Mud slinging? At poor defenseless me? Are we talking Vue mud here or real mud? Sure, go for it, but remember, I don't even know any White House interns, and I haven't been involved in any real estate scandals, either. So, you'll have to sling Vue mud at me, I guess. :P Ask not what your country can do for Vue, but what Vue can do for your country...err, something like that. So, the polls close on Friday the 13th, eh? Full moon, too? Looks like I'll be staying home THAT night! Thanks, bloodsong. :) Cheers, Mike PS Still haven't heard back from Tim yet, though.........

Also, you might want to scale that bikini down just slightly on the x axis, so it fits more snugly against her hips. Cheers, Mike

Hi, I just looked at your website...you have some nice pictures there...good job so far. I also want to thank you for the link to RealSoft...that looks like quite a good modeling package there. I'm using the current version of Strata 3D, but planning on getting Rhino before mid-next year, but after reading all about RealSoft, I don't know.... Am looking forward to seeing more Vue pics! Cheers, Mike

That mist, or haze, or whatever you want to call it, REALLY blows me away. I love it! And also, the silhoutted plants with the faint lighting on them look beautiful. Creepy or gloomy? I don't really think so, but it's definitely very moody. The skeleton seems a bit large compared to it's surroundings, though, and I personally think the (jack 'o' Lantern?) "UFO thing" kind of interferes with the picture's balance or unity, but overall it's a nice, entertaining picture. Only the artist who CREATES the picture gets to say what's "right" and what's not. Art is about as subjective as anything else, when it comes to personal preferences. But, man, I LOVE that background and the way the lighting interacts with everything! One and a half thumbs up! Cheers, Mike

Thanks again, Bill...that actually worked, though it failed to install itself into the plugin folder, and made it's own folder instead. Shrug Anyway, I copy/pasted it into the plugin folder, and it works just fine. Me too...sorry for the OT! Cheers, Mike PS........ Vue!

Thanks Bill...you must have been writing that just as I was writing, too! I'll give it a try! Cheers, Mike

Bill, Thanks. By all means, please let me know! I downloaded the beta anyway, but I'm kind of hesitant to install it, because I once tried something similar and ended up corrupting Painter, and had to do a re-install. I really don't understand how plugins "work", and I don't like adding anything to an app's folder unless I know it won't wreak general havoc. ;) Cheers, Mike

Bill, Thanks for the info, but it says it's only for Photoshop, Fireworks, and Paint Shop Pro. I don't have any of those programs--I use Painter 6. Maybe one day I'll get Photoshop, but it is terribly expensive, and there are alot of softwares I want first. Cheers, Mike

bloodsong, You're right... I've had some strange renderings from using boolean differences when dealing with terrains. Just as an experiment, I imported a Poser character, and stuch a cube on her, grouped them, and did the boolean difference thing, and her texture got all messed up, all over, and not only around the cube. Shrug Is this some kind of bug, or is it a RAM problem or what? Maybe I should have saved the picture ans sent it to e-onsoft to see what they have to say. But, not all terrain experiments have been failures, and I've got one scene going right now which will show that, but right now it's kind of lacking unity, so I'm trying to think where to take it next. Soon enough. Bill, yeah, I'll have some stuff ready soon. I'll probably plop the one I'm working on into the gallery this weekend. :) Cheers, Mike

uhhh...errr...at the risk of looking stupid...what is Eye Candy? y'all sem to know about it, but I've never heard of it. Is it a program? a plugin? Rocks? Cheesy? Yes, but that water looks great! Though it could use some foam or froth floating in it. Cheers, Mike

Thank God I had a major system-munching conflict of some sort right before I got Vue, and had to reformat! Wait a minute... THAT WAS NOT FUNNY!! Oh well, at least all's well again.....until the enext time....LOL Cheers, Mike

bloodsong, The trees look about right to me...but you know, that's kinda subjective, and trees do come in all sizes. I give up...what are they walking on. it kinda looks like a jigsaw puzzle or something. The lantern IS a little too bright, though...sorry to say. Believe it or not, I did know it was a fuzzy sphere, but that's fairly obvious. Cool design, though, and overall it's a pretty well-balanced picture. That hearse looks good... i saw it somewhere and remember thinking, "what would I possibly use THAT for.." I guess you answered yet another question of mine, and I didn't even ASK it! Yer not psychic or something, are you? How about that rain? How did you do that? Cheers, Mike

WOW! That's great, really! How did you do it? Cheers, Mike

Welcome aboard, bantha, glad to have you here. :) You will like Vue alot. Personally, I find it far easier than Bryce, though I wish it had a "trackball" type of camera like Bryce, but that's a small thing. And here is thplace to ask all your questions about Vue d'Esprit. :) Cheers, Mike

Rynn, There seems to be a bit more to it than that though. For one thing, DXF format has no UV coordinates, which is why you can't texture it. Also, there appear to be many various different types of DXF, at least one of which is not compatible with Vue. But don't worry...DXF seems as though it's being phased out in favor of 3DS, and OBJ. There's also always the possibility that a file may have been corrupted during the download. It seems to be almost rare, but it happens. And then again, people screw up from time to time. (yes, believe it or not!) As Lynn said, .OBJ is a VERY good bet in terms of Vue compatibility. As far as I can tell, the most common 3D file formats are, .OBJ, .3DS, .LWO (somewhat rare), and .DXF. There are also various offshoots, such as .prj, .MAX, etc.. There are many freeware and shareware apps which can make conversions from one format to another, such as 3D Explorer and 3D Win, , to name a couple. In the case of DXF files, I personally like to convert them to .OBJ and then run them through Steve Cox' freeware app, UV Mapper, which can be used to then apply UV coordinates to them, and make them easy to texture, and very Vue-friendly. .OBJ is definitely the way to go, but 3DS seems to work well, too. I have some models which are 3DS, which I have had far better results with, rather than converting them to .OBJ. As far as DXF goes, I don't even bother...that is, if it's a DXF file I've downloaded, the first thing I'll do is to convert it to .OBJ, then send it through UV Mapper, save it again as .OBJ (UV Mapper can only open a .OBJ file), and take it from there. UV Mapper seems to somehow "fix" problems with .OBJ files also, by the way. You can find these apps here: UV Mapper: http://home.pb.net/~stevecox It's free, and there are some great tutorials at his site. Plus, Steve Cox is more than willing to answer any questions, through emails, and very quickly. :) 3D Exploration: http://www.xdsoft.com/explorer/ It's shareware and fully functional (it saves), but you have 30 days to check it out and decide if you like it. Most people seem to, and it works pretty well. 3D Win: http://www.stmuc.com/thbaier/index.html 3D Win is also shareware. Personally, though, I find the 3D Exploration/UV Mapper combination to be the best. One other thing I might mention, though, if you find some cool .3DS files you like, you might have trouble with them even with 3D Exploration: It seems some of them are enclosed in a 3D sphere, or are grouped with a semi-enclosed cube, kind of like a display case, or something. There's another freeware app called Anim8or ( http://www.anim8or.com ), which is very good for eliminating the excess stuff. I hope this info helps, and if you need more, please feel free to ask! :) Cheers, Mike