I've never used Vue, and recently discovered I'm $250 away from a copy of Vue 2014 Complete.  As a burgeoning artist, one of my interests is hyper-realism.  Vue looks like it could help me explore that, far beyond what Reality 3 offers.

Is the bridge from Poser worth the investment?

Quote - I've never used Vue, and recently discovered I'm $250 away from a copy of Vue 2014 Complete.  As a burgeoning artist, one of my interests is hyper-realism.  Vue looks like it could help me explore that, far beyond what Reality 3 offers.

Is the bridge from Poser worth the investment?

Depends what you are after. I am using Vue for many years now (since Vue 4 in ~2006). If you have never used it before you are looking at a significant learning curve in order to take advantage of all its features. Vue is now my primary scene setup and render app. I set up my figures in Poser and DAZ Studio and export as .obj or .pz3. All material are set up in Vue. All I need are the textures for diffuse and bump. I rarely render in any other app. However, it will depend on the type of scenes you are planning to do. Vue truly shines in large scale outdoor setups. It is also getting better at indoor and small scale scenes, but that was never its primary focus. With respect to "Hyper-realism" (what is that anyway? something more than realistic?), Vue can get you there in the right kind of scene. This will also come at a price in render time (For example Vue can calculate accurate caustics and in the latest version also photometric lighting, but this will add to render time. If you are used to Poser, the Vue interface might be a shock. I would strongly recommend to download the PLE. It will allow you to try the features and Poser import to see if it is what you want. If you get along with it (and have a good solid machine with fast processor and lots of ram, I am using 32Gb with an i7 hex core) then Vue will put a lot of power in your hands. You can see many examples of Poser/DS to Vue workflow in my gallery here or at dA.

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask!

Ciao

TD

Quote - Depends what you are after.

I want to create Horror-movie-style death scenes using environmental textures and lighting that look as realistic as possible, regardless of whether the action is happening inside or out.

Quote - With respect to "Hyper-realism" (what is that anyway? something more than realistic?)...

It's a form of 3D art designed to make images resemble high-resolution photographs.

Quote -Vue can get you there in the right kind of scene. This will also come at a price in render time...

Thanks to Lux, I've grown accustomed to long render times.  I let one piece cook for 67 hours before I was satisfied with the result.

Quote -
I would strongly recommend to download the PLE. It will allow you to try the features and Poser import to see if it is what you want.

Thanks for the tip.  I noticed e-on software offers a version of Vue, Pioneer 2014, for free, and will test the water with that.

Quote - If you get along with it (and have a good solid machine with fast processor and lots of ram, I am using 32Gb with an i7 hex core) then Vue will put a lot of power in your hands.

I built my current PC last October, with the primary intent of using it as a render rig.  It's got a 3.5 GHz Core i7-4770K running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with 32 GB of RAM and a 4 GB Geforce GTX 760 graphics card.  Based on what I read of Vue's hardware requirements, I don't imagine I'll have any trouble running it.

Quote -
If you have specific questions, feel free to ask!

You mentioned it wasn't necessarily designed for creating indoor scenes  How does it fair with them anyway?  Should I plan on using it primarily for outdoor renders and when I want an indoor scene to have a nice looking window view?

With that computer you won't have any issues with Vue.

I would not base a descision on the free Pioneer version. It is severely limited with respect to import, export, rendering and more. It gives you a flavor of the interface but other than that it is not much use. Too limited. The free PLE ( http://www.e-onsoftware.com/try/vue_2014_ple/ ) is based on Infinite (Which I use) and has all features. It gives you a better impression about what can be done.

The kind of scenes you are looking at are doable with Vue. They will require some serious work with materials (which you can buy or learn how to do yourself in the function editor).

Vue is typically much faster than Lux Render once you learn how to set up your scene and render options. Vue gives you full control over every aspect of lighting and rendering (in the advanced versions). A fully optimized Vue scene can give you the same quality as a Lux Render in a signifcantly shorter time for many scenes (there are things where Lux or any non-biased render engine are superior (complex caustics with accurate dispersion for example).

Vue can definitely do decent indoor renders (there are some examples in my gallery). However it was originally designed as a landscape modelling and render app and one has to jump through some hoops sometimes for a pure indoor render. It is getting better though. Several features were added in the last addition that help a lot and there are more changes planned in the next version.

Hope this helps

TD

Quote - I would not base a descision on the free Pioneer version. The free PLE ( http://www.e-onsoftware.com/try/vue_2014_ple/ ) is based on Infinite (Which I use) and has all features.

Ah.  Good deal.  Thanks.

Quote - The kind of scenes you are looking at are doable with Vue. They will require some serious work with materials (which you can buy or learn how to do yourself in the function editor).

Similar to what I do with Reality 3, or does Vue lack the ability to accurately convert things like procedural shaders for further tweaking in Vue?

Quote - Vue gives you full control over every aspect of lighting and rendering (in the advanced versions).

By "advanced versions", do you mean no such lighting or render control in 2014 Complete, or are you comparing Vue with Lux?

Quote - A fully optimized Vue scene can give you the same quality as a Lux Render in a signifcantly shorter time for many scenes (there are things where Lux or any non-biased render engine are superior (complex caustics with accurate dispersion for example).

You're the second person who's told me Lux is better than Vue in terms of rendering physically accurate materials and environmental effects.  I find that intriguing.  I've always been under the impression that Lux was a poor artist's alternative to high-end apps like Vue.

So, Vue is actually a biased renderer?

Quote - Vue can definitely do decent indoor renders (there are some examples in my gallery).

Good stuff.  I especially like Good Morning Dystopia.

Quote - However it was originally designed as a landscape modelling and render app and one has to jump through some hoops sometimes for a pure indoor render.

