I use Geocontrol 2 along with Vue. It enables exports of 16 bit tiffs.
Once you have the tiff, you can import it in Vue this way (taken from the Geocontrol forum):

1. create a 256*256 standard terrain
2. convert to procedural terrain
3. open the procedural tab
4. right click on the preview in the tab for opening the procedural editor
5. load the exported 16 bit tiff
6. set the interpolation for the texture map to bicubic
7. close the terrain editor
8. render the terrain

This gives really detailed terrains especially when using 2048 or 4096 resolution.
You can also use Geocontrol selectors on them.

Here is an example (using a 2048 terrain)

True!
I could use layers.
I followed the tutorial described in the Terrapak manual a bit too closely and kinda thought the mixed material method was the only one useable.

Anyway, I cannot get the results I want with layers either. I am trying to use Geocontrol filtering in Vue. To place the filter map correctly I need object parametric mapping. It works properly if I use mixed materials, it does not if I use layers (materials do not appear where they should).

[edit after further testing] God knows why, it works, but with layers, but using "world parametric" mapping... Vue intricacies will never cease to amaze me :-)

Maybe the question was: there a way to mix material layers other than two by two?

Eg: instead of having this:

• Rock
• Grass layer
           - Grass
           - Sand Layer
                    - Sand
                    - Wet Sand

It would be nice to have this:

• Rock (+ distribution rules/map)
• Grass (+ distribution rules/map)
• Sand (+ distribution rules/map)
• Wet Sand (+ distribution rules/map)

I have had cases where it became near impossible to manage due to the fact that you can only mix two materials at a time.

Is there (or was there) an "official" wish list for Vue 7?
Also: are there rumors or enough information from e-on to make you think that V7 is close?

I have also tried many 3d apps over the years (since 1996) and finally used only a few ones.

I have played around with Max, Lightwave, Rhino, and the more modest RayDream 3D (an ancestor of Carrara), Carrara and C4D. Did not stay for long with any of these apps.
I have tried the demo of Zbrush. The interface of this app is just insane. Could not do anlything with it even when following tutorials (which were mostly designed for V2).

But finally, like alexcoppo,I have reduced my toolbox to a specialized tools: 

• Model making: Amapi, and now Hexagon.
• UV mapping & 3d painting. Currently using UVMapper and Photoshop but considering Bodypaint 3d (have version 1.0, but could not get used to it)
• 3d character creation: Poser (never tried Quidam)
• Seamless bitmap texture making: Metasynth
• Bump map texture making: Crazy Bump
• Landscape making: Geocontrol 2
• 3d landscape and rendering: Bryce and Vue
• Planning to get Depth of Field Pro for DOF post production

That's a lot, but no single app can do all this correctly.

I would add to what Siverblade said that Vue borrowed a lot from Bryce at the beginning, but it has gone far further on most of its features. It only lacks a few things on which Bryce still shines: fluidity of scene display and top notch antialiasing.

Quote - David Gemmell...Arthurt C Clarke...Robert jordan...Keith Parkinson....all the greats, passing....

And Gary Gygax in early March...

All the greats, indeed.

Too bad I am not near Glasgow (I live in France). I would gladly have paid a visit to your collection. Years ago, I lent a few of my books including an early edition of the Monsters Manual (the one with the funny cover), MM2, the Fiend Folio, Legends & Lore... never to see them back. I am now considering to purchase them again, even though I have not played for years.
Happy nostalgia as you said...

I did go to your website, but only to the pages you posted here. Tutorials and other articles. Had not seen your fantasy art section. Now I know why you purchased all those books :-)

I have been to Paiso and purchased all the books from this page in PDF: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/nonfictionBooks

I will then consider if I get them "for real". I have already found an eBay seller had almost all of them.

I have the second edition of the Player's Handbook under my eyes right now and the illustration showing the heroes having slain the dragon and tied it to a tree is by Elmore. It is also one of my favourite.

Apart from AD&D, I like the illustrations Angus Mc Bride did for MERP and of course his work for the Osprey booklets.

