#1 - that's funny!

"The only thing that bugs me is we never hear from any of e-on people in any discussions but instead its those who as Dale say is just another weanie like all of us. To me that is poor representation for e-on and Vue. :)" While that is a good point, do you have ANY idea how many 3D sites/communities are out there? Any software company would need an army of people perusing the web to get to them all - and yes, I realize RR is one of the big ones, but they just don't have the time. PurpleCloud - you're in a small community theaterhouse, screaming to all the volunteer actors about the manufacturer of the LIGHTS. You're not even in a Broadway Theaterhouse - just a little side one. If you have an actual beef, call the manufacturer - or email them. I had a problem with Vue, email e-on tech support, got a pretty quick response, and my problem was in their next patch which fixed it. I'm sure I wasn't alone as I don't imagine a software company would add something to a patch for just 1 message, but it was nice for the feedback. Email them, call them, whatever - you're wasting your time trashing a software in any RR forum - or any forum outside of one the actual company's site. And people WILL leave the forums if all that's in there are people trashing the app when someone has a question about how to do something. If the response is something like, "You can't do that function because the app and its updates are useless - but if you switch to THIS app it works great!" they won't tend to return... Go figure... Final story, then I'm going to stop following this thread: A few years ago, my friends and I went out to a diner for lunch. There was a group of guys 3 booths away having a heated political debate - they got up to YELLING their opinions about federal funding and "tax breaks for the rich." We realized that not only had WE stopped all conversation to listen, so had most everyone else. Yes, people most often do that as was pointed out above - it's like train wreck - you don't wanna look, but you can't stop yourself from looking. The manager asked them to lower their voices, as we could all tell if they got beligerent with her they would have been asked to leave, so they quieted down but kept the debate going. THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING IN A DINER!!! They can scream and pound the table and get as passionate as they want, but there will be NO CHANGE IN THE POLITICS THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT. Write your local Congressman (or in this case e-on) and stop yelling at regular people in public, because WE can't change anything. That's all DaleB is trying to get across - he's not the defender or e-on, but someone looking at ANY software objectively. They've got bugs - fact'o'life. That's why there's a "testing" phase - to catch them and fix the ones they catch - and they don't catch them all. That's why EVERY company releases patches and updates - you never noticed that? They get feedback from their users about problems, and TRY TO FIX THEM. But if you only give feedback to US nothing will be solved. THAT is the problem Agiel (and I'm sure others) is trying to cut off in the forums. We complain to each other, not the manufacturers, and the forums are being used less and less about learning the software, and the exchange of creative ideas. Go create art with WHATEVER app pleases you. Good luck all- -Lew ;-)

Attaboy!! OWN IT AND LOVE IT!!

You don't get/see the little balls rotating around the big one? Weird! I'll look around and find you some stuff - ALSO, spend something like $30 and become an NAPP member (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). www.photoshopuser.com Why? Especially if you don't use it for a living?! Because they have an obnoxiously huge assortment of tutorials from both Adobe and the people using it. And yes, that's something like what I was looking for. Try this: Go in PS, open that metal image, make another layer above it - mode:color, and fill it with a mild blue color (just get the paint-bucket, pick a blue and just click in the middle of the layer to fill it). Adjust the layer's opacity to taste (maybe around 20-30 percent to make it pretty mild and understated). Try a bunch of colors if you like.

Same as Wabe. I was following that thread until it exploded into "this app sucks, you should move to this app" argument. Absolutely nothing constructive there. Glad it was locked. Every app has its pros and cons, and we ARE talking about 2 apps that are under $1,000 - and even though LW is NOW under 1k (putting it into the catagory I just mentioned), I think it falls under a different catagory of users. Just pick what you like and use it - go make art and leave mudslinging to politicians.

THAT IS SOOOO COOL!! Particularly going from horizontal to vertical - that's gonna get a lot of use from me! Thanks for pointing those out! -Lew ;-)

"Again, do not agree!!! Mode ii IS is used for panning!!!" Correct - it is for panning - keeping the subject in the same spot - but the environment will be motion blurred with a longer shutter speed because the environment is moving in the frame - not the subject. Panning is a constant directional move of the camera to keep the SUBJECT in a constant place as you PAN the camera. "Surely, that is due to bad photography skills? Personally, I would be focusing on the band!" Gotta pick one or the other, and that was just an example I gave of how those lenses will work in that situation. Moving stage performers in low light. With a longer shutter speed (needed for handheld work in low light sits), the drummer is moving, the singer is bouncing back and forth, guitarists strumming away - the performers are all moving in DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, and the stage is stationary. Hence, if you're trying to keep your camera still so you won't have camera shake motion blur (which is the only part these lenses really help correct), the performers will still move around in the frame and cause THEIR motion blur. The only way to freeze everything at once is a fast shutter speed. The point of IS/VR/AS is that your aim will not be "jittery" and have camera shake for longer shutter speeds - particularly for longer lenses - think of looking through binoculars, then try and take that memory and equate it with taking a shot at 1/30th sec. Not "focusing better", but less "camera shake" so that your subject, or choice of focus, will not be jittery in the final shot because you don't have a tripod for a longer shutter speed.

