Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/about/newsletter/

.. and new products too...

Is it just me or has the prices jumped JUST A BIT ?

"Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw."

Really? I hadn't noticed, lol!

I spotted that.  Better start saving I guess !!!  I wonder what the upgrade pricing will be like

My Freebies
Buy stuff on RedBubble

Seriously, with upgrade it is still going to be over 600 for Infinite. Which is ok if they got alot more to offer. We shall see.

"Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw."

yeah, that's USD though - I wonder what the price will be in the UK .  Only time will tell I guess

My Freebies
Buy stuff on RedBubble

Well, I am out of Malaysia now and living in Lithuania which is an EU country...but one of those that doesent share the Euro:D So it will cost me 2.8 times more than the USD:P But i doubt they give deals for post soviets:D

"Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw."

I hope the ambitious pricing reflects a significant upgrade.  Or is it just that the dollar has dropped in value.?

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&userid=323368

The $ was 30% than the € a few months ago, but it is now only 20%. Besides, the Complete product may be the new Infinite...  without a few features?

I noticed that.  I wonder what the differences between complete and infinite are.  Have to wait for the comparison chart I guess

My Freebies
Buy stuff on RedBubble

Call me silly, but I don't think the incomplete version should be called the "complete" version. :) 

It should be Vue 7 Esprit Pro, Vue 7 Studio, Vue 7 Inifinity.  'Complete' in the name is quite misleading since it is not complete. :)
 

The announcement was exciting but the price rise is significant. There will have to be a lot of new features to justify that kind of money.

Cheers,
Mark

Well, I think that the decision to create an intermediate level between Pro and Infinite is wise.

The differences between Pro 6 and Infinite 6 can be summed as: a handful of tools for everbody and lots of tools for professionals; if they cut the feature set well, Complete7 is the right tool for the dedicated amateur.

Another wise decision is to make the entry point program not a dead end but the start of the bit-by-bit-I-will-get-everything road.... :lol:

Prices have somewhat gone up, which was to be expected, as Vue has no competition in its market.

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Just thinking out loud... Would any of us Infinite users considering 'upgrading' to Complete if it had all the features we wanted? Just wondering. What features do you think are most important for Complete to have in order to upgrade to it?

Personally, I think it needs full function editor support, ecoSystem painting, import and export. I also want to be able to 'bake to polygons' my metablob creations.

I'm not a big fan of animation, so it's not as important to me-- how about the rest of you?

 

Sounds about right Chipp.  I'd also want access to the new radiosity engine and the new spectral stuff + the ecosystem 3 technology too

My Freebies
Buy stuff on RedBubble

They list architects under Infinite so my guess is the new radiosity engine will only be in that level. It looks fine for me, the features I would actually use at this point will be in the Complete version. I'm at Pro-Studio right now so it would be a reasonable jump if I can go from there to Complete.

Hm, damn right there'd better be godoreaosn for this price hike :/
I LIKE the stuff in Infinite, exporting textures, & lots of little bits are so sweet and make my life easier!

For that price hike, I want particles, and and well I've posted huge list before, lol.
faster render, more realistic renders (OMG, I'd do naughty things for a Maxwell quality non biased render!), FIX the sodding way Vue inverts greyscales, add real world units ot function editors, rigging....

And AGH!!! I was thinking of getting 7 Xstream so I could link Vue and Lightwave, finally, but..not at that freakin' price!!!!!! That's insane!!

Wanted to buy C4 extended,  and Particle Illusion 3, sigh, there goes that plan....

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!

The pricing for xstream is pretty insane, maybe it includes some type of external render licence?

Infinite is still high priced, I am worried about the Complete version, I dont think it will be complete and will be missing that one vital thing you just know you want and is only in the infinite version.

Lets hope there upgrade pricing is reasonable.

Jon

DA Portfolio - http://jonj1611.daportfolio.com/

Same here for animation.  It's the one thing in Vue I hardly ever use.  There are a lot of other things in Infinite that I use all the time.  Will have to wait and see the chart. 

I like the idea though that you can start from Pioneer and keep moving on up.  When money is tight, the module approach is very attractive.

LVS - Where Learning is Fun!  
http://www.lvsonline.com/index.html

as im gearing up to work on animations... inifnite is where i'll probably end up...

grins at peggy - but i gotta catch up first, right?

i'm still gonna avoid xstream like the plague.

i do like the fact that they added another level - i DONT like the price hikes on everything =(

but, from all the hints being dropped - working within any non-disclosure agreement folks have with E-On, of course - i'd say... it's more than likely well-worth the upgraded price.

only time will tell of course.

Rarer than a hairy egg and madder than a box of frogs....

