I'm a litte confused.  Do you need Infinite (or a lesser version) to create the landscape and ALSO Extreme to render with something like Lightwave?  Or is Extreme all you need?  I can't really make the distinction based on the info at www.e-onsoftware.com.  Any idea?

Thanks!

Vue Infinite is a standalone product with which you create your environments, add ecosytems to them, import static 3d models, and render away. Then you think, I'd love to load my new car model in there and animate it along a  path inside this scene. While you'll be able to create a path and animate in VUe, the wheels won't turn, it won't look as good, a,d if you simply export your Vue scene to Lightwave ( possible, which camera synch and all), your ecosystems won't export, because they would need to be converted to real geometry instead of instances, and it would kill both Vue and Lightwave to handle so much data.
This is where xStream comes in. It lets you mix Lightwave and Vue scenes inside the Lightwave viewports, and native elements will be rendered by the app they were created with. Lightwave will render your car animation, while Vue will render your environments, with wind swept forests and animated spectral clouds.
With matching lights, shadows and reflections. Vue items will reflect on Lightwave items, and vice versa.
And the process of both apps rendering is completely transparent to the user.
So Vue Infinite, the standalone product has its own renderer.
The key to xStream is integration. If you don't need to integrate Vue scenes in other apps, you don't need it.
xStream cmes in 2 flavas: the standalone xStream plug in that lets you import Vue elements in the host app, but without any editing of the Vue scene possible, and the xStream bundle, which is xStream + Infinte, so you can edit your Vue scene with this one.
If you already have Infinite, you only need the plug in.