I noticed all of their promo examples only featured outdoor renders.

It looks like I'm going to want to plan on using two different workflows depending on the project.

Poser > Vue for outdoor scenes

Poser > Reality 3 > Lux for indoor scenes

Regarding materials: Vue does not convert materials from Poser or DAZ Studio. It simply imports the texture maps (plus bump etc.) and sets some basic values for highlghts and so on. All procedural Poser materials are lost that way. One has the option to "render with Poser shader tree". This means Vue will pass handling of surfaces with Poser shaders to the Poser SDK during rendering (they are essentially handled by Poser and cannot be modified in Vue). This requires more memory. The same is possible for Poser animations. I rarely use this approach as I find the Vue materials far better. 

With advanced versions I was referring to the "Professional" versions of Vue (Infinite and Xstream). The artist versions lack some of these features but Complete comes close. The main thing I would be missing in Complete compared to Infinite would be the possibility to render out the different passes for postwork (ambient occlusion, shadows, object masks, clouds,...).

Yes, the Vue render engine is a biased renderer with a number of additions that allow physically accurate rendering where it matters (atmospherics, caustics, photometric lighting, ...).

Using both Vue and Lux in an outdoor/indoor workflow is definietly a possible workflow that might be good for what you what to achieve.

Ciao

TD

Some people, like me, are never comfortable in Vue. After 2 extended stints trying it, Vue 6 infinite and Vue 11 complete, and spending money for content, I'm back to Poser permanently. Doesn't at all mean you shouldn't see if it works for you because it's produces wonderful scenes, just be aware that the two have a different psyche so to speak.

There's a Vue 2014 Complete 30 demo.
Vue's a stand alone landscape app or a landscape plug for high end app's.

Vray is a stand alone/plug render engine just a render engine for $500.00

High End render engines are made for certain things .
some realist render engines are made to render fast on huge render farms for movies.
some to make buildings look good.

I've never used http://render.otoy.com/ but they list Poser.

have no idea if any would have the look you want.
but demos can tell.

the rule is never upgrade in the midle of production .
cause upgrades might break plugs for a while or for ever.

a lot of it is the textures on a mesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07H7xeUnGE

just need to watch to time stamp to 4:19.
don't matter what app Andrews using all app work the same

so if the mesh is not textured the way you need no render engine will give you what you want.

You can get a lot of difrent looks from 2D filters.

I like http://www.topazlabs.com/

Quote - Regarding materials: Vue does not convert materials from Poser or DAZ Studio... One has the option to "render with Poser shader tree"... I rarely use this approach as I find the Vue materials far better.

Ah.  So, I needn't concern myself with trying to convert Poser's shaders anyway.

Quote - With advanced versions I was referring to the "Professional" versions of Vue (Infinite and Xstream).

Thank you for clarifying.

Quote - I've never used http://render.otoy.com/ but they list Poser.

I tried that last week.  The UI is atrocious compared to Reality 3's.

Quote - a lot of it is the textures on a mesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07H7xeUnGE

just need to watch to time stamp to 4:19.
don't matter what app Andrews using all app work the same

That first 4:19 is the single most concise, straight-forward explanation of good texture mapping I have ever heard.

Thank you.

while you finish saving up try blender, its an awkward beastie to get used to

but you wont regret it (if you can get on with it)

I think if I was buying Vue today I would look seriously at adding the built in upgrade option rather than paying the additional cost for future upgrades as they become available.  In the past I have purchased the Esprit version and just added the packages I needed in an attempt to save money.  It was a false economy as the next upgrade along I had to purchase all the modules all over again.   

I like Vue, or at least the earlier versions I have used, but I really cannot justify spending that much on a hobby particularly as many of my scenes are indoors and really needs different software, so further cost.  Due to this I have not upgraded my version of Vue in a longtime and work almost exclusively with Poser and sometimes Reality 3.

"while you finish saving up try blender, its an awkward beastie to get used to but you wont regret it (if you can get on with it)"
Totally agree with this.  And as you tried Octane anyway, you might like to know that Blender includes a render system called "Cycles" which is pretty much like having Octane built into the Blender viewport, it's GPU accelerated rendering direct in the Blender viewport.  I have Octane, and love it, but wouldn't have bothered with it if I'd known about Cycles in Blender.

Up until they updated the Blender interface, I used to try it out on each major update but always ended up dropping it because of the interface.  But I desperately wanted to be able to use Blender, and the good news is that since they updated the interface, I'm really enjoying it.  What's extra cool is that there's nothing the other packages can do that Blender can't do, or if there is, the sheer force behind Blender will see to it that the situation is rectified.

If you were to follow headdheld's advice and get your head around Blender while you save, I doub't you'll even bother with your current plan and you'll likely regret a lot of what you already paid out (I know I do).  Blender is free, and if there's difficulty learning it, there is always the option to buy a nice chunky "Printed User Guide".  If you buy a printed User Guide from the Blender Foundation, you not only get what the commercial efforts try to avoid to increase their profit margin (a real printed manual), you also support Blender, you get a physical product, you get to enjoy learning it better, and all for the cost of a user guide.

So to answer the question: "Is a Poser > Vue Workflow Wortth $600?"
IMHO, no, it isn't, for the reasons pointed out.

And from the other side, just be aware that Blender is known for the UI from Hell for very good reasons. Some people can parse it well. Lots can get somewhat proficient. Lots and Lots find it so counter intuitive they delete the monster (speaking). Free or not, If I can't understand it, it's worthless.

