Hi Got Vue 4 the other day and have been playing around with it since. First impressions: 1. Pleased with the inclusion of the replicate tool since it's something I mentioned on the wish list ages ago. 2. Interface looks nice; my only slight worry is that it's a bit more difficult to tell when objects are selected in the World Browser than it used to be. 3. Something seems to have happened to the scale; when we tried our 'mapping a fractal onto a terrain' thing (for those with very long memories!) we found we had to bump up the scale to 6 now as opposed to 3. 4. Seems pretty stable on my system; only crashes so far are when trying to import TrueSpace objects which I understand is already under investigation. 5. A question. What's with these crazy volumetric materials, eh? Try this: make a sphere, or some other kind of primitive. Change its material type to volumetric. Stick the camera inside it. You get all sorts of concentic circles and moire patterns... or at least you do if your camera's pointing at the sky, but you don't if your camera's pointing at the ground. Somebody explain that one... Mike and Katherine

This is just a guess--I don't even have Vue yet--but is lens flare turned on?

I know and Vue always has been.."Vue is 'Funnie Bunnie'" :) Also the dark arch, ring or circle that you see sometime when doing volumetric stuff facing the camera is cause by the "spread" value...increase the spread value as high as you can go and you don't see it. Any use of Q spotlight or Q pointlight seem to have the light 'source' in front of the object (though its behind)when facing the camers. Just like Vue 3.1, Vue is 'funny' :)

Good to hear from you, M and K! Thanks for the update regarding the material to a plane. I wonder what was worked on that caused that change; seems odd. If you get a chance to scroll down through the forum messages for a few days back, there's a post by Bloodsong using volumetric materials on primitives and terrains. Some interesting reference images there. I can just imagine what you two will try with replicate! :D