Happy New Year to Everyone!

I'm just curious and trying to gather a sense of what others feel towards Vue 6 now that a series of patches have come out and I believe many of the issues concerning the program have been addressed or at least partially

Is everyone more or less satisfied with how the program performs now compared to how it was when it was first released and if not why ? What do you feel still needs to be addressed ?

In regards to the import of Poser content, has this issue been resolved to the satisfaction of everyone's expectations and if not why ?

What are your thoughts ? What other issues could stll be touched upon in either futures patches or revisions of Vue ? Would you still stick with the program after all this ?

Lets hear your opinions!!! 

Take care!

I'm very happy - the patches most often work fine - fix what they said was fixed.  I'm using the latest patch right now.  Yes - there are still a few issues, but not enough to worry about it or stop using Vue.  I strongly believe that e-on is working hard to fix any and all problems.  Poser import works great.  If there is a problem, there are lots of ways to work around it - it's not that hard!

Will I stick with Vue - you bet!  Do I want more (like particles, rivers, rain) - you bet :-)

Peggy
Vue user since version 4

I'm very happy too but that may be because I've got a new monster pc to run it on!
With my old pc I'm not sure the answer would be the same, can't really compare it now to when I was bitching about it!

What I will say is that I still believe it to be a fantastic bit of kit and I would also like to see what peggy has asked for plus I would also like a way to actually bend things in Vue, I've never managed to bend something properly like I can in Poser.
If I've missed it and anyone knows how, please enlighten me!!

One more wish, that they make sure Vue7 is more ready when it comes out than this one was! [LOL].

Just out of curosity, fixer, what kind of system are you using now to run Vue ? I myself, have a Dell Core2duo 1.86GHz, with 2GB of RAM and a 233 GB hard disk and I've wondered if that was enough!! lol If not, then I guess I'm still in trouble. Thanks for the input, both of you!

Well it depends how you want to use it IMO!
There are those here that will say your system is enough which is fair enough if you don't want to use all the latest good bits, i.e. the Poser Shader Tree and reposing inside Vue, displacement materials, SSS materials etc. which I like to do. All my Vue work includes Poser figures and I ALWAYS import with the shader tree and allow reposing!
IMO your system will not allow you to do that with biggish scenes, I would recommend at least 4 Gig RAM if you want to work in that way.
There are work arounds which others will be glad to give you but for me, if an app. says it can do this and that then I want to be able to do this and that, not work around it!!

Now to your question, My spec:
Quad core Q6600, 8 Gig RAM, Nvidia 8600GT or GS [can't remember] Graphics, 2 x 250 Gig HD's in Raid 1 array, Vista Ultimate 64

This system allows me to use Vue how I want to use it and I can use all the bells and whistles that come with it which is the whole point for me!!

Saw this and figured I'd chime in too. I've been using Vue Esprit since 4, but I only recently was able to upgrade to 6. So I guess I missed the buginess that everyone complained about with the early release ;), but I can say that the current version of Vue 6 is miles ahead of Vue 5. I had a complete love-hate relationship with 5 because of its overall slowness and buginess. Now that I have 6 I am leaning back towards the love end of the relationship :D

That's not to say that there still isn't some wigginess with Poser imports. I still get the occaisional missing hair (that's my biggest pet peeve with the Poser import) or bad material setting. Yesterday I had a bunch of props parented to a shelf and tried to import that and lost about half of them and had to do an OBJ export, but on the whole it is much much better. The dynamic import also could use some tweaking. I had a piece of dynamic cloth that lost all its dynamics when I tried to import it as a still frame.

I'm very happy with Vue - but keep in mind with my 2-cents comes the fact that I don't use native Poser files. I create objects in other apps (Poser, C4D, XSI, Mudbox) and then import them as OBJs.

I also do a ton of post work - all my particles, heavy lighting effects, more intricate texturing, etc., are done in Photoshop CS3 and After Effects - so again, I limit Vue to an assembly renderer for my objects. I find the lighting tools fantastic and easy to use, and I love that V6 finally has Gizmos to grab and move EXACTLY to one direction, or all if you choose - this makes things MUCH easier to align.

