Yep, still making progress. Dick is finalizing the (rather complex!) algorithms into metanodes which will easily allow for tweaking cloudscapes-- and I'm writing the documentation and crafting atmospheres which will work for all the CloudPak cumulus types of clouds.

One of our goals with the documentation is to explain the standard Vue cloud controls and how sensitive and important they are to realistic results. A single percent difference in a Cloud slider setting can make a huge difference in the final cloud render. While the final manual may be a bit long, it'll be full of pictures and screenshots showing you exactly what you need to know to becaome a master cloudsmith.

While this is taking a bit longer than we originally intended, the final product will be more than just a set of atmospheres and cloud layers. We'll certainly keep everyone posted!

 For great lawans, check out solosplace.com. Pete's a very helpful fellow and I suspect he'll gladly share his technique. When he does, be sure to mention it back here!

-C

muchos gracias mon ami! 

 Mark,

I suppose it matters what it is you want to show. For a long wide scene, then Bruno's correct, you want a shorter lens..28 or even smaller. But if you're showing full figures, full height, you may want a much less-distorted camera focal length, like 50 or even 100...depends.

Do you have an image similar to the one you want to create? That would be my first step-- do some web research and piece together what it is you want to do.

Best of luck! -Chipp

 LOL
I had a good chuckle reading this one...reminded me of Abbot and Costello's Who's on First?
www.youtube.com/watch

 Interesting debate. 

I can show my father how to do something 100 times, yet he only purchases understanding of a product or software by reading the manual.

I, myself, prefer video tutorials to 'get me started,' then read the manual only if I really like the program.

I think different people learn differently. 

Quote - As a former professional meterologist and weather observer I noticed that the rain is not so realistic looking. It seldom comes down in straight line sheets. The air is turbulent with the downdrafts so the sheets wave a bit. Also the color has a greenish hazy tint. Maybe use 3-4 sheets, each wavy in a different way and add a hit of mist so I looks more like rain and not an object.

Thanks for the input...I'm not too crazy about that rain either. Back to the drawing board...

 The plan is to create a set of atmospheres, where you can 'dial in' the type of cloud formation you want. Most of you know Dick (eonite) is an expert with the FE, and we believe it's possible to make it super easy to design your own complex cumulus cloudscapes using only a few metanodes and a couple layers of clouds. We're still testing and working on it and will post more when we get a chance...

eonite,

Super work, thanks for posting. I, like you, enjoy the challenge of creating scenes completely within Vue. I would like to know more about your modeling theories for clouds using hypertextures. I've done a bunch of research into hypertextures using GridModeler to create real objects, but not soft modeled organics, like clouds. 

Perhaps you can start a new thread on your modeling theories?

Dax Pandhi uses hypertextures on metablobs to create interesting rock structures.

I agree, the FE is fun to play around with. Hard to ultimately master, but there's always interesting discoveries. :-)

Quote - Go ahead and give me your professional critique. As you sir are a proven digital artist with many credits to your name. I welcome your opinion of my nude wallpapers. ;~)  

RDS,

I choose not to comment on your wallpapers, but since you asked, I have looked at your Gallery here on Renderosity and you have quite a number of very nice images. Your sense of design, color, space, figure/ground relationship and especially composition is most apparent. Many of your renders are very nice, some spectacular-- Port, Fresh water fishing, X2 are my favorites.

Quote -  Hold on, any comments about another person's gallery should be left out of the discussion.  RDS does not have any such items in his gallery.  Let's have a little decorum here.

You don't need to look too far on his website to find the naked wallpapers and Britney Spears images which RDS creates.

Mr. RDS is holding himself up to be a 'serious artist'  and is providing advice and opinion. Just like in real life, it's always smart to check one's sources-- and I did and reported back. I've made no gallery comments other than about what type of content he creates-- though if asked, I will gladly provide a critique.

 Hi Jeff,

Yes, of course you are correct regarding the fact Apple has been telling developers for quite some time now to use Objective C. That said, most folks, like Adobe and e-on, have thousands of hours of code already optimized for cross-platform development.

Also, rather unique in 3D programming, is many companies prefer having the same exact interface on both platforms-- rather than going with Apple's HIG, they use their own. Some, IMO, are better (Modo) others may be worse (e-on?). 

For e-on and the rest to continue to compete with folks like Maxon on the Mac, they will have to provide 64-bit support. But, that will take some time. To rewrite huge chunks of code in Obj-C is a large task.

I am sure you are right regarding the Boot Camp vs multiple drives as well. I've got a very lonely Mac iBook sitting in the corner which I use to compile and test my apps on. Even then, I typically use a Remote Desktop Connection to keep from having to switch machines ;-).

 Oh, then my bad... I didn't know by 'serious artist' you meant your nude pinups and Britney Spears wallpaper collections.

Quote - Any complaints you may have will be squashed with the many Vue’ers that have been ego inspired by e-on. Good luck with that. If at some point you want to get serious about digital art.

Ouch. I suppose somehow us 'ego inspired' Vue users are supposed to somehow magically fix bugs now? Nope, this forum isn't a bug fix forum. For that, you need to contact e-on software directly at:

support @e-onsoftware.com

Insinuating people like Rutra, JCD and myself are not 'serious about digital art' is a fairly rude thing to say. You know nothing about me, nor the work I've done for companies like Disney, the Discovery Channel, Dreamworks and others.

 I don't know how many folks who post here actually have created and supported commercial cross-platform builds of the same product -- for Macs and PCs.

We have. And after a couple years of trying to deal with Apple's dot.dot upgrades, we had to finally quit.

The fact is, Apple changes/modifies their libraries in dot.dot updates, which affects MANY programs. For us it was their constant meddling with WebKit which we finally decided wasn't worth marketing our product anymore.

In over three years of development and support, we modified and tweaked our code for Windows once and for Apple at least a dozen times. With Cocoa, their Objective C programming environment, much of this is abstracted, but if you write code for Macs in other environments (Carbon), you're on your own.

Not only do you have to fix the problem, but you also have to provide retro-fixes for past versions as well-- this means we might have to end up supporting over a dozen variation of WebKit on different Macs! Just too much to keep up with for a small shop like ours.

ArtPearl says:

Quote - As a side note - Chipp said e-on feels Apple is unreasonably forcing them to use Apple's tools - I dont know which tools these are, but isnt that inconsistent with the statement I quoted above? they claim to make use of platform specific  'hardware and software'?

Absolutely not. Until very recently, one can program the Mac via Cocoa or Carbon. But the fact is now you pretty much need to use Cocoa (XCode) in order to access the 64-bit capabilities of some Macs. And as we all know, a 8Gig Mac running in 32-bit mode only allows access to a couple of the Gbs-- and with the sorry and varied state of the OpenGL drivers and video cards on Macs-- there's no wonder significant issues arise.

This is not to say e-on is not responsible for making Vue work on every Mac possible, just that for some configurations, it's a serious daunting task.

JCD, it sounds like you have a wonderfully powerful machine there. I suspect, if you decided to install BootCamp and the 64-bit version of Vue 7.4 for Windows, you would see a remarkable change in performance-- one which your highly talented skills would quickly take advantage of!

I do agree with Rutra, while e-on certainly has work to do on the Mac side of things, it may just be easier to try with a PC-- the interface is identical. And, one of the great features of Vue is you can purchase it for one platform, but use it on another at no cost. Certainly worth a try...