< o > < o >    You've been VUED!    < o > < o >
         >                                                     >
         O                                                    O

Cost is important but so is my new toys...................so I'll prolly say f..k it and go for Infnite again just 'cos I like my new toys!!!!

Injustice will be avenged.
Cofiwch Dryweryn.

Chippwalters,
baking metablobs is the ONLY way you cna get the buggers otwork right, at times, with some materials :(
In my I, Beholder pic, I used metalbobs to build drool, dripping from the beasties' mouth, baked the metablobs to polygons (or liquid mateiral would just bugger up), and it worked a damned charm! :)
So that IS a very good feature, folks ;)

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!

Does anyone have a clue about the new features? The email promo just tells us that the software can be purchased piecemeal depending on need. If there's an improvement in the rendering speed I'd be interested in upgrading, but right now the difference between the US $ is distorting what we pay here in Australia...so I'll probably pass until the situation improves (if ever!).

Xstream had better work right out of the box if they're asking for that price. I think I'll wait and let the rich people beta test after its release. 

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

The xStream price is insane, and like Steven, I was thinking of getting it for C4D, they say there will be a special introductory price, let's hope it will be reasonable...
Now about Complete, I agree with Chipp, these feautures need to be in this version, as for animtion, they don't say anything, guess we'll have to wait. But if Complete has all the Infinite features, minus production and pipeline integration features ( or so they say in the newsletter), like maybe g buffer and camera tracking, then I think Complete will be a great version.

Well for me I had XStream 5 for Cinema 4D and it was nothing but a nightmarish waste of money. Although the prices at this time are a bit over the top whatever I have paid for Vue in the past has always been worth the cash even with the headaches we are all familliar with inside Vue. But i also agree that a list will clear alot of "is it worth it" up for us. I do not nor do I ever intend for going the XStream way again nor do I animate anything. As Jonj1611 said, there is likely something going to be missing in Complete that we Infinite users just have to have. So whatever the prices end up being, it is Infinite for me.

"Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw."

Were I in E-On place, I would make this subdivision:

xStream: everything, embedded in native modeling apps;
Infinite: xStream minus embedding;
Complete: Infinite minus Python scripting and (perhaps) minus advanced radiosity for internals.

Pros need scripting for creating their proprietary tools and therefore omitting scripting from Complete would make them not even consider anything below Infinite; the question for them would be very simple: Do I need embedding? if yes, xStream, if not, Infinte.

For everybodies else it would be a "picture collecting contest" to reach Complete.

Clean and fair.

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Alex,

I agree with you, except I think radiosity needs to be in Complete. They can't switch render engines from Complete to Infinite-- that just wouldn't make sense. Too many different code bases to support, IMO. But you are right, the ability to script Python doesn't need to be in Complete.

 

Radiosity was in Vue Esprit since 5, I wouldn't expect them to take it away from 7 Complete...

SkinVue is Dave's baby but judging by the number of e-mails I get and forum posts I see asking why it can be used with Esprite I'd say we do need some sort of Python support in the lower version.  Plus if its in the lower versions and so has a larger user base there will be an incentive for more people to write add ons.  Then someone else can create those particle systems, fluid simulations, modelling plug-ins and other handy bits and pieces without e-on having to get side tracked from making the core Vue app the best landscape generator out there.  Given C3D is the obvious place to sell a plug-in its win win for e-on too.

Or to sum up I hope e-on have included python as far down the product line as they think there is a market for add ons.

impworks | vue news blog | twitter | pinterest

Quote - Radiosity was in Vue Esprit since 5, I wouldn't expect them to take it away from 7 Complete...

I wasn't proposing  to remove radiosity to the lower end products, I was saying to restrict the super-duper new features to the high-end (Architect's Edition) ones.

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

 Well considering the price I really hope things work in it properly.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

I wish they'd make it so I could just buy the eco-sprayer and ventilator as plugins without having to get the whole big package.  I'm a starving artist! 

What I would like is a program that doesn't crash every session. Last day I just tried the plant editor with a single tree in the scene and ... crash. Another bug report...
I have never sent this incredible number of bug reports for another software, except in my job ;)
So I'm not so excited with new functions which often means new bugs with e-on.

I dream of a Vue software made with Cocoa framework, well integrated in MacOS, which  works like a charm. I would spent my night on.

But alas Vue has a horrible GUI with bugged widgets and amazing window system. They don't know how to make GUI so why don't they use the Mac framework (and the Windows framwork as well) ?
Actually I'm wondering if e-on knows how to make programs...3D algorythms maybe but not programs.
Why Shade programmers can make a reliable software for both platforms and not e-on ?

But Vue makes beautiful pictures so it's a trap, and life is hope...

PS: I have Esprit+modules.

