The more I play with HDRI lighting in Vue 5, the more I am convinced that E-on has a MAJOR HIT on their hands...

My suggestion is: E-on should go out and create their own unique HDRI files and turn them in HDRI Vue Atmospheres- so that you simply LOAD THEM like loading an atmosphere now!

For me this HDRI idea seems like a pretty simple concept- but maybe its because I have a photography background. For many others HDRI is a "mystery". But its really very simple-however the concept of "getting there" seems to confuse some out there. So- just make Vue 5 (or Vue 5 Pro) HDRI files as Atmospheres and people will be able to more easily relate to that, I think.

I would further suggest that E-on (or maybe another person, maybe) create a VUE 5 (or Pro) "HDRI Photo Studio"...

The concept of the HDRI Photo Studio would be much like I am showing with the above image- it would consist of a Photo-Real backdrop with an associated HDRI Atmosphere.

The HDRI Photo Studio could have an interior Silk-Satin Posing backdrop- for doing Portraits, Product Shots, Nudes, etc.-with the correct HDRI Lighting Atmosphere.

Another HDRI Photo Studio set could be a City Street with both Daytime and Nightime HDRI Atmospheres. Another with a Country Meadow, a Beach Scene, etc.--all with the right HDRI Atmosphere associated with it...

Obviously too, a HDRI Photo Studio would be compatible with existing products like the DAZ Cyclorama (which is what I am using) but a truely SYNCRONIZED Photo Studio with the CORRECT HDRI Lighting atmosphere would be VERY POPULAR, I believe. There are a LOT of Poser users out there who would buy an EASY-TO-USE Photo Studio setup like this-- and probably buy Vue 5 (or Pro) just FOR this studio purpose!

what they need is better beta testers that find the bugs so bugs don't care through from upgrade to upgrade. Instead customers are the beta testers after they bought the software. Then a demo should come out with 90% of the features enabled so as to leave the user curious. IMO

Veritas777: Yeeh, I really like the HDRI so something in that direction would be great;) bonnyclump: I do agree on the beta testing but I do think it was a lot better done in Vue 5 than it was in Vue4Pro. 90%??? In my opinion everything should work in a demo. If not then its not a demo of what you are going to buy but rather something else. It should have the full functionality except for maybe a max rendersize and/or a watermark and it should work for at least 60 days.

excellent render veritas and i do agree that hdri is realy great. as for testers, i would say its more development time thats needed before going live then again every software i know of needs more development time so e.on isnt any worse then most other developers in that aspect. and im with hellborn on the demo thingy, everything in a demo should be activated with just a limited time restriction and perhaps a rendersize.

These days, economic pressure dictates that software usually has to be released long before all bugs are fixed. Perfect examples are video games that either die under the weight of their own hype after waiting too long or are released too soon and are full of bugs. It is not just a matter of adding more beta testers. Just put yourself into the shoes of a software development company. If you want to fix all bugs in a reasonable amount of time, you need to hire more testers and developers, and have them work around the clock. Which means more expenses. Which in return means a higher selling price to recoup the losses. If you don't care about time and want to release a software when it is ready, you need a lot of cash ahead of time to survive that long (and it can be a very long time). This means finding new investors - not always possible. If you wait too long, you risk to give a chance to competitors to step in and take some of your market shares. At the same time ,your own customers are unhappy that nothing new is coming - look at what happened to Bryce. If you don't wait long enough - you run the risk to leave serious bugs in your release and make people unhappy. And there is the question of new features. If you take the time to develop a lot of new features, you increase development time and the risk to introduce bugs. People have to wait and are unhappy. If you release too soon, people don't see anything new and are still unhappy. In both cases, you have unhappy people no matter what and lots of occasions to bleed cash :) Sometimes I am glad to not own a software company.

