No one's tried harder than E-On to make their software compatible with Poser. Of course, its pretty much been a one way compatibilityfrom Poser into Vue. This has always made sense, given that Poser's render engine is video game quality while Vues render engine would be considered Pro quality. However, the imminent release of Poser 5 has got me wondering about a few things.

From what Ive read Poser 5 seems to be less export friendly. By that, I dont mean that it doesnt support all the different export formats, rather that some of Poser 5s new features seem to be optimized for use in Poser only. For instance, Poser 5s new hair function is a strand system that adds thousands of polygons to a figure. Poser 5s new rendering system seems to be optimized to handle is without much trouble (much like Vue is set up handle its own Solid Growth vegetation), however, Im wondering if Poser characters using the hair function will be so polygon heavy that they become close to unusable in other programs such as Vue.

Poser 5s new Firefly renderer is supposed to be micro-polygonwith subdivision surface rendering of polygons. As far as I understand, this means that low polygon objects are subdivided during the render to make them look like high polygon objects. This opens up a whole new area of low polygon props and characters that look great when rendered in Poser 5 but look bad when rendered in any other program such as Vue.

The Firefly renderer uses something called Displacement mapping, thats different from bump mapping in that it actually alters the objects geometry. (much like Vues terrain mapping) Its doubtful the Vue or any other program will be able read these displacement maps.

Poser 5 will now include Procedural textures. (materials) Ive yet to find one single program capable of reading another programs procedural material, so unless E-On has made some sort of very special arrangement with Curious Labs, its doubtful if Vue will be able to read Poser 5s new Procedural textures.

Given all these new problems, its very doubtful well be able to get a Poser 5 scene into Vue intact.

Since its going to be hard to get Poser 5 into Vue, why not make it easier to get Vue into Poser 5? How about something like the Ozone plugin for Poser 5? Only make it more comprehensive. Maybe use Poser 5s Displacement mapping to get Vue terrains into Poser 5? Maybe even some way to get Solid Growth vegetation into Poser?

I dont know about anyone else, but if Poser 5s Firefly renderer is as good as advertised, Id be willing to pay as much for a comprehensive Vue plugin as I would for Vue 4 itself!

Anyone else have any thought on this?

-SMT

you could always save your scene in Poser4 mode... I hope CL and Vue works together to find a way to use all new Poser5 functionnality under vue. That was my 1cent. Laurent

I am not too worried about textures, because 9 times out of 10 I add the materials in Vue anyway, because some of the Poser prop materials are pretty poor. Most of their wooden furniture looks like bright orange paint. The ones where I use the textures in Poser and Vue are usually things like Lyne's animals or Ironhart's cottages, when you can use the texture maps in Vue anyway.

I am a bit worried that we may no longer be able to import pz3 files into Vue from Poser 5. I rarely render anything in Poser unless I want to use it in PhotoImpact or Paint Shop Pro. I use Poser, in fact, to prepare the objects I want to use in Vue, and being able to import the pz3 files is a great bonus.

If all the changes in Poser 5 mean that is no longer possible, then hopefully we shall be able to run Poser 4 as well, from a different folder. If not, then my Poser 5 will get uninstalled and left on the back burner till Vue catches up with it. I really do not have any use for it as a stand alone program. I have always used it to prepare models for Vue and tubes/stamps for PSP and PI.

But if, as Laurent suggests, you will be able to save in Poser 4 mode, all should be well.

In fact, the enhancement you describe, smallspace, looks like the render engine of Poser 5 will use specific features of recent high end graphic cards and DirectX. For convincing you, go search the specifications of the new ATI Radeon 9700 card : The Micro Polygon rendering option is what is called TrueForm for ATI and T&L for NVidia. The Displacement Mapping is a technology introduced with the upcoming DirectX9 and is announced supported by the Radeon 9700 and Probably the upcoming NV30 graphic card from NVidia. Now, my thoughts about this is that this technologies are Hardware features that is available for the most recent graphic cards (TrueForm/T&L available only for graphic cards supporting DirectX8) or even the last or just announced cards (Displacement Mapping only for DirectX9 graphic cards). So, what about most of us ? Some will benefit from the micro-polygon announced rendering option, those who have at least a GeForce 3 (or this generation of cards) but displacement mapping will only be available if you choose to purchase another card... And for others ? Well, if my suppositions are good, you will take benefits of procedural materials... Now, about your wonderings, as Vue d'Esprit use an only software rendering, you'll not be able to benefit from the new technologies introduced with Poser 5. But we'll have to consider two things : FIRST - Introducing some features in a rendering engine does not include that this engine will be really good, only that it will be better than the previous one. I mean that under the Vue's rendering engine, there are lots and lots of features for having the 'realistic' looking renders that we all like. Lightwave was having a really good rendering engine when it was decided to make Ozone. The question is : 'will the Poser 5's rendering engine be goo to the point it will support a Ozone-like plug-in ?'. I don't say 'No'. I just say 'time will tell'... SECOND - This will probably not mean that you'll not be able to import Poser figures. But they'll don't look like they will with Poser rendering. For supporting the new enhancement that Curious Lab will bring to Poser 5, I suppose this will need that Vue break from software rendering to hardware rendering. As I also suppose that it mean a complete re-writing of the engine, I doubt a patch will solve the whole problem. And if I'm true, full support of poser's model will need a waiting for Vue 5... This (long) message is only calculations and suppositions and we'll have to wail Curious Lab's and E-On's annoucement. 'Time will tell'... Argentium Thri'ile