I find the Poser>Vue pipeline wonderful. However, most of what I do is animation. So with Vue I get a 5 node rendergarden to sweeten the deal (been using since Vue 4, got into Vue Infinite from the get go, and got the $295 maintenance contract, which so far has been good economics). The most important thing is to adjust your textures/shaders  and lighting for the renderer you are using. Vue still gets cranky if you just feed it the standard Poser texture maps, simply because they are so bloody large. Too large. The 4096x4096x32 bit jpeg texture maps are a holdover from when shaders didn't exist. In Vue, you lose most of the fiddly resolution those textures hold due to shadows and atmospheric conditions you set. You can easily reduce them to 512x512 and not be able to actually see the difference.

Vue has a learning curve, no two ways. But at the end of the curve, you can do scenes in full 3D you never thought about. If you use Vue 2014, you have the capability of creating an entire procedural planet. It takes some doing, but you can fall from orbit all the way to nap of the earth (things like this are why I like animating.... ;D ); you can drive the procedurals with alpha maps if you wish: your planet could have 'Eat At Joes' spelled out in the terrain or the ecosystem dispersal with the right work. The time spline functions in Vue allow you to control a great deal of things over time. If you can find any of Philippe Bouyer's Vue trailers, you can see what I mean. The camera motions are all done in the timespline window; Philippe is a cinematographer, so he knows how a specific camera behaves. And he simulated chosen camera with simple keyframed motion and timesplines to modify other things.

What you want will ultimately determine what you choose. If you don't need a modeler, don't get some package that models. If you want photonically accurate non biased rendering, don't bother with the renderers that are biased (but quicker). Look at the tools as tools; CGI is nothing but a cheat to begin with. We are creating that which does not exist from a computer. It's all smoke and mirrors. The real formula you need to consider is what you want the ability to create, the time and power resources you have to invest in it, and just how long you are willing to wait for said output. You can let an unbiased renderer run for a year, and you'll find you wasted probably 363.5 days, because you can't detect any difference between day 3 and day 365. Mathematically it may be there, but due to granularity it simply gets lost in the blur. There is no one true way, so having multiple pipelines isn't a sign of anything except being more flexible in your tool choice.  

Quote - And from the other side, [...] There is no one true way, so having multiple pipelines isn't a sign of anything except being more flexible in your tool choice.

Very solid advice. I agree on all points! 

TD

Well, I'm one of those who moved from Poser to Vue as well. I've been using Poser since version 2 up to Poser Pro 2012. Haven't upgraded to the latest version and I've skipped Poser 4 Pro Pack and Poser 7. Why move to Vue now after all these years?

I wanted to do landscape and nature scenes, but be able to incorporate all of my poser items into it and also be able to still do figure renders and indoor stuff. Poser has a few landscape and nature solutions, but if you're aiming at realistic outdoor and large scale landscapes, you soon hit the ceiling with Poser. It wasn't made for that. Considered a number of options, Bryce, Carrara, Blender, Terragen and Vue.

Bryce and Carrara have a reasonable poser workflow, but are outdated, after trying them for a while you notice that DAZ hasn't been able to bring them out of the last decade, Their age is showing.

Tried Blender, lot's of power, weak on the landscape side of course, I'm not convinced by the poser-blender workflow at all and blender manages to do everything in an akward way. It can do everything the others can, but why does it need to be in such a different and often not logic way? So, not for me, to different from what I'm used to and too many hours needed to even figure out how it works.

Terragen, very cool, not too strong on figure renders and poser workflow.

Last candidate is Vue. Excellent poser-vue workflow. The best in landscapes/outdoor, but good for indoor as well and even my first figure tries were satisfactory. There is a learning curve, but compared to blender it's little :) The rendering engine harnasses a lot of power and sure isn't a toy or outdated. As mentioned, the backdraft of Vue are it's memory and cpu hunger, although I've found that with my 16Gb RAm it is very workable. Had 8Gb before that was too little. Rendering times can be shocking though, they sure are longer then in Poser, but even that depends on what you do and do not use.

With Vue I do recommend some training though to get a better start. www.geekatplay.com offers a lof of good ones for free.

When it comes to realism and figures, I'm still learning. I do manage to create some very realistic landscapes with Vue by now. I've seen people do very convincing figure renders, but not that many. This may be a challenge to get with Vue and I haven't found much tutorials for that. It's one thing to see someone else do it, it's a whole different thing to manage to do it yourself.

The I've noticed the same goes for Octane or Reality in conjunction with Poser. I've seen some very realistic renders, but most aren't. So whatever you choose, it will be a challenge to get the hyper realism you're after :)

@Dale
Blender was indeed known to have the UI from Hell, but that's no longer so. 

Blender is always going to look intimidating to an extent due to the incredible amount of capabilities it has, but like I said, for the cost of a Printed User Guide, you can have it all; you get something to absorb in a comfortable manner, you support the program, and you get to say you own the most powerful 3D software on the planet*

*Anything missing from Blender tends to get implemented eventually.

Blender is under the control of the users, it's not not the other way around.  That fact alone should be enough to tell anyone that learning to use Blender is a no-brainer.  It's something you should do or I'm guessing you'll regret it years down the line.  I already regret almost everything I spent on 3D, not everything, almost everything.

Blender might not be Nyghtfall's cup of tea right now, but as with heddheld, the suggestion is to at least try to learn Blender while he saves the money for whatever.

I followed Nyghtfall's page before I commented, and seriously, I don't see anything about the workflow he's considering that would actually be beneficial to him for that sort of stuff.  I reckon Poser on it's own will be more productive to him than any inter-program workflow he's considering.  Blender would give him the power to realise the images or animations he wants all in one place - no matter what.  Dynamic everything, water, fluid, cloth, hair, blood, sweat, trears, the works - it's all there.

Another benefit is you never have to worry about whether you can afford the next release.  Using Blender means you take that load off your mind (and your wallet) completely.  You can concentrate on your art instead of your finances.

