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Nice jc, really nice!

I believe if you do your research you will find that the majority of Dell products are made by third party manufacturers, HP, IBM, Viewsonic, and so on.  You never relaly know what you will get under the hood from product to product.  Del can provide good quality and sometimes make a mistake and provide a bad quality product as do others. 

Although Vue would not care about card and monitor, the final image and the possible necessity to have your work done commercially does often depend on the quality of the video card and a well matched monitor.  Not all are compatible with every brand.  Especially if you need to use profiles, or print in RGB, or CMYK, all important considerations for the professional.

I have been using Viewsonic CRT’s and LCD’s for many years now and stopped using anything else. 

For graphic work there are two major monitor Viewsonic groups to choose from the X series and the VP series. The VP series is important because it has several hundreds of dollars worth of monitor software for calibration and other necessary features a Graphic artist would like to have and not have to pay an extra $300, called PERFECTSUITE™ SCREEN CONTROL SOFTWARE. The VG and some other series does not have this software.

I use a 21 inch, but then I do not do ecosystems. A wide screen format is nice but usually at the cost of being wider, although not as tall as the standard screen. So the size is dependant on the user and the type of art work or graphics they do.

LCD’s are not as dependable as CRT’s but the industry standard now is LCD, and most CRT manufacturers have stopped making them. Therefore, it might be a problem to have a CRT serviced in the near future, as I found out recently. It would have cost more to service one of my old Viewsonc 19 inch than buy a new LCD.

Hope that helps.

You might also consider whether you want 32 bit versus 64 bit software, especially if you are going to create large eco's.  Everything below Infinite is 32 bit, that and above is 64 bit.  So if you need the network connection and the large eco's you might go for Infinite over Pro. You need to compare the cost of upgrading from or between each to see which would be the best route financially.

rocco,

FYI; I have Vue 6 and 5 installed side by side on Vista, I do not have any problems with Vue 5, it runs the same as 6.

One important item you should remember if you buy a laptop; most have onboard Video chipsets that share the system ram.  

Shared ram does not support OpenGL Hardware Acceleration, so you would have to use the slower Software Acceleration.  Which would defeat the purpose of a new system since the Software Acceleration only supports OpenGL 1.1, and 2.1 is current, much faster.  Maybe a small desktop with a big video card would be better in the short-term?.

More ram would also help, if you want to continue using your current system.

You have a good background for 3D as a photographer and former teacher, of which both take a lot of patience. Another Ansel Adams hey!!!

What is really exciting about Vue, is the ability to create any style of artwork; there seems to be no limitation to the possible variations based on ones creative imagination. 

It is a steep learning curve for “ancients” like me. But then, why spend ones life living with the comfortable and going unchallenged???

Times do change. A local and well known artist is now using Manga to do all of his Pen&Ink and color work for his Political cartoons. 

Now that I have the Atmosphere Editor down, if I can just get the Function Editor to work!?! 

Thanks jc

As a 2D artist most of my life, paint on linen canvas, and a computer buff since my fathers Electronic Repair shop in the 50’s (I know I am dating myself), Vue 3D has been a blast for me. Never could I accomplish so much in so short a time and enjoy the results in the same. 

I used Carrara previously, but only for setting-up grayscale models to understand lighting for complex scenes that I would have an interest to paint. Also, I could turn back the clock and that would allow me to date an era with a good idea of, say, what the Sun was doing on July 4, 1776 in Washington.

Vue is different, I don’t want to play with models, I want to create full scenes, which make this an interesting learning experience. I am glad I can apply my knowledge, that which has been given to me by so many others in past. 

Understandably, it is frustrating when something does not work, but in my advanced years, I have gained the patience that allows me to sit down and spend time sharpening that machette to a razors edge!  It only gets dull when you lost interest, and as long as I can play with Vue, “That ain’t gonna happen!”

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Pick one of the dead trees in Plants, or use the trunk of a plant species and make the leaves transparent with no color and then;

Change the material Burnt Rock and Lava, make a few modifications to the color, for a burned effect, and add some lines to suggest charring like chipped line. 

I am sure you can get more creative than that.

Finally got the dialog working with a Carrara import.

haegerst,

Stay with what you have for awhile and learn all about it, and upgrade later to Infinite, and the learning experince will be much easier and more fun learning new stuff.

64 bit versus 32 bit, for the heavy stuff.