Hello, I've just started playing with my free copy of Vue2 that I received with Digit magazine. I was actually a bit leary of it. Someone has just started a thread about the graininess of Vue's image output and I'd noticed the same thing. Many of the images in the gallery had this quality and then others were beautifully crisp. I was afraid there was a huge learning curve to overcome in order to get quality images. Well, not only am I pleasently surprised at how nice the images I've made are, but I'm sold on Vue. I've been a Brycer for a little over a year now and though I may not be able to get the variety of trees out of Vue that I can in Bryce 5, the few trees available are remarkably detailed. Can't wait to upgrade. Now, I guess I should put in a little about myself. I'm a novice grapic artist. I started playing with Terragen (can't beat the price) and Moray. I was please with the results, but I hated the limitted capabilities. I purchased Bryce, and it actually took me quite a while to gain proficiency. During this time, I was sending my images to a small wargame company in Scotland. I developed some relationships with some of them and just wanted to show the images to someone. Starting to babble, sorry... Long story short, they were really impressed with a few of my images and gave me a gig illustrating some of their publications. So now I'm a published graphic artist. While working on the current book, jungle fighting rules, I came to realize the limits of Bryce. I had this copy of Vue sitting, waiting for me to load it. Even with Vue2, the vegitation is far superior and much easier to manage. And the render times are also far better. Vue is likely to become my tool of choice and will be prominently featured in my next book. Thanks for letting me introduce myself. Sorry for the novella and I hope to learn much more from you all in the future.

Vue trees and plants are really unlimited you just got to figure out how to use them. Vue 4.1 is the way to go. Now for the grainyness of the images well it depends on who is doing the render. Some people like that part of the program and do it purposly. If you got the time you can render perfect images. I only render in extreme quality. You got to have a fast computer or lotsa time but it can be done. Thing is it will still be faster than Bryce. There's things to grouping, last render pass optimization. There is 10,000 settings on quality really, it depends on how you set it up and what you are looking for. I'm still learning this program. It's huge. I've been at it for years. Thing is everything is sorta easy to learn just takes lots of time.

A perfect rendered Images = 20 -200 hours, depending on computer and the texture you are using. Volumetric lights and volumetric texture = very long rendering time. Good luck :)

Be welcome here Enforcer and don't hesitate to ask questions. You also find lots of tutorials here (see in the header). You will have lots of fun with Vue. :-)Guitta

Welcome to Vue...your in for the ride of your creative life...Sharen

Welcome to Vue2 club ;=) !!!!! No grainy picture if you choose high quality setting (ultra or superior for Vue2). This will lead you to rendering time higher than 20h, even for simple scenes. Of course, all depend of the scene. ;=) Yves

Welcome, Enforcer ! I took a look at your Bryce pictures... I'm trully waiting to see your first pictures with Vue... :-) Argentium Thri'ile