I always thought that too Yves, I tried many times to get the effect in Bryce. Caustics are a form of dirty or imperfect light and I know high-end raytracers that don't come with it 'standard' because the more natural something looks the more difficult it is to reproduce in a raytracer (and the more time-consuming the render). Vue 4 does nice caustics with glass, but I need to experiment like you did to see if the caustics look too perfect. I hope you succeed Yves, but I think the math isn't there in Vue2 for the caustics. Right now I am experimenting with waters in Vue4 and the caustics show but are very subtle. I also own Electricimage (which is high-end) and I needed to buy a special shader to handle caustics. Lightwave comes with a very nice one built in, but it usually sells for around $1,500.00. The fact that Vue can even offer caustics at its low price is amazing. When I get time I may try an experiment similar to yours in Vue4 - I really love experimenting myself : ) I hope you succeed in Vue2. Good luck. Scott

Lyne's animals are great - since it is in the shadows I thought it was the poser dog. To me the dog that comes with poser just looks artificial around the eyes and mouth. It still looks great in the shadows - it just works great in this image.

They did put a cool easter egg for the tree lab. Alt or Option click on the tree creation icon and it will lead you to files of better tree presets. These give you a much better starting point to creating a good tree. Of course I've got some really nice trees and textures for sale here in the store if you don't want to have to spend a lot of time trying to get a good looking tree. Check out the B5 Tree Farm.

Beautiful image - the glass and wine look REAL, and that is very hard to do. I like the small bump in the table cloth too. This is with Vue 2? That is amazing. The only thing that could possibly improve it in Vue 4 are the caustics. Those little hints of imperfect light coming from the glass and wine would really send this image into the most realistic Vue image ever hall of fame. Like it isn't there already ; ) Just gorgeous Yves, nice : )

Wow what an image. The soft quality of light. The reflections, the natural pose of the figure. I even love how the dog is in the shadows - which to me is not only a great artistic choice, but it also hides the flaws in the poser dog. Really beautiful work, Guitta.

Thanks Varian. I'm sure there was a lot of flushing today ... long lines at the post office. whoooooosh!

VERY original! that must have been some wild party cruise that came through and lost a bar stool - LOL.

I agree with the above statement as far as render speed - Vue is faster than Bryce (and I've been using Bryce since version 1). Obj conversion is exactly what you have to do in Bryce, but at least in Vue all the maps come in already applied and you don't have to re-apply them. As far as being user-friendly THAT is in the eye of the beholder. I think Bryce's material editor is easier to use myself. The overall interfaces are very similar. They are both fine apps and right now Vue definitely has the edge in speed and animation abilities. It also has the edge in atmospherics - the volumetric skies look gorgeous and render MUCH faster than Bryce volumetric worlds. I now have both apps in my toolbox and I am very happy with that decision.

Mosca, I am a Mac vue user and as of 4.0.5 there is no Mac PZ3 import, so the horror is identical to the one in Bryce right now. I don't think 4.0.6 fixes this either, I looked at the list and it wasn't there. The problem may be with CuriousLabs. I have heard they need to release a Mac OSX version of Poser or the Pro pack possibly before Vue can make this fix. I am not sure why either because old Mac files read fine in OSX - why wouldn't poser PZ3's be the same? I hope eon can clarify this for us, I too am dying for the Pz3 import feature - it would save a ton of time.

Killer image! The mummy reminds me a bit of Eddie - Iron Maiden's Mascot. PGMs rock don't they? It's the only way to preserve the 16bit grey that Bryce uses internally. Were you able to come up with a cool lighting preset in Gel that looks like the Bryce terrain editor grays. I love Gel for this, but I've never been able to come up with a good Bryce style preset for it. Very nice work! Scott

LOL - thanks for all your replies. I am happy to participate in my first Vue challenge. You guys are a blast - love all the responses... and you really inspire me to things - very cool! Just finished taxes too - whew! Taxes are a lot like the 'output' in that toilet image - it feels so good to just flush and be done with it.

Works for me - the post processing blur gives it an eerie feel. That water looks really polluted. Nice work.

I second what the others said. I also think the floor itself could use some collateral damage. Heck maybe even on the walls if you want to get really disgusting : )

Here's my favorite DTE cobblestone recipe: 3d sine noise, maximum - Octaves at about 8. Use the clip filters to make the stones look more rounded. cheers! Scott

Wow - that is an interesting way of handling an NDA. Keep up the good - you know what... LOL