So, I just finished "replacing" all the "Cornucopia placeholders" in the vegetation folder with the ones I purchased. You know, the ones with the double tildes in the name.

For joining the Club, I received the Greek Village (vob). So, I was looking for the place to put it and after a while, found its placeholder here:

c:UsersChuckDocumentse-on softwareVue 9ScenesSets

There are other placeholders in that folder for items I don't own. 

My question is, I can't find where to open it. It's not in the Load --> Object selection (where all the various objects are). If you click File --> Open, it shows a window that says (at the top) "Please select scene to load" but it doesn't show up. Looking in the folder, I see that Vue Complete is showing ONLY the filetypes of "vue" and none of the "vob"s. I mean, most of the vobs in there were installed by the program--I just added the Greek village in later.

So, is there something I need to do to get all the vobs to show (the one I installed as well as the ones that were installed by the program)?

Thanks !

The same procedure as last year. :laugh: The same procedure as every year!

Mazak

VUE files are accessed via the OPEN command.  VOB files are accessed via the LOAD command.

I just move those VOBs to a better folder and not worry about the ~~ files.  My filter hides the C3D content.

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I was just thinking E-on wanted/wants the Greek village to go into the spot where its placeholder was and I was confused over why there seems to be no way, though, to get to it (easily) with the menu system. Thinking maybe I was missing a setting somewhere.

I was also thinking having the purchased items go into the same folder as its placeholder (then deleting the placeholder upon purchase) would be the best way to store purchased files (instead of additional folders outside the Vue Environment).

Quote - Ihave created a new collection in my Objects browser, to find my Sets easy. With the update to 9.5 I must do this new too.

The same procedure as last year. :laugh: The same procedure as every year!

Mazak

I guess I'll try it this way, then.  Thanks for the suggestion/example.

The ghost files for store products can be deleted all in one go, saves some space on your HD instead of hiding them.

Quote - The ghost files for store products can be deleted all in one go, saves some space on your HD instead of hiding them.

Well, LOL, HD space isn't much of a worry (well, to me anyway). And having them there is a nice way of seeing what's available that I don't own in case I'm looking for something a bit different from what I have.

Just thought I'd let ya know, most people on here have removed them as an annoyance. I shan't bother you again, my apologies.

Not everyone has "uber" systems, the extra space may be important to some.

Quote - Just thought I'd let ya know, most people on here have removed them as an annoyance. I shan't bother you again, my apologies.

Not everyone has "uber" systems, the extra space may be important to some.

I didn't mean to offend and I appreciate the help so please take my "chuckling" in my response as a comment on my situation and please don't mistake it as a comment on everyone's situation.

I also added an additional reason for not deleting that is possibly useful to others who might be considering deletion.

I appreciate "being bothered" wink. This forum doesn't seem to enjoy the same amount of traffic now as it did several years ago--it needs all the attention it can get.

Vue 5 was a turning point for E-on customers.  The community is not as big as it used to be because of the price hikes, E-on no longer listening to that customer base and going all ILM with their 5-year plans, and their push to sell ho-hum content for $7 - $15 that isn't all that interesting.

Add to that, iffy-working versions of Vue every 6 months (I admit that 9 and 9.5 now seem more bullet proof than 7 - 8.5 ever were).  So Vue has become just another tool for some people who can afford it that gets used on occasion to render what? Yet another Poser or DAZ figure of the day?

Then E-on gives away versions of Vue for free or almost for free and they are disabled in some way of course.  So that deters people from coming around to this forum.  E-on's forum itself is nearly a ghost town.  And they just released a new version of their software a few days ago. 

But the same thing is happening in forums for most software out there except for maybe Poser.  A lot of people have decided they are just going to use that app as their end-all be-all 3D rendering hobby or whatever and be done with it.  They're happy.  No muss, no fuss.

Maybe scenery renders have past their peak long ago?  The thrill is gone.  How many times can you look at yet another rendered mountain with trees and clouds?  And how fun is it to pay bucks every 6 months to keep doing those renders with just a few new tweaks here and there in the program?

I think a company starts assuming too much from a customer at that point.

Quote - Vue 5 was a turning point for E-on customers.  The community is not as big as it used to be because of the price hikes, E-on no longer listening to that customer base and going all ILM with their 5-year plans, and their push to sell ho-hum content for $7 - $15 that isn't all that interesting.

Add to that, iffy-working versions of Vue every 6 months (I admit that 9 and 9.5 now seem more bullet proof than 7 - 8.5 ever were).  So Vue has become just another tool for some people who can afford it that gets used on occasion to render what? Yet another Poser or DAZ figure of the day?

Then E-on gives away versions of Vue for free or almost for free and they are disabled in some way of course.  So that deters people from coming around to this forum.  E-on's forum itself is nearly a ghost town.  And they just released a new version of their software a few days ago. 

But the same thing is happening in forums for most software out there except for maybe Poser.  A lot of people have decided they are just going to use that app as their end-all be-all 3D rendering hobby or whatever and be done with it.  They're happy.  No muss, no fuss.

