Thanks! Anyone coming to Siggraph? We will have the e-on booth there. Nicholas and I will be around, and we are hoping to drag Richard Schrand along as well (I hope there is a Krispy Kreme in San Antonio, or Richard could get out of hand...). Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software North American Business Unit

Glad to be of help. Unless Im on the road, I try to poke my nose in here on a regular basis. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software North American Unit

The update in 3D World Mag (I just got my copy as well) is a little underinformed. Customers who purchased the Mac OS X version v1.0 (the one we shipped at MacWorld SF 2002 in January) received a disk pack in the mail and a note. As we set up for the show, two issues became immediately clear to us. The first -- some of the products shipping had some bum disks, but it was impossible to tell without opening them up and checking. The second was a number of issues with the Mac OS X version which we've already seen here. The update disk took care of the more irritating ones. However we have had two patches (4.0.5 and 4.0.6) since then. I recommend that you download 4.0.6. The disk packs happened so long ago (software years are x2 dog years!) that I was wondering myself what 3D World Mag was talking about. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software North American Business Unit

Guitta is right on about this. If you have a full version of Vue 4, and not an upgrade to Vue 4, then its not a problem. But its not legal to sell your Vue 3 and keep Vue 4 if Vue 4 was an upgrade or some other limited license version.

Cob, please contact me directly at lfredricks@e-onsoftware.com before selling.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
e-on software US Business Unit

Guitta is right, we are very careful about that sort of thing. DISCLAIMER - I am not a lawyer. If you submit to the e-on Pic of the Day, you are agreeing to our submission agreement here (http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Gallery/Submit.php#). This places burden of proof on the submitter, and under the agreement, e-on doesn't need to do any more research or gain any additional permission. But typically, we contact any contributors whose work we want to use elsewhere. If it isnt submitted as a Pic of the Day, then of course you havent agreed to the submission guidelines and havent granted e-on any rights. By the way, we sell a LOT of Vue to production houses, studios and film houses. Getting on a Vue CD or e-on using your work at a trade show can have great results if you are looking to either break into the field or upgrading your job. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Howdy all, Our North American office is in Beaverton, OR (home of Nike). We are fairly well distributed between here and Paris. In the era of Vue 3.1 we were about even. With Vue 4, the larger portion of e-on is over here. And I have to say it, we (as in North America) are so much better off! There's nothing quite like a postal strike in Paris! But we have none of that nonsense here in Oregon, land of axe wielding plaid shirted folk, log cabins and beaver mascots named "Bucky" :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Mike's got it right! I think you know that any app that renders (digital video, 3D, etc) wants as much of your machine as it can get. There is a huge class of products out there, utilities of all sorts, that perform periodic functions -- either scheduled or whenever very little or no activity is taking place (your screensaver is like this). Rendering apps are in a perpetual "don't bother me man, I'm rendering..." way of working, which is very contrary to apps that love to sit in your system tray and "optimize" your system. Norton works this way by its very nature of being a utility. Norton also has a, um, track record of stomping about where it isnt wanted. You may not be having problems with draft grade renderings. But those really long, high resolution ones are probably choking. Do some research into Norton to see if you can deactivate it completely when you are ready for a long render. Also, check out Task Manager to see if there are any other sneaky applets doing their thing. You might be surprised. A lot of printer installers install applets that ding your system now and then to remind it that there is a printer attached. We have an HP OfficeJet on the wireless portion of our network we had to unplug for this very reason. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on sofware US Business Unit

Howdy Jon, DVDirect.com used to have a bundle of Vue 4/Poser 4, with a nice savings. We always love to directly deal with customers, but we'd rather you get the best deal that fits your needs. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

