Quote - It's Lago di Como  :-)

It's the preferred choice of George Clooney - he bought a house there.

Lots of nice elegant old villas, nice views, but a bit sad overall for me, maybe because of the mountains so near. I prefer the Lago di Garda. It's larger, really looks like teh sea in some places, it's less elitist, and it has Sirmione with the castle and the Roman ruins of the (so called) villa of Catullus, which are So beautiful. And lots of olives and oleanders, like if it was on the sea.

Lago di Garda sounds very lovely.  Do you have any links to any pictures from there?  Any sites? 

George Clooney?  No kidding?  Heh, well, he did pick Italy; which shows some good taste, yes?

Quote - i have both and wouldn't be without either. i like carrara's rendering better, and i like the toon render plugin i bought from www.digitalcarversguild for carrara so lately i've been using carrara a lot, i wouldn't be without my vue though. i never render in poser. love esther

Don't they have great plug-ins?  I really think they help round out Carrara's virsitlity.  I bought the Power Pack when I got Carrara 4 and then picked up Noir, Toon Pro!, Parchment and Wireframe Pro.  I figured I would get around to the rest as I got to a point where I could use them.  I've seen an image done with what appears to be a new Terrain plug-in.  That I can't wait to see.  I understand they just released a new shader plug-in.

Thanks for the other options gang. 

The stuff in the Altitude Filter was exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks so very much.

I can only echo here what some others have said.

Like Rids I have both apps and use them for different things.  Same thing with Bryce, which I also have.  If I'm doing a landscape, nature scene, I'm going to do my best to work with Vue 5 I.  The ecosystem is second to none and really can't be beat in any other app in this general price range.  Obviously some of the more high end apps are going to be able to do more, but of the medium to low end apps, this ecosystem really rocks.

Now, also to second some others, demo them both and strongly consider your needs.   Yes, Vue is more tempermental than a pure bred cat living with a fashion model, but the landscapes you can get out of it are worth the frustration.  Carrara 5 Pro can import Poser files, including support for Dynamic Hair and cloth.  Are you going to be animating?  Carrara has a more stable interface that I've found so far, but a much different workflow.  I don't care for the three rooms of modeling, but it does render really nice images.

I also post at DAZ and there are a few threads going in the commons forum.  If you also belong to DAZ and have joined the Platinum Club or are considering it, Hexagon 2 is $1.99 right now for PC members and I know that is a modeling app.  So, again, base your decision on your needs and which app feel right for you when you demo it.

Okay, kewl.  I will give that a try.  The more and more I play with this, the more and more I like what it can do.  When it wants to play nice that is.  There are days when I'm certain this app is part cat.

My friend told me that Lake Cuomo, I hope I am spelling it correctly, it one of the prettiest places to visit there.

I hope to go with either him or one of my cousin's.  My Italian is not so good.    But the one of the local colleges started to offer Italian, so, I may sign up for it.  See how well I do.

Thanks again for the good tips on final render everyone.  If anyone else has more ideas, I am willing to hear them.

Wow!  Okay, Orio, thanks so very much for all of that information.  I will look into testing this.  I have Photoshop CS2.

You're up in Northern Italy, yes?  My friend, Matteo is from Milan.  My family comes from the south, in Naples. 

Okay, thanks for the feedback.

When you render larger and then reduce down in post production, is there any degradation of the image?

I can always let it run overnight easily.  I have a pretty solid system.

Do you tweak any of the anti-aliasing options?

Thanks everyone, I've found a lot of useful info in this thread.

For those who believe that most of the crashes in Vue are due to PEBAC, you are so very sadly mistaken.  Here's my system and here's what I've been doing:

P4 3.2 Ghz Processer, 3 Gigs of RAM, nVidia GeForce FX5500 256mb, 2 200 Gig SATA drives with LOTS of free space.

I right-clicked on my computer, went to manage and then looked at what services were running and what they were tied to.  Based on that, I found which processes I could shutdown that would not interfere with OS performance.  So, aside from what Windows needs, nada was running, just Vue 5I.  When I go to final render, I can't tweak the settings for more detailed rendering too high or Vue runs out of memory the second I try to render.  Sorry, but IMHO, that is an issue with the app, not me.  Now, I am will to say that there are setting tweaks in Vue that I am unfamiliar with that might be helpful to me, but expecting the app to function within the boundries of the settings provided, I don't find to be too much to ask.

I like Vue, I will continue to use it and I may upgrade it, but for these guys to believe there are no issues with memory and Vue is a bit on the silly side.  I think you can get amazing renders from this and can even make images that look like a painting, heck going through the gallery here proves that.

One thing I did learn today is to check the resources and save often.  And hope someone at E-on catches on to this and finds a way to fix it. 

Here's the funny thing, I used that same outfit on a different character, brought it into Vue 5I, made the same changes and it's perfect.  Can't thank you guys enough for the help.

Something designed to make me insane, I'm certain.

Can anyone explain to me why this happens?  I'm still not sure what causes that?

Thanks very much for pointing me in the right direction.  I had been putting this issue on the back burner with a few different projects.  Now I'm glad I finally posted this.  As I get more and more used to the ecosystem, creating realistic looking woodlands is becoming more and more a doable thing for me.  Thanks again for the help gang!

Okay, thanks!  I'll give that a try.