Blender is one of those things where, when you first start learning it, it feels less productive than what you're used to.  But once it falls into place, it's like you suddenly remembered to take the brakes off and you'll go faster, and that's when you start to feel for those that don't use Blender.

Anyway, I don't want to get accused of turning this into a Blender debate, so like I said, basically, no, I don't think his proposed workflow is worth the money.  I reckon Nyghtfall should stick to Poser but learn Blender in the meantime.  If he does that, by the time he comes to buying Vue, he'll hopefully realise he already has all he'll ever need:

Blender!

What Pumeco said. Yes.

Sorry guys, but Vue can do things that Blender cannot do. If you only want it as a rendering engine, sure it may not be worth the $500, but Vue is far more than that :)

Perhaps a little advice before spending all the cash on Vue.... look for someone selling his/her license. I bought a Vue 10 Studio license from someone else and eventually upgraded to Vue 2014 Complete. Adding it all up, I paid a lot less then buying Vue 2014 Complete at once.

"Sorry guys, but Vue can do things that Blender cannot do."**

*Like what?

Quote - ***
"Sorry guys, but Vue can do things that Blender cannot do."**

*Like what?

make landscapes n forest and all real fast.

and not putting blender down or anything but it's not the most powerful CGI app off all times.That statement is a bit miss leading.we get you love blender but just facts ,ok ,cool.

The speed at which you can do landscapes in Vue doesn't mean you can't do landscapes in Blender.  There was demonstration of landscapes and mass instancing in Blender four years ago now.  Even back then, Blender had more control over that stuff than Vue does today - it's just done differenly in Blender.

Anything you have in Vue can already be done in Blender (and with masses more control and customisation of how it works).  You're comparing a tool designed mainly for landscapes to a tool that is designed for anything, there's no comparison.  Compared to the likes of Blender, Maya and Max, Vue is a one-trick toy (landscapes).

Anyway, just saw this, a new video of the Cycles high speed rendering system:
Click for Blender Cycles 2014

PS: Yup, I'm cool RorrKonn, practically an ice-cube

No one is saying you can't do landscapes in Blender, as a matter of fact you can also do them in Poser as I stated before. Thing is that Vue has perfected these tools in a very effective way. I seriously doubt Blender has more control over it then Vue does. Blender can't populate a massive terrain in just a few second, growing millions of plants and trees on it, each slightly different then the previous one. Your knowledge of Vue seems very limited, otherwise you wouldn't call it a one trick toy :)

Anyway, it's obvious that you love and adore Blender and awefull lot, that love clouds a judgement a little.

Let's give credit where credit is due. No matter how good Blender is, when it comes to creating your own world, Vue gets all the credit. When it comes to being a good allround modeling application with lot's of excellent features, Blender gets all the credit. Stating this doesn't mean Blender can't do landscapes or that you can't model in Vue, I'm just giving credit where credit is due.

I know Blender has improved a lot, but which ever way you look at it, it still has an akward UI and does everything in an onconventional way. That has always marked Blender as the odd one out and is the reason it has never become mainstream or hugely popular, since it's not logic and compatible with other software.

I can move very quickly from Hexagon to Silo to Maya to Lightwave to 3DSMax and so on, even when coming from Vue or Poser. They all have a certain logic. That just simply isn't the case with Blender. It's not easy to move to Blender or move away from it and that makes it less desirable then it could have been.

I've uninstalled Blender. It just doesn't fit in with the rest of the tools, it always stands out, breaking my workflow and that's not good at all. It's a shame that Blender is still going for the more exclusive status, instead of complimenting others.

Back to the topic..... Nyghtfall is there is reason you do think you're going to need Complete? Wouldn't Esprit with the addition of Ecosystems do? What do you intent to do with it?

I agree, Vue is a great tool, Poser is a great tool, but comparing them to Blender just seems so out of touch to me.  You sound like you're talking about the Blender from years back, not the current one.  They updated the interface and even I can understand it now, and even as we speak, there is a project underway to make further changes to the interface.

The reason I recommend Blender over the other options is because he obviously works with figures, and if there's something he's needing but isn't getting from his current setup, I fail to see how Vue is going to fix that.  Vue is a bit like Bryce in that it's best thought of as an environment that is used to bring things into to render them, but the problem with that is things never work right when you're reliant upon two different software vendors collaborating to get something working.  We're lucky these days if they can get their own products working, let alone collaborate cross-program developments.

Blender has no such issues, because you can do absolutely everything inside Blender, no need to import or export, it does everything from the first poly to the finished video (even the editing of the video in postwork).  That's basically where I'm coming from here.  You can design, build, sculpt, texture, paint, rig, animate, render, postwork - anything.

If Nyghtfall were to list everything his dream package would let him do, I would be very surprised if Blender doesn't already have it, and even if it lacked something, it will no doubt appear because others will want to see it too.

I think think you're a bit disillusioned as to the popularity of Blender.  The amount of tutorials for it and the amount of views they get suggest that Blender is pasting over the competition quite happily, it's evolving at an alarming rate!

Click to check how many comments this one got
What's that you were saying about popularity?

That was Blender four years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4C82eyhwgU

I liked Sintel,I Like Caminandes also.

it's funny and ya know the grass is always greener on the other side.
there's more after the cridits.

Anyways I have & know Blender.a long with the rest.

but Max,Maya,Blender are kinda simular there not like Vue
I would not compare Blender with Max,Maya thou.

Poser,Vue are plugs for Max,Maya.

& Nyghtfall I'm always for the fastest way so I'll go to 2D app's n filters in a heart beat.

but if ya just want renders it's real complicated high learning curve and ya still might half to layer the renders in a 2d app but ya can get any thing ya want out of zbrush render engine.but ya half to work for it.it's not your typical rendering experience.

