Would like to see more ability of object modelling in Vue5. Also introducing of object transformers (bending, deformations,....)

That reminds me of my "primitive desires"! :) Primitive polyhedrons would be at the top of my list. I think the most ideal manner of adding them would be to permit an Editing of primitives (the way we can currently Edit the torus) for selecting how many sides to give an object, say from 3 to 60. ("Sixty" may be higher than the top-end Vue currently uses, but I'll refer to it for convenience.) Primitives that could get this treatment: sphere -- 8 (octahedron) to 60 (full sphere) cylinder -- 3 (triangle) to 60 (full circle) pyramid -- 3 (tetrahedron) to 60 (cone) A cone could be created by using a pyramid at the top-end setting, so the cone object itself could be removed, or it could be retained as a shortcut. A cube would remain a cube, and a plane would remain a plane...but maybe a torus could be Edited for number of sides on a cross-section. In other words, the torus would still be a circular object (the doughnut), but in the other direction it could be polygonal, with a selection of how many sides to give it. If you consider shapes as basic as a typical pencil shaft or a tool nut, it's easy to see where polyhedrons would come in very handy. To create a nut now at minimum would require a cylinder -- with six cubes and a cylinder subtracted from it -- to achieve the nut's hexagonal slab shape with a hole in the center. Total: eight objects. With the Editing factor suggested here, building a nut would take one cylinder Edited to be 6-sided, plus a cylinder subtracted from the center. Total: two objects. Less objects means less polygons means less "bulk" in a scene; faster rendering time or more room for adding other objects. I'd also like to see a couple other features added to primitive Editing, if it would be possible. 1 - to be able to Taper an object (shrink or enlarge one end while the other end remains stable) 2 - to be able to Twist an object (rotate one end while the other end remains stationary) 3 - to be able to add some degree of roundness/beveling to the edges of an object, perhaps with a variable selection of how much "roundness" to apply to it.

Attached Link: http://membres.tripod.fr/chess3d/

I agree completely with you (but I'am not a specialist). All I know is that these improvements should lead to a very powerfull modelling and rendering program (at this time, Vue is almost considered as a very powerfull landscape generator) Yves Lejeail

My post got lost... I'll try again. I did hit reply BTW.

I got the primitives if somebody has got server space. Ya have to use your own server space and I don't have any that I can use for unrelated to my sites content. I need a place to store them so I can post a link here for there download. Then I can post a link to them here.
Well sure ya can edit them but I know it's not the same thing.

My Wish List:

Hello? Can we please edit the planets? One of my biggest beefs with Bryce was the moon. At least we got planets here but we can't edit them. I don't live in this part of the Milkyway, my planets are different than yours!

Galaxy and nebula support just like the planets work now and make so you can actually edit them.

Better stars. Vue 4 is a improvement over 3 but they still are not good enough.

More and more trees & plants..... And throw in a few more for fun.

Multi replace duplicate objects. Like say I got a 100 cones all over my environment then decide I want Mushrooms instead.

I should be able to select mushroom and duplicate it replacing all the cones at the same size orientation and height all over the scene. That's what computers can do best why not use it. Imagine how fast you could make new objects that way ! Something like the way the texture viewer works. You can globally work on any texture regardless where
it being used. Like spread the duplicate to that group of objects. Or say I balance a ball on the cone I should be able to duplicate the ball all over the scene with the same
orientation to the cones.
See I'm thinking create a light then get it to duplicate itself all over the scene with the same orientation to the object as the original has.

Smaller lights. You can't make them smaller than 1 right now and that is still to big. Glow can't work everywhere.

Pluggins support in case they forget something.

Northern Lights. Lightning that looks like Lightning.

More speed !

Scum textures that stick only to the spot where the water meets the land. That should already be in the options in the material editor. Blend texture 2 at boundaries of objects
and planes.

Random Material generator support for exploring new ideas.

Random tree / plant grower. Like throw some seeds around, water and see what sprouts !

Any window full size ! Why do I have to create a camera in the main view for this now?

Dockable/ undockable windows for tools and object lists.

More and better support for editing objects. Like Meta balls.

Oh the thing I suggested for vue 4 that never got included.

You should be able to render a environment say at 1280 X 1024 then say add a boat out in the lake and draw a box around the boat and render just that part on a 1280 X 1024 screen. The way it works now is that it will make the box full screen. But if it used the same scale just think of the possibilities. You could create monster environments and just Photoshop them together rather than trying to have billions of polygons on your desktop all at once.

Oh almost forgot. No ground when you delete it ! I want to make a plane scene with clouds below and above. No ground. If I delete the ground and make a cloud plane there it should look like the one above don't you think? You have to use Chrome ground to get that effect right now.

Smaller Lights. 1 is just is not small enough sometimes and glow doesen't work everywhere.

Did I say more plants & trees?

Who is sending these ideas in to e-on anyway? Or are we just wishing that they will actually come here and read them?

