Hello Vue users, I have recently won a copy of Vue 4 and have a question for you seasoned users. It concerns exporting plants and if it is possible. I would like to be able to export foiliage in a standard 3D format such as .3ds or .obj. Will I be able to do this with Vue??? Thanks!

Afraid not dan :o( I have had quite a bit of success though, framing a plant and rendering the Colour and Depth channels for use as clip maps in other programs. They look great in all but very close up shots. Cheers

Hmmmm......that's a bit disappointing. Oh well, I'll still have fun learning how to use the program. Thanks Cheers!

My pleasure :o)

Hello Dan and welcome here:-). Have you already got your copy? No, Vue's plants are something very special and the big secret of e-onsoftware's "SolidGrowht". You must know that when you load one of the existing plants and then another sample of the same species and one more and again... each plant of the same species looks different then the previous. Never two plants of the same species looks the same. You can change any existing plant inside Vue and create completely new plants. Lots of alternate leaves are available. Just ask when you are ready:-) The only objects you can export from Vue are terrains. These are exportable in many formats. You also can import all the most known formats into Vue. Eric (audity) from the C4d forum uses Vue also, just ask him aout C4d. To beginn with Vue, when you first open it and to have an idea how it works, please have a look at my tutorial "Vue 4 first steps". You find this and many others in the tutorials list on my site. There are some older tutorials made for Vue 2 and 3, they also can help for Vue 4 and are not outdated. And we are here to answer to all your questions. You do so great images with C4d, I think you will love Vue for its simple handling:-) Guitta

Here is the very amazing image that made win dandavis in our september contest (created with C4d, for who has not seen it yet):-)

Guitta

Attached Link: http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/ST2/cg/downloads/publicplants/

Hi Dan, if you want plants in .3ds or .obj format, you should think about getting Xfrog. It is a special modelling program for vegetation - you will be able to make flowers as well as trees and other organic forms. Allthought it seems to be very complicated it isn't - and after some practice you'll even be able to animate your plants, let them grow, or let the wind play with the leaves. I am not that far yet, but i think you get the best vegetation models with Xfrog. I'll attach a picture made by Xfrog-stuff with some foliage and a link to their free models. If you got questions regarding Xfrog i'll gladly try to answer them if i can. Lutz

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12401

Thanks Lutz for your advise. But X-frog is another (quite expensive) software. If you like further discussions about X-frog, please do it in the X-frog forum:-) (Link above) Thanks. Guitta

Hi Dan, welcome here, you are doing so beautiful pics ! ;=). You can import plants in Vue from Plantstudio (free program), although it was not your question -lol- Yves

Thank you Guitta for the exposure, I had so much fun making that image for the contest and feel very fortunate to have won with all the great competition. It looks like the Vue forum is filled with helpfull people just like the C4D forum. I'm sure that the software will become an invaluable addition to my 3D lineup. Thank you to all the others who had helpfull hints. Lutz, I have researched Xfrog a while ago but was similiarly dissappointed to find that it is only available for the PC (I have a MAC).

Hey congratulations Dan! A deserving winner. vue and Cinema work really well together, Vue will render the most beautifull seamless panoramic skies and the C4D terrain export is a dream. its got to be just about the best landscaper out there and the volumetric atmospheres are superb. Have fun.

Attached Link: http://www.onyxtree.com/professional.html

No X Frog is not the way to get new plants or trees. It's too crazy of a program. If you want plants and trees you want Onyx Tree Professional. It has trees that are almost the same as Vue and it also uses what's called Flag leaves so the polycount is way way down. Plant studio will take care of the rest of the small plants for ya. I tried X Frog and it is really difficult to get anything that looks like a tree out of it and the resulting mesh is way to big for lots of application. IMHO it's way over priced. It's cool all right but it's a pain to use. Don't waste you hard earned cash.

For over 500$ for Onyx, I would wait for Vue 5 to see what they have to offer us and if e-on listens to our wishes to have a tree editor:-). I must agree that it was in reading the Onyx pages, some years ago, what gave me the idea, when Vue 3 came out, to create new Vue trees with alternate leaves:-). Guitta

...with Onyx, you cannot distribute the meshes even if you create your own species! Xfrog is like any other highend program, in that to get the most out of it you need to dedicate some time to it. After all I'm sure Digital Domain or the BBC didn't think it was a waste of money... Cheers

I'm glad somebody reply here to this thread after my post cause I have something to add.

I did the same thing when I bought Vue I figured there was a lack of plants and trees. Then I figured out how to edit them.

Like really Vue plants and trees are unlimited. Don't tell E-On but really they are. Every shape you need has already been done you just got to add your own stuff to them now.
I've made who knows how many extra kinds with them I actually should upload them. Maybe 50 more different kinds I've made.

Like I agree it would be great if they make more, the ones I'd like to see are types that are not even close to what we got now. Shapes that currently we don't have cause I look at them totally different now. I look at them as parts. All that I need now with them are completly different shapes.

I can find a plant here and there to give usually free to balance it all out then. There is lots of nice meshes available for free all over the net.