2ni,
sorry to be evil and mean, but...
it works wonderfully on a 64 bit Vista rig! ;) :thumbupboth:

let's just hope me saying that...doesn't cause Murphy's law to bite ME in the ass, and make Vue7 crap on my rig, hehe!! ;)

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!

It's even working beautifully here on XP32 and Vista32. Opening the plant editor while only one tree in the scene is no problem this side of Steve Jobs. Sorry, couldn't resist this one!

2ni - sorry about the humor of those with infinite... they either never had to deal with pro studio, or they forgot about it ;)  (pokin the infinite folks and giggling - j/k folks, strange sense of humor today)

pro studio consumes more resources than either infinite OR esprit (personal experience with PLE and esprit versus pro studio), and as such, crashes faster, harder, and more often.  (yes, my own theory, but i dare any of you folks to take the test and find out the real reason why pro crashes so much ;)  seriousely - the part of me that's feline is dieing of curiosity!)

plant editor doesnt crash mine consistantly, but it DOES crash it.  there is one thing that will always crash mine, so i dont even do it anymore - and couldnt tell you if they fixed it in the last update or not.

thing is, everyone's systems are different - like our bodies, our computers tend to one-of-a-kinds - even those bought from dell, etc.  we put our own stuff on them, etc.  so, while MY computer crashes vue every single time i try to create two or more projected texture maps in a scene without saving and restarting vue,... YOURS seems to hate your plant editor.  Tom's (fictitional person) Vue might crash most often loading spotlights.

you see?

the bugs may be present in every single copy of vue... but some systems seem to "react" differently - no matter how much memory you have, or what OS you are using.

thank you for being one of the ones to send off bug reports =D  i DO hope they work out more of the mac-version bugs for you guys on that "other" system ;)

oh, and i have pro studio, with XP pro 64, and 4gigs ram.  hopefully - soon to be 8 gigs of ram... wheeeeeeeee!

Rarer than a hairy egg and madder than a box of frogs....

< o > < o >    You've been VUED!    < o > < o >
         >                                                     >
         O                                                    O

Cool, but these prices......

Vue 7 Pioneer compared to Vue6 easel dropped in price (50%), but who knows what functionality has been taken out and has been replaced by modules (I hope none).

Vue 6 Esprit & Pro compare to Vue 7 Esprit & Pro stayed the same, Vue 7 Infinite went up $100 and Vue 7 Xtream went up $500......

Vue 7 Complete geared at me (the independent user) sounds great, but as an independent user I can never justify spending $599.00 on something like Vue, that's a considerable amount of my limited budget. Vue 7 Pro Studio is already a though job for me an independent user, even with the upgrade prices, I'm sure Vue 7 Complete will be out of reach of quite some independent users, no matter how much we desire it.

Looking forward to seeing more of Vue 7 and hopefully it's worth the upgrade, I'm still not convinced going from Vue 5 to Vue 6 was worth the upgrade price asked, so I'm hoping it will be really different with Vue 7.

Perhaps 'downgrading' to the new Vue 7 Pioneer could be an option with some of the modules, depending on what they cost.

I really do not hope they force us, as the usually do, into buying the next Vue to get the bugs from the previous Vue fixed. I'm hoping for once it will be differently.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

 Hi bruno021, I'm a mac user, ane I  believe vue 6 still doesn't work with animations (it used to until the upgrades) from poser.
Also it doesn't work really niceley with poser pro as yet. I was hoping they would fix that but there haswn't been an upgrade of vue 6 for many many months.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

I got the newsletter myself and are in the bandwagon with the other posters.

To me, it all seems so vague, don't you just love it when they keep you in suspense -- that is until the wallet weeps.

I noticed that they changed a lot of gears: once was Vue Easel, now we'll be having "Pioneer" (I bought Vue 5 Easel and had a free upgrade to 6) to Complete --  I too am wondering, will this be the new Infinite or will it be a 'shorthand' edition to Infinite, hence the promoting of users Small Studio (Complete) and Professional (Infinite).

I went on and sidegraded to Vue 6 Esprit which was the beginning of '07 when it was still from beta to stable.  Other than that, in my opinion, it was a real tough act to follow in turns of working with the program and its apparent crashes, just like 2ni has mentioned.

Granted the prices are are something to behold here --

(since Pioneer [once was Easel] is the lowest of the bunch, Esprit and Pro stayed the same in price, Complete a whole new shiny baby in itself, and now Infinite all the way to XStream is enormous),

--but the question remains will V7 of all version will be the creme-de-la-creme than version 6 -- that's the true verdict here.

I just got my Dell XPS 410, Core 2 Duo, 2 Gig, GeForce 7300 LE/NVidia 128MB as a birthday present an will power up with 2 more Gigs to make it 4Gbs of Ram -- so keeping my fingers crossed.

