Given the fact this new program seems very buggy, one would think E-on would extend the "discount" pricing schedule until they get it fixed. I mean, E-on really couldn't expect anyone to buy it after reading the threads here. And a good, honest company wouldn't want their customers buying a faulty product, which is why I'm amazed E-on even released Pro in its present state. A response from E-on on this would be most welcome.

Too harsh an assessment after reading just some of these posted threads! And the way this is worded makes a specific reply from e-on unlikely. Vue Pro works just fine for me. Have had ZERO installation problems with my copy. It looks like SOME serial numbers are giving people problems. It looks like some installation problems for people who are installing VUE Pro in immediate proximity to an existing copy of Vue 4.

Hmm...I didn't think I was being harsh. And I think I caught most of the threads about Vue4Pro. Here are some quotes I pulled from a few of them: probs i got already ,cant import poser scenes in pro i tryed inporting the extra plants on the cd but it asks for the serial numbers for the plants i dont have the serial numbers and i cant find them on the cd..very annoying My GL worked great in Vue 4, but does not work in Vue Pro what do we reallly have - a very expensive upgrade for VUE4!...I will continue to use it once most of the bugs are fixed and it is very bugy So, like me disappointment reins I tried the update but it does not seem to have fixed the issue with rendercows I got the Update too. It did not fix my extra plants install problem When importing a scene from Poser 5 VuePro says it can't recognize the format .jpg for textures! I also had the CDs loose in the package. Unfortunately there was some kind of glue on the app.CD so it couldn't install I'm so pleased with the bits of Vue4 Pro that do work, I've decided to stop failing to make animation and try to make my first static scene. Have found the application a little unsteady (crashes a lot) but will continue to persue with it. And even worse, one of the CDs had fallen out of the pocket and had loose inside that folder. I did read the text 'Applicaton' on it and with shivering hands i turned it around. ARGHHH several ugly scratch marks!!! This totally new CD looks worse than any of my 10 yaer old CDs. Very bad packaging. After import of the scene textures ar missplaced Given comments like these, how could I come to any other assessment?

I have had similar thoughts and although contemplating purchasing Vue Pro, after seeing the many negative comments here and at other forums, I've decided to hold tight to my Vue 4, which works quite well thank you! :) Irene

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT Stop scaring me :( , I just ordered my copy of vue pro, please stop scaring me guys. As a matter of fact I am having some problems too even though my copy hasn't arrived. Hopefully e-on and GOD will help me with this.

Oh, I guess this is really what is bothering me. Some people are experiencing some problems, no doubt, and they are very active here, as they should be, this is what the Forum is for. But the fact that the software works for a lot of others of us is obscured. It would help to keep some of the complaints in perspective. Yes, the CDs might have been packaged in a more secure way. This caused a genuine problem for several people. May not have been worth the implication that that the company is totally unprofessional and produces crappy software, however. It appears that an awful lot of people purchased Vue Pro, basically hoping that it is essentially an upgrade over the standard Vue. Is not the case. The software does introduce a substantial set of new features and interchangability for people who work across a lot of platforms. It is a great fix for MAX and MAYA, two enormously expensive products in which scene and landscape modelling are almost impossible without $2500 worth of add-on products. This is pretty much what the purpose of the software was advertised as being. Other good folks, such as Timoteo1, want some expansions and improvements in some of the specialized feature sets, such as animation and importation of Poser scenes and figures. I guess the lack of these are being called "deficiencies" in the basic product, in quotes and in shouting capital letters. This does bother me a bit, precisely because it discourages people from obtaining the software and using it for its basic purposes. I'd never want to criticize Bryce users of World Construction Set users, or all those folks that have purchased the various expensive landscape and atmospheric add-ons for MAX and Maya at $500 a pop, but the plain fact is the Vue is simply the best, most reasonably priced product of its kind in the marketplace. It could stand to have some additonal features, more plants, improvements of a wide variety of sorts. How do we go about getting e-on software to add these things and make some improvements? I'm not sure its by discouraging would-be buyers of the product, and filling up a forum with accusations that the software is first-class crappy. But then, I'm old and more patient, and besides Guitta told us to "behave" while she's gone, and I probably haven't done that here.

well, I've decided to wait as well...having read the same threads... I'm not in the mood to have problems..old, but not patient :) And, unfortunately, unless E-on decides to extend their less expensive upgrade offer, I will not be buying the pro product, I guess. As an aside, I've found some pretty interesting vegetation sold at RDNA...now if I could only get the transpareny to work correctly, would at least be happy with that...until E-on puts the plant editor in Esprit (please ????) And I would buy that as a stand alone plug in....PLEASE ???