Maybe scenery renders have past their peak long ago?  The thrill is gone.  How many times can you look at yet another rendered mountain with trees and clouds?  And how fun is it to pay bucks every 6 months to keep doing those renders with just a few new tweaks here and there in the program?

I think a company starts assuming too much from a customer at that point.

I think you make good points.

E-on, I guess, decided they wanted to pursue a reputation that didn't have the embarrassment of hobbyists associated with them. Of course, then they give out "crippled" versions to attract the hobbyist. Not many hobbyists can afford a $1,000 piece of software.

Corporations can afford to buy software on subscription and get stuff like Vue xStream and Chief Architect X3 and AutoCAD and 3DS, etc.  And they can afford to pay extra for the hand-holding over the phone.  And even extra extra to not have to wait on hold when calling support.  And even extra extra extra to have the software developer in the office next to the user making a custom build for them.  That's all fine and dandy.

But the first-time Vue Infinite buyer sees this going on and doesn't buy the next version afterwards.  But what is a first time buyer exactly?  That is the golden something or other if one knows.  Are they a Poser renderer looking for outdoor scenes to render in?  Are they an architect Pre-Viz person?  Are they coming from Bryce or Terragen or something else?  Did they see Avatar 4 or 5 times in the theater?  And will they need to keep buying new versions of Vue?  Will they tell their buddies that have no interest what-so-ever in CG plantlife how amazing Vue is and that they should break out $1100(?) for Infinite or whatever the price for it is now?  It's a niche program.  Poser is a niche program that some people have at least heard of.  But Vue?  People ask me what I'm doing and I tell them about Vue and they are like... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh that's so interesting, now help me with this Office 2010 problem that is my everyday livelyhood here.

LOL...so true !  Good post.

It certainly is an expensive hobby. I used to have Infinite but I can't afford it now--not for a hobby thing.

Yep.  Until Vue 5, the software was relatively affordable.  I paid the initial fee of $599 for Vue 5 Infinite as a first time user just so I'd have a foot in the door for Vue 6 Infinite at a lesser fee, not realizing that Vue 5 Infinite would have so many bugs and not work with Poser as advertized.  I was looking for a better renderer than Carrara 5 Pro for doing outdoor stuff with Poser figures.  That was my first experience as a Vue user.  If it weren't for Spectral 2 clouds, I'd probably never gone past Vue 6.

Over the long haul, Vue 9.5 Infinite has still been a better outdoor renderer than Carrara 8 Pro, with some of the same issues though.  But Carrara 5 renders Poser dynamic hair (and Poser figures in general) far better still than Vue 9.5 can.  E-on was cursed or perplexed by this Poser stuff after Vue 4 Pro.

LOL...curse or purplexed...haha.

I have Vue Infinite 6 and because I finally updated to W7, I didn't want to see (the hard way) any compatibility problems and unexplainable burps. So, I side-graded to Complete 9 (no upgrade to Infinite 9 from Infinite 6) rather than spend $800 in a weird sort of side-grade/buyback offer. 

That makes sense.  I'm rendering a Poser figure in Carrara 5 Pro now with 20,000+ strands of dynamic hair and it is rendering.  Fast even.  6-year-old program.  The Poser figure is a Poser 6 Jessi figure.

This same PZ3 file brings Vue 9.5 Infinite to its knees and renders take about 20x longer.  I'm guessing I can paste Carrara renders of figures into a rendered Vue landscape using Photoshop.  I just have to remember how to get a mask generated for the figure in Carrara.  In modo, it's easy (but not with dynamic hair).  Just render a TGA file (or is it a PNG file?).  Dam my long term (and short term) memory!

Interesting stats there on render times.

PNG certainly leaves you with a transparent background (if you need it). But if you isolated the image in Carrara (alpha channel or however) and opened it in PS and opened the Vue image in Photoshop, just move it over then. Or save the Carrara image as a PSD file for future use. I'd leave it in PSD format before I'd convert to PNG. I don't know about TGA. I rarely use it. CIV 5 screen captures are save in TGA format...LOL. About the only time I use TGA.

I forgot that I'm using TransPoser 2 for Carrara 5 Pro to get the dynamic hair imported.  The render time in Vue is faster if I'm just doing a draft quality render of the hair.  But the hair is terrible.  Looks like a mop.

In Carrara 5 Pro, I found the option button for including alphas when rendering a .PSD file.  That allowed me to open the .PSD in Paint Shop Pro and extract the alpha from it for a mask layer (made the background of the render transparent, yey!).  Then copied her onto a Vue rendered background layer.  I'm surprised the strands of hair didn't get jaggy from the copy/paste layer.

I'm gonna try again in Vue and see if I can get the hair to render faster somehow.  It shouldn't take so long to render a noodle mop or hair helmet, afterall.  (9.5 is more responsive now than 9 was when previewing hair in the Main Camera view.)

It's all so complicated (LOL) getting software to "play" with Poser objects. I think the operative word is, cludge.

I'm still feeling my way back into things (been a while) and had to review the basics of moving around in the Vue panes again.