Yes "its very doubtful well be able to get a POSER 5 scene into Vue intact". I even don't think that VUE 4 users will benefit of any of POSER 5's new features. So before upgrading to POSER 5, think if you really need it !

Concerning POSER 5's new "strand hair" : I'm afraid that we won't be able to render them in VUE 4. But that's not a surprise, most of the "hair modeling" tools (like the famous "shave and haircut" plug-in for Lightwave and Cinema 4D) use a mixed polygon/rendering method. If the rendering engine is not optimized for it, it wont work.

Cloth dynamic and collision detection ? VUE 4 does not support these features. So unless everything is converted into morphs (be ready for very very big files !), it won't be compatible with VUE 4.

But the main problem for VUE 4 users is the new shader/texture features. There are many new material creation tools in POSER 5 that are simply not compatible with VUE 4.

"transparency edge" : VUE 4 uses a global transparency, "fresnel" is not available.

"refraction color" : you can't control the refraction color in VUE 4.

"displacement" : not yet available in VUE.

"alternate specular" : VUE 4 does not support multiple specularity (highlights). It's something absolutely necessary for metallic, marble or liquid materials.

"diffuse clay and toon illumination mode" : VUE 4 has a single ray tracing diffuse lighting model. POSER 5's clay illumination model (an Oren Nayar shading model ?) and Toon illumination model (cell shading) won't be compatible with VUE 4.

"anisotropic specularity" : anisotrophy is not available in VUE 4.

"skin shader" : VUE 4 does not support translucence (sub-surface scattering) with thickness and density values.

"hair shader" : unless POSER 5 can export a single texture for each strand (that means thousands of separate bitmaps !), VUE 4 will not be able to import the shader settings used for the hair (root/tip color, specular color and softness).

Some of these features - displacement, fresnel, translucence, multiple specularity, various illumination models, anisotrophy, etc...- are now available in many 3D softwares, but not in VUE. Lets hope that e-on is already working on a new material editor. VUE 4's material editor begins to show it's age...

I surely agree with you Smallspace about the fact that POSER 4 rendering engine is "video game quality" compared to VUE 4's. But will it be also true for POSER 5 ? I didn't see enough genuine POSER 5 renders to make myself an opinion...

:) Eric