Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=284037

Hi Yves, why, thank you for the praise. ;) I'll have to hand it back to you, mind--your renders are the reason I actually started fooling around with lighting in Vue. Until I stumbled over your gallery some months ago, I was like most people, bitching about lack of radiosity and GI in Vue d'Esprit. When I saw what you got out of Vue2.1, I was determined to give it a shot. So, eh, thank you. :) Lighting-wise, I hardly ever use point lights. Spot lights give you far more control over the lighting, I feel. If I use point lights, it's either to simulate sunlight, or to use as ersatz-ambience lights. For indoor lighting, I found the best approach to go the traditional three-point route, i.e. fix light, fill lights, back lights. I don't use back lights all too much as Vue's renderer doesn't cope with it very well unless you combine it with a glow material which somewhat destroys the purpose of realistic lighting. ;) A technique I found very successful was introducing coloured bounce lights and tuning down the fill lights. I'll probably make a separate tut about bounce lights and simulating radiosity in Vue. As it looks now, I will make the first tutorial about the "glasses" image (see link) as a couple of people asked for more information about it. This will lead nicely over to a later radiosity tutorial as this image already uses two bounce lights. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb P.S. Yves, you should consider upgrading to Vue4.1 . . . the renderer is quite considerably faster than in Vue2.1 ;) -.rb

Hi Yves, Well, why did I just know you'd post? ;) There really seem to be few people who are "fanatic" about lighting, which I think is a shame. I just love to play around with lighting very simple sets, IMO that's what makes or breaks a good image. Ambient light is evil. :D On the other hand side, the "final" render above still uses about 50% ambient lighting, the trick is not to forget when you can still use ambient light, and that you can use different colours as well. ;) I'll wrap up the tutorial next Friday. I think I'll make it two-part, i.e. short basic introduction as an "awareness" riser, and then some advanced stuff. Thanks for your feedback! -Sascha.rb

For comparison: the original scene with "standard" lighting. And yes, it uses the same textures as the one above. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb

Yup. The problem is that Windows sees .mat, and has the file association ".mat = Bryce material". that's all. Hence, even vue *.mat are labeled "bryce material". ta, .rb

I occasionally stumble over this problem as well. Raising "Instant Draw" usually resolves it, or switching to OpenGL viewports. I hope the next upgrade will fix this bug. ta, -Sascha.rb

Well, depending on your computer, OpenGL could be faster than native draw modi. (That's not the case with Vue, mind.) OpenGL in Vue offers you anti-aliased lines and wireframes, and shaded viewports, i.e. objects can be displayed with shaded surfaces according to the lights in a scene or with default lighting. Also, you can work over a preview render in the 3D viewport--i.e. keep the last render displayed as a reference while continue your scene setup or lighting. Last but not least--and that's why I am happy about OpenGL finally working for me--you can import and display an image as a background for the viewports. This can come in VERY handy if you're modeling an object or a scene: just use the scan from a hand drawing or a photo as a new backdrop, and model around the sketch, or use the sketch as the layout for your scene setup. ta, -Sascha.rb

YES ! The latest NVIDIA drivers package (just released yesterday) resolved my OpenGL troubles. :) Background draw thread still doesn't work, but you don't really need that with a GF4Ti anyway. ;) So, give these drivers a shot. It might be well worth it. ta, -Sascha.rb

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=273205

Woop, wrong link, possibly. Try this one if above link doesn't work. Oh, well. I'll post the image anyway. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb

Good idea, and will make comparison far easier--simply because the foreground won't (subliminally) influence one's take on the final result. ta, -Sascha.rb

Thanks. :) A small addendum, though: This method is, of course, vastly inferior to "real" calibration tools, both hardware and software. You can get test-meshes to put on the screen and the like for very little money (and full calibration tools for a bit more) from better DTP shops. ta, -Sascha.rb

@YL, wow, I'm impressed. You really have a handle with lighting scenes in Vue. It may not look overly "photorealistic", but eh--great work indeed (except the ball, mind ;) ). thumbs up ta, -Sascha.rb

It's a mix-up--on one of the kurtz-fernhout pages, you'll find the free license key. Gods know why the didn't re-bundle it. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb

lol well, no harm done, I suppose. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb

Hi macmullin, > Ok so you can wrap your ground plain with one lage texture > that great. I figured it would tile by defaut. Depends--if you use a procedural texture (i.e. a "shader"), tiling is not an issue. if you use a image texture (i.e. a "map"), you might have to play around with either Vue's texture mapping settings, or adapt the texture slightly in Photoshop to make it tileable with less noticeable, well, tiling. ;) Love the pic, btw. I'm looking forward to the final render. ta, -Sascha.rb

Hi gebe, thanks again! works a treat! :D ta, -Sascha.rb