Don 't know that this has ever been discovered before but here goes:

We all know the poor quality when we load in a Vue rock.
Now, when you edit the rock you can make it look a lot better.

And here i discovered that when you load in a few rocks, select them all together, you can edit them all at once, this actually works great (instead of editing them one at the time)

On this screenshot you can see that i selected 3 rocks and edited them all at once and changed the material a bit.
Take note of the settings in the edit window, these seem to give pretty good results !!

Wim

Yes they will look much better.  Render is slowed down a bunch since it does not calculate them until render.  Good for one or two "hero" rocks. 

I never had anything against Vue rocks :) I think they're pretty neat, but we need an options for different types of rocks such as 'desert stones', meaning the cracked-flat ones. Also I want an option to not have color variations in rocks loaded from the left tab.

And don't forget that you can make nice odd shaped 'Hero' rocks (nice term, Peggy!) - with holes in them, arches, etc. by starting with primitives (toroids for arches or holes), combining them into metablobs, applying rock mats with displacements and possibly adding ecosystems.

If you want to use displalcement at +4, you better have a good reason to do it.  It's OK on a 700 polys rock ( should result in  11200 polys), but don't try it on ecosytem rocks or high poly objects.
Also,  using a 120% accurate map for illumination baking is mad. Just try to bake anything so high. Either an OOM or total loss of patience.
Anyway, nice finding for those who were too lazy to read their manual.

I used dynamic subdivision for a few foreground rocks in my last image - very useful to get rid of obvious polys. +4 is likely overkill - I used 0 quality boost and there was no sign of a straight line anywhere. If I were compiling a list of tips for Vue, dynamic subdivision for 'heroes' (LOL) would be on it.

That's an Infinite and XStream Only Feature!!!

I've gotta say:
I thin E-on are perhaps not doing the right thing, in making so many different versions of Vue?

Wouldn't it be better to have a "basic" one at $100 to $150, then Infinite, then Extreme??

surely juggling all the different versions makes it harder ot bug fix?

Or maybe it is good? scratches head

Anyway, folk have GOT to be very specific when asking for help with bugs, or explaining features, which version of Vue they have, and for bugs, whether MAC, PC, Nvidia, ATI, 32 or 64 bit, Vista or XP :)

Well, I don't really agree with you Steven, the way versions are done is fairly simple: they are all based on Infinite, I think, and then it's only a question of not implementing some features for lower end versions. X being another game, standalone based on Inf, then bridges added to work inside a host app. So if Infinite is properly debugged, other versions should be too, unless removing features here and there breaks a few things along the way.
Of course, this is only speculations here, I'm not in the secrets of the Devs team. ( I could try and sneak in at night though, not too far from where I live...)

There are at least three hints that in fact Vue is one program packaged in different ways:

1. you can use materials employing Infinite-only nodes in Pro (but cannot edit them);
2. starting from Esprit you can upgrade bit by bit or in one jump to Pro by only changing the activation code;
3. you can use ecosystems without the Ecosystems module (you can only populated but not edit them).

Bye!!!

Well, I agree in part with Silver, Bruno, and Alex.

1. Esprit with the initiation of Vue6 can populate already created Ecos and it can edit them VIA Height, slope, and material restraints, but not create them..
2. Pro Studio can edit many parts and even create some fantastic foliage and Ecos, but can not as shown above DEEP EDIT Objects and many other Finer tuning.
3. X-Stream goes above and beyond where Infinite has been left off and in a PERFECT SCENARIO would be able to trump all other versions of Vue, but it can not do it's Bug issues.
   Interesting thing to think about is that ILM has No Public Reported Problems with X-Stream.
   Could this be part of: "It's Not Who You Know, But Who You " ??????
   In any case I have had very few crashes with V6 Pro Studio and have learned to FEEL when one is about to happen and I able to make adjustments in most cases to insure that a crash does not happen. That is the Key to success in part, "Not The Next Version of Vue", which should only Enrich your Expertise with the Software.

Thelby,
thought what was said, was that ILM had taken Vue, and like most of the big companies, totally re-worked it, internally?

For example, if one of the big studios buys Maya or Lightwave, they'll have their own coders rip it to bits, add what features they need, rebuild it.

So, we're probably getting feedback form ILM's improvements on Vue, as well as E-On's?
:)