We shall wait and see.

P.S.:  I'm anxious to know how the radiosity looks in the new version and will it be implimented to (if it's true) Pioneer, Esprit up to Xstream...

JB

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asus N50-600 - Intel Core i5-8400 CPU @ 2.80GHz · Windows 10 Home/11 upgrade 64-bit · 16GB DDR4 RAM · 1TB SSD and 1TB HDD; Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 - 6GB GDDR5 VRAM; Software: Poser Pro 11x

 I hope Vue7 Ecosystem population will use all processors.  With Vue6 Infinite, each time I populate a large scene in my MacPro 8-Core I have to go get another cup of coffee and surf the internet for 10-15 minutes until my ecosystem populates as it only currently runs only on one processor.  For me, this is the biggest time-consuming bottle neck in Vue 6 Infinite that makes it inefficient to use in production work.

I'm getting really high-strung on caffeine and need a break.

The down-side of price increases is that an increased number of people will be tempted to download the program for free from the numerous sites around that don't have a problem with "sharing" software. (Not that I'd be tempted as I have a steady job.)
E-on then get nothing for their hard work developing the program.

I'm sure the e-on bean-counters and market strategists formulate this possibility into their price planning, just hope they also figured in the fact that the economy in now in recession and many people are doing it hard out there.

Vue 7 would have to have a whole lot of "must have, can't live without" features for me to spend the money for it.  Vue 6 works just fine for me as it is.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Ashley,
yup, ugly fact is the insane prices of high end apps a few years ago caused a hell of a lot of piracy as users who'd want to be legit, could NOT afford those barking mad prices,

remember they were all several thousand $ and WAY up and then they crashed ot "sane" levels, proving there had been gross over-pricing gouging us consumers.

it's stupid to over price things.

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!

Thing is I can't really see that many "new" features, there are just updates to the features that already existed. And the vagueness of it all is rather distracting, no real screenshots showing what Vue can do, whether that be still or animations. Just scraps of information around the internet.

I am not as excited about Vue 7 as I was about Vue 6, I am 80% sure I will upgrade but to what version I just don't know, because as I said before its going to be sods law there is something in the version above you just need to have.

I just hope that Vue 7 is stable, but with pricing out now and little information on the actual product, especially as Siggraph came and went months ago, I would take the E-On PR person outside and shoot them.

Jon

DA Portfolio - http://jonj1611.daportfolio.com/

All I can say is for the price of the upgrade there should be at least 5 new features. I know they have improved the Oceans, but what about giving us river and waterfall building tools, something really lacking with VUE

Sorry to reply as late but the renderosity mails was in the junk folder, don't know why since it used to work before...

@silverblade33 : ** is't cool that Vue works well on Windows, so perhaps e-on doesn't have good Mac programmers. It's often the case when a program is convert from windows to mac. They use their ugly GUI, I think they'd better use the Mac framework to make a real Cocoa application. I think most people use one platform mainly so a different GUI on Windows and Mac should not be a problem.
**
@melikia : is possible that Infinite is better debugged because pro use Infinite, but it seems weird to me (as a programer myself) to have two distinct applications (Esprit and Vue) when you can just activate some functions in Infinite. So when a bug is fixed on Infinite, it should be fixed also on Esprit. Maybe there are really two apps...

PS: the renderosity editor is really difficult to use, I can't disable bold as I want and the cursor jumps in weird positions... bugs, bugs always bugs...

i think pro studio 6 is built more along the lines of 5 infinite, as 6 infinite uses a different ecosystem generation, and pro uses the "older" version from 5.  There's a few other differences, but that's the major one that stands out in my head.

so - i think that technically, there ARE two separate programs.  There's Infinite 6, and Pro Studio 6.  Esprit is pro studio with modules locked away, and lets not get started on the poor folks with easel. 

i know, i know - makes no sense until you look at it from this point of view (or vue)...

If Pro Studio 6 is basically 5 Infinite with a few more bells & whistles... that means that INFINITE 6 was/is the top of the line - and the one they put most of their attention on/in.  its their money-maker.

I think that 7 might follow the same trends.  Pro studio & Complete will more likely resemble 6 infinite, and 7 infinite will get the coolest niftiest & newest features (as usual LOL).

of course, i could be dead wrong =D

Rarer than a hairy egg and madder than a box of frogs....

< o > < o >    You've been VUED!    < o > < o >
         >                                                     >
         O                                                    O

Upgrading to 7 for me will depend on the price. Some of the rumored stuff seems interesting but I've already spent a lot on Vue 6 Infinite and I don't think just getting 1 or 2 more useful features is worth a lot of money.