YES!- and that's why (heh!) my free marketing advice to E-on is about a way to increase sales into the Poser user base by developing a HDRI Photo Studio concept- (THAT was what my post was about-- not E-on beta-testing.) --Actually- hardly ANYONE has congratulated E-on for such a STABLE and nearly bug-free initial release of Vue 5! I can't remember when any other software company has released such a stable "first version". A pretty remarkable achievement, I think. But, anyway- if a HDRI Photo Studio could help E-on sell more software into the Poser user base, I think that would be a really good thing. I think MANY Poser users have become very frustrated with Poser's outdated software code and are seeking out other software to get better looking renders. Frankly- Poser is becoming a "utility program" and software like VUE could become their MAIN rendering program. It already is for me... One other idea I have thought about is that VUE could ultimately read in Poser runtimes DIRECTLY- including Cr2's, props, etc. The only reason NOT too do this is that Poser can still take most of BLAME (heh!) for things that don't work right in Poser. And frankly, too- I think DAZ has gotten itself WAY off track by buying Bryce and also its very SLOW development of DAZ Studio. DAZ Studio looked very promising 9-10 months ago, but they have seemed to make very little progress with it. With Bryce, they are fighting with a very OLD rendering engine-- meanwhile E-on has gone through at least FIVE software re-writes! I know that many users of higher-end, more EXPENSIVE 3D softwares are somewhat STUNNED at how good Vue has become as as a VALUE. You can't get HDRI QUALITY rendering like in Vue 5 anywhere else, for the price. (Even Dosch says that Cinema 4D version 8 doesn't truely make use of the HDR data...)

"I know that many users of higher-end, more EXPENSIVE 3D softwares are somewhat STUNNED at how good Vue has become as as a VALUE. You can't get HDRI QUALITY rendering like in Vue 5 anywhere else, for the price." What about Carrara? Or XSI Foundation?

Carrara have better quality and speed than this. Sorry Carrara beats it

Carrara does not have : - live previews of your scenes - advanced openGL preview - volumetric atmospheres - negative lights - panoramic view (360 degrees) - DEM files support for terrains - 3D sculpting of terrains (only 2D painting with 3D view) - automatic mapping of HDRI envelopes to the sky and ground seamlessly I could find more that Vue has over Carrara, and of course I could find just as well features that Carrara has over Vue. Both Vue and Carrara beat it depending on what your interest is. That kind of comparison is as meaningless as saying oil paint beats it over watercolors. Both are just tools - try them and chose the one that suits you best.

"That kind of comparison is as meaningless as saying oil paint beats it over watercolors." Well, in direct response to the quote: "You can't get HDRI QUALITY rendering like in Vue 5 anywhere else, for the price." I say, yes... you can. That's not saying other features aren't better/worse for each individual user, just the fact that HDRI isn't anything new in the world of 3D really, and there are other "low-end" solutions that can do it just as good, if not better, than Vue (Carrara, XSI Foundation). Vue certainly didn't invent anything in the way of HDRI that hasn't been out there before, at various price ranges. "I know that many users of higher-end, more EXPENSIVE 3D softwares are somewhat STUNNED at how good Vue has become as as a VALUE." I still say XSI Foundation is a better all-around "value" in terms of rendering than Vue (it uses Mental Ray for god's sake), unless you need to create near-instant 3D environments. However, you can build environments from scratch in XSI if you so desire. HDRI has certainly increased Vue's potential, but in reality, it's not a life-altering enhancement to what essencially is still a landscaping software. I would have taken realistic weather FX and particle dynamics to HDRI any day. I'm waiting for Vue Pro 5 to see if any of these features exist in there.

To be fair, one would have to compare Vue Pro (or Vue Pro 5 when it is out), Carrara Pro and XSI foundation, as they are in the same price range ($500). Vue 5 is around $250, which brings it in a different league (just like Carrara 4 - not pro). Maybe I will have to try out the demo of XSI to see what it looks likt (although I hope it doesn't end up like the kind of learning curve I got trying out Maya PLE :)).

Good luck hope you will find what is useful to you. I am happy with Poser, Carrara, ZBrush, and Vue4 I use Vue4 just to get winding trees Avi in Carrara. Everything else in it are waste. If Vue5 had water dynamics then i probably will switch my project to it.

