Which version of VUE do I use?

Well, recently I've been using Vue 6 Infinite (aka V6i) to create some artwork. (see my Renderosity gallery)

Years ago I'd bought/upgraded to that version from a lineage of using VUE versions from way back in Vue d' Esprit days, to 5, 6, then 6 Infinite. And Infinite cost a lot of money for me, one of my most expensive online purchases in one instance, especially with the time of currency conversion with the Australian dollar always below the US dollar amount making any purchases more expensive for Australians.

However, I failed to be able to upgrade from there because of ongoing financial pressures here at home over the years, and so I unfortunately lapsed on the upgrade trail and receiving discounts. :-(

I was waiting to be able to afford a new computer, one that was powerful enough to use the newer versions of software I had and was getting with other upgrade pricings but it was always elusive and a struggle.

Finally, years later, we were able to afford new computers around November 2013 and would you believe it? - Just around that same time we ran into more hard financial pressures here at home.  - But luckliy we got our computers as they're going to serve us for years to come just like all our others have done in the past.

I'm using Windows 8.1 64 bit, with 32 gigs of memory, etc, etc.

Flash forward to now and since the computer was capable and had plenty of memory, I wondered how Vue 6 Infinite would fair. I got it installed (after having to download a fresh copy from my account from e-on's site since I couldn't find my own burned-off discs of my previous downloads from years ago), and I had a go at using it.

I'd forgotten how much I liked just playing with VUE, doing stuff and enjoying how things evolved with an image or inspired something else. However, I've had horrible display problems with V6i. Most of the time I struggled to see properly in the program where I was placing things etc, and since I now use Poser Pro 2014, the only way I could use Poser stuff was exporting it from Poser as OBJ's. - I wondered if I should dig out my old Poser 7 and install that to get Poser compatibility again but I finally decided to see about getting the current version of VUE to get back that interoperability.

I saw that great purchase offer from e-on about their "Architectural Bundles" but at the time glanced over it mistakenly thinking it was for a lesser version of VUE. (I'd previously investigated and decided I wanted "Vue Complete 2014" because it contained what I had in V6i and was used to, never minding the vastly more features and capabilities that the newer version had of course.)

So a few days ago I bought "Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle" because it was on sale and even with the Australian dollar only being around 90c of a US dollar, I saved well over a hundred Australian dollars when compared to the normal download price of what I wanted anyway, I got the 2014 COMPLETE version of VUE, and got a bonus Sketchup export/import plugin should I be so inclined to use it to get so many of those free Sketchup models into VUE to use.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/news/blog/index.php?post/2014/03/21/Save-25-on-the-VUE-Architectural-Bundles

***** The SALE price of the bundle offer ends on the 7-JAN-2014. *****

My download of that purchase was Vue Complete version 12 build 12002151 (that's what the program says in it's 'about' splash screen box)

You get Vue Complete as a download and it's the entire thing. (There seems not to be any special 'Architectural' version of it, it's a bundle deal of seperate products.)

The downloads are made available as standard ZIP files so you can safely save them off. - The downloads will all easily fit on a single ordinary blank DVD.

The 3 downloads you are made available to during the online purchasing process are:

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Application) -- The download file is called "Vue2014Artist" which gave me a heart attack at first but I suspect it's named that because it's in e-on's  'artist' line of products.

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Extras Disk) -- (a 2.5 gig download, a single file which you can expand out out later on your hard to about a 3.9 gig in size)

• Vue Complete 2014 Architectural Bundle(Sketchup to Vue Exporter) -- containing the $49.95 product from Cornucopia's site. (I haven't played with this yet.)

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=8911

And in case you wondering if you'd ever use that plugin, here's a link to Sketchup's repository of free models online. So many made by users of all sorts of things and in varying quality.

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/

So for me right now it means I'm back to learning how to drive again a program that I'd only just started learning from years back with an older version but at least I know a little of what I'm doing and not coming into things from scratch. :-)

I'd made artwork before with V6i and what I liked best about it was the ease of making more natural or more credible landscapes. I no longer have any display problems with using this version of VUE, and things seem slick and smooth though it DOES crash at times much like every version of VUE I've ever used.

My next big investment (when I can afford it) will be e-on's "Plant Factory Artist", the cheaper 'speciality' version of that plant/tree making software that integrates into VUE itself.

Incidentally, e-on's own store as well as Conucopia3D looks and operates much better than it did so many years ago when I used it. The idea of a 'buyers club' at Cornucopia3D is good which gives plenty of scope to obtain products to use with VUE at cheaper pricings and is what I'll also get into, (just like with DAZ, and Renderosity, both of which I'm also a member of).

BTW, I've bought several great VUE products from Renderosity's own store but I've noticed that a lot of them have now evaporated and are no longer available at least from the Renderosity store. If they work okay in this current version of VUE then I'll still be using those purchases from years back with it.

And in case you were wondering, yes, those old Renderosity purchases from many years ago, even if they're no longer available in the store itself are still available to download from my Renderosity Account section. Which comes in handy when I can't find my burned-off discs of my store purchases. :-)

Lastly, there's also all those free Poser and 3D models on the net (such as from sharecg.com) which I have used and will continue to do so, made by great people who share their stuff for free.

Whoo! - December 2009 and this very helpful tute is still satisfying. - Thanks!

Ratracer, good luck mate on whatever you're doing.

Those of us who've purchased your stuff will of course be using them to good effect for some time to come.

:SIGH:
Still sad to see your stuff leaving though.

:sad:

Quote - Items in the Clearance section are available up to 60 days after their last sale.

The minimum time they will be in Clearance is 60 days.

How are we as buyers supposed to know when that period starts or finishes?
As far as I can see there's nothing on product pages or elswhere to indicate a time period.  :-

I wouldn't mind having this myself because I've always liked the GIRL's 'euro' styled head.

So please consider this a request from me for her. (secret handshake included in brown envelope)

Just thought I'd post a message saying I had something weird happening tonight with my changing of my avatar image.

I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.4 and I was in the "my options" section ready to upload a new avatar.
I deleted my (then) current avatar, (the page auto-refreshed okay and now showed no avatar), then I pointed to where my graphic file was and hit the ol'  "save changes" button at the bottom of the page.

The thing was that my old avatar kept getting displayed on the "my options" page.

Eventually I pulled up a Rendo webpage of a gallery image of mine in another tab and could see that the new avatar was being correctly displayed.

Later on when I logged off and came back again all was fine but I decided to do some more playing with my avatar. - When I went through the process again to update my current avatar to the newest one of my hard drive, the original old one from two versions ago was being displayed on the "my options" page.

Once again I confirmed that the newest avatar had taken hold and was being displayed on a gallery page of mine but it's all a bit weird.

Either Rendo's server is hanging onto the avatar image or my Firefox browser is sometimes. :-)

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it because it was all a bit confusing there for awhile today. :-P

About the subject of exporting MATs out, then making new libraries without the 'bloat' of stuff that's not supposed to be there and should have been deleted....

That is, you delete an item from a library but it only deletes the thumbnail, not the actual library item itself.

Does the new version 5.5 of Bryce suffer from the same bug?

BTW, doesn't that bug exist for all the libraries not just the material presets?

It's a chore to carefully de-bloat my libraries, mainly the ones that get deletions a lot. To counter that I created various temp libraries so I could lessen the number of libraries to de-bloat, mainly when I'm testing and experimenting with MATs. - Works for me. :-)