top of itself, accidentally, thus doubling it's size. I had saved it as .obj for use in Poser. Since I go through the same motions all the time, it seemed like it should have been smaller than it was, and I just discovered what the problem was. So, it wasn't actually taking any longer to load than it should have. My mistake, and I didn't mean to worry you like that. :)

I did enough tests now, and my conclusion :

FullUpdate 4.05-02 works correctly on my win2000 1GHz PC. By now, I couldn't find any major problem. All the improvements and bug fixes listed above are effective.

Eric

You have no problems with the .3ds or .lwo imports?

Or with rendering to disk?

I for one have no problems importing .3ds files, or rendering to disk. I haven't seen one problem since updating. I haven't tried .lwo as I don't have any.

no 3ds ability to discover if so, but just found that hard edge assignments are lost on obj imports (figured I oughta explore further before restore)

Dearest Fellow Vue Users, Well, I didn't get a chnace to download the beta or final v4.05, but I thought I could offer some tips to you guys who do test the software. There are two kinds of bugs: 1) reproducable bugs 2) non-reproducable bugs Reproducable bugs are much easier to debug. Even though we are artists and not programmers, I suggest that each of us be sure the bug is reproducable before reporting it. Why? If the bug is not reproducable, then the cause could be external to the program. When determining if a bug is reproducable, follow these steps: After discovering a bug, 1) reboot your computer, 2) shutdown as many background programs as possible (including virus checkers, wallpaper-changers, etc.), 3) and retrace your steps to recreate the bug. Also, consider varying the steps to recreate the bug. In this way, you can examine the scope of the bug. Also, you may want to test the program on multiple computers, in order to determine if the bug is easily reproducable. To assist a software company in debugging a program, report your software and hardware configuration with your bug-notification. To make it easier on myself, I've created a file with my configuration information on hand for this purpose. I just copy and paste it, not unlike a signature, at the end of each bug-report. When describing your hardware and software, at a minimum, you need to report your operating system, program version (ie. v4.05), the amount of RAM, and the CPU. For video problems report your video card description and video card driver version. Charles :] (not affiliated with any software company)

good point sitting blue
there oughta be a bug base on e-on site; with a form that asks the pertinent things we forget they don't know (hdw, reboot? etc..) But all the forms submitted need to be visible to anyone testing a beta so we know there's a potential problem and can test it ourselves to see if unique.

I would also agree with you sittingblue. In my case, I do all those things, reboot, do other tests, etc., but I tend to only report that which seems to be obvious to me, i.e., not being able to import certain things I know were working fine prior to patching, and I will always try rebooting, testing the files in other programs and trying over. In my case with the 3D file formats I mentioned, I did in fact try it with new objects I made for the occasion, as well as old objects, in addition to converted objects, e.g, make something in Rhino, export it as .3ds, as well as .obj...convert the .obj to .3ds in 3D Exploration, and also overwrite the .3ds model with a 3D Exploration equivalent of the same format...convert back to OBJ, find out that that works... then repeat the same thing with the LWO format. All the same time, testing, testing, testing. The only conclusion I came to was that all the things that used to work, prior to upgrading, don't work now, since upgrading. And it's the same with the render to disk. it just doesn't work, and I've tried it with several different files, after booting/rebooting, etc. I've told Steve my OS version (Windows 98SE) and other stats so many times before, that it's easy to take it for granted that he remembers, but then again, I'm sure he's a very busy guy and I'm certain that we here in this forum are only a small portion of the people who he has to deal with regularly. But, it's certainly a good idea to never take ANYTHING for granted in this crazy world of the PC, programs and patches! Steve, in the future, I will try to be more explicit with what is going on, and will include other pertinent info. if there is a list of things you would like to know, something which we could overlook, let us know. For example, I don't know how relevant something like available disk space might be in an import problem, but then again, I'm not a programmer. Mike Windows 98SE 600 mhz Athlon 384 MB RAM, with 1.5 GB in swap file 2.5 GB space remaining on D: drive, where Vue 4 is located

E-On, I don't think anyone is angry over the update problems. Frustrated maybe... but you're right. It's nice to get updates rather than being forced to buy every little fix like some programs do. You have a great group here willing to give feedback... even if it isn't wanted at the moment ~s~ Thank you for a great program.

Who's frustrated? I have three different installations of Vue on my harddrive at the moment. One is still in the 4.03 Version (The Vue version I use to work.) and two of them are on different drives for testing. However, for some reason I have no problems at all with my updated Vue versions... Oh, and by the way: Could you please enter some feature into the full update to automatically read all libraries present in the archive folders. I have placed all my atmospheres into the atmosphere folder. When I reinstall my Vue to run the full update, I have to reactivate all those directories manually. Now, I am a very lazy person and would like those things to appear automatically. Is this possible in some way? Have fun and keep up the good work, Joerg

answer to Mike : no import or rendering problems !

Just finished this one with the 4.05 final update :

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=137166&Start=1&Sectionid=3&WhatsNew=Yes

...volumetric light and pz3 models, imported 3ds models, rendered to disk at 1600x1200 pixels... everything worked perfectly... Thanks E-On.

I'll keep this update. I'll probably be the only one !

Eric

Version 4 has been rather odd since the beginning, with some people experiencing this or that problem consistently, some people running into it once in awhile, others not at all. And even the updates, so far, have had mixed results on various systems. And all I mean to say is hurray Eric! It's wonderful that it's all working for you, and yes, hang onto it now! :D And to Mike and others still battling it out...hang in there, because E-on is listening and working on it! :)

Attached Link: http://www.wallis-eck.de

hi, I also made some tests, so if e-on is still looking here ;-) my specs: Win98, 256MB 866MHz, ATI RAge128, used the full update what seems to work: -I found no transparency problems bug: - invisible interface when you try to load - cant render to disk - no import of objects, doesnt matter which file format (most of them worked fine with Vue4.02) best, Walli -

I just want to take a second to thank Steve Bell at E-on, for all he does for us. And, to apologize (again) to Eric for snapping (for those who may have seen my comments before I deleted). And for anyone else who is still having the problem with the imports and rendering to disk, just hang in there. I believe they know what the problem is, and will fix it soon. :)