Oh One more I forgot:

Can we please use a different key for the hiding the dialog box? Most programs unfortunatly use the space bar. How about we use one of the other 101 keys? It's a bug anyway, if the vue window is not in focus it should not hide the box when I press the space bar. Have you ever tried to type a message when rendering? The info keeps vanishing reappearing every time you hit the space bar and it should be uneffected.

Oh and just incase there counting. I also like to see what everyone else wants. I think the same way but it's already been suggested. Ya got my vote !

Something I would like to see in upcoming vue releases is the ability to Lock on a object, or multiple objects, like in 3d max. and also Object ID's, like in max, which would help a ton in complex scenes organization, controling plants and that sort. The layer organization tool is awsome but object id's would take it one step further.
Also it needs a larger primitive object archive to work with, which need modifiers you can use such as taper, extrude, at least we would be a little less limited on the modeling part, so everything you need that is not in vue has to be imported.

9 Wind wizards make animating 3D plants, clouds, and surf easy. 10 The only high-quality rendering engine capable of rendering large landscapes with thousand of animated 3D plants and grass. Definately! I love these in WorldBuilder! :) Cheers!

Definitely, import of models with animation or better 3D-export capability.

Stay Focused.

Well I'm just a newbie demo user, but anyway: 1. Some toggle to reorient the side/front/top view to be relative to the current camera, or back the way it is now. Make positioning stuff easier on the brain. 2. Additional drop functions - normal drop, move way up and drop down (in 1 click), "drop" roots up to a cavern ceiling. 3. Multiple undo!!! 4. All those animation improvements (wind simulations, poser import) sound good. 5. A separate preview render button in the main camera window with its own settings. MightyPete - you can maximize the side/top/front views - just click the little box thing and choose maximize :). - n8

2. Additional drop functions - normal drop, move way up and drop down (in 1 click), "drop" roots up to a cavern ceiling. Nate, choose top, side or front views and have your object selected. Then use the up/down arrow keys to move the object in specific steps. For smaller steps, hold Shift while nudging the arrow key. :)

Just remembered this one...I'd like the Recent Files list to include any recent file I opened and played with, not just the newly saved ones. :)

Re: drop I didn't know about the Shift+arrows to nudge - I should've tried that. I guess I don't really need that - besides it's fun throwing things up in the air and then dropping them :) Multiple Undo though - really would like that one. - n8

Charles, 1. you can scale an object numerically using the controls at the upper right of the screen. Just select the middle tab (marked with "measuring sticks"), then the upright box of the side icons (marked "size"). 2. you can set the material scale using the controls at the upper right of the screen. Immediately below the image of the material, there is a setting marked "Scale." This setting can also be reached through the Material Summary panel. 3. multi-undo/redo sounds great. :)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12368&Form.ShowMessage=522697

Charles, hop on over to the thread at this link. :)

Another point, don't know if already mentioned : - the possibility to modify the scene during a render (like in povray / moray) cause it save lot of time. You could continue to work, scene will not freezed during render Yves

How about looking into this. Making it so really huge renders can be broken up say into 4 smaller renders then put back together in a different program. Like say I want to render a print size 2000 X 2000, to be able to render it in 4 or more pieces say 1000 X 1000. All it would need is better camera control. This could be easily accomplished if you could just set the render selected to exact numbers and be able to move the box around a bit. No#1 being able to scroll a bigger than the desktop size instead of the present you have to render it to disk.

Maybe it's already been mentioned, but I can't remember, and just wanted to get it in here while I was still thinking about it: In the render options, or even in the render progress window, it would be cool to have a readout for approximate RAM required for whatever you're rendering. Also a radiosity/global illumination option. last but not least, it would be cool to have a filter for the lights which cast "tree leaves" shadows in volume, to get the effect of light streaming down past tree leaves through mist when used with a volume light. It can be done with the real trees, but I would think a filter would be faster and more efficient. I can't seem to get it with the "gels".

I really miss a function to draw an area and then spread plants on it randomly like that one in Worldbuilder. Besides that I'm very happy with Vue. Hmm maybe make it more stable ;)

I would like to see a major improvement in the way that Vue handles reflections of lights, or AT LEAST an option to "turn off light relections" for materials. I've had to do an awful lot of light placement juggling to avoid effects like this pic shows, when light are within the range of a reflective material, often at the expense of not being able to get the lighting effect I want. :( The lower right reflection is the sun. The other two are point lights. The middle point light is much closer to the mirror than the other one.

A friend of mine let me try out Vue 4 on his system before I threw down $200, and I was seriously disappointed when it wouldn't read a bum. file. I don't have Poser Pro Pack, and don't plan on buying it anytime soon, so all of my bumpmapping will be in bum. form. I would really like to see a fix in Vue that recognizes bum. files. My main use of Vue will be an extension of Poser, so this is important to me. BTW, I still have that $200. :)

Well, just as a way around it, Poser even needs a .jpg, .bmp, etc., to use to create that .bum file in the first place. In Vue, you can use that same image in the bump editor, and get the same effect. You just have to invert it in Vue, make the Y scale -1 and lower the Gain, but it does work that way. But I know what you mean. When Vue 4 first came out, there were a few people who could use .BUM files, and alot who couldn't. However the 4.05-02 patch has solved that problem, but it seems that only newer .BUM files work. I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with that.

