I've seen many forum posts comparing these different applications, especially Terragen to Vue. There has been a great deal of debate on what one tool can do and what another cannot. Sometimes the discussions have become quite fervent. We all wish Vue could do more and I'm sure that in time, it will. The other tools cannot do some of the things Vue can do and I bet their users wish the same. In the meantime, however, I wish to present my own position on the matter and offer up Terragen and Mojo as simply tools for use in Vue.

If you use Vue as your main 3d stage,  then Terragen and Mojo can be very valuable in the set design. Renders from both programs make excellent mattes and backdrops in Vue lending the aspects of both that are currently lacking in Vue. Vue is built to do this matte painting/alpha plane thing quite well. In the render presented here I used a cloud alpha way in the back and coming forward, a Terragen render as background, a Mojoworld render as midground and then finished up the foreground with Vue. Of course, a Poser eagle thrown in for good measure.

The main thing to be conscious of when compositing in the Vue space is consistency in lighting and shadow. What I do is set my Vue scene up first and get the stage ready. I note my lighing and direction and then go into the other apps and set their renders to match. When they are done, I mask out the sky (unless you want a TG or Mojo sky) in Photoshop and apply them to alpha planes and place them. Presto! 

Now what if I wanted a castle back across that Mojo valley but I only had the Mojo Viewer that's incapable of importing objects? That's where using Vue in the same manner comes in.....I save my scene and then open up a fresh one with the identical atmosphere. I import my castle, put it in the approximate position of where the Mojo ground is and render. Then I render the alpha mask. Open up the previous scene, place the castle on an alpha plane, turn off all shadows and put it back there on the Mojo ground. Any needed shadows are then painted in post.

The same thing can be done if you want skies from those applications. Back in the Brycing days when I hated Bryce skies, (and still do lol)  I used Terragen skies in my Bryce renders and felt much better about cg life.

Then there is texture harvesting. Terragen, TG2 and Mojoworld can all be viewed as texture generators for Vue. Take your camera in and scout around. Do just as you would do if taking your real camera into the field. In Terragen, you don't even need to create a terrain. Just make a surface (or load one), take your camera up and point it down -90 degrees on that open flatness and take your snapshot. In Mojo, it's a texture hunting adventure because you have that entire planet to hunt in.

Then make them seamless in your favorite 2d application and apply. Nothing to it.

You Vue veterans, I'm sure, were aware of this technique but our newcomers may not and it never hurts to do it again. So, bend other tools to your Vue will and render on!!

M

Attached Link: Vue 6 vs TG2TP Personal Challenge

   Well done...I am a big fan of combining apps but as I only have the PLE of Vue 6 I tend to 'harvest' vegetation from Vue for use in TG2TP.Check my gallery as most or a lot of my early stuff used a Carex grass plant that I got out of Vue.    I actually attempted reproducing a Vue scene in TG2TP a while back...now there's a challenge. It was in a thread where folks were trying to reproduce TG2TP in Vue coincidentally. I had to build the scene myself so I used Imagine3D to build my objects and textured them in TG2TP. It turned out not too shabby. I forget the thread but there was, I believe, an image posted that I was attempting to reproduce.. ...

Ahh..well done Bobby!  The render road goes both ways doesn't it?

Indeed it do....as Mike Halverson, the creator of Imagine3D always said...it ain't the software, it's the artist.. ...

ok when I'm very honest at first looking at that picture above i thought it was a photo until i enlarged it :P very, very nice whiteclouds.

I must say that I really don't like combining applications... I don't know but if i made something in whatever program I don't want to "fake" it with Photoshop or a fake background made in another ap. Just doesn't feel right to me lol.

It's true, tgtp and Vue are just not the same categories. But tgtp is newer and of course kicks Vue in the tech aspect. It has some features that i definatly want to see in my Vue.

I hope Vue will follow the upcoming technology shift.

Some folks like it that way...everything in one tool. Some don't. Either way, none of it is 'real'...it's all 'fake' lol......I too hope Vue follows technology trends.....but even then, it's only going to be the final image that matters regardless of technique.

 

Well said Monsoon!  Although Vue is my favorite tool, it's not the only tool in my toolbox.  And sometimes, you do need to combine things.  

One of my favorite pictures would have been impossible to create with Vue alone (lots and lots of people).  The artist worked smarter - 
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/projects/?page=6&index=0

 

Indeed Peggy, and Vue itself is well set up to do this kind of work with it's multipass output. All those people[as Vue imports Poser/DAZ quite well I've heard]could have easily been rendered on seperate layers[which save out as .psd for utility in post work later] with whatever effect you want, and in vastly reduced times as not all would need ray tracing, so save a whole whack of time. It seems as if the creators had this type of technique in mind and it puts Vue in the same league as 'the big apps' as multipass is the way it works in professional production houses.. ...

Precisely Bobby...

For a good example of professional use of compositing - here is a Making of a short movie I just saw at ZbrushCentral. They mixed 2D, 3D and photograph to blend in a stop motion movie....

I love multipass renders in Vue.  I always render out the ZDepth mask, even if I'm not planning on using it because you never know :)

FrankT,
I really like adding a bit of depth blur to some images, it adds a lot of punch :)
Richard Rosenmann's plugin rules for that Depth of Field Pro

*"Richard Rosenmann's plugin rules for that Depth of Field Pro"

*Indeed they do and in fact all hus plug ins are awesome. I particularily like his spheric projection corrector one...use that a lot.. ...

I am one of those that likes to Render in just one app.

Now, I have been known to make a landscape in Bryce (5.5). And I have an old copy of VistaPro (4.0) that cam with a full CD of DEM files. For some reason, Vue will not read them, but I can load them in Bryce, and export them to Vue for use.

I also have Ray Dream for creating objects, several assorted programs for viewing 3d objects and converting them to other formats, and Poser of course :)

And a little off topic, but if you are looking for a great collection of 3d objects, keep your eyes open for an old program called Tri-Gallery. I have all 4 of the sets. They have a large collection of all kinds of 3d objects, complete with textures, that can be exported in many 3d formats. The 3ds format imports perfectly into Vue complete with texture mapping. I got the set of 4 from eBay for $20.

Well I'll def. 'keep an eye out' for it...lots to say on the net but no homepage any more...it all leads to optomotrists or security firms...guess I surf e-bay.. ...