A review of AsileFX's DVD tutorials for Vue5 Infinite. Ok, I have purchased 2 out of 4 of the tutorials. The getting started and the Advanced Volume 1 discs. Now the following is my personal opinion and I'm only a hobbyist with 3D software so take all this with a grain of salt. There is a lot that is good, but unfortunately, almost as much that is bad with these tutorials. First look before even sticking the disc(s) in, it's obvious that these are homemade Discs. Is that bad? Well yes and no, for the price you expect something a little more professional looking. Not that anything is bad about them, just that it's a printed label from an ink jet or some type of home printer. Don't spill anything on them or get them wet because the ink will smudge. I discovered this simple by taking a drink from a glass of juice before taking the disc out of the cover and the little condensation on my fingers smudged it. At least use a water proof ink maybe? Disappointment #1 - These are not a DVD movie that you can plug into a consumer DVD player and watch on your TV while working on you're computer. Most people would like to be able to watch and work right along with a tutorial. At least I do. I do have two monitors hooked up so it's not so bad for me but 90% of people don't. Once getting the disc into the computer my next little bit of disappointment came when each of the videos have no titles other than, Movie 1, Movie 2, etc. If you want to find information on a particular part of Vue you're kinda screwed. OK so far not great, but nothing that would stop me from buying an information video. Now let's fire it up and see if the info is there.....? Opening up the Movie 1 gave me a nice surprise when it displayed a full sized Vue window. Which was nice, I was sorta expecting a little 200x300 quicklime window from what I had seen up to this point. But then right back to those little disappointments I'm sorry to say. The image is compressed a lot causing the blocky look which is very distracting when they are talking about the material preview and editors. Also the pointer is extremely jumpy which is also distracting and a bit annoying after time. Now let's cover the person doing the tutorial. Does he have knowledge and information that is going to help you use Vue better? Most certainly YES. Is it presented in a way that you'll get that info easily? Well...Sorta...... You can tell right off that there was no script, no rehearsing, no real forethought to the video before they started recording. You can tell he's just winging it through out the whole disc. There are times he's explaining something while walking through it only to end up back tracking or blowing it off all together because he's in the wrong area of the program or it simply can't be done. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not completely knocking these videos. There is certainly information here that just about anyone wither hobbyist or Pro can benefit from. Just for the money should be presented in a much more professional manner. Most tutorials done for free online are easier to learn from and are better organized. To sum it all up with ratings of 1-10.... Packaging/discs 4 organization 3 Presentations 3 Information 8 helpfulness 7 Value for your money 4 as they sit I personally can't see asking for more than $15-20 per disc. And that even seems a bit high. the $45 is way to much the way they are now. though I have to say that I have learned a good bit watching them. From simple interface adjustments to getting materials to look the way I'm trying to get them to. Re-Making them with a written and rehearsed script. Make it a consumer DVD so you can sit and watch it on a TV through a regular DVD player while actually following along on you computer. Breaking them up a bit more and giving each video a title so you can find the info you want would give them a much higher value.

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Hexagon, Carrara, Sculptris, and recently Sketchup.