Hello all, Forester, thanks for the support!:-) Ill do my best to answer questions where I can. I dont have Guitta's technical expertise, only the black heart of a deceitful sales and marketing weasel ;-) Regarding the technical issues -- we are working on them. Not all issues show themselves during a beta cycle, but as they appear, we will address them. Vue 4 Professional has a new implementation of OpenGL which is superior to what is in Vue d'Esprit. Dont be put off by the dialog that says your video card isnt supported. All that means is that it hasnt been tested with your hardware and driver combination. Someone asked about ATI Radeon 9600 Pro for example, a fairly common card. We havent completed rigorous testing with that card, but that doesnt mean you cannot use the OpenGL engine -- my box uses the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro and it works just fine. If you've downloaded the recent betas, you'll see we are completing basic Poser 5 support. Our friends at Curious Labs and Daz have been very helpful, but essentially we are hosting the vast majority of the Poser application within a Vue framework, which isnt an easy task. Three of the complaints listed above are all the same issue -- loose CDs. We are looking to resolve this. Im about to post reminders on the pricing, but the introductory price is just about over (October 15). Vue 4 Professional has not been marketed as the upgrade to Vue d'Esprit. The upgrade to Vue d'Esprit will be Esprit 5, which will have pricing comparable to our Vue 3 to Vue 4 pricing. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

bummer Lynn.... I, for one, am not looking to upgrade to Vue Pro as an upgrade to Vue dEprit, but as an opportunity to purchase a professional level program with features I would like to have. Unfortunately for you, and for me, I cannot justify my wallet by purchasing a product that is not fully functional at this time...yes , you are working on the problems, and you will fix them. However, the pricing right now at $299 for Vue 4 users is very attractive, but even at that inexpensive cost, I will not hand over my cash on a product that needs repair...and that is what is unfortunate to me..and to probably quite a few others sitting on the fence, waiting to see the release conditon of the Pro product...and now also realizing E-on will not extend the discounted pricing. So, you have an opportunity to upgrade many of the Esprit owners to Pro, but they will pass because of its current condition...and will pass even though the price is now right...but will not buy at the higher normal price. This also puts me in the position of a big IF on upgrading my Vue 4 to 5... it greatly depends on what added features are present, opengl function, and so forth. Plant editor..you already stated before..no...so already strikes against Vue 5... the price is not the only issue...but with purchasing Vue Pro it has become the issue under the circumstances..at least for me...I can't write it off on an expense account or as work related expense. But no fear...I have already realized I'm not going to buy Pro....unless the introductory price is extended to when the issues are resolved.

Forester, I agree with you that the people who have had basically a good experience haven't been heard from much. i too had a flawless install and have enjoyed working with the product. I am not trying to integrate it with other products like Poser however, which cuts down on the problems. I'm just using it (and enjoying it immensely, I must admit) to create scenes. Open GL finally works for me and I'm thrilled. I wish there were more new plants, but I'm getting by with 3dplants.com and will master the new plant editor in time. Was it worth the big bucks? I think this will become a class A product. A few kinks to work out though. Perhaps I, like you, am more patient.

I purchased Vue4Pro to use in conjunction with Lightwave. We do architectural visualization and for what it should be able to do and for that VERY low price we had to give it a try. We've used Vue d'Esprit 4 and love the ease of use and were very pleased when a Pro version was announced. We've got World Builder Standard 3.0 and to upgrade that to something workable with Lightwave will cost quite a bit. We've also got World Construction Set 4.5 and had way too much trouble to get it to play nice with LW. So... most of our "stuff" was done natively in LW and we haven't used either of the higher-end programs listed above.

Unfortunately we haven't had much time to "play" around with Vue4Pro. What we've seen we've liked. It's still as intuitive as Vue d'Esprit 4. We did have a problem with the install (Step 6 tutorial) but all we had to do was go back and do a simple, no frills install. No problem. We've had problems with texture translation between the two programs - Steve Bell informed us that this is one of the things being worked on. Excellent! Hopefully the patch due soon will address most of the issues. I sincerely have high hopes for this newer version of Vue and am looking forward to a rock-solid piece of software in the months to come. And... I think that E-On will make sure that we get it. After all, they'll want us to upgrade to Vue5Pro!