Long renders aside (but they're shorter than Bryce!) I get the results I want form Vue.
-Lew ;-)

I'm very happy with Vue xStream in standalone mode. It has some quirks and crashes randomly, but nothing like when it is inside another app. I will never again buy a copy of xStream; it has eaten my Cinema 4D files far too many times.

I am like thefixer.I haad a whole host of problems with Vu till i got a meaner machine.I for one would NEVER give up Vue no matter what bugs they throw at me.It is a stand out program in it's genre! Would love to see rain,snow and opther such particles.Even a better terrain editor.More along the lines of GeoControl,or even WorldMachine. I was thinking the other day actually that someone should write a script that just drops a blanket of snow from the sky and it sticks to everything in it's path:P

I have to agree that Vue 6 (after the final patches were released) is working much better than Vue 5 did for me.  Of course, I also upgraded my machine to a dual core and doubled the memory...but even before doing that the latest Vue 6 has made me much happier. 

My 2 cents...

-Rex
Atlanta, GA

I'm just curious, in general about how many Poser figures have all of you been able to import before running into to many problems ? Also, is exporting the figures first in Poser as object files one if the work-around-solutions thats been indicated ?

If I import more than 2 characters with dynamic properties (I think it was the hair that did it...?) it'll crash Vue for me.

If I export ANY model from Poser, C4D, Mudbox, and XSI as an OBJ (or 3DS or LWO) than it imports just fine - I can either texture it in Vue, or have the custom texturing from C4D (image maps made in Photoshop or BodyPaint). The poly-count doesn't seem to matter - Vue just takes what I throw at it, smiles and asks for more.

Dynamic contect from Poser...? Have fun with that.

The problem is that it is asking Vue to see and use proprietary code from Poser (or ANY other app - think also of native shaders from C4D or Max, or XSI). I know this is a big selling point in their advertising (which I think is dumb on their part), but it's asking Vue to play nice with Poser when the 2 programming teams have never spoken (think of reverse-engineering - it's spotty at best), so Poser was never MADE to go with anything else other than Poser.

Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)

Yeah,I always fouind it od that Vue does indeed tout its abilit to use billions of polys..And most of us have indeed reached that,but for Poser models forget it! your gonna be choking at around 500K polys I have a higher end machine and I still bog down at around 700K poly count,but I think that has ALOT to so with those huge ass textures as I dont have time/desire to photoshop all of them in most cases theres hundreds.

Well for me, since upgrading my pc I can get loads in there if I want and sometimes do, there is one image in my gallery "Rise of the Robots" that has 40 [I think] fully textured M3's in the scene!
Now wirh my old machine, it would choke at 1, seriously!! Obviously I'm talking about having props in the scene as well and just 1 figure, maybe 2 at a push!!

Vue's ability to use Poser models was a big selling point for me personally because the lighting system is way better in Vue and obviously it does outdoor scenes much better than Poser can!
I don't like work arounds, after all if you buy a car that says it can do 40 mpg at 60 mph but only if you switch this off and switch that off, you wouldn't accept it would you, so why accept it with software???

I fully agree.I started with Vue as an alternative to Bryce(which was origionally an alternative to Terragen) as I just couldnt get what i wanted out of it.I used Poser at the time for my portraits with extensive postworking.With vue I generally only choose to adjust the levels.Poser import is a massive boon to any software for hobbiest like me who cannot model people as far as i am conserned. spend a couple grand on all ya need and make art all year long(; Who can argue wth that:D

Well I made a variety of materials in Vue. to replace Poser ones, thus saving huge amount of resources ;)

varities of metal, leather, fabric etc and you reduce overheads ENORMOUSLY.

Also, a good trick if you moslty render in Vue, since you can batch Script with Paint SHop Pro and I think photoshop:

I go into the texture folders in Poser, copy and paste copy of original large materials into the folder, as back ups if I need high res ones.
Then with PSP, I batch run a reduction script,t aking textures down to 1/4 size, thus the originals are 1/4 size, so poser loads up/saves with smaller ones. 

