I'm thinking of getting Vue, but I want to be sure of its' import capabilities. My understanding is that it can import static poser scenes. So if you have all these objects saved as a PZ3 file Vue will import the whole file, with transparencies, etc, intact. I'm paranoid as I bought worldbuilder a while ago and it claimed to import poser, which it does but they look awful and WB is a jagged little pill to use. So if any of you have an opinion pro or con on vue and poser I'd appreciate the input. Thanks

Vue4 has a demo, which should let you see for your self. I use vue4 and poser together, and have no problems. I never have to do anything other than resize (though there are some things you can do to take advantage of some of the advanced features...like making eyes reflective) You can export the landscapes (nothing else can be exported) in order to get the feet lined up correctly, and the renders are quite nice. Also, while the vegetation engine has only a set number of plant type, they look excellent, and don't add as much to the render time as you would expect. Good luck! eric

Do you have Bryce? If you aren't used to Bryce, Vue is ridiculously easy to use. Even if you are, it's pretty easy. Every tree that comes up is slightly different so though there's a limited number of types of vegetation so far, they aren't cookie cutter. It is a little less photographic than some raytracers-- which I like, but some people don't. You can also do interiors in Vue that are stunning. I bought it at the same time as I got back into Poser-- I just haven't had the time to learn it properly yet. You get slower as you get older. They tell you that, they just don't tell you how slow. I also heard you could import figures as objects as well. Is this true in Vue? Emily

heyas; yep, in vue 4. there's been some glitches, but the latest patch(es) fix most of them up. do your posing, save the pz3. do your vue scene, do import object, nab your pz3... you're good to go. i love it! :) there's some tweaking the materials can use after you get it into vue. if you have a reflection map on a material, for example, vue will turn on its reflectivity; but it won't give it a colour. so even if you use goldreflect.pct or whatever, it comes out silver in vue. if you're using a non-black ambient colour to give a sort of glow to your material, this won't translate in vue. you'll have to use vue's ambient or luminosity settings. also, the highlights may need to be edited. poser gets very plasticky with white highlights, but vue is a little more tame in that area, so black highlights might not look correct. as of the .03 patch and beyond, vue will let you 'mix' your texture map with the object base colour (in case you used something other than white for that), which is hella cool. i'm not quite sure what the latest status is on the bum import. some people claim that bums have been working since 4.02, but i haven't seen a correct one yet (then again, i only have 4.03 so far.) it CAN import them, it just doesn't read them properly. check on the vue forum to see if the later patches (it's up to .06) do. if you have greyscale images of your bump map, i think those work best. but if you're using any gif images, they have to be NON-interlaced, or vue can't read them properly.

Yes yes it works, but I better go see if I have latest patch. :O) I'm use to Bryce as a program go, but no matter how many times or Tuts I read, It's too darn much work to try and bring in Poser. But Vue does it very easy. You have to have the Tansparents set to full, 100% or it won't look right. Before you make your PZ3. It's a good program.

Hi Manikin !

I use VUE and POSER. With the latest VUE 4.06 update, a POSER static file will be imported perfectly. VUE is cheap, powerful and very easy to use.

A few things that you should know before purchasing it :

1. Although poser models are imported correctly in VUE making them look good requires hours of work. If you don't use any tricks your nice poser models will look flat and lifeless. Go in the VUE gallery, you'll see what I mean...

2. VUE's rendering engine - ray tracing - is very slow. If you want high quality renders and if you use advanced features such as volumetric lights, blurred transparencies and soft shadows be prepared for hours of rendering.

3. It's very hard to make totally clean and sharp renders in VUE. I've seen every images posted in the VUE gallery for the last 6 months and to be honest only a few of them are clean and "photorealistic". The others are all grainy... in POSER rendering is a easy job : adjust the light, click CTRL-R, wait a few minutes, and it's done !
   in VUE there are hundreds of settings to adjust to reach a good result. You can spend hours fixing just one texture in the material editor...

If you're looking for a better rendering quality than POSER you should look somewhere else. Try Cinema 4D XL 7 or Lightwave. They can both import POSER scenes/animations, and the rendering are outstanding. I use Cinema 4D XL 7 and my poser models looks amazing with a single white spotlight.

But if you only hesitate between Bryce an VUE, go for VUE. It's surely more powerful and easy to use !

:) Eric

I don't know if this helps, but Digit is giving away Vue d'Esprit 2 free with it's July issue and you can upgrade from that to Vue 4 for 160...you could try it out and see how you liked the older version first.

I appreciate all the responses. It has been very helpful. Thanks Eric, (I like the name Audity.) Part of the reason for thinking about Vue was the rendering engine. I have Bryce but as you know it's not very versatile (sp). I downloaded the Vue demo did a quick render with just sky and terrain and it took a long time. You answered the main questions I had. Thanks. Bill Aka Manikin Flesh Serving humanity in a barely discernable fashion.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=162433

The reason so many Vue images are "grainy" is that a lot of users haven't yet fiddled around with the various quality options in the render settings and almost everyone has their fog and haze settings turned up way too high in the atmosphere editor. Lower the fog and haze settings to practically zero and you get great clarity.

Follow the link for an example of how sharp a Vue image can really be.

Kate