2ni,
I find the Deviantart.com forum/chat vastly worse for bugs, ugh, it's terrible, sometimes crashes this browser which is unusual :(

I agree with Elfguy, they should be putting some major *WOW! *into v7 for those increases.

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!

I'm really wondering why they put an image of Vue6 to their article of Vue7. Makes me suspicious.

Alright guys and gals...without anti "anyone" i am going to try to honestly get you folks to go WOW...Yes it is a price hike...the economy sucks really today. World Economy anyway,not local weird for me. I am in several places a year and everyone seems to be eating and drinking and making babies just dandy(; Price hike is odd, expecially in lieu of like the kick ass movies that have been made with Vue the last year plus. Are they going EGO like all the French ? Or are they just worried about the Pirates ? I dunno...but seriously...who isnt going to cash in there welfare/pension/retard/cannot move for one thing or another checks to go buy it ?!? SHIT FOLKS...MY FRIENDS...C'MON. it is Vue lezzies and germanmen...we will buy. There is nothing else better, so please spare me the typing each and every night i have to be banned and denied and just realise we are all here for our artsy-fartsy bull stinkie and know we will and must have it:D

I for one love us all :D

-Paul Trepanier

"Many are willing to suffer for their art. Few are willing to learn to draw."

Autodesk won't buy out E-On unless Vue's retail price is higher to make it seem more professional. 

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Shonner, At first I LOL but that's not such a crazy idea.

Cheers,
Mark

The minute E-On makes it big time, Autodesk will make them an offer.  Just look at Softimage the other day.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

A bit late to this party, but I think the extra $ will be support for an external renderers ie. Vray and so on, may be included! kinda like the way you can buy a cut down version for Truespace for $300.

Quote - Just look at Softimage the other day.

I completely missed that. Autodesk now have Maya and XSI!? I feel sick.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia it dumped Freehand in favour of it own inferior Illustrator, slowed innovation and raised prices. There are a lot of unhappy people out there. There's also no real competition. Graphics wise, Corel are a shadow of their formers selves so PhotoShop's safe and Microsoft's Expression Web is two versions away from challenging DreamWeaver as it is now.

Is Autodesk the Adobe of the 3D world? Rationalistion of its product line cannot be more than a year away. The costs of maintaining software with overlapping functionality must be unbearable in the long term especially given the current economic climate.

If, and it is an if, Autodesk acquire E-On what happens to the non-professional offerings? Goodbye Pioneer, Esprit, Pro and Complete?

I'd love to see Cinema 4D, Poser and Vue all under one ownership. Now that's a combination that could at least begin to challenge AutoDesk. Having SketchUp and zBrush in the mix would be nice but that's a little too unrealistic. :-)

There's nothing us mere customers can do but watch what happens.

Cheers,
Mark

Maybe Microsoft will buy DAZ3D once it realizes that trueSpace isn't all that popular no matter what free price they charge for it?  Microsoft can grab modo or Poser Pro as needed, also.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Doesn't matter to me what it has or doesn't have, I've got both barrels aimed at
Vue 7 Complete!!!   ;^D

I would rather be Politically Incorrect,
Then have Politically Correct-Incorrectness!!!

Quote -
If, and it is an if, Autodesk acquire E-On what happens to the non-professional offerings? Goodbye Pioneer, Esprit, Pro and Complete?

You can bet that the first move will be to kill ALL non-pro versions (XSI Foundation has been immediately terminated) so, if you want to render external scenes, your last (reasonably priced) option would be Carrara Pro, or, maybe, Kerkythea.

I am quite doubtful about the possibility of our hobby remaining alive in the future; high end tools are every day becoming higher end and there are almost no alternatives on the low side, the thing that could save all of us (Blender) is in the hands of penguinbans (a word I coined, it is the merging of penguinistas and talibans...) who pride themselves at locking its functionalities within a deliberately user hostile interface.

Perhaps we all should start reading digital photography magazines (I have started doing so...).

Bye :sad:

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Penguinbans: ROFL.

Whilst I'm pessimistic about Vue's possible fate, the 3D market still has some remarkably powerful tools available for the non-pro on a domestic budget.

You mentioned Carrara Pro: OK it's quirky but it can produce excellent reults. Daz3D alone supply powerful tools, for at times, daft prices: Hexagon is easy (relatively) to get into, Bryce, whilst a little stunted in its growth, produces nice stuff and DAZ Studio might not be Poser but the price is right.

Smith Micro with their eclectic product portfolio haven't destroyed Poser though it might have hit a development dead end.

SketchUp is free albeit with no export features but cheap (circa 120 GBP) third party rendering add ons are available with quality improving with each release.

