Everybody deserves a vacation - especially the moderator of this forum! Enjoy!

It probably is true, wabe. And, you make a good point about the underlying architecture for the software - it has to be intended (and developed) to support plug-ins. However, in this case, Vue already has the basic import functions, and xfrog already has the basic export functions - so, we know at least one set of the file format conversion processes exist. I'm not really kicking about about this. Looking at this thread you can see how many of us are really interested. Rather small market, no?

Cinema 4D does have a free importer plug-in for xfrog plants. So, it can be done.

I've been searching through the web myself, looking for traditional Japanese clothing, especially for male figures. In addition to what BeatYourSoul says, here's all that I've been able to locate in Japan. www.yokohama.cool.ne.jp/Tomita910/NeoJ This author (Masaune) has a budoh and a fundosh. Also hair for a male and for a female. There is a beautiful female kimono (actually three) by ISO at www.iso.power.ne.jp. Toni Dunlap probably has the most current experience working with that kimono set. Both these items are free. It appears to be pretty slim pickings out there. I did put a request in on the Merchant's wishing well, especially since I could provide the textures and so forth. But no one has taken us up yet.

I agree with the above. Channeler, the lighting setup in Poser 4 and earlier versions is made for "dummies." As in the book titles - just for beginners that could not be expected to know or learn anything at all about lighting. The Poser lighting is a standard "3-point lighting rig" used in the movie industry and in 3D modelling. If you look, you will see the three points, and also, you'll notice that the default lighting is carefully set to maximize skin color tones. You can do so much more, and make even more dramatic pictures in Vue by controlling your own lighting set up. I believe there is a simple tutorial available on this site, and perhaps an advanced one as well. If not, send me an e-mail, and I'll send you a Vue scene with a standard 3-point lighting rig already made. (Or I'll post one as a free object, this weekend.) You just have to follow the tutorial given to get rid of the plastic look, and then learn a teeny, tiny bit about lighting.

I agree - this really sounds like a diplomatic put-off. I am a professional programmer. Since xfrog exports to 3ds and to obj, it should not be a big task to develop an exporter function for Vue, or to create a function that xfrog would sell, that would allow for conversion of their pre-made trees for Vue. It is a much more substantial task for the Vue people to create a plug-in that would read the xfrog tree file format directly. And, it would cost a fair amount - so there's probably not a real incentive on the Vue end. On the other hand, while Vue's own tree generator is an absolute marvel (faster than greased lightning, wonderful random seed process, etc.), they do really need to add some more basic tree types, or something. There are more than a million tree species. Vue is coming into wider use in the world. But we can only do so much with leaf transparencies, and we've just about exhausted that facility. The inability to have a decent bamboo tree form is holding up sales in Japan, as nearly as I can tell. (Vue's "bamboo" looks a lot more like poor cane grass than bamboo.) OK, just an opinion. But it doesn't sound good - this response you received. Personally, I think we need to go purchase xfrog, and maybe one competative set of products I've located for specialty items. (The bamboo generator costs as much as xfrog pro, but its a marvel.) Its probably important to tell both Vue and Greenworks that there is demand for compatibility between their products. Xfrog can do something about this more cheaply than can e-on software, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Thank you EsnRedshirt. I'm playing around with the Ray Trace node as well. Yes, it looks like Poser 5 should be a substantial improvement over Poser 4 in terms of its ability to handle water.

None that I know of, although I'm using TS6.5 by now. But everything is pretty straightforward.

Thanks for the note, hein. I was having the same trouble. I'm also not satisfied with the distortion tools, as they seem pretty "clunky." But I do really very much appreciate the folks at greenworks making the 30 day trial version available. (And, I did pop for the Japanese Tree set.) Veritas should have mentioned that the price is only $300 - not more than $500. But I don't think I'll be purchasing it either, maybe not, ...still debating. .... I'd like to be able to bend the trees in Xfrog, in a local manner as I choose, instead of having to move the completed model to another package to really get the job done. A file explorer viewer for the texture files would help a lot, too.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with MACs! Let's hope there are new chips as well. Guitta, this basic question gets asked often, and we all are pretty clear on the answers now. Would this be time to put this basic question, and the simple answers in a FAQ? Vue Version 4 runs faster on a PC than on a MAC. Vue is more stable in the Windows 2000 and Windows XP Pro operating systems than in any of the other PC operating systems. Vue probably is more stable on a MAC in the latest operating system. Dual CPU's bring about the greatest speed in rendering, and probably the greatest speed in modelling. Memory (RAM) is next most important in VUE performance. The memory size and chip properties of the video card have little to do with rendering speed (since that is controlled by the CPU), but provide significant other benefits in terms of the quality and characteristics of the final render. (Shadowing, etc.) Open GL is preferred for many reasons, as a video technology, but VUE users should disable the Open GL Background Thread setting when modelling. It does help to re-enable it when the composition is complete, saved, and the user is ready to render. (At least, I think these are the simple answers to this general question.) ?????

Another thing that seems to make a detectable difference among my various machines is having Win2000 or XP Pro. Both of these appear to handle Vue better than any other Microsoft product, and better than my neighbor's latest MAC OS. (I'm not a MAC hater - in fact, I'm a serious UNIX fan, but this seems to be the fact.)

Same here, Wabe. Dual processors significantly speed up both modelling and rendering. No question about it. They have considerably greater effect than more RAM, and much greater effect than the nature of the video card.

Yes, that's right. Rendering seems to be pretty much CPU-dependent. After 512MB of memory - more memory doesn't seem to add anything to rendering. But more memory has a significant effect on modeling (loading objects, moving them around, etc.) I have a dual CPU system - these really speed up my rendering, so you might want to consider a dual CPU system if you think you'll be doing much 3D work. Almost every 3D program I use takes good advantage of 2 CPU's. These help in modelling too. Nvidia seems best, to me at least.

I run Vue with Win2000, and I've never encountered a problem - not with any Win2000 Service Pak, nor with any version of Vue on Win2000. In general, its a good idea to always have the latest version of the operating system, and the primary program.