Lots of good models. Thanks for the link!

Thanks! You guys are invaluable : ) !!

Philywebrider - I had the same problem with nothing on the paint tab working. Actually the 2d brushes would work until I switched to a 3d brush, then after that neither the 2d nor 3d would work.  I have an Intuos 3 on Windows 7 64-bit. Before narrowing my problem down to a conflict with the Wacom and the gigaware usb mouse (standard mouse, nothing fancy, from Radioshack) I updated all drivers (nvidia, wacom) and Vue (I'm running build 47776).

It's a pity I couldn't solve the problem without disconnecting the usb mouse, because I liked it better than the wacom mouse - it's more responsive. I did submit a ticket to eon, but I've not heard anything back.

Really it appears it was more of a driver/hardware problem on my setup than a Vue problem anyway. It doesn't seem to be a common problem. You're the first person I've some across with something similar. Good luck on getting 3d sculpting to work, it's a nice feature.

Do you by any chance have a Wacom and a regular mouse hooked up to your computer? I found I had to remove my regular (usb) mouse and only use my Wacom to get sculpting working properly.

Just wanted to echo what others have said about the quality of the pdf tutorial and additional files. You've really given us "cloud control"! What fun : )

May have something to do with the camera position in the scene - make sure pitch is at 90, roll 0, yaw can vary.

You guys have been pretty quiet these last few weeks, so I figured you were very busy developing new tutorials for us. They are much appreciated!!  Thank you : )

The 30-day maintenance plan mentioned in the email is for version 8, which those of us on maintenance for version 7/7.5 get as part of that maintenance plan (which if for our 7 licenses). So if you want to get 8.5 as part of your maintenance plan - it will probably be cheaper to pay for maintenance and get 8.5 "free" as part of the maintenance agreement on your 8 license, than it will be to just buy an upgrade to 8.5 from 8. At least that's how understand it

If I were you, I wouldn't expect a whole lot of help after the "another 72 clueless hobbyists" comment. Peggy has more patience than I do....

Unless Vue is your only option, I would go with another program for animation with the object you've shown (perhaps vegetation shows up somewhere in your animation?)

As jc said - materials on your rubber boat, bobber, and decking need more work - wear and tear. I would also work on the row boat, shed, and two signs at the end of the dock (and the planking on the upper sign too which is grey and grainy like an old plank, but doesn't have any cracks). Anything that spends some time in the water (or very near it) and sun shows quite a bit of wear and tear.

Personally, I don't have any problems with hard shadows on a sunny day, but it's a matter of taste and sometimes I'll soften them because I think they look better.

The logs also would never be so perfectly round, and could use some cracks running up and down and moss and algae near the water. Your log ends look great, just need to rotate them as mentioned by jc and add a little moss/algae at the waterline.

Your one hill on the left side has too smooth a silhouette among the trees

Other than that up your render quality and you'll be close

I like your scene : )  Hope you'll show us how it turns out

That's a great site jonj1611 and the prices are very reasonable. Thanks for the link :)

One of my favorites is imageafter.com

Unfortunately part 2 of the download keeps timing out on me. I'll have to try later.

Have fun those that are successful in getting it to download now :)

If you have the plant editor available to you, set the length and width of the leaves to -100 (learned that in one of the latest geekatplay tutorials)

Walli has several grass packs available - I purchased mine at cornucopia3d. Good luck!