Poser *.BUM files can be renamed to *.BMP and they will work in Vue. It's the old trick we had to use with previous Vue versions. :)

Thanks! I just might be dropping 2 bills in the near future...........

WEll, yeah, that's true, but a .bum converted to a .bum is generally a large file in terms of MB, and will add render time, plus, it won't work as well as a grayscale image will. A Poser .bum changed to .bmp by changing the extension looks all sick green-yellow, with very little contrast between the lights and darks. When possible, it's better to use a grayscale .jpg.

Is it possible to use a .jpg in Poser 4.03 as a bumpmap?, If I apply one, it automatically converts to a bum.

That's right, it does that. Why? I don't know. Seems kind of strange for them to want to take a 100 KB jpeg and turn it into a 3 MB .bum, but there is no way around it without the Pro Pack. So, while you wouldn't be able to use the .BUM file in Vue, you still can use the jpeg, and it works the same. The bad news is, it takes a few minutes to apply it, and get it right, but the good news is that once you have it right, you can save it as a Vue .mat (material) file and reuse it often, much easier. So if you use the same bump files for many different characters, it's a good thing to save them as Vue .mat files. On the other hand, you could end up being one of the lucky ones that have never had any problem with the .bum format. It DOES work for some before the 4.05 patch, but not for others, and no one seems to know why. We have a saying around here, which you can find alot throughout these messages in this forum: "Vue funny sometime. " ;)

Shackle the vob preview creation camera to the main view camera so what you see when you save as vob is what you'll see in the object preview window when loading a vob object.

Hello all! I am new here instead of starting a new topic I figure it might be best in here. I am thinking about picking up Vue4 then I saw this topic. Does anybody know when vue 5 is supposed to come out? Don't want to buy v4 now if it will be out in two months. :) Just wasn't sure when V4 was released.

Thanks and looking forward to getting to know you all and working with you. :)

Hiya! To answer your question, I don't think they're even working on a Vue 5 yet. They've had some problems with the Mac OS X version, and I bet they'll fix all that before starting a Vue 5. Vue is now up to 4.05-02, the ".05-02" being the latest patch, and I would assume they're working on a .06 patch to xsolve the last of the rather minor problems remaining. All the patches are free, of course, and currently it is 4.05-02 which is shipping on CD as a whole product, so you don't have to manually patch it. I would be surprised if Vue 5 gets released any time this year, actually. Of course, they have upgrade deals. I bought Vue when it was version 3.1, in the Summer of 2000, and in the Fall of 2001, upgraded to 4.0 for half the price of the full version. Good deal, really, because Vue 4 is FAR more advanced than Vue 3.1 was, and I imagine Vue 5 will continue in that tradition. I hope this helps you in your decision, and come back and see us! PS You can download a demo of Vue 4 Here. It allows you to render, with no watermark. :) Can't save though, and it expires after 30 days, but it has all the features of the full version.

Thanks! I downloaded the demo about 3 days ago and was very impressed by it. See I am VERY new to this scene. Just picked up poser 4 last week after messing with the demo for a few weeks and now looking for backgrounds. I tried Bryce and it was ok, but I was more impressed with Vue 4 , plus the simple transfer of poser files is a big plus(although I quickly learned about the no reflection maps.) :)

Since 5 is not coming out soon I definitely will be picking up Vue 4 as soon as I can. Just having so much fun making stuff in the demo. Finally, I have a way to express all those thoughts banging around in my head. :)

Thanks again! :)

Cool! And when you get it,you can of course ask any questions you may have here, but don't miss our Vue Annex Pages, for links to hundreds of tips, tricks, past questions...and lots of goosd stuff. :)

more or diffrent shapes of brushed for the terrain editor realistic clouds, splashs

Much has already been said, but I'll reiterate ;) : - rivers and waterfalls at-a-click (hi VistaPro) - terrain editing and vegetation control la Worldbuilder: draw a freehand line to demark the boundaries of forests, for example, and "fill them up" - modeling: greater control over meshes--twist, curve, deform, . . . - force nVIDIA to get rid of that bloody OpenGL multithreaded render bug ;) - 3D viewport: make it switchable between camera perspective (as at present), and isometric scene perspective (similar to trueSpace) - further improve the render quality. proper radiosity and caustic would be nice. - simulated photographic film / paper (i.e. structure, grain, tint) - support for dual / triple head - plugin / scripts / custom shader support for 3rd party stuff ta, -Sascha.rb

hey guys, your ideas is the greatest one, you are what e-onsoftware needs when making Vue 5 and later versions. Vue wouldn't be good at all if we (we that own a copy of vue) would comment it. nice wish lists!

Sascha, you have already sen the message Orio posted somewhere else as an answer to your wishes. I know Orio has nothing aganst I publish his answer here for you but