A couple of months ago I too realised that, compared to 3D, digital photography is not such an expensive hobby and promptly subscribed to the UK mag PhotoPlus for Canon Users. The cost of an Infinite upgrade good for maybe 3 years of use would get me a good Canon lens to last for 10+.

Cheers,
Mark

Some whistleblowers have leaked a video about the meeting in which Autodesk top brass decided to buy Softimage; you can find it here. Though this is not an immediate danger for Vue, it is always of the utmost importance to know as much as possible about possible future dangers.

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Quote - Some whistleblowers have leaked a video about the meeting in which Autodesk top brass decided to buy Softimage

:lol:

Quote - Some whistleblowers have leaked a video about the meeting in which Autodesk top brass decided to buy Softimage; you can find it here. Though this is not an immediate danger for Vue, it is always of the utmost importance to know as much as possible about possible future dangers.

Bye!!!

Hillarious video.  Given all the negative backlash by the Softimage base, one would naturally think that Autodesk would need to step in and do something.  However, where are these users going to go?  Autodesk already owns the rest of the market.

Wait a second Chicken Littles!

Before starting unfounded rumors about the ultimate assimilation and demise of our favorite 3D app to Autodesk, let's take a minute and think.

It currently makes little sense for Autodesk or anyone else to purchase Vue as is, because of the pipeline issues. Vue needs to be able to use plugins and 3rd party renderers-- which it doesn't. Also, it's mostly impossible to export Vue object files into other applications-- as they don't manage objects the same ways. Of course, xStream does offer compositing solutions, but at Vue's current rendertimes, I'm not so sure it's all that attractive to someone like Autodesk. Much better for matte painters.

Besides, they (Autodesk) have their hands full right now with SI.

Now on to the new Pioneer product line. Not sure if anyone saw it, but from what I read, the cool thing is you can upgrade from Pioneer all the way to Vue7 Complete-- either all at once, or module by module. And I suspect, the 'issues' which plague an Esprit to Pro upgrade shouldn't be 'issues' anymore, as I would assume designing such an architecture would have the developers working out the migration tools/plugins in a much smarter way.

So, if you don't have the money to upgrade to Complete right off the bat, you can probably 'upgrade' to Esprit or Pioneer and then buy modules you need/want now, then wait later for your next paycheck to buy the rest!

I imagine they'll also have a sidegrade offer for Vue Infinite users to Complete as well-- which I suspect wouldn't cost too much either. So, before we get all upset regarding pricing, perhaps we should wait and see what the upgrade / sidegrade / downgrade prices will be? Just a thought.

Frankly, I think this 'modules upgrade path'  is a very smart way to do things.

 

Newtek could buy Vue.  It wouldn't care what condition it's in.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - Newtek could buy Vue.  It wouldn't care what condition it's in.

Newtek's a privately owned company which is struggling to keep pace with the bigger and more affluent 3D apps like Maya and Max, and certainly doesn't have the resources to plunk down major change for a product line like Vue.

Their headquarters is not far from my house. I know the president. While they have a great product, and one which competes well with the big guys, they aren't in a position to even consider such a purchase.

What is the obsession with finding a suitor for e-on? Just wondering...

 

It will happen.  Maybe Vue will be recession-proof.  We'll see.  I know you're trying to make money with Vue.  Maybe Vue would be worth more to other companies if it had plugins.  We'll know more after the first quarter results of Vue 7's sales.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - It will happen.  Maybe Vue will be recession-proof.  We'll see.  I know you're trying to make money with Vue.  Maybe Vue would be worth more to other companies if it had plugins.  We'll know more after the first quarter results of Vue 7's sales.

How silly to be so sure of something without having facts to back it up. Not sure what your point about 'make money with Vue' is supposed to be-- but it seems out of place in this discussion. 

e-on software is a privately held company, and as such does not disclose it's sales nor profit and loss-- something you might know had you the slightest penchant for checking for facts.

 

The questions in my mind are
 - how likely is that E-On will be bought?
 - and by whom?

Over the last two versions of Vue, there's no doubt E-On targeted the professional market. IMO It's highly likely they're making themselves more attractive to possible buyers.

Given AutoDesk's current acquisitive mood, E-On are a prime target as Vue's feature set complements AutoDesk's current portfolio: AutoCAD the CAD software, three top 3D apps 3DS, Maya and XSi and other complementary software. Most noticeably in the last category is Stitcher, acquired during the taken over of RealViz, a French company, in May 2008.

Irrespective of the above, E-On have a lot to deliver with Vue 7. Especially given the increased pricing.

Cheers,
Mark

Hey, people, what's gotten into you? What's all the fuss about e-on being bought? Read anything,  anywhere? Thought not.