So when I import into Vue, much smaller resource ;) For optimization, or saving them as Vue vobs, I replace as need with my own materials.

I also keep all my poser runtimes split up! it helps TONS!! i have runtime for Vicky4, Mike 3, scenes, vehicles etc.
:)

Hm,I wonder how long it would take to do that with a 27G Runtime?:D

hey fixer!!

I must say you have really made me curious about this whole issue of a more powerful system being the key to getting better performance out of Vue! I have to admit the idea of sticking with Vue and making it work better for me is more appealing the switching to a different application.

I'm wondering how big of a different I could expect to see if I simply upgrade my RAM memory with the system I'm currently using since completely replacing it isn't really an option for me right now. 

In particuliar I would like to be able to import more poser figures into Vue without worrying about it choking on me. 

Also can you please tell me where that image is you referred to "Rise of the Robots" ? Cause I tried looking for that in your gallery and I couldn't find it. I'd really be courious to see what you were able to do since most of the imagery I've seen so far using Vue 6 has been so sparce of much Poser content. Thanks again for your comments and everyone else's feedback as well. This thread has been really informative for me and perhaps some of you to!!

Trepez,
24 gig run time (including original install files etc form DAZ ) ;)

It is a massive help!! Haivng David, Vick1, Vick2,,,,,Scenes....Vehicles etc all in discrete runtime is vastly better than nightmare of trying to find things in one gigantic almost useless runtime....ah the nightmare of finding things.

what I'm doign at moment, is takign all my Poser "scenes" that is buildings, shrines tombs, dungeons what ever, and improitng em itno Vue, optimizing 'em, saving 'em in their own folder in object library, and putting all the "add ons" like tools, furniture etc into respective Vue areas.
Ok gonna take a day or two but once done, very helpful :)

silverblade--so your saying it helps if once you've imported a poser file into Vue to save it as a Vue object ? I don't see why spliting everything up into seperate runtimes would make any difference but if thats the case I'm willing to try. Thanks for the advice! :)

I use Irfanview to batch render as it is much faster than Photoshop,but generally use my characters as the main subject ie: up close,so resizing isnt really something i would do i do not think. I have to work somehing out with my runtime though,it is a bloody mess.I want to work out something to where i have all my people,vehicles architectural props ect in seperate folders,so when i open Poser I have like 3-5 folders to choose from. Not sure how it is posssible really.I generally reformat my machine every 4 months or so,but now my runtime has gotten so damn big i dont wanna have to redo it all again:P

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1535545

Trepz: I use the sub folder route for my Poser runtime, I find this works very well for me. Each main library folder has sub folders so it's pretty easy to use, not as small as 5 folders though!! [:-)]

ROFL, noticed the image says "28" M3's not "40"
Obviously got carried away there, sorry!!

Haha - still more than the "more than 2" that MINE can handle!
-Lew ;-)

Dstephany,
yes, it saves a fair bit of resources if saved as a vob, and a LOT of resources if you optimize the figure :)

I replace some materials with metal mats or texture based mats of my own...sicne many poser materials are 2000 or so in size replacing the brass/iron on a sword with a 512x512 or procedural one helps a ton :p

Sorry to bang my commercial drum :D by that's why I made fair number of these mats:
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=4011
but you can  make your own "Poser to Vue" mat collection to do the same.

Also, using the resized copies of originals helps a ton, as written above, depenfing on what's needed. For example, elaborate costumes are best to jsut be rescaled down, but basic stuff liek leather on boots, steel weapons etc an be replaced by Vue mats.

Also, Poser imports come in witht he highlights all wrong! they have black highlights etc. watch for that.

Trepz,,
do as I said mate, it works :)

SO my drive looks somehting like:
Poser AIko
Poser David
Poser General Props
Poser Scenes
Poser Vehicles
Poser Mike 1

etc
I save each item, with a web page or image of it, so I know WTF it is, lol, in the approproriate folder, then, install into that folder (it should make a Runtime)
For items useable by severla characters, say a hair useable by all the females, best to copy and install it in all appropriate ones.