Quote - Blender has no such issues, because you can do absolutely everything inside Blender, no need to import or export, it does everything from the first poly to the finished video (even the editing of the video in postwork).  That's basically where I'm coming from here.  You can design, build, sculpt, texture, paint, rig, animate, render, postwork - anything.

See and that's the whole problem of Blender :) The question was for something that can be used wiht Poser, no one expressed interested in creating figures, rigging, designing and so on. You're on a completely different level then the restof us, you talking about Blender with things in mind that the OP didn't express an interest in at all.

The question is for something woth a good workflow that can work with Poser, but has a better render engine and what he's particulary interested in is if Vue would fit the bill. In light of his question, yes Vue is excellent and Blender is not.

I'm not talking about if Blender is good or bad at all and everything I've posted is with the idea that the applications suggested should have a good workflow with Poser.

I understand where you're coming from, but in your eager to convert all of us to Blender users :) you've simply overlooked what the thread is about. Blender does not have the same connection with Poser as Vue has. You will always need to export your figures and then a lot of information is lost. Vue simply imports the whole pz3 file, with or without shaders, with or without animation data and so on. You can repose right in Vue if you want to, although I just do that in Poser itself. Once I change anything in Poser, Vue will ask me automatically if I want to import this changed pz3 or not. It works really easy, no hassle, excellent workflow.

If we're discussing something, we need to be on the same page and keep the original question in mind, now we're just talking about 2 different things :)

I have Vue 2014 xstream.  Been using it since version 2 but not serious until a couple of years ago.

Vue plugs into autodesk software like maya and max and xsi but it has bugs. 

Vue, like Poser, will use all the cores of your cpu that you have.  Vue automatically finds them.  Poser might need some manual adjustment.

Models in Vue like Vickie need a plug in for SSS.  Better to stay with Poser Firefly and use Snarly's EzSkin.

Vue does import a scene and if you want to buy the plugins for the skin, you can place your scene in a terrain environment and render. Vue's sky's are great.  Vue is more robuste and photo realistic than Bryce. 

Vue's render engine is slower than Firefox.

Not entirely sure what you want to do, but if I were to make photorealistic portraits, etc, I'd be using PP2014.

That said, if you want an environment creator and are willing to put in some hours at Digital Tutors learning Vue, the price you mentioned seems pretty good. 

Quote - ***
"Sorry guys, but Vue can do things that Blender cannot do."**

*Like what?

 Uuum, like that fully realized procedural planet I was talking about? That's a planet with ambient occluded light model skies, multiple cloud layers with accurate lighting models, mountains, oceans, plants swaying in the wind, etc. That animation is a monster to set up, and you don't want to know the resources it can eat, but it works, from starry orbit to treetop to wave level. We are talking billions of instanced plants, reactive to atmospherics if you desire, good enough that the results is useable in theatrical productions.

I know from where the OP is coming from. I'm a writer at heart; I see figures as actors, as means to tell stories with. A resource, nothing more. I'm writing my scripts, and it is the final, finished product where -I- will shine; not in the 'Oh, I modeled that, and that, and that, and I spent 4 whole days fiddling to get that exact rust shader etc etc etc'. That isn't any kind of backhanded slap at content creators, either. Aside from the fact that too many newbies of that breed either forget, ignore, or blow off the fact that there are other arenas, with different rules and benchmarks. I had to deal with a little Max-nazi a couple of years ago; he'd spent about 6 months working on a render. It  was a sci-fi vista, something you would expect as a background shot for an Alien movie. He had reason to be proud....it was well lit and rendered, even if he did waste far too much time on the structure looming over the alien terrain (that's where a lot of his time went; in the gribble). But the ego was so swollen there wasn't air to breathe. I put up with it longer than manners dictated, then pointed out to him that at that rate, in another 14.5 years he would have all of one second of footage in the can. And suggested he =never= tell anyone he was interviewing with about it. That kind of time sink would get him escorted to the door of any production facility. From a content creator's standpoint he may have been the bee's knees. From a production standpoint he was an utter waste of space, no matter how sexy his details, because he had no concept of shortcut usage or the idea of 'good enough'. Poser and Vue aren't content creators, they are output generators. I'm not a modeler, and would much rather pay someone with those skills for content and devote my personal resources to crafting the worlds, actions, environments, characters, and situations. That's where i shine, and the credits at the end of a vid is where you let everyone know who did what. Sure, I couldn't do that without those content providers. Just like without my keyframing, that content would be standing there in a T pose, unmoving, unknowing, and without a hint of life to it. It's a synergy.  

**
@RorrKonn**
It's perfectly fair to compare Blender to Max and Maya, especially since I keep reading YouTube comments of ex Max and Maya users that have moved up to Blender (which doesn't surprise me in the least).

@aeilkima
I'm not misunderstanding what Nygtfall said.  I'm answering his question: I'm saying why I don't think the workflow he suggested is worth the money.  Like I also said, my post is here in agreement with heddheld, that he should at least try to learn Blender while he saves for the other software.

Blender is free, so to not do so would be kinda pointless.

If it turns out he can't get on with Blender, there's no harm done and no money lost.  On the other hand, if he manages to grasp even the basics of it, that will be enough for him to drop the idea of the workflow he had in mind, because there is nothing in that workflow that cannot be done entirely inside Blender.  There is, however, endless amounts of things you cannot do in that workflow that Blender can do - and all for free.

Most of the stuff I've written is in reply to yourself and RorrKonn, but actually, my response to Nyghtfall is simple and clear-cut:  Blender is free and more capable, and always will be.  IMHO, what he should be asking himself is, OK, so if I pay that $600, will I be able to do what I want?  Does it do all that I'd like it to do, and if not, do I think feature-X is likely to come to such a software package?