Megalodon

PS. For those who are waiting for all of the bugs to be gone before you buy... unless you're seriously strapped for cash, you might just want to take the plunge before the intro pricing fades away. Vue4Pro is not perfect right now, but just wait (and not too long) till it is! As Forester said above, Vue4Pro is the "most reasonably priced product of its kind in the marketplace." It seriously has the capability to outperform World Builder and World Construction Set - both are quite a bit higher in price!

PPS. I don't work for E-On... I just like their products! :)

Will there be a sidegrade pricing from Vue4Pro to Vue5? I really do feel that I made a misstake buying it. I'm sure it in time will be worth the cost for those that need to move stuff between highend 3D applications and Vue. I, as a prosumer had to admit to myself that the only thing in Vue4Pro that really have any worth to me (especially taking the very limited use of the plant editor into consideration) are the rendercows and better working OpenGl. I had real doubts about the value of Pro before bying but with the value that I say in a god plant editor together with having some saved money for new software I decided to take the chance. But of course, I should have paid those $100 for the demo (witch it would cost me to wait for it). I did whatever I could to get the information I needed from E-ONs material, but what they not told me about the plant editor made me make a bad choise (as the plant editor was what finally made me go for it). They did say that you could edit existing plants into new spieces but what they not told me was that I can only edit limited stuff such as the pictures for the petals and leafs as well as do adjustements to scale, bending etc and not what really is needed for making new spieces, adjustment to the number of branches, placement of brachment,placement of leafs, number of flowers, the kind of flower, arrangement and so on . I did expect more and not less possibilities than what I could get from freeware(checkout the PlantStudio freeware and you will understand what I mean). This is of course what I think, as a prosumer, with my needs, other people might value it differently. I just want people to now a little more on the stuff that not is mentioned in the advertising. And last..is it not strange that now when E-ON turns to the Professional users with big wallets. Now OpenGl starts to work on consumer video cards while before, when turning to consumers only the Pro card worked ;)

hellborn..thanks for the tidbit on the plant editor.. I was under the impression that it was possible to create whatever tree/plant you wanted in there... but from your statement , it sounds very limited.

Lynn: (Please don't intepret any of this as a personal attack, or an attack of any sort ...)

But this begs the question (and I'll ask it for the upteenth time) ... Why should we have to pay for Vue Pro in order to get proper OpenGL implentation?? (or proper Poser import and timeline control for that matter.)

This is the single most vexing thing about E-on's practices. I bought Vue expecting (as promised) OpenGL support and animated Poser import capabilities that worked properly. Neither were provided, and I honestly feel, as they say, ripped-off.

Finally, why doesn't E-on post their policies in black and white? I can not find a single instance of "return/refund policy" information ANYWHERE. It is not on the site, knowledgebase, nor do your generic 800 number operators have the info. I have also tried calling E-On in Orgeon many times each day for the past week. NO ONE is EVER there to answer the phone ... this is not a very professional attitude or projected image.

I would appreciate a response to these questions at your convenience.

Regards,
Tim

" but the plain fact is the Vue is simply the best, most reasonably priced product of its kind in the marketplace." Pam, you know I love ya' ... but that's NOT a fact. That is very much an opinion. ;) {waves} _Tim

Tim, The new OpenGL implementation isnt the only feature in Vue Pro. What's available in Vue d'Esprit 4 was tweaked a little in 4.2, but it does have an older engine than Vue Pro. The Poser import capabilities arent any different between Vue Pro and Vue d'Esprit. Animated Poser support is only available through Mover 4. The timeline problem you are pointing out is the one in regard to a slow down with the preview you mentioned previously? It seems to work fine for many users. Have you followed up with support about it through our website? Im certain the phone number you are calling is our reseller line, and that it directs you to contact us through our website. Have you followed up through our website? Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

Hi Tim!

" but the plain fact is the Vue is simply the best, most reasonably priced product of its kind in the marketplace."

For me... I was agreeing with Forester looking at the cost and features of World Builder at $999 and then you've got to add another $149 for a Lightwave Communicator. And then there's World Construction Set at $995.