Your resources page is very interesting, especially the books on fantasy art. The books I know from your list are the Osprey series ones. I have several myself, mostly about medieval armies and especially like the ones illustrated by Angus Mc Bride. I am still planning to get more of the "battle" series.

As you are interested in Fantasy art: do you know any good books about Dungeons & dragon art or the work of Jeff Easley and Larry Elmore?

I generally use subdivision (in the edit object panel) in order to make rocks smoother.
I have a collection of even smoother rocks edited in Hexagon, but the Vue ones generally look more realistic as they retain some sharp edges.
Using object parametric mapping generally helps get rid of most of the texture stretching.

Here is a test made with my bitmap based textures. I used displacement mapping on the two foreground rocks. This gets more natural, less uniform bumps. Moreover, the rock at the left is an imported one and displacement makes it less smooth.

How do you set up the selection based on roughness Offrench?? I presume it is done in the function editor could you give a quick rundown??

This selection is available only in Geocontrol. You then export it as a bitmap and use it in Vue in order to manage the use of different materials or ecosystems. This also works for Geocontrol rivers and erosion systems. I will make a tutorial explaining how to do this when I get Geocontrol 2 beta working again (the current edition has expired and no longer works for me).

As pointed out above, every app has its pros and cons. Terragen has a highly realistic atmosphere model, especially for volume clouds, very good handling of water transparency and crisp antialising. It also has a very realistic model of material distribution on terrains.

Using TerraPak and especially understanding its tutorials are a good step towards more realistic results. I have also discovered that Geocontrol 2 could be essential : it creates realistic terrain shapes but also has a selection system that is a great improvement on the Vue one.
In Vue, you can select terrain areas with altitude, slope and orientation. Geocontrol adds roughness. You can also select areas affected by erosion filters. This really helps to place materials realistically in your scene.
Check out the image below. Notice that the rock texture is only applied to the "rough" areas, thus making it more realistic than if it had been selected with slope  only. This is a Geocontrol terrain and I used a selection based on roughness to handle material distribution.

I am still not sure that you can achieve the same realism with Vue as the images it produces have a more "illustration" that "photographic" touch, at least the ones I am able to make.
But I once discussed over landscape 3D app choice with Luc Bianco, who is a master Terragen user and he told me that Vue was one to watch as it was evolving very fast.

I am also planning to get a new system.
I am just waiting for Intel to deliver the new quad processors in order to get a q9450 instead of the  q6600

The Asus P5K motherboard seem to be quite reliable. I have considered the DDR2 versions of the Asus P5E but found that it had problems with some high end Ram chips
As others pointed out: DDR2 Ram and not DDR3.
I plan to get an Antec P182 box to make the machine as silent as possible
As for the HDs, I initially planned to get a raptor for the system (I have a 36 Gb one currently) and 500 Gig SATA for the data, but found out that some SATA 2 HDs were almost as fast as the Raptor and considerably cheaper. I am considering disks of the Samsung SpinPoint F1 or Seagate Barracuda 7200.11. series These have 32 megs of cache and seem quite popular.

Thanks for this answer. I made some changes and it now looks better.

I have yet another question: there is a material I like in Vue that is called "natural 3". A mix of a brown moss like material and a clearer stone like one. Very interesting for images of the Highlands in winter for instance.
When you render it, the brown material clearly looks as if it were above the other. It does this even if you swap materials. Is there a way to make the brown material appear to be under the other?

If you do not find what you need at CGTextures (an excellent source of free textures) or need out of the box tileable textures, check out these texture packages at DAZ.
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=3360
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=3359
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=2543
The kits are $1.99 for platinum club members.
I have the Dark Design ones and find them quite interesting. They include a few cobblestones and wall textures which are typically 1500 by 1500 pixels. There are ready made bump maps for some of them. They also have lots of architectural details to add, if you plan to do so.

Here is a picture made using the dark design wall texture (rendered in Bryce). I turned it into a terrain before, using the technique I describe in this Bryce tutorial (it works the same way in Vue)

This is the tutorial I had seen.

Unfortunately, it does not work for me as my plant only have one leaf subset. I suppose it is yet another issue than the one addressed by the tutorial.