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

Argentium, "displacement mapping" is not a new technology. It's simply a way of deforming an object with a grayscale image. For example, TERRAGEN, BRYCE and VUE use "displacement map" to create terrains since their first release, and many 3D softwares have a dedicated "displacement channel" in their material editor.

You're right, audity, but the new technology I was talking about is a graphic HARDWARE displacement mapping, and that is provided by dX9 new functions... Argentium Thri'ile

and rendering is not perform by 3dcard, it still software rendering. We should wait... Lc

What I really don't get about Curious Labs is how they are trying to turn Poser into the final place for renders. You are right to have these concerns - Poser essentially will have a bunch of specialized plug-ins for hair, etc and I doubt Vue or anyone else will be able to read these. It is clear Curious Labs does not want us to leave Poser. Let's hope it still does have Poser4 pz3 model support - otherwise you best keep your copy of Poser4 around for Vue, Bryce and all your other cool 3d apps. Time will tell, but based on the marketing I am seeing, CL thinks we want to do everything in Poser and that is limited thinking. Scott

I know from a Poser 5 beta tester that he got in contact with e-on, because the animation import to Mover4 did not work. But we will know nothing about he results before Poser 5 comes out. With Poser 4 already, there is a hair which is not usable at all in Vue. It is San Francisco Posable hair from DAZ. To see it right in Poser, you have to render anti-aliased. But imported in Vue, even with a very high anti aliasing, it always looks like in Poser without anti-aliasing. That's very bad, but not Vue's fault. Guitta

I'm quite discouraged... Haven't even made it to get the Poser import to work under my Mac sigh. Looks like Vue has serious problems with texture maps under Mac OSX. Did anyone encountered something similiar? E.g. when using transparency maps Vue crashes. If you get rid of the transparency maps Vue imports the file but doesn't display any of the textures. This drives me nuts! So I'm desperately hoping for Poser 5 to get this thing finally working. Looks like I'll never get this feature on my Mac. booohoooo Really sad Mac Vue-user

I'm not really sure, but one of the things I may start doing...IF the Firefly renderer is any good...is to start using Poser to make "Alpha People" to populate my background in Vue. I know I can already do this with Poser4, but I've never liked the look of Poser renders and never been able to blend them (lighting-wise)into a Vue scene. -SMT

For me who knows Vue since it was a simple shareware (Vue1.0) I know that the e-on people NEVER "sleeps". They will give us a solution, I'm sure, sure, sure:-). And I just admire. Guitta

If there is a problem of Poser 5 figures being imported into Vue, hopefully a future update patch will address it. Of course we could always leave Poser 4 installed in addition to Poser 5. Poser 5 can read other runtime libraries so all of the figures, props, etc could be accessed for scenes we are creating in the new version. If any Poser 5 beta testers tried this perhaps they can shead a light on the subject. Or if any of the Vue 4 employees has the inside scoop it would be good if they let us know what's up with the situation. My guess is that any of the Poser 4 figures, including the premium Micheal and Victoria from Daz would still import the same way.

After reading this thread, and discussing with others, I have cancelled my order for Poser 5. I have an old video card with none of the bells and whistles, not NVidia or anything else more up to date than Open GL. I hardly ever do anything with people, and never do anything with animation. I use it almost exclusively for bringing props and animals into Vue. If I render in Poser it is because I want to make a PSP tube or a PhotoImpact stamp. So it occurred to me that since most of the innovations are in fields I either don't or can't use, this was potentially a waste of quite a large sum, which I really cannot afford unless I am going to get a lot of use out of it, and I cancelled.

If when people are using it widely and we know what it does, it does seem to be useful to those of us with old video cards and Vue, then I will order again, even though I miss the discount. But for now, it seems like a bit of an expensive gamble.

I was going to order P5 but now I am waiting till I know for sure if it will work with Vue or when an update is available. It really would benefit the Poser makers to work with the Vue makers in getting a working relationship for a patch as it would mean more business for them. Plus Vue snags a lot of business from Bryce because of the ability to import the poser items better. If Bryce beats Vue to the P5 imports then they might snag some business away from Vue.

So till I hear otherwise I will be waiting.:)