I'm considering purchasing Vue and have been doing quite a bit of looking around the web and through the gallery. I've seen some very spectacular images created with Vue, but one thing I have noticed is that all vegetation in a Vue render seems to have a grainy apperance. I have gotten pretty good at quickly identifying images created with Vue because of this grainy look. Is there a way get around this? Any render options that can change this look? Thanks

Yep, use the "User" Render Settings and then use a lot of patience while the image is rendering ;o) The graininess will go at higher "User" settings, but the time to render an image is very slow...sometimes Bryce slowness! To be honest that does not worry me, as I would rather wait a few days for an image to finish rendering so that it was crisp and clean, than wait a few hours for a grainy, undefined image. Saying that though, it shouldn't really be the case that we have to use the highest quality settings and suffer such slow render times to get that level of crispness from a raytracer...hopefully something that will be addressed in the next major update. Cheers

Attached Link: http://sittingblue.50megs.com/tutorials/anti/index.htm

Charles

Gasp! Days for render.... Sorry Cheers you just caught me by surprise. How large are the images you are rendering if you do not mind me asking? I am just curious. I guess the amount of time equals how many objects and textures being rendered as well. I am still a newbbie at Vue and just now discovered the "user settings" (not to bright sometimes) and downloaded Sittingblue's rendering chart. I hope to get a chance to play and experiment.

A lot of people also use alpha planes in their renders to cut down on the total amount of poly's. This can sometimes cause the grainy appearance as well. Personally, I just don't think you will find a better product than vue in it's price range. My wife about died when I told her I wanted to buy it since I had zero experience with 3d applications. But after about 4 tries I actually produced a decent image.

You just have to spend more time in the gallery. There is awesome work there. Sort by Most Viewed but they have lost lots of images becaue there too stunned here to make backups. Could take awile to restore all the images. Some are probibly lost forever.

Hi macmullin, Well I've just finished an image for print at 4800x3600 resolution, that required nearly 72 hrs to finish. At that resolution, you can really start to see defects resulting from a lower quality Volumetric Atmosphere/Light setting, and the grainy finish that you end up with. Obviously at that resolution, higher resolution texture maps have to be considered as well, to cure any pixelation. I had no choice in using the high quality settings, and then waiting...and waiting, and waiting ;o) Cheers

My two cents worth, for creating an image , expecially for print purposes, have been going to 4096 x 3072 (print is 36 x 24 inches, 90 x 60 cm), rendered at ultra max settings took 24 hrs, 4.5mill polys, lots of shadows of grass, leaves etc. and high res textures on trees, bark and leaves, no obvious grain, as mentioned above, higher quality results higher output (for sure worth it), PC dependent though on time.

Hi, my two penny worth......lol.....I just use "broadcast" and a dpi of 240, which suits my type of pictures perfectly. I don't need anything else coz my work isn't amoung the "stunning" range. I think it just depends on what you need.

Everyone thanks for all of the replies. I'll take another stroll through the Vue gallery.

If you don't need a poster sized image why render one? I usually render my images at 4 x 6" 300 ppi and have never had renders that take that long. The biggest I'd probably go is 8.5 x 11" because that is the limit of the size my printer will print. If you don't need a super big image, why not render a smaller one and keep your Vue 3D file so that a larger pic can be made if needed in the future. Just think of all the hard disk space you'll save too.

One other thought, are we sure the graininess is caused by rendering or from using too much j-peg compression. That could cause grain too.

I never use JPEG for print Tomsde, becuase, as you mention, not only do you get the usual compression artifacts but a lot more grain as well...especially with Vue renders it seems. In my case the render was for an exhibition booth, where the final image size had not been confirmed. For large poster size prints I work out the image size by dividing rendered image size by 150 ppi res, and for magazine/book prints 300 ppi. Cheers

Cheers you must be creating images for limited edition prints - 36 x 24 is a nice selling size? You must be rendering them at 300 DPI? Do you keep another machine around just for rendering? I would go nuts not having the computer for three days. :-) I hope to make some prints one of the reasons for purchasing Vue. I never get a chance to use it because I have spent the last months creating freebees here at renderosity and new props for my Archaeology Site Project. We have a place here in town (Fredericton NB Canada) who does great super large print (tradeshow and museum displays)and he buys the most up to date printing equipment. He can print very high DPI images up to five or six feet wide and as long as your heart desires. The nice thing about it is you don't have to go to the printer and have buy an entire run of a 100 prints, but one or two or as many as you want. Moreover, you can send him your work over the Internet or CD Via snail-mail and get every thing mailed back, he's very reliable. http://www.massive-print.com/

I'm a very lucky person, macmullin...I have three machines networked up, with my main work PC being a Dual CPU AMD :oD It's taken a lot of money saving over the years, but my hardware is as good as I would want it at the moment... Most of my work is printed by a publisher or client, with them giving me a rough idea of what they expect. Usually, as long as the image can be printed at the right size, and colour, gamma etc are correct, they are usually pleased. Most images that I would consider poster size (36" x24") are usually rendered out at a resolution that gives the required image size at 150 ppi. To be honest, I have never seen much change in quality between the two at that size of print. Of course, if a client insists that he needs it at 300 ppi, I would then happily do it. Cheers

I just have a Win 98 SE box, an 850 Pentium III, 314 megs of ram but, I have a PII 450 256 megs of ram Linux server running Red Hat 6.2 with Samba, I use for storage (it runs circles around my window machine). I would give my front teeth to hook two or more Linux boxes together with Beowulf as a render farm for 3D projects. Does any one know if that would be possible with Vue?