If the answer to that is truly yes, then fair enough, it might be worth it to him.  But if that workflow still leave abilities he'd like to see, then there is no point in it because he could be buying into a workflow that the developer doesn't want to give, and might never give him.  That issue doesn't exist in Blender because the users are in control.  That's why I recommended for him to make himself a list of what he'd really love to be able to do in 3D (no matter how unlikely he thinks it is), then go and check YouTube and I'm pretty sure Blender can do it already.

That's my last comment on the matter because it's gone into loop mode.

Well, all I can do is wish him good luck with Blender, he sure is going to need it, especially if all he wants is just render his poser stuff in a better engine :)

There's a really easy way to learn Blender, you know what it is?
You download it and pretend you paid 4.000.00 dollars for it.

Because you supposedly paid 4.000.00 dollars for it, you are detemined to learn it and get something for your virtual expenditure.  So you order a printed user guide, you grab your coffee, you relax and have a leisurely read.  If you get bored, you put it down and come back later, the book is physical and can be grabbed whenever you fancy it.

Before you know it, you can do magic.

pumeco,

I appreciate your enthusiastic suggestion that I try Blender.  Thank you.

Perhaps it will help refine the flow of input if I further clarify what, exactly, I want to do.

I'm looking for something that will let me create realistic outdoor environments without having to model each individual blade of grass, tree, or cloud layer. 

For example, I want to be able to create a dense patch of forest, add a couple of Poser figures to the scene, and then render a Friday the 13th-esque image that depicts one of them impaling the other against a tree.

From what I've read of Vue and Blender's feature lists, Blender wasn't designed for that.  Vue was.  I just wasn't sure if a Poser > Vue workflow was worth $600 for a copy of 2014 Complete, so I thought I'd ask.

Quote - I'm looking for something that will let me create realistic outdoor environments without having to model each individual blade of grass, tree, or cloud layer. 

For example, I want to be able to create a dense patch of forest, add a couple of Poser figures to the scene, and then render a Friday the 13th-esque image that depicts one of them impaling the other against a tree.

From what I've read of Vue and Blender's feature lists, Blender wasn't designed for that.  Vue was.  I just wasn't sure if a Poser > Vue workflow was worth $600 for a copy of 2014 Complete, so I thought I'd ask.

That is definitely the type of scenario that Vue was made for. There will be a learning curve (check out the excellent, free tutorials at Geekatplay.com), but once you grasp the basics you can set up scenes like that in minutes.

With respect to the app discussion, in my opinion 3D apps are like shoes, you use/wear the ones that are most comfortable and get the job done and that's it.

Have fun!

TD

That's what Vue was designed for indeed :) For that you don't even need to go Complete at all. Studio will be fine for that with perhaps the ecopaint module as an addition. Complete has the ecopaint as well as the 3Dexport module and an animation module. If you don't need to export from Vue and don't do animation, Studio will be the better choice.

**
@Nygtfall**
Well, you sure can't beat Vue for ease of use for that sort of stuff because it's designed for it.  If those abilities are all that is lacking in your workflow, and Vue would complete that for you, it makes sense to stick to what you're comfortable with, and I wouldn't blame you.

Poser and Vue is a very powerful combo, and if it gives you what you want, I'm pleased for you because I personally never get what I want from commercial products, there's always a "fly in the ointment" as they say.

My post was getting taken the wrong way by some here.  I was pointing out that if there are things you wish you could do, but can't, then Blender is the one to look to, and as it costs nothing, you'd have nothing to lose by trying to understand it while you save.

People can be very possesive about their chosen program, there is some crazy peoples here!

Quote - From what I've read of Vue and Blender's feature lists, Blender wasn't designed for that.  Vue was.  I just wasn't sure if a Poser > Vue workflow was worth $600 for a copy of 2014 Complete, so I thought I'd ask.

Not entirely true.  In most scenerios for outdoor renders, where the shot consists of only parts of a forest, or very limited grass and plants, Vue isn't the best choice.  Vue is much better suited for sprawling, wide camera shots of complete environments; or creating matte backgrounds of huge outdoor environments.  This is where Vue shines, and is used most often in production.

Shots that are tight, limited areas of outdoor scenes are still typically created and done right in a native application, like Maya, 3dsmax, or Blender.  The reason is because of the render engine.  It's so much faster to render ultra-realistic shots like that in a render engine like MentalRay or Vray rather than depending on Vue's capable, but comparitively slow, renderer.  Often times, characters would get rendered in something like Vray, and then composited with a shot created in something like Vue, using Nuke or some other high end compositing software, seamlessly.

I assume Blender has instancing, just like it's high-end conterparts, making things like grass and trees very easy to produce, without much mem consuption.  And then the hyper realism can be attained through renderers like Vray or MR.

http://vray.info/tutorials/grass/part2.asp

"I assume Blender has instancing, just like it's high-end conterparts, making things like grass and trees very easy to produce, without much mem consuption."

*Yup, Blender has instancing but you need to take the time to understand the basics of Blender before you can play with it.  I think that's why people get the impression that doing things in Blender is a lot more difficult than it actually is.

blender has a plugin for vray I think (and many other render engines )

and cycles is getting better almost daily

but at the end of the day its your choice ;-)

not like vue but has software to make meshes or ya can just buy meshes

http://xfrog.com/

Quote - I've never used Vue, and recently discovered I'm $250 away from a copy of Vue 2014 Complete.  As a burgeoning artist, one of my interests is hyper-realism.  Vue looks like it could help me explore that, far beyond what Reality 3 offers.

Is the bridge from Poser worth the investment?

As long as the shallowness of your wallet is not the issue, my answer would be a mild YES.

I'm using both, and integrated, for sort of similar reasons.