You are right, Mike. In MacOS-land though, getting Classic and OS X programs to work together is pretty much a no-go. Mac OS 9.2 (aka Classic) resides in a type of emulator mode under Mac OS X, so when you launch a Classic application, it actually launches Mac OS 9.2 in an emulation window. While its possible to launch your Mac into Mac OS 9.2 on start up, you are out of Mac OS X. For PC users, its roughly analogous to running a DOS program in console mode, and having it talk to a Win 98 program. They live on the same hardware, but one hosts the other and it isnt a very friendly "talking" relationship between the operating systems, let alone applications. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Howdy all, The demo machines were a speedy Titanium powerbook (not sure which one, but it was brand new) and a G3 500 mhz iMac. Vue has been on Windows for some time, so we've added in lots of tricks to optimize it for the platform. Vue 4 for Mac OS X does support Altivec for the terrain editor, so if you have a speedy G4 you are getting some extra acceleration there. You'll see speed improve quite a bit on Mac OS X as we apply more platform tricks -- as well as more improvements are made for OpenGL by Apple (10.1 was a vast improvement over 10.0 -- we expect more to come in the next major update to OS X). n8, Im going to follow up about mentioning the Poser integration issue and Mac OS X to the home team. Vue 4 is tanned and ready, but we need Poser for Mac OS X. In fact, we need Poser 4 or better on Windows as well, installed, for it to function correctly. We are in the position of saying to CL "We are ready. Are you guys ready?". We have an answer now. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

No problem! And yes, Mike, I almost always attend the Japanese events. Ill try to take some snaps at the show. A funny story -- last year I ran into Steve Cooper of Curious Labs in Tokyo as he was being run out of a department store (located near the convention center)! Apparently he snapped some pictures of a very nice display in a Japanese department store (I think in their fish section). Some uniformed security guys wanted to divest him of his film since pictures arent allowed in the store (to keep out competitors I think). He did managed to escape with film intact, though wanting to vacate the shopping center as soon as possible! I was kind of disappointed that he didnt get the chance to fight his way out, tossing security guys into the cold sushi display and live octopus bins :-( Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Howdy all,

Here is an informal FYI for handling support with e-on.

I cannot speak for Steve as he is based in another office, but I do know he visits the list here. Except when I am on the road (like MW Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and MW Expo Tokyo in March), I pop by here every other day or so. Several key people from HQ were in San Francisco for MacWorld, so that slowed down responses quite a bit.

Orio over on the Yahoo! list compiled a very nice bug list (thanks Orio!), which is now in the hands of e-on's president. If your problem is already on that list, then don't worry about submitting it again - we know about it and its getting prioritised. There are always going to be some that we cannot fix, but we make an effort on all that show up in our software itself. The most frustrating (for you and for us) are the ones that pop up because of screwy implementations of OpenGL support, either at the OS level or in video drivers. Vue 4 has to sit on top of whatever we get from the hardware guys.

Guitta is right, if you have a question which is a "yes" or "no" we can under normal circumstances take care of that immediately -- but if it is a useability item, we do rely on the communities. In fact, I strongly recommend it AS A USER OF ANY PRODUCT! The Vue 4 user base is going to give it to you straight, one way or another. Its the same with any computer product.

Dont call the toll free number for support. All they know there is how to take orders, so the best they can do is send along your message or refer you to our reseller number. If you need a response, please include an email address. Both the toll free team and the reseller team reports (up the chain of command) to me, so if there is an email address associated with your message, I can get most critical issues (like a defective CD, wrong credit card charges, etc) taken care of immediately. But there has to be an email address with it so I can get it escalated to the right department or respond to a problem directly.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
e-on software US Business Unit

Thanks! Id also like to give credit where it is due. We do carefully review feedback we get from customers. Many of the features in Vue 4 came about by our customers telling us what they wanted in an upgrade from Vue 3.1. One of the big ones was... a Mac version! Also, we had the help of Richard Schrand, author of several books, including a new one about Apple Final Cut Pro. Richard gave some great demos, including one for a local TV broadcast. I wish I could have stayed at the show through Friday, but as MacWorld commenced so did a huge response to the release of the Mac version! Our warehouse was just about empty, forcing us to plant even more vueberries to grow more units! Good thing we upgraded SolidGrowth with Vue 4 or we'd be in trouble :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Howdy all, e-on software is going to have a booth at MacWorld Expo (booth #2531). Nicholas Phelps (e-on's president), Cecile Laurens (e-on Europe's business development person) and I (e-on USA business development person) will all be there. Come by and take a look :-) Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

Thanks Mike, just did. I didnt realize there was a Mac specific forum!

Regarding the show, Nicholas Phelps and a few others will be there. Ill be there at least part of the time. There will be some demos as well as some giveaways. And of course, we wouldnt be there if we didnt have some important news about Mac OS X products :-)

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
e-on software US Business Unit