"Maybe I will have to try out the demo of XSI to see what it looks likt (although I hope it doesn't end up like the kind of learning curve I got trying out Maya PLE :))." Weeeelllll... there's going to be a learning curve involved to say the least. If you've never worked in an XSI interface environment before, you'll be lost. Also, the renderer (Mental Ray) is quite complex and deep. It's a professional-grade rendering engine that has been used before in many movies and television works. It's a production-proven renderer, and it's a tad more complex than the Vue renderer ahem. ;-) So yeah, you'll need a lot more time to learn it. But as with all things worth doing, the effort will pay off in the end. If you're going to try and compare Vue's GI/HDRI capability to what's capable of Mental Ray in XSI, then you'll find there's NO comparison. Mental Ray is one of the absolute best professional-level GI rendering engines in the industry, and one of the ONLY ones that can actually USE GI in a production environment (Brazil and Vray being among the others, but that's a whole different ballgame too). But as I mentioned, Mental Ray will be quite a beast to tame. Good luck. ;-)

Carrara have alot of stuff like mentalray unless I am missing info about it. Can you please post a link to MentalRay review if you have one. Thanks

Attached Link: http://www.mentalimages.com/

I'm sorry, GWeb... Carrara's renderer is simply no match. It's probably one of the best mid-range renderers around... but no match for MentalRay I'm affraid. ;-)

(Scoffs) Don't tell me that it is simply no match unless you can prove it. When I said that Carrara can do stuff like mentalray that is end of it. If you think its wrong prove it.

Attached Link: http://www.mentalimages.com/4_1_motion_pictures/index.html

Right. Whatever you say, GWeb. Mental Ray was used in the following big-budget motion pictures... Matrix Reloaded Star Wars: Episode II "Attack of the Clones" The Hulk Terminator 3: "Rise of the Machines" Frankenred Aero Mice The City Of The Lost Children Fight Club Panic Room The Cell The Grinch Walking with Dinosaurs (television special) And Carrara's renderer has been proven in it's use in WHAT exactly?? Yeah, that's what I thought. ;-)

Also, mental ray is the first rendering software which combines the physically correct simulation of the behavior of light with full programmability for the creation of any imaginable visual phenomena. It's programmability and scalablity puts this renderer in a league like no other. It's used by XSI, Maya, AND 3dsMax now. Why? Because of it's flexibility and usability in production rendering. It's second only to PRMan in terms of programmability. Next you'll be saying PRMan isn't better than Carrara. LOL

I do not care about these movies. I want detail what mentalrays has. I mean ray science stuff like caustic, hdri, GI, blur, whatever.

About the Matrix. They can't get good stuff out of 3D proggy. They did alot of things to fix some nasty 3D colors in film. All the films are fast and alot of disctractions. If you pause sometimes in Matrix you will notice stuff what I was talking bout.

Attached Link: http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_1_technical/index.html

Go here for a more detailed list of what it has.

Carrara does not have : - live previews of your scenes Define live previews? - advanced openGL preview Got me on that, the OpenGL is not on par with Vue, but realistically not a big selling point - volumetric atmospheres Carrara 4 now has volumetric skies - negative lights Useful but not necessary, would be a nice feature - panoramic view (360 degrees) Carrara does have a spherical camera, though I'm not sure what you are getting at with panoramic view - DEM files support for terrains Supported via Ground Control - 3D sculpting of terrains (only 2D painting with 3D view) I do like this in Vue, but I prefer fractal generations - automatic mapping of HDRI envelopes to the sky and ground seamlessly

"About the Matrix. They can't get good stuff out of 3D proggy. They did alot of things to fix some nasty 3D colors in film. All the films are fast and alot of disctractions. If you pause sometimes in Matrix you will notice stuff what I was talking bout."

Color correction and postwork is something that's done regardless of the renderer. This makes no difference in what you're trying to say about Carrara.

