I am running Poser 4 on a mac and will be going to Vue and possibly Poser 5...if I like what I hear. I am aware of the specials offered by both companies but I need to resolve some questions before I part with my hard earned chump change. I need to be able to import a full Pz3 Poser file with multiple interacting characters and necessary clothes and props and background dimensional elements into an app as is and just render....especially lovely real world environments which is what Vue is touted for being capable of. I read a tutorial of doing a similar set-up in Bryce and got the chills reading about all the work necessary even contemplating this and decided Bryce wasn't my ticket. Before I get Vue I need to know these things. 1. Will Vue import fully textured multiple interactive characters and multi prop Pz3 files? 2. Will it work with Poser 4 files or only Poser 5? 3. If only Poser 5 files, is there a way of getting Poser 4 files into Vue say via an open and re-save out of Poser 5 and what are the limitations trying that? 4. Is it only Native Mac OS X compatible? 5. What is the big difference (and it ought to be BIG by the difference in the price!) between Vue 4x and Vue Pro? I won't be doing ANY animations...just still rendering. If anyone from Poser and Vue are here together or anyone prolific using both apps on a Mac read this and can answer please help before the offer expires...Just In Case!!! LOL

Hi, I can help. I don't do animations either, just stills. I have a mac and OSX and poser 4. Vue pro is much better than ordinary vue but both will import your whole PZ3 - all characters and textures, just not lights which you don't need anyway as the vue lights are better. I found with the ordinary vue that when I reopened a scene I'd saved with the poser 4 figures it would then ask me for all the different texture locations. There is a way around this, but it's not a problem at all with vue pro - every time I open a scene in vue, all my little poser people are all hapilly in it and it loads quite quickly even on my underpowered older G4 500 dual mac. I changed to panther recently from OS X.2 and I found that poser 4 slowed down. I wrote to CL and they suggested putting poser 4 folder on my boot drive. This has helped but poser is still fairly slow. HOpe this helps. I love vue and poser together!!! Love esther

Hi Shante, just go for it! I have the same machine as Esther (G4 MP 500, 1.2 GB RAM) and Poser4 and Vue 4.2 work together very nicely. I also have Vue Pro, but had no time to give it a try so far...too much time needed for other stuff right now. ;) If you have any question about the whole Poser-import thingie I'd more than happy to help you out. Btw. I don't do animations either, just stills like estherau. Cheers, Phil

Cool. Thanks to both of you. Appreciated the feedback. But still not too clear what the big difference between Vue 4 and Vue Pro? With the great difference in price I really need some clear jargon as to why I should pick one over the other. If that good I am willing to fork over the extra mulah for the Pro version and tackle the learning curve. But if I can get the same results useing the less expensive w/o much more work, render time, etc, then I'd be foolish going with the Pro version. Any others?

Oh! I forgot to ask you both. How complex are your PZ3 files? I am using anywhere from 1 to 6 characters in any one image (which sucks in P4 having to work in binding box mode to tweak their interactions), and a lot of props and clothes and backgrounds. Will ALL that go into Vue as well? Of course the figures will not be poseable within Vue either, right? Estherau: you seem to think Vue Pro will be less hassle prone when reopening saved files w/Pz3 files in it? Why does it have a problem? Once it imports a Pz3 and you add all the additional Vue stuff (skies, ground, lights etc) doean't it then become a native Vue file? You can't really seperate the Pz3 stuff from the final Vue file once saved out as a native Vue file can you? Sorry for all the stupid questions but I have made so many mistakes ordering stuff in the past only to be frustrated once in hand because I find out too late I didn't get the whole picture of LIMITATIONS I don't want to make the same darn mistake again. Thanks again for your continued help. :)

Okay, well when you save the vue scene with all your little poser people that you imported when you imported the pz3 as an object you then save the scene in vue. When you open that vue scene at a later date, it can't find the textures for your poser people unless you have vue pro, so you need to tell it where all the textures are. Some people put all their poser textures into a folder in vue but it's not all that simple as you can't have subfolders. Now with vue pro there is no problem at all. YOu just open your vue scene and all yo7ur little poser peole and their textures load beautifully. and I found something else cool with vue pro (not in vue 4), that if you change the pz3 in poser, then vue asks you if you want to change the vue scene and if you click yes you get the new pose in your vue scene yet all the sizing and position is still the same. Hope I'm being clear. Love esther

shante, I have Vue Pro myself, but until I had no time to install it and play with it - no joke! ;) So I can only talk about Vue... As Esther already said you have to put all you Poser-related textures in the Bitmap-folder of Vue. That's a little bit annoying, but as far as I know this "bug" has been removed in Vue Pro. Regading your question about complexity... In my recent image "Go Away!" I imported nearly everything from Poser. Overall the file finally had more than 5 million polygons in it! Some people might ask why I didn't do the whole scene with Poser, but since I don't like the way the images look like with Poser I mainly use Vue for the final results. You can do much better ligthning in Vue and the materials can be enhanced a lot, too. If you have any other questions you can contact me through IM as well. Best regards, Phil

Thanks again. Esther: So when it asks for textures it can't find, does it take as long as Poser does to re-apply it when you tell Vue 4 where the tex is? You know, Body tex for all the body parts one part at a time etc or does it just say Oh here is the tex so I can apply it/them as needed here throughout this character and quickly move to the next. Poser drives me nuts to re-apply a misplaced texture. It takes so darn long!I just can't imagine reapplying all the textures at the same pace in Vue. Also, can you assign several paths for textures in Vue 4? Say, when setting up preferences the app can find some here on HD 1 and some there on HD 2 and some on this boot drive with the original Poser/Vue Runtime. Or do all textures for all PZ3 and Vue native files need to be in one specific folder somewhere as in Runtime>Tex? Also, Esther, I think you mentioned: "... there is a way around this..." What is it? Is there a function in Vue 4 that once all the textures are in place, you can click a button (like in Quark or Pagemaker and some other 3d apps) allowing you to collect for output thus consolidating all necessary tex for the file into one as designated folder? God that would help sooo darn much! Phil: I saw the render. Pretty cool. What was actually applied in Poser and what was added in Vue? For a scene like that what file size did you have to deal with and how do you move elements around the stage in Vue (hope it's not in binding box!) and how ling would a scene like this take to render? To both of you: Someone told me Vue 4 which works in OSX on the Mac only imports Poser 5 PZ3 files. Yet yere you both gave the impression you are working with Poser4. What the poop on that? Was the learning curve very high for Vue? I am having trouble setting my digital radio controls on my new car so a steep learning curve will also be a detriment to my numb mind! :( Also, like seeing results of some of the functions and Phil's piece and any answers he might be able to provide me as to how the image was done will also help. Do either of you have any more links to images done with this combo? Sorry for all these dumb questions. You guys are really helping me out here. I truely appreciate this!