Then with Poser6, I just search for each runtime and add them, thus, I have everything nice and neatly seperated! I thus cannot load costumes for Vick4 that are only for Vicky 1 etc by accident.
:)

well...I went to best buy and had them check my system out. Apparently, I can upgrade to 4 gig from the 2 gig I currently have. They quoted me a price of about 200 dollars. I guess what I'm wondering now is, if I go ahead with it would I expect to see that big a difference in the ability to import poser figures or would it only be marginal ?  

No reason to have 4G RAM unless you are running Vista or 64bit,but yeah more ram is always nice:D

Actually you "can" make Windows XP Pro utilize 4 Gb Ram:

http://www.gehrytechnologies.com/catia/catia/catia_windows_large_memory.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291988

However, I think simply adding another Gb for a total of 3 Gb would make a big difference.  The only reason I went with 4Gb is that I found it cheaper to buy a matched pair (Corsair) than it was to buy a single module to add to the 2Gb I already had.  

And BTW:  the above info is for XP Pro NOT for XP Home.

Damn insightful this is.Wish I would have known that when I was using XP:D there have been MANY discussions about 2G only in XP and always ended the same.If you want more RAM upgrade. But I am running Vista now and would never go back to XP on a bet(;

-Paul

:o)  I can assure you it works.  There's another hack you can use to make Windows Xp reserve 1 Gb for the OS and allow 3Gb for any program.  (overcoming the 2 Gb limitation).

http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/poser/3gb.html

 You need MS Visual Studio to do this (the free version will work).  I applied this to Poser 7 and Vue 6 Infinite without any problems, but as the author says "use caution" .  I'm not ready to go to Vista yet, I've finally got XP working the way I want it :o). 

For me Vista is very intuitive.Easy to hack and rewrite... I like all the eye candy and bells and whistles,but its stability is tops for me.Has to be hacked and tweaked,but it is very good at keeping things organised and running smooth ie:low maintenance...Not like XP...

After about 4 years I've "finally" got XP the way I want it, but I'm sure before long I'll switch to Vista, just not ready to have to tweak a new OS at this time :o). 

alright...maybe I'm missing something here but I'd like to make clear what I'm hearing from other people. It seems that Vue, with all the fixes, can now do everything they claimed it would be able to do when it was first released, BUT it takes a high-end system in order to achieve that level of performance. So my question is what features really define the optimum needed to make Vue do everything ?

Does it really take, as fixer has indicated, a Quad core with at least 8 Gig and a 64 bit operating system or would a less high end machine deliver the same results except maybe slower ?

Where's the actual cut off ?

I don't know what the actual cut-off would be, but I have an AMD Athlon x 2 4800 + CPU (overclocked 10%) and 4 Gb  DDR Ram on a 32 bit version of XP Pro, and I don't have a problem with Vue.  Running the same system with 2Gb Ram, I received numerous "out of memory" error messages, which I no longer receive.  My system no longer chokes on Poser imports or large ecosystems.  As a test for stability I kept adding large objects & ecosystems  to Vue to see how much Ram I could "force" it to use (checking task manager), and I had it utilizing over 2.4Gb and it was still stable (though slow).  I honestly don't think Vue under "normal" conditions would ever use 2Gb Ram, but it will attempt to utilize 1Gb with large scenes.   Personally I think 3Gb would be sufficient  for XP.  There are still some problems with "some"  Poser imports that haven't been fixed, but according to Eon they're working with e Frontier to resolve the problem.  Other than the Poser import problem, Vue seems to do everything it claims it can do. 

I'm using a P4 3.4GHz with 2GB ram with a Nvidia 6600 graphic card.  Not a bad system, but nothing special.  I have no problems with Vue and have had up to four Poser figures in one render (Vicky, dragons, cats, lots of DM building linds of stuff).  My system does me fine.  

I'd like to add one more GB of ram, but haven't really popped the hood on my computer to see what that would intail.  I will think about Vista, but not on this computer - maybe my bare bones system that I built for my daughter.  It's a dual-core system, but rather ham strung with only 1 GB and a cheep video card.  Good enough for a 9 year old, not enough for mom!