Let me clarify my point of view, especially on the things which I miss in the earlier posts (unless I read them too fast, my fault, sorry).

Vue can pick up Poser in various ways. Of course it reads Poser scenes and turns everything into Vue equivalents, but it can also put Poser itself in standby and use it. That is: it directly ! uses all Poser dials etc for posing (and animating) figures, and/or it calls the Poser material tree to supply the surface definitions at render time, instead of using Vue materials. That's integration.

Do note that Poser offers advanced surface properties like scattering, great for skins, but also blinn highlights and clay diffuse surfaces and hair and velvet nodes to give improved realism. Vue on the other hand is far better in environmental lighting and scenes with an atmosphere, plus the vast amount of vegetation in scenes. Look at Massisan's gallery, for instance. No way to do that in Poser. Populating a scene with 25.000 plants is different from just instancing, you know.

But... Vue as well as Poser both are biased renderers, they make realism with a trick. For even better realism, you need to master LuxRender (via Reality), Octane (has a Poser plugin), VRay or alike. RGUS issues Poser shots about daily using Octane. Unfortunately, none of those renderers is able to handle Vue's vast amount of vegetation details.

On the other hand, Tiff666 shows in his gallery that one "only" needs to master Poser/Firefly to get marvelous horror results.

And... no tool is an island. The main results are done in post, applying multi-pass rendering to the full. Then you need Vue Extreme/Infinite.

My 2ct. Have fun!

Quote - Not entirely true.  In most scenerios for outdoor renders, where the shot consists of only parts of a forest, or very limited grass and plants, Vue isn't the best choice.  Vue is much better suited for sprawling, wide camera shots of complete environments; or creating matte backgrounds of huge outdoor environments.  This is where Vue shines, and is used most often in production. Shots that are tight, limited areas of outdoor scenes are still typically created and done right in a native application, like Maya, 3dsmax, or Blender.  The reason is because of the render engine.  It's so much faster to render ultra-realistic shots like that in a render engine like MentalRay or Vray rather than depending on Vue's capable, but comparitively slow, renderer.

I've been thinking about this statement and decided to browse through my gallery. At least half my gallery consist of the kind of images you decribe.

Just a few examples.......

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2425268&user_id=23722&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2428177&user_id=23722&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2521187&user_id=23722&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2518108&user_id=23722&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2428478&user_id=23722&np&np

The original size of these images is 1366x966 and the rendering times vary from 10 minutes to 20 minutes rendering quality set to Final. I've got an i7 3770 (3.4Ghz, 8 threads) with 16GbRAM, but most of these image were rendered when I still had 8Gb in it.

Mind you, I don't aim for realism at all, I'm going more for a painterish look in my images, so I don't spent much time on trying to get my figures render too real. But I'd say closer up renders, with only part of a forest do work very well in Vue and render much faster the large matte painting like images :)

The thing with Vue is that most people crank up their rendering settings way too high. When I'm done with an image, the final render will be at least 3500x2500, since they will be used for print. Even then, I still do use the Final setting. I've seen a lot of Vue'ers render their images at superior or even higher, but only posting these images in the galleries. Then renders take very long, but actually the quality isn't higher at all. Just a waste of time.

Same goes for the quality of the skies. If you do shots like these with very little or no skies at all, that setting can be lowered, even to a negative number, saving you sometimes literary hours of rendering time. A lot of vue'ers leave these settings way too high, adding to their rendering times, but not producing better quality renders at all.

With Vue it's all about finding a balance in rendering. Many have wrote about that and if you play with that for a while, you will find a good balance. Finding it suddenly makes Vue a lot faster in rendering. If my 1366x966 for the gallery renders take more then 30 minutes to render, I stop to see what I've done wrong. I know there are some cases that take long to render, when using a lot of cloud layers and water and some kind of mist/fog in one image. That will produce longer rendering times, but even those at gallery resolution should be done within an hour.

The things even most that post here, only know vue from the past. A lot has changed, even in the rendering engine. There is little setting to boost the quality of the sky,fog & haze. In the older Vue, that often needed to be set relatively high to get a good result. That produced long rendering times. These days, Vue has improved so much in the rendering engine, that you don't need to set that figure high at all. In most cases 0 or 1 is more then enough, but even -1 can be fine in a lot of cases, saving a lot of rendering time. The speed of the rendering engine has improved also a lot. From 9 to 10 was a great improvement from what I understand, but I don't have 9. From 10 to 11 gave 25-30% depending on the scenario and going from 11 to 2014 gave me another 5-10% depending on the scenario.

Talk about realism...... now there's a Photometric light system in Vue 2014. This changes a lot when it comes to realism. Renders can now go from semi-realism to realism. It's a whole new thing and for those seeking realism with Poser to Vue, it's worth looking into and learning it. Add to that the new plant system, TPF. These plants are quite different then the old solid growth plants, they are much more realistic, so I should say very realistic. The solid growth HD plants were good and close to realism, the TPF plants are even much better. One of the reasons I don't use them..... they ruin my painterish look :)

Before anyone accusing me of it.... yes I like Vue :) But it's not the tool for everything. When doing studio like figure renders, I still use Poser, it's way better for that. Also for my toonish renders, Poser is the rendering engine of choice!! Vue can do that, but simply not as good and fast as Poser can.

You can pose in Vue, but Poser is way better for that. As for all who say you can't model in Vue, sorry you can and some or quite good at all. It actually offers a number of modeling tools. Do I model with Vue, no I don't. There are tools that are way better for it. I mainly use Hexagon for that.