It just seems to me that when you compare the above more expensive programs to Vue4Pro, you get more bang for your buck. And YES, Vue4Pro isn't up to speed... yet. But I think it will be soon. But... you are right - it is our opinion! :)

Megalodon

You're probably right, Tim. It is an opinion. I will concede that. Here's why I think its pretty close to a reasonable professional assessment, however. I am looking at the feature set contained in Vue versus those in say, ... Bryce, World Construction Set, and the various add-on atmosphere and landscaping sets needed for Max, Maya, and Cinema4D to give them an equivalent capacility. I pick the big programs and Cinema4d because they can come close the the same environmental modelling capability as Vue with a little add-on help. But, $595 a pop is the rate for those add-on sets, and you need several (one for atmoshphere, one for landscaping, one for plant stuff, and so forth.) Bryce is very nice (and I do like it for certain things), but speaking from a technical, professional standpoint, it doesn't have as much of a "feature set" as Vue. That is, "as many controls over its capabilites." (I know, I know, ... artists aren't concerned about the comprehensiveness of a programs "feature set.") Anyhow, this is just meaningless hashing back and forth, and besides the point of your particular needs. Just trying to clarify, and concede to your that you are correct; that it is a more or less technical "opinion." I do wish you good luck and fortune in getting your particular needs addressed. We will all benefit if you do.

Amen, sister. ;)

"The new OpenGL implementation isnt the only feature in Vue Pro. What's available in Vue d'Esprit 4 was tweaked a little in 4.2, but it does have an older engine than Vue Pro.

Right, I realize Pro is more than just enhanced (or really, should be called WORKING) OpenGL implementation. But what I'm saying is, from a consumer stand point, why should people who expected OpenGL to work in Vue 4 (based on product advertising, press, etc.) be required to buy PRO just to have what should have been in Vue 4. Or, better yet, why didn't they fix the OpenGL issue in Vue 4 before releasing Vue Pro. Sorry, but it really feels like a slap in the face. The same can be said for Poser animation import, if it indeed works better in PRO.

Thanks again for your time Lynn. And please realize I'm only directing these inquiries toward you because you appear to be the only E-On rep that makes an appearance here. I realize too that you don't make these decisions for the most part, but I would appreciate it if you could pass these concerns on to whomever does.

Thanks,
Tim

Sorry, forgot about these: "The Poser import capabilities arent any different between Vue Pro and Vue d'Esprit. Animated Poser support is only available through Mover 4." Well that's very disheartening to hear, but thanks for the honest info. "The timeline problem you are pointing out is the one in regard to a slow down with the preview you mentioned previously?" Yes, this is the one. The timeline cursor does not respond in realtime or anything close to realtime. The main window (or any of the views) also are VERY sluggish. The preview is a seperate issue, buts still related to post-Poser import. It seems to work fine for many users. Have you followed up with support about it through our website? I don't know if that is true. I have yet to find more than one person who uses Vue to import Poser animations (other than Philippe, but he's on a Mac) that claims they can scroll the timeline smoothly after import. Unless it is a Win2K issue, which is possible. I did send this info and a link to my posts to support on the web site, hopefully they can shed some light. Thanks, Lynn. -Tim

I am regretting the decision myself, not because I expected a lot of updates from Vue 4, but I expected the ones that I had gotten it for to work or to be somewhat robust considering it was a professional grade program or so was advertised. I had even more of a chance to play with it, and after several crashes during openGL and undo functions, I gave up and went back to Vue 4. Which sucks after paying $300. Maybe I'm ranting and whining, but I truly despise software companies that release bug centers, keep your money, and then promise some fix later on. Any other industry would be responsible for refunds for that, but not the software companies. I have to agree that I could not in good conscience recommend Vue 4 Pro to anyone, professional or otherwise until the bugs are worked out. Course it will be an extra $100 by then, so maybe it will work. Maybe.

ShadowWind

PS: I love Vue 4, very happy with it, is very stable, works great...

Other than Philippe, but he's on a Mac..
It's wrong. I work with PC.

If it works for you, it's a good deal, a great deal, but if it doesn't, it's an expensive CD coaster...

Sorry Philippe, I thought in one of our earlier conversations you said you worked on a Mac. (And with all the Quicktime movies, it added up. ;) ) Did you recently switch to a PC? In any case, just curious as to what OS you're using? I'm trying to nail down if it might be a WIN2K issue. You apparently don't have the same problem I do with the timeline srubbing responsiveness, as we have discussed in the past. Thanks, Tim