I'm happy with Vue6Infinite. I'd be even happier if my two Render Cows running under Linux didn't need restarting between each render, but the fact that they even run is enough cause for thanks.

Guys, I've built myself a supercomputer with 2 quad core Clovertowns at 2.4Ghz.
That's 8 CPU's and Xstream sees them all.
Running Vista Ultamate x 64 with 4Gig memory.
You would think that would do it...
But what's really a pain is seeing- "Xstream has stopped working...closing!
What a freaking joke!
How much money do I have to burn before getting software that actually works?
Damn trash.

Yeah,XStream has alot of issues.Infinite works much better,but if you paid the price i would be PO'd as well.not to keen on wasting money.Sorry to hear your troubles,Vue really is a top notch program.

Same people same crap.
I have to import some older stuff into vue 5 esprite as even with vue 6 esprite and later patch it cant read some poser stuff.
Stuff i got super computer blah blah blah, SIMPLE fact vue 6 was aimed at poser users with all the stories, and yes exclude poser imports vue a fantastic program.
Im sorry 6 esprite is a cheap cut down version of 6 inf and above and no dual support, and they said whoopie choopie bring your poser figures into vue with the shadier tree.
THEY did not state that you need a super processor with a minimum 4gb ram and xp 64 and i have tried all 3 vue 6s on diff spec machines.
Simple fact every other 3d program can render a large scene with poser figures on say 2gb mem and dual 4200, but vue 6 cant it will crash.
I bought 6 esprite after buying 5 esprite in sale and did not like e-on stealing my money with a shoddy piece of crap that cant do with poser stuff that it supposed to do.
Why do you think e-on released light version on inf and above as the word spread on Internet abut the shoddy piece of work it was, they tried to nip piracy of their program in bud.
I will never by another vue program as i will stick with my 5 and 6 esprites, and if they think a lot of people gonna buy 7 they sadly mistaken, a lot of people will get it the other way.
The only way i would buy vue 7 is if they tell the truth about what system you need to import poser stuff.
6 esprite was a waste of money in my book as 5 esprite great and what got me was like 5 inf was better at memory than esprite, they deliberately made 6 esprite so inferior to inf.
They should have made esprite dual to quad support  and have same memory handle as inf and above, and then if you wanted more options buy inf and above.
Exclude poser in vue and vue is a fantastic program.

Imho, there should only be 2 versions of Vue:
basic, and top (with integration for Lightwave etc), reaosn being, multiple versions = more hassles....more chance of bugs etc.

Yes,but then you have the issue of no ecos unless you own LW C4D ect. Maybe Infinite and XStream.I personally think the PLE was a good idea.

I meant a version that CAN integrate, or be used on its own :)

If the two versions of Vue were: $50 (basic)and $300 (full with integration capability), that would help everyone, IMHO.

I think they'd make more cash with better price for top end version, ie 1 million x 300 dollar sales, versus 10,000 x $600 sale, sort of idea, if you see what I mean? :)

It would be better to do that, I suggest, and have a package of direct help (phone support etc) for studios wanting to pay extra for the privilege (Which is what some other apps do).

Hm? :)

Just a note from a Mac user. I'm using a Mac Book Pro with only a meager 1GB Ram, and Vue handles it pretty well, so long as file size is kept to reasonable levels. With a recent posting on a tutorial about importing Poser content from Silverblade33, and getting a handle on controlling the materials, I've found the results surprisingly good. What was once a 1GB file has been reduced considerably, and I can actually do things like change a texture without having it crash when I go to save the file. (This scene has 12 poser figures, all fully dressed, fancy hair, and lots of props with their associated materials.)
May not be a speed demon, but it does what I want it to do, and may take its time rendering, but the end result is always worth the wait.
But getting back to the original question: Vue 6 Infinite is well worth the wait. It may not do everything I would like it to do (i.e. the ever infamous 'Make Art' button) but it does do many things really well, and its handling of Poser is leaps ahead of its 5 ancestor (when I had to export Obj from Poser to import (without textures) into Vue 5)