Well I hope to be able to join you all on the Infinite side some time soon, but as a musician, $600.00 American is quite hard to come up with in a lump, and I am a musician...we don't save well...so I play with the demo...LOL...It is good to be able to see the humour in our own lives...mine has me chuckling often, heh heh heh

Good answer Agiel...lets consider this put to bed as Vertecles has admitted his motivation is greed...LOL...kinda nulls all the other yakking in this part of this thread...except for the ego part...there are some of us so physically isolated from other 3D artists that recognition of this sort is the only way we can assess, objectively, whether or not we're improving,....it's hard to tell, with the great software around, if you are getting better, or the software is, sometimes...LOL

Aaaah..there's the thing of it. A large percent of us here are 'hobbiests' and as such remuneration for our work is often the last thing on our minds[here I go speaking for the world again..LOL] so this is not really that much of an issue....most "professional artists' don't really enter contests all that much as I know when I am actually 'working ' at something I don't have a lot of time for contests.

In real life I am a singer/songwriter and to this point in my 43 years doing that honourable craft, I have never had the time to actually enter one of the hundreds of 'songwriting contests' I have been dutifully been informed of by folks trying to 'help'. Hoping I have made my point, and not too bluntly, I toddle off to bed...nite all...LOL

Well if you're importing it all as I suggested I can't really see any problem.I don't have or use AE but as I understand it, it's PhotoShop in motion which I do understand. If AE in fact has all the layer adjustments available that there is in PhotoShop there should be little you can't do.

 Things like the file size of the ecosystem should only be a concern in Vue5Inf where actual polygons are involved. As you are only importing multi layered image files I would assume that your frame size[800x600] and dpi [72,150,300,etc.] are the controlling functions of size.

Haven't played with the water yet, and don't know if I can check the pre animated water out as lots of stuff is disabled as it is a demo after all....still an encouraging look. But if you can make it flow in Vue, the the frames you export to AE will be flowing...no?

Do you mean for importing into AE?...As it will accept .psd files, and basically what you're doing is compositing, I'd save the animation as a sequence of .psd files. Then you have the sharpest image with the most control via the layers, which you can I believe[haven't tested that part yet]select from a bunch of options. I'd recommend dl-ing the demo as I did and explore the many export options....it's quite powerful at first glance and that indicates to me that there's likely a lot more hidden just beneath the surface. Good Luck with the animation...always a fun torture...LOL

Indeed that's common in the whole art industry in terms of contests....actually can be quite a career boost to have your art splashed all over a popular product...Vue seems good about crediting the creators as well from what I've seen...a + + situation......

Does any one know if Demo users are allowed in...That's what I'M dling at the 'mo and would really like a shot at a free Vue....

It comes with a manual doesn't it?...contact the vendor you BOUGHT it from if you don't have one.

Seems like you've run into the same 'roadblock' I've run into in all the apps I've tried [Terragen,Vista Pro, Bryce(early version),and my first choice Imagine3D]. I know there is a way around the "crawlies" as they seem to be called, but so far it has escaped me as well. Too bad really as I was looking at V5I as the animation route I will invest in as it does so many other things just superbly...as I don't own Vue I have no real right to ask these questions of their support team, but you in fact, could...have you?...they may have an answer ...

Even tho I had only cursory connection with Guitta, she was most patient with my queries when I was first exploring Vue in demo form, and helpful,....we shall always miss her. Indeed she was the "Mistress of Vue"....to keep the genders correct....

That's a large part of what this fine Community of artists is all about. I don't even own, or use Vue at the moment [it's a financial thing, I love the prog] but tricks I use in the ones I own are often applicable in other apps....and platforms as I'm pc you're Mac...just a bunch of cool new brushes....LOL

how bout a heads up when y get the new test done....

Vue may be slow but IIRC when I had the demo, there was reference to 'network' rendering and I think it can use multiple cpu's...correct me if I'm wrong, but all these things are tricks for speeding up renders. Imagine3D [my personal app I use] doesn't have network or the ability to use multiple cpus so I generally [when I have a big one that really needs fast rendering] I talk a coupla my friends into letting me hi jack their  computers for a bit and install Imagine on all the puters and divide the frames by the number of computers... the work gets done a lot faster, but adds the compositing if I wasn't going to .

I would guess that it's the atmosphere, tho I don't have a current Vue anymore[demo over boo] I have had similar experiences both in Imagine 3D when using Volumetrics, which is how Imagine produces atmospherics, and way back in bryce and terragen. The answer to the 'crawlies' you're seeing can, to some degree be solved by rendering single frames and re assembling in AE as you suggested, but by and large, computers , I feel , just can't cope with all the miniscule calculations in terms of pixels. Someone post an example to prove me wrong....please...but no matter what software I've tried, the crawlies are omnipresent...been thinking, for a project I'm working on now, of , after rendering frames, printing them out and shooting to actual film as then you can have all the subtlties without concern for the number of pixels on my display.. But that sure don'r solve your problem so...someone/anyone...please post an answer as I'm fairly certain the answer can be implemented in any program once I know what the solution is.

ROFLMAO....yes indeedy that is one weeeeeeird photo...would love to know the back story

Didn't there appear, in another thread here at R'osity, a mention of someone who dl'd this Hexagon thing, and wound up with that crummy .exe virus that seems to be infecting DAZ products?