I don't believe in one tool that does it all, I don't believe in a one stop solution. Sure Blender can do it all, well almost all, but that doesn't mean it's the best tool for all. Every one has preferences and likes and a certain workflow. In my workflow, Blender always got in the way, being the odd one out, so I dropped it. I can work much faster without it. Other do work much faster because of it, that will always be the case :)

I always thought that the sort of workflow Nyghtfall wants with Poser was part of the Vue exporter addon.  They often send me e-mails trying to sell me Vue, and the Exporter has been on sale a few times but the cost of that thing was never anything like $600 even without the sale, it was normally $99 if I recall.

What can you do regards Poser intergration that costs $600 that you can't do with the Vue Exporter addon?  I'll be honest, I don't take much notice of the e-mails but I always thought that the Poser intergration was part of that addon.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not buying Vue, but the question has been eating away at me ever since I saw this thread.  What's the difference regards Poser integration for $99 and $600?  As far as I can recall, you need Poser Pro, but other than that I thought you were sorted with the Exporter addon.

Do you have a link to this exporter, I'm not sure what you mean :)

@pumeco: I'm not sure what you're talking about, actually, sorry. What Exporter are you referring to? Vue Exporter exports trees, terrains and objects from Vue to other programs. You won't need that.

Full Poser integration is offered by the Vue 3D Import module, which is available in Esprit, Studio and Complete versions. You don't need Poser Pro, just Poser is fine. See http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/chart.php for all Vue modules and software varieties. All other modules than 3DImport are just offering additional Vue functionality. That's the difference between one module and the whole pack.

The price difference between the varieties is about such that you get 5 modules for the price of 3, or so. But you can go Esprit ($200) and step up later. And Vue let you save about 50% on the upgrade prices by offering a subscription. Recommended.

I'm not sure I can link to it or I might get Shane waving his Polo Mallet, but I just checked and it's called the "3DImport" module.

As far as I can tell, that's all you need in Vue for the Poser integration, so I'm just curious what difference the $600 thing makes to Poser when working with Vue than just using that 3DImport module.

Sorry aRtBee, crossposted, I was replying to aeilkema.
I meant 3DImporter, not exporter, sorry about that.

Check out the 3DImport module, that seems to be the one responsible for the Poser inegration and it's $129, not $600 so that's why I'm curious about the differences.  What can you do with Poser for the $600 workflow that can't be done with that one?

What's the difference?

Ok, makes it clear.

You can get Vue Frontier without any extras and you can import static poser models, no animation. If you add the 3DImport module to it, you can import from other applications, as well as Poser animated files. Vue Frontier is restricted in what it can render, it has a resolution restriction. That is where the RenderUp module comes in, good addition, you can't do without it. If you can live without animation import, Frontier + Renderup would be enough in theory to get you started.

Instead of adding modules to Frontier or Pioneer, a poser user should buy Esprit as a minimum, it has the needed modules in it right away.

The difference between Esprit, Studio and Complete is the addition of various modules. Studio has ecosystems, network rendering and extra lighting options for example, while Complete adds animation effects, ecopainting and export features.

If you only want to use Vue to Render your Poser models with a bit of landscape, Esprit would be enough. But Ecosystems are very cool, so is ecopainting, I would at least add ecosystems to Esprit for sure. Ecosystems save a lot of time, instead of placing each tree manually, you now can do a forest (small or great) with trees, rocks, grass, flowers and plants in just a few clicks.

There is only one problem in adding modules though...... upgrading. Upgrading Studio to the next version is actually cheaper then upgrading Esprit with a one or two extra modules. You need to upgrade each module also to the next version. Before buying, you need to calculate what is best and which module you really need and also consider upgrade prices.

That is how I ended up with Complete in the end.... it was way cheaper to upgrade that one then upgrading Studio with the 2 extra modules I had.

Cheers, aeilkema :-)

I knew about the need for the modules for various tasks, I was just a bit weary as to whether they'd left something out (regards Poser) unless you bought the Complete version.  In other words, would buying Complete have given any benefits (Poser wise) than just adding the 3DImport.

But yup, sure looks like by the time you get the EcoSystem and Plant Painting suff in there as well, the price shoots up considerably.  I've been tempted a lot of times to give Vue another try, it's the prices that drive me away, not the program.  I look forward to the day when Blender gets this EcoPainting sort of stuff, but nevertheless, Vue is very nice, I see why people are drawn to it, it's a wicked-cool program - no denying that.

vue has trial offers

why not give it a try before you buy

(not sure if its allowed to post a link, but not hard to find)

Well I am going to have to give Vue a try and then start saving.  Based in the information here it is going to cost me $399 with VAT (vague additions to total) and shipping to UK.  This is for Studio which seems the best cost option for me and then add the upgrade subscripion as upgrading the modules has always been the problem for me in the past.

It is still a big outlay though on what is a hobby for me so there is going to have to be some serious playing for me before I place any order.

Don't see any offers, heddheld, maybe it's something current users see when they log in.

If I bought Vue I'd want the RenderUp, 3DImport, EcoPainter, and EcoSystem modules, and that means "Complete", and that means $399 + 30% on top of that if you're unfortunate enough to live in England like I do (VAT of 20% + Newly implemented and unfounded Bank Charge robbery of 10% of total).

The most I'd pay for the setup I mentioned is £150 total so it's way out of my league.

Quote -
Don't see any offers, heddheld, maybe it's something current users see when they log in.

If I bought Vue I'd want the RenderUp, 3DImport, EcoPainter, and EcoSystem modules, and that means "Complete", and that means $399 + 30% on top of that if you're unfortunate enough to live in England like I do (VAT of 20% + Newly implemented and unfounded Bank Charge robbery of 10% of total).

The most I'd pay for the setup I mentioned is £150 total so it's way out of my league.

I logged in and went as far as I could without placing order and the total shown was $399, including shipping and VAT, which is less than I expected.  The only question was any import Tax which is why I always upgrade Poser as a download.