Thanks for the link, Alex. I wonder if those type of clouds were in any way responsible for any of Van Gogh's work?

Quote - Your quoted statement and the rest of the post do not dispute that. You are pleading for existing and future customers to be lenient, to forgo their rights.

Not true. I am pointing out what I know to be true. According to conventional software metrics, including McCabe's theory on cyclolmatic complexity, the chances of Vue being 100% bug free is zero.

Quote - Customers are entitled to get results, not reasons.

I still ask you, "Do you honestly believe if they could reliably reproduce it, they wouldn't have fixed it since you originally reported it over three months ago?"

This sounds like a serious bug, and one which they would fix immediately if they could. While I have zero knowledge of this particular bug, I still believe they can't reproduce it and so can't fix it. If every time you tried typing in a field, the numbers were transposed, then this bug would certainly be a showstopper which needs to be fixed ASAP.

All this said, IMO e-on does a poor job with customer relations-- other than support, which I feel works reasonably well.

On their forums, I would hope they are more forthcoming with answers to reasonably posted questions. I certainly wouldn't expect them to provide a road map of all the features for next versions (as others might), but I think a friendly face, with thoughtful answers would go a long way to help customers.

Richard,

I took a peek at your blog, and it appears you're having a tough time trying to get Vue to export models perfectly.

Vue is not really a modeling program, and as such it's not set up to do proper UV mapping-- which is what you really need for commercial models. I've never heard of someone using Vue to model and sell for profit traditional 3D objects for other applications.

In fact, Metablobs provide extremely poor resolution on exports and are optimized as CSG objects resolved at rendertime. It is considered standard procedure for one wishing to sell commercial objects to create them in a modeling application, then UV map them using the same application or separate 3rd party tool--like UV Mapper Pro.

I believe, similar to other landscape rendering applications, export is provided for mostly geometry only. In fact, if I were e-on, I'd give up trying to force fit the UV Maps-- even those which do export have an impossible UV Map included to decipher.  This is because UV Mapping is a bit of an art, and as such I know of no application which can automate it perfectly -- unless it is painted directly on the model. That's why other applications let folks edit the UVMapping parameters directly in a modeling environment.

I know they make such claims for exporting, but you'll never get the quality out of a Vue model you would out of a model built and textured in a true 3D modeling application. I should know, as I probably model more in Vue than anyone. :-)

http://www.widgetgadget.com/VueComic/Launcher.html

Hope this explanation helps. If you purchased the module for reasons of exporting commercial models for sale, then I would ask for a refund.

BTW, anyone still reading, Richard has a very nice set of renders showing the different noise nodes in Vue. Definitely worth a look!

http://blog.richard-potter.co.uk/2009/01/noise-node-reference-guide/

best,
Chipp

I'm for giving e-on some wiggle room. Here's why. Let's do some math.

Vue runs on three main OS'es. Mac, WindowsXP and Vista.

There are at least two dozen varieties of Macs which Vue can possibly run on. Multiply that by the different Mac OSX versions, point releases, and possible installed graphics driver versions (~60) and you get 1440 possible configurations for the Mac alone.

(Side note: At Altuit, We used to sell a specific software for the Mac and ended up quitting because it needed updating virtually every point release).

Now let's take the PC. How many different hardware configurations are there for PC's? Let's be sure to include the different video cards, ram amounts, processor types and speed? Let's take a modest pass and say 1,000. Now multiply it by the number of XP point versions (~5), then by the Vista point verisons (~5), then by the 64-bit versions of each (4) then by the number of possible graphic software driver versions (~50) which equals 5 million possible different PC hardware/software combinations.

And we aren't even starting to talk about other software conflicts and embedded third party API's (like Poser and SketchUp).

By my count, there are over 600 features in Vue. Assuming each feature has, oh, say 5 function points, that would be over 3000 function points. Multiply it by the total number of possible hardware and software configurations, and you start to see how huge a task it is to make sure all software runs 100% bug free on everyone's computer all the time. By the way, the number here is over 15 trillion permutations of hardware and software function points.

Still, I ask,  "Do you honestly believe if they could reliably reproduce it, they wouldn't have fixed it since you originally reported it over three months ago? "

I think they are doing the best they can.

 Yep, I used to own a summer cabin in the mountains of New Mexico-- and we had Hughes Net satellite internet service there as well. Really, really sucked, but as Angelis says, it's better than dialup.

BTW, I've a few tutorials for those just starting out with Pioneer. I am particularly fond of this stripped down version of Vue as it's remarkable what can be done for free!