Quote - How silly to be so sure of something without having facts to back it up. Not sure what your point about 'make money with Vue' is supposed to be-- but it seems out of place in this discussion. 

e-on software is a privately held company, and as such does not disclose it's sales nor profit and loss-- something you might know had you the slightest penchant for checking for facts.

I thought it would be interesting to see how you would respond if I kept pushing the issue of Vue getting bought.  And you walked right in and revealed your character for me.  Thank you for playing.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - I thought it would be interesting to see how you would respond if I kept pushing the issue of Vue getting bought.  And you walked right in and revealed your character for me.  Thank you for playing.

....that's called 'trolling' and you have now publically revealed yourself as one. Good luck on being taken serious again.

 

When someone continually posts made up scenario others reveal their true face?  Seems to me they revealed they had a clue and knew something of what was going on.  Meanwhile you are now trying to cover up a lack there of through bluster on top of your ill informed posts.

impworks | vue news blog | twitter | pinterest

Quote - When someone continually posts made up scenario others reveal their true face?  Seems to me they revealed they had a clue and knew something of what was going on.  Meanwhile you are now trying to cover up a lack there of through bluster on top of your ill informed posts.

Many years ago, an italian cartoon character, Cattivik, in a strip dropped on the world this fundamental quote:

"La fortuna e' cieca, la sfiga ci vede benissimo"

which roughly translated mean "Luck is blind,  bad luck sees VERY well".

I think this is one of the most profound meditations ever conceived on human condition, on par of the works of the most renowned philosphers of history. Thinking about worst cases and planning possible contingency plans is called preparedness, not being "ill informed" or, as you are hinting, cowardly anonymous rumor spreading, may be for unspeakable dark purposes.

B.t.w., english has a more compact but less phylosophical "Sh**t happens".

No "Bye!!!" this time...

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Alexcoppo or an alternative and shorter response I could have posted When in a Hole Stop Digging.

impworks | vue news blog | twitter | pinterest

Quite frankly if I had to "worry" about anything(using worry loosely) I'd be more concerned at this point as to what the future holds for Poser & IF they went belly up.  Do you think EON would move over to D|S support & hook up with Daz rather than the ever changing companies holding Poser?  I know you can already import via .obj from D|S, but the same as we have now from Poser - simple posing inside inside Vue/ability to use shaders etc etc.

D|S appears to moving fast to catch up to Poser & possibly surpass it - now they have released a comprehensive rigging deal for D|S backward compatible to Poser.  I think all they lack at this point is Dynamic cloth which appears to be on track for D|S ONLY at this point.

I have no real issues myself no matter how it would end up.

Just more things to ponder..... 

I beginning to regret contributing to this thread....

Fact: the 3D market generally is maturing and consolidating.
Fact: AutoDesk is emerging as the major player in the consolidation of pro CGI tools (AutoCAD, 3DS, Maya, XSi, Stitcher, etc.).
Fact: in recent releases E-On have made a concerted effort to break into the professional market with X-Stream plus full page ads in the likes of 3DWorld (see Vue 7 ad in #111, page 27)

Currently, the two viable ways for E-On to realise cash from the company are through either going public (unlikely in the current market) or a takeover. My concern remains that E-On are making themselves attractive to would be buyers the obvious one being AutoDesk.

Yes it is speculation and I sincerely hope I'm wrong but, given the above, it's not so far fetched.

Cheers,
Mark

BigGreenFurryThing,

You certainly do point out facts, and appropriately define your conclusion as speculation. Much different from a comment like "It will happen." You are correct at pointing out two possible exit strategies for e-on. There are of course more-- sell to employees, bring in partners, etc.. Or, do nothing, and keep cashing checks from sales-- a strategy employed by many software companies these days (including Newtek).

Even so, I suppose one could speculate the same scenario for any of a dozen programs out there, including Z-Brush, MudBox, Modo and others. Without some sort of 'other' evidence, it is all conjecture-- and I'm not sure exactly what the point is/was. 

My point was-- it IS all conjecture, and also to prevent the rumor-mill from spinning up-- as often it does with nothing more than innuendo.

Mark Caldwell,

Quote - When in a Hole Stop Digging

Too funny. I'll remember that one :-)

 

Well, all this speculation only reveals one thing ... you've all missed a major point.

I've been through this acquisition mess before as a user.

There once was a series of engineering design apps called "Visual Survey / Roads / Construction" owned by CAiCE Corporation of Florida.  CAiCE Corporation came up with a product that was a survey/geomatics, road/highway design and construction program(s) - in a modular approach.  The product was quite good and they converted a number of US states (high teens) into using the product for highway design and construction purposes.  A switch from Bentley products which rule the DOT arena.  A lucrative area for any company.