The fact is, MentalRay is currently one of the best renderers out there. It has full programmability with an open SDK for programmers to build on, something you usually don't get with standard, packaged renderers like are found in most mid-level 3D software. That's why it's been used by professionals in movies, etc. Message edited on: 10/28/2004 00:49

im inclined to say that this topic has gone way off topic :) as far as render engines and fav apps, come on ppl, its as agiel said, different tools in different price segments, they all have different strenghts and hurdles to overcome, different lack of features and different usages, which is why most studios dont use just one app. so use whatever fits your own need, c4 looks damn nice as a general 3d app in its price category, but standing up for it like a madrabit doesnt make it better gweb, open your eyes, i wont be surprised myself if i pick up c4 pro since i realy like what ive seen but it cant be compared to xsi or vue5 because they all make their own thing. xsi foundations is a great pick for serious modeling and rendering, complex, timeconsuming but a great pick if youre looking to get hired full time later on, no doubt about it, and its affordable, and yes the renderer is realy good. vue5, hands down i believe its the best landscape/render app for its price segment out there, it has shortcomings like the lack of video import,weather fx and so on. to sum it up, my personal opinion is that you would do pretty well picking up all 3 apps, c4pro, vue5pro(hoping for weather fx) and xsi foundation. of course any combination of just two of these 3 apps would do realy well aswell, but you would still be missing a couple of options.

I was talking about color correction and the quality renderer to your point when you were trying to impress mentalray. Are you depressed because you spent thousands out of your credit card on high end softwares? I was not saying anything bad about mentalrays. I was inquiring what was missing with Carrara renderer and mentalrays that was all and you decided to challenge me so you get that negative input. "MentalRay is currently one of the best renderers out there" (scoffs) you probably are wasting too much time dwelling on it. (scoffs) What were the other best renderers? Carrara is good renderer to me and can be used for television or film in my opinion. Carrara has good science rays with caustic, transparent, GI, HRDI etc,...

War2 well said My eyes always open otherwise I wouldnt be in business. I am sticking with Carrara and I own 1 of the high end software and I am not happy with it because of time consuming. Carrara fit my needs and it is more productive for an individual user for hobby or business. Carrara indeed have whole scale in business world if you know how. High end software is not my taste it as too many complicated favors in a fruit.

GWeb, you obviously didn't READ the renderer specs in the link I posted to MentalRay. I've pointed you to SEVERAL pages that have featurlists of MentalRay's capabilities and accomplishments. You can see for yourself what Cararra's renderer is missing. I can name several things off hand, but I think you should do your homework first. I never said Carrara's renderer wasn't good. I just said it wasn't as advanced as MentalRay. And I stand by that, as it's not just an opinion, but an actual fact that can be backed up in it's features list. By the way, you're the one insulting people with attitudes like this one: "(Scoffs) Don't tell me that it is simply no match unless you can prove it. When I said that Carrara can do stuff like mentalray that is end of it. If you think its wrong prove it." I did prove it. Thank you. "'MentalRay is currently one of the best renderers out there' (scoffs) you probably are wasting too much time dwelling on it. (scoffs) What were the other best renderers?" Well, if you MUST know... PRman is widely regarded as THE best, and I won't bother going into all the details of WHY. Go to CGTalk.com, ask around, and find out for yourself why.

You still did not prove anything and still nothing. I re-read the specs and it didnt detail anything about MentalRay. No factsheet whatsoever. Again give me science rays detail that MentalRay has otherwise your just blahing about MentalRay's reputation nothing more.

Attached Link: http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_1_technical/index.html