 Synergy,

Great one!

I, too, took advantage of the killer deal and purchased GC2 and am looking forward to playing around with it. But, ever since seeing the free tutorial at Quadspinner blog and the subsequent paid for tute at Quadspinner, I've enjoyed testing the limits of Vue's own terrain editor.

If you haven't seen them, I suggest people check them out. They are really quite valuable.

Vege-Mite, I don't mean to pile on here, but I do think a note of apology is in order for Steven. He is a remarkable fellow, who maintains a positive outlook despite his afflictions. His contributions to this community are many. You have always seemed a reasonable chap, and I suspect this issue is overblown for you. As you can plainly see, everyone creates typos, even yourself.

BTW, if you click the quote button, then look at the source of the message, you will see the proper markup for creating quotes here in this forum.

Quote - "the developers are aware of the issue" means to me they know the problem, they can reproduce it, but they havnt found a solution yet.

Sorry, nothing you have said indicates to me they can reproduce the problem. As mentioned before, being aware of the problem isn't the same as being able to reproduce it. Do you honestly believe if they could reliably reproduce it, they wouldn't have fixed it since you originally reported it over three months ago?

Quote - that should give you an idea how irritating I find your reactions.

Yes, by now the feeling is quite mutal. You intone this is a trivial bug to resolve, and since it is not resolved, e-on somehow singles you out to be made to suffer. And your only recourse is to post numerous complaints about your problems on this forum. Many here have tried to help you, but it is clear you are not interested in specified help for your problems.

I, myself, took time out to answer in detail each of your reported issues, with hopes of offering help, only to find you really not interested in workarounds, nor in understanding the process of how bugs are classified and resolved.

I wonder if you think a continuous stream of bad-mouthing a software program-- which many of us here enjoy using-- may dissuade others from  purchasing it? It's clearly the goal of alexcoppo and CobraEye (just read the above post from alexcoppo).

As such, my goal is to provide a counter voice of reason, fact and example to inflamatory posts from you and those mentioned above.

CobraEye, 

I did Google "vue 7 rip off" and found only 3 references to it. Two comments, similar to yours, on forums of other 3D products. In fact one of the companies is in direct competition with Vue. No surprise.

Interestingly, just like yourself, there is no contact link, or any other sort of validating information for either of the posters. It's almost as if they don't want to be identified.

The other link was actually here on Renderosity where unbelievably someone was actually calling the FREE version of Pioneer a 'rip-off.' Had a good chuckle on that one! 

 For stills, I prefer adding DOF in Photoshop-- as it's much faster.

You may wish to check it this old tutorial I did awhile back...

http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueStepbyStep/AddingDOFinPhotoshop.htm

Quote -
Remember that when you talk about lawsuits, right is always on the side with the deepest pockets (a.k.a. most cunning and dastardly lawyers).

From what I see in threads about 7.4/7.5 here and on Cornucopia, it is likely that E-On is saving on QCA (quality control and assurance) resources and personel; maybe the reason is that they are creating monetary resources for their legal department...

Sorry Alex, can't let you get away with such a purposeful snide comment...and you complain about being called a troll. How do you expect people to take you seriously?

 Pnina,

Knowing a bug exists and having a recipe for it are two completely different things. When trying to fix bugs in my own software products, it is substantially easier if I have a recipe for fixing a bug, than if I don't have a reliable way of creating the bad behavior-- and thus testing my fix for it.

Another way of looking at it is: Just because a recipe doesn't exist, doesn't mean the bug doesn't exist. It just may be harder to identify what causes it. Once the cause is known and reproducable, typically the resolution is much simpler.

It sort of like cars. Your car makes a funny sound, you take it in to the dealer to fix, but now the sound is gone. The dealer is sure you're telling the truth about the sound, but cannot figure out how to fix a sound, unless he can reproduce it.

HTH,
Chipp

Quote - They still did nothing about the worst bug - the dislexia. Without fixing that they really cant claim vue is working on the MAC it's a horrible horrible(and may I add -horrible!) bug. They claim they are still investigating it, but that is of no help to me and other mac uers.

Were you ever able to provide a working and reproducible recipe for this bug? If so, then I don't understand why it wouldn't be fixed immediately as I could certainly understand how frustrating such a problem would be.

 I would expect nothing less in terms of bold assertions and implicit threats from one who calls himself  "bishop666." As usual, nothing in his gallery. Good luck with your lawsuit.

 Stunning work! Can't wait to see more. Very impressive :-)

 Jacob,

Perhaps trying an even larger number, say 1000, may work?