RenderCows are indeed a mess on the Mac platform right now. I've had it confirmed via Support that in the latest build, it just doesn't work, full-stop.

I've gone back down to the previous build - 290396 - and my DEM animation renders using the Cows (3 Macs, 2 PCs). Generally, it all grinds to a halt (not crashes) about 400 frames in, and all the Cows become stuck. I've set it going again, and it's all stopped at 167 frames. Luckily it does recover all of the rendered frames, and I'm piecing it together manually.

E-On really need to sort this out once and for all, because for those of us that use V6I for professional work are going to have to search for something else. I really do have a love / hate relationship with Vue...

sighs

I can completely understand why the Ranch only want to accept a single .vue file!

I'm just musing on a way to get an animated Poser file to be incorporated into a single .vue file to I can collaborate more easily with colleagues.

As to why Poser cannot create a single file which contains all geometry, animation and textures is quite beyond me though. Sharing Poser files that you have created completely yourself (or based upon the characters that ship with Poser) is not illegal, certainly not here in the UK!

Thanks Wabe,

Saving the pz3 as a vob is such a simple solution that I didn't think of it! I'll give it a test.

It's a shame that animations require a live link to the pz3 - but this wouldn't be such a bad thing if you could bundle all of the pz3's textures into one file - making portability much easier. Does Poser 7 offer this?

I've just seen the latest newsletter from e-on, which mentions the Ranch Computing render farm, and it looks like they will only accept a single .vue file. A shame if you have a complex animation with lots of animated Poser characters!

Cheers,

Tom

EcoSystems Generation II are worth it alone for the type of work I do!

This does look like a significant upgrade, and worth the upgrade cost!

Hi Joe, That sounds great - just what I'm after. Since we're potentially in the market for a new camera, I'll have a look at it! Has anyone else looked at a setup like this, or used Zoombrowser? Cheers, Tom

Following Yggdrasil's fine example - EcoSystems can be used in mixed materials, and therefore, mixed bitmaps for placement...

The edges of the ecosystems can react to each other in various ways. This is a very powerful system!

The above image was created from scratch and rendered in less than 10 mins (probably shows) on a P4 2Ghz with 1Gb RAM ;-)

Oh, and it's 147,588,900 polys.

I echo Wabe again ;-) By modelling, I mean setting the scene (composition)... As for networking - if you are not already connected to a network (LAN), and you want to create one, you can set one machine to configure the others automatically (it's called DHCP). You will need to give this machine an IP address (it's in Windows Networking under TCP/IP), which could be 192.168.0.1 - I'm sure there are lots of tutorials out there, and I believe Windows XP even has a networking 'wizard' although I've never tried it. HyperVue network rendering is amazing for large animations/stills...

It isn't just about benchmarks, it's also about stability! I'm the same as Wabe - I use Vue on both Mac and PC platforms. I prefer, as Wabe, to do the modelling on a Mac, then send files out to a PC render farm. I have found that Vue 4 Pro crashes less on my dual G5, and that it is very fast and responsive. When it does crash (that's inevitable), it is a very quick process, and doesn't affect the rest of the OS in any way. I can relaunch immediately, no wait, and carry on. On the dual Pentium Xeon 3Ghz, it takes slightly longer to open (the same) files, and doesn't seem quite as stable. But it is a great workhorse for rendering. There are a number of reasons why it might not be as stable on the PC I use, and it could be down to the graphics card drivers. There are a limited number of gfx cards for the Mac, and therefore easier for E-On to test. There are hundreds for the PC, so less easy to test each configuration (I'm guessing here!). So - if you have fast machines (Mac and PC) I would recommend installing it on the Mac, and using the PC as a RenderCow, as stability is my main consideration... But that's just me ;-)

Does anyone else find that Vue4Pro doesn't handle billboards (alpha planes) very well? I have tried creating 1000 alpha planes scattered aross a terrain and it seems rather unhappy to say the least. Anyone been able to put 1000s of alpha planes in with no trouble? Cheers, Tom

impish - it does have to be an animation - but I had no idea you could track an alpha plane to a camera - an excellent tip - thanks! And agiel - thanks for the tutorial link...

Thanks for the tip Polax! I've successfully created about 2000 trees and a terrain which Vue 4 reckoned to be about 250million polys (2.5Ghz P4, 1Gb RAM)! It's just a test at this stage, and looks pretty rubbish because I haven't varied the positions of the trees etc, just proof of concept. Looks like Vue is the way to go (considering the SpeedTree addon to my copy of MAX is of similar price as Vue 4 Pro now it's reduced). Probably best to get Pro and upgrade if I need to. Cheers for the tips - when the project is underway I'll post some images on the forum.

Thanks for that Polax, I have a copy of Vue 4, but am looking at getting Vue 4 Pro, or Vue 5 Infinite if it's released early in January. How well does it handle hundreds of trees? I opened a standard tree (fir) and created 300 copies, and it coped well, but the landscape seemed quite barren still - and with a terrain it was 4.2million polys. I'm not sure if it would handle much more! Not sure if Vue is good for dense forestry...

Great! That sounds promising. It should be very nice indeed on the G5 with loads of RAM, in that case :-)