Wow. GWeb, are you for real? You actually want me to cut and paste the text from the site? Almost every aspect of it's rendering capabilities are listed on that site. I'm attaching the link again. Read it. Here's just a few things at random: full dataflow architecture that maintains a scene/data cache to store only the data that is currently needed, creating data on demand wherever possible. This allows mental ray to render scenes with great complexity with limited memory. incremental scene echo allows streaming of scene data in .mi format such that only differences between successive frames are sent. multipass rendering allows collecting sample data from multiple render passes, including user-defined data. Pass data can be merged into the final image with a custom merging function. full Quasi Monte Carlo low-discrepancy sampling avoids "random noise'' and ensures faster convergence to the correct solution. Algorithms are completely deterministic (no animation flickering due to randomness; re-rendering a frame produces exactly the same result). memory-mapped textures and memory-mapped pyramid textures (only the pieces of the texture that are actually required are loaded/unloaded on demand from disk to memory) volume shaders implement nongeometric volume effects such as fire or smoke, in both scanline and full raytracing modes global illumination and caustics in volumes (volume scattering) volumes cast shadows (for example, smoke that casts an accurate shadow) optional coherent 4D motion sampling extension for very fast, accurate, and smooth motion blur object motion blur vertex motion blur motion blur is visible in reflections and refractions motion-blurred light sources that generate blurred highlights caustics and global illumination cast by moving objects or moving lights are correctly motion-blurred collects motion and depth information for alternative postprocessing motion blur and/or depth of field global illumination permits physically correct light simulation, which combines forward and backward ray tracing to simulate all possible light paths and light interaction from light sources to the camera, including indirect lighting, light focusing, translucency, glossy reflectors, and radiosity, without the need to manually prepare and combine each effect separately algorithms for global illumination and caustic simulation is independent of geometric scene complexity volume caustics: focused light made visible as a beam in fog or other diffuse media in volumes multiple volume scattering: light interreflecting diffusely in fog or other media, such as the backscattering glare of headlights in fog, or light transport in clouds, or halos around bright light sources in fog user-defined: eight frame buffers with selectable types: RGB, RGBA (8/16/32 bits per component), *RGBE, alpha, intensity, depth (scalar), integer, vector, bit, compressed basis vectors all frame buffers are stored in multipass rendering files for laster user-defined merging on-demand loading of object files and on-demand procedural object creation using geometry shaders: geometry is not created until it is needed, the geometry cache maintains only objects currently or recently in use to reduce rendering times and concurrent memory requirements C language API for the entire scene description language, accessible to geometry shaders at runtime for procedural scene elements. The yacc grammar source code for the scene language is published. reflect/visible/shadow/caustic/global illumination objects: for example, there may be different versions of an object for beauty passes, reflection passes, and shadow passes; even within a single rendering operation Those are just a few of the features listed on that page.

Heh! You guys should be on a series of national debates! This is like the U.S. Presidential Campaign... the reason I spend most of my time in the happy world of rendering stuff rather than the theoretical merits of higher-end software. The ORIGINAL point of my thread was about the POSER MARKET that Vue is tapping into. ALL these other programs DO NOT read in Pze or Pzz files- Vue 5 is EASY. Vue 5's HDRI doesn't have a million control panel adjustments. It's EASY to use. This seems to UPSET techies to NO END! Why is it EASY? Why does Vue make loading Poser files EASY? 3D is NOT supposed to FUN and EASY (they say). This is mainly about tapping into the Poser market with EASY, relatively inexpensive software--- NOT about making Hollywood movies or spending big bucks on lots of software. I own MAX 4 and Lightwave 6.5 and hardly ever use them! I can afford any software that I want-- but I like having FUN, but I also know how to make $$$ using Vue 5 too. You do NOT need expensive software if you know what your doing in a specific market. EXPENSIVE and COMPLICATED software is not REQUIRED to have fun and make money. Heh! (I know already).

One other MAIN POINT about WHY I started this thread- There are a LOT of people out there (myself included) who spend a considerable amount of $$$ on 3D models every month! These people (myself included) are not looking for a DIFFICULT, COMPLICATED 3D rendering experience- they want FUN and SATISFACTION. Vue (and Poser) deliver that! So MANY people, like DAZ and Renderosity customers, who spend lots of money on relatively LOW-COST models, do not want to have a complicated and frustrating 3D rendering experience. They want FUN and Easy-to-use. This is the market I think VUE serves. And very WELL... There are a lot of TECHIES out with a million answers about why you should buy all kinds of software. But there is the OTHER END of this business where lots of CONSUMERS are buying lots of MODELS and people are making lots of MONEY selling the models, and some people like myself can make $$$ selling images created in low-cost software using low-cost models... So realize that there is ANOTHER SIDE to this 3D business, besides just getting all GEEKED-OUT about 3D technicalities. Heh!

Nicholas86 - to answer your question : - live previews of your scenes I meant a preview window that shows you what your scene will look like at any time (cararra requires you to hit Rendr each time you want to see the result). Now everybody - this discussion has gone way off topic. Nobody said Vue is the best 3D rendering software out there (look at Brazil or VRay for other examples). Like Veritas said, Vue is a great value for people who want approachable 3D software without feeling like you are trying to send a shuttle in space each time you need to configure something. If you want to discuss the merits of Mental Ray, there is a Softimage XSI forum for that :) Time to lock this thread.