GALVANIZED METAL!!!! THAT'S IT!!! I swear every day I'm losing my vocabulary! To get into the site take a bit of aim, unfortunately. Go back, and see the little bronze balls circling the big one? Hover your mouse over one of those and you'll see the links to whatever it goes to - one of them is tutorials. I know they were just looking for a cool way to do it, but it just ended up being a bit complicated. Well, at least I didn't disturb my wife in the middle of the night. I shall live another day - and so will my cats. -Lew ;-)

Go to www.eyeball-design.com and check out some of their tutorials - you'll get some great ideas for things you can do. Been looking for a tutorial on how to do a convincing metal that's the type that looks like fairly large chunks of lighter and darker metal like it's a really chunky metal version of particla-board - the name/type is escaping me right now. It'll come to me around 3am, I'll wake up in a sweat, crying out into the night - "It's called ---!!" Then my wife will beat me with a heavy blunt object - probably one of my cats. I'll keep you posted - as with my sure-fire medical bills to follow. -Lew ;-)

I've got the Nikkor 24-120 VR lens for my Nikon (obviously, huh?). Love it! The big deal is actually a little more subtle - camera tests (for "with or without tripod" - not VR, IS, AS technology) showed that a product shot (with studio strobes, Hasselblad set to 1/500th sec shutter speed) handheld STILL had a little camera shake. Put it on a tripod, and it was as sharp as the proverbial tack. The VR/IS lenses compensate for a little camera shake that is natural to general handheld shooting, and can even get great results down to 1/15th or 1/8th sec shutter speeds. Posted situation above: If you're shooting a band on an interior stage, the "stage" will be sharp, but the band will be out of focus because THEY are moving - get it? Final note/caution: I used to work for a camera store and was in charge of handling repairs. It was pretty consistent that the more "in camera" specialties, the quicker they were to be the first things to break down. Example - little point&shoot cameras that have the built-in electronically controlled lens caps that slide in and out of the camera body (turn it on, it opens, turn off, it closes)? Broke all the time. So, generally, while I love Konica/Minolta (got 2 of their scanners - things of beauty!) I'd be weary of a camera that had the AS system built in. Sounds like you have to buy all new lenses as well.

Possibly slightly easier: Yes, make sure Snap and Rulers are active - View>Snap, View>Rulers Click on your bottom layer in your layer stack, click on the left ruler on your image and drag out to the middle and the guide will snap into place at exactly the center. If you try it on any upper layer, you go through the Ctrl+A function, do it on the bottom and it's automatic. Hope that helps- -Lew ;-)

Not "crop" - use the rectangular marquee tool to make the selection shown above as an orange box, then hit Ctrl+J (not Edit>Crop which is what I think you did before if I read that right) and your selection should now be on a new layer by itself (look at your layer stack - if you don't have one, click Window>Layers and click on the topmost layer to make it active). The object/selection won't still be "selected" (you won't see the little dotted lines anymore) - this is fine as it's not needed to transform it. I think that was your confusion at this point. Now (don't click anything else in the layer stack - the new layer should be automatically selected) hit Ctrl+T (or Edit>Free Transform), and your object should then have the bounding box you see in the lower example - THAT is when you click on the little side boxes (one at a time) and drag horizontally outward. Drag both sides outside of the viewable area (like shown above) because you will see that the "stretch" will not make the edges sharp - pixel edges will be blurred at the sides and you'll particularly see this on the left side. Now, when I mention make another layer above it, and make it "Soft Light" or "Overlay" - look in your layer stack. The upper left corner has a section that should say "Normal" and have a turndown arrow. It is THERE that you can change the layer properties as to how it affects layers below - I read that you were having trouble there in another thread, so I thought I'd clear it up for you here. Hope that helps- -Lew ;-)

Had this problem about a year ago (aything blue was a weird purple!) - drove me nuts! Try this (since I read you're displaying "Working CMYK" - and monitors display RGB): View>Proof Setup>Custom -under Proof Conditions: Device to Simulate - choose your monitor (believe it or not, the model number/designation should be in the giant list of options in the pulldown menu). Hope that helps. Good luck- -Lew ;-)

http://www.animationsforvideo.com/html/hotcakes_vol5.htm If you have a video editing program, you can take any of these animations and make them an alpha-plane in view (it says "multiple file formats" so that might be new - when I bought the CD they were only TARGA files). As for the object actually "exploding" and breaking apart into many piece and being flung outward... Yeah, you would need a more complicated program than Vue (like C4D, which sounds like you already have). You would also want a dedicated compositing program (like Adobe After Effects, Autodesk Combustion, Apple Shake or Motion, etc.) to add debris, clouds, lighting effects - things to sell the illusion aside from a ball of fire and an object coming apart. Hope that helps- -Lew ;-)