I'm happy with Vue6Infinite. I'd be even happier if my two Render Cows running under Linux didn't need restarting between each render, but the fact that they even run is enough cause for thanks.

When I downloaded V6I I also got a 392MB file called ExtrasCD.zip which had extra objects and scenes, plus a readme. Maybe you could contact e-on and see if youu can reset your downloads or something.

At least tell us you had it set to save the info so it could restart the render!

I shudder to suggest this, but why not a SlashDot "Karma" type rating system. On SlasDot you gain karma based on how others rate your posts. Your ratings are scaled based on your karma. If you're rated highly then your opinion counts more. Could this be adapted to fit this situation?

I too like Blackhearted's eyes (I recently bought BH characters because of the eyes) and dislike V4's eyes. Thank you very much for the tutorial. (I'm also glad that Scare Bear made it back into the store and hence to my runtime.)

Install a RenderCow on at least one computer, even if it's your only one. With some baby sitting it will even run under Fedora Linux, but you have to kill and restart the cow between each job.

Set Render options - external renderer.[edit] Use HyperVue. (also render to disk) Point it to your computer, even if it's just 127.0.0.1 which is the local machine.

Now renders just queue up to the external renderer. When you're not using the CPU the batch renderer does. Once you've queued up the render(s) you can change the renderer back to internal and go on as usual.  Whenever you're thinking, so is the external renderer :)

Edit: In case I'm not too clear (which is common) this way you can render immediately as usual while the big batch renders are going on behind the scenes.

I have two machines running XP Pro, one 32 bit and one 64. (The 32 bit one is only to run SkinVue which doesn't run on 64 bit yet.) Vue has never caused a BSOD on either machine. In fact the only time in tha last year I got a BSOD was because of bad memory. Google for memtest86 and run it for a few hours. My P5B (not deluxe) does not work with the BIOS memory remapping feature enabled - it gets errors on one test.  Since I disabled the feature - I get 7.5 GB istead of 8, so what - the system has not blue screened.

If I assign a Realms Arts forest ecosystem material to a 1 kilometer square terrain, Vue warns me that I am doing something stupid. I say go ahead and end up with 39 billion polys. No problems. :thumbupboth:

My 64 bit machine:
ASUS P5B, Intel Q6600, 8GB OCZ RAM, ASUS Nvidia 8800GTX 768MB video, XP Pro x64.

My 32 bit machine:
An HP with an MSI ATI chipset motherboard, AMD 4400 X2, 2GB RAM, ASUS Nvidia 7900GT, XP Media Center.

Be careful. I downloaded the Vue 6 PLE and two days later I bought Vue 6 Infinite!

I find the ecosystems very addictive. Make a terrain, place your key elements, assign an ecosystem material to the terrain, and you have an outdoor scene. Add atmosphere and lighting to taste.

I have no idea but it must have been a lot. For me too it was my first year in 3D, I'd downloaded DAZ Studio and messed around with it, but 2007 led me to Poser, then Carrara, then Modo, then Vue 6 Infinite... Talk about a gateway drug! I learned a lot over the year. I also have a fairly well paying job so a couple of thousand over a year isn't really a lot, it's twice what I spend on bus passes.

Since you can legally install Vue on two computers as long as you only use it one at a time, I installed it on both 64 and 32 bit XP systems with 2GB/8GB memory respectively.

For simpler scenes all is well, I just work on the 32 bit system.

For complex scenes, I do the following...

One the 32 bit machine I can set up the character in Poser, import it into Vue, set up the shaders in SkinVue, then export the character as a .vob object with texture maps included (otherwise I will have to tell 64 bit Vue where to find each one of a zillion textures.)

Then exit Vue, copy/move the .vob to where 64 bit Vue can see it.

Then on the 64 bit machine I can treat the character as a normal Vue object.

It's a pain, but so far it's tolerable since I have a KVM. I just have to remember to exit Vue and Poser before switching to the other system.  I really hope Dave succeeds in getting SkinVue ported to the machines of the future.

Vue 6 Infinite can import Poser characters. I have done it with Poser 7 and Victoria 3 and successfully rendered it. Once in Vue you can't do anything with the character or animation without going back to Poser.

Did you make the atmosphere a volumetric material? Then set the volumetric color and density.

I can't get the specularity mask to work on the earth. When I enable it, the oceans reflect the continents on the other side of the planet!

Tor Oera (http://www.oera.net/How2/TextureMaps.htm) has maps up to 2500x1250 for free. It also has a nice tutorial on world building.

There are color maps, specular maps (water reflects, land doesn't,) bump/displacement maps, and cloud maps.

You basically make three nested spheres. The smallest one is the planet itself. The next one out is the clouds - the cloud map is used as both a trans map and a bump map to add texture. The outer one represents the atmosphere, to give the planet that halo effect.

All working now, thanks!

First note is that the Atmospheres ended up in the Atmousphere's folder. That isn't a good sign.

I'm packing it in for the night anyway, It's 00:44 here and I have a day job.

Edit: Couldn't misspell "Atmouspheres" correctly.