In 2001/2002, AutoDesk felt that Land Desktop was getting a bit "long in the tooth" and felt that they could not take it any further.  AutoDesk saw the posibilities of the technology within the CAiCE product, and "acquired" CAiCE Corporation and it's products in 2002 and placed one of the key designers of CAiCE into the position of chief architect of Land Desktops' sucessor, Civil 3D.  Those of you in the engineering field may recognise that name.

CAiCE Corporation was a privately held company.  The owner of CAiCE Corporation became an AutoDesk VP, most of the employees were let go with a large number of technical & programming staff migrating into AutoDesk.

AutoDesk "dropped the ball" at continuing to develop CAiCE, and therefore "lost" a number of DOTs as clients.  Finally, after 4 years of ignoring the original product, the VPs at AutoDesk realised the size of the market ($$$) they were neglecting, and are now fully supporting those DOTs and major clients that still use CAiCE until Civil 3D reaches parity with the CAiCE product.

Now, 6 years later after the acquisition, there are only 2 or 3 of the original CAiCE employees left within AutoDesk, including the chief architect.  Not sure of what happened of the original owner of CAiCE Corporation, maybe he is still there.

All this tells me that IF Vue is sold to AutoDesk, the original owner will loose all sense of control over the product and over the direction of development. 

It seems to me that Vue is a product created by a few people with a very definite idea of how the product should work and what it should do.  As long as Vue makes a profit and keeps the income stream well enough funded to create new versions of Vue, then Vue will not be sold.  I cannot speak for Mr. Phelps, but I get the impression from the product and the way the developers are talking about it that they are rather passionate about their creation (as are the users).  And people like that do not sell their "baby".

But then, that's my "2 bits" and that's not much coinage any more... ;-D

Hey, Martin Hash still owns Animation:Master, even after Microsoft tried to buy them several years ago. e-on and Hash are similar in many ways. I doubt they'll sell. And e-on is so niche, I don't think anyone would really want to buy them unless they had a ton of money and no company is in that situation right now or for the near future. The economy stinks unless you've been bailed out! ;)

Back to the original topic:

What features do you expect to be included in Vue 7 Infinite besides the obvious ones like new Solid Growth and Spectral Atmosphere Systems? Personally, I'm rooting for a fractal displacement system similar to the one from TG2, so that we can finally create true overhangs, stones etc. without having to use the buggy displacement map feature. I don't really think that there will be somehting like that in the next release, but I hope e-on will prove me wrong on that. I know they've been monitoring the features of Terragen 2, and if we got similar fractals then Vue would be the ultimate app :).

Ahhh....please, e-on, come on and make the official announcement vor Vue 7...

Personally I think its a PR disaster, scattered information, users searching the internet for scraps of info.

I guess E-On had to produce something a Siggraph but I think not even they wanted to announce Vue 7 so early. Still no real screenshots, no real info, just pricing for a product that is nothing but speculation. And all the coming soon info, I was it was coming soon :)

Jon

DA Portfolio - http://jonj1611.daportfolio.com/

* I wish it was coming soon :)

DA Portfolio - http://jonj1611.daportfolio.com/

Quote -
And all the coming soon info, I was it was coming soon :)

In the general software business, soon means in a few months. In the 3D apps business soon means in a couple of quarters (unless it is about Zbrush, then soon might mean in a few years...). For some 3D software houses (e.g. one located in Utah) soon means "may be this year"... if uttered in February.

On another forum I read a comment about the traditional E-On December sale; may be 7 will come out then, or, as I wrote in a posting sometimes ago in this forum, around March/April '09.

Terragen 2 has not even an announced final feature set, let alone release date (pardon, year).

POV-Ray 3.7 has reached 3.5 years of public beta (with no end in sight); apparently the work on the version 4 is still in the idle brainstorming phase.

B.t.w., if you want to read about people complaining, just go to DAZ forums: Studio got the rigging plugin which is just a candy w.r.t. the expected (since 2Q07) Optitex dynamic clothing engine. By reaction, Carrara users are fuming at the idea the Carrara7 is likely to have just some not-ground-breaking features (and keep old bugs) while Bryce users are starting again the "save Bryce campaign".

The are just a few positive notes in this really gloomy panorama:
1 ) apparently Caligari is still working on trueSpace (7.6 patch coming and officially acknowledged the existence of version 8);

2. in the SketchUp arena, books about SketchUp X and SketchUp Pro X (the fabled version 7) already announced for release on Amazon.com and similar sites (availability Dec 31);
3. Silo people announced version 2.2 with Collada support;
4. MoI and 3D Paint look very active;
5. on Kerkythea website the main programmer stated that the next version will take Kerkythea where it has never been (and if you consider that this renderer has a kind of  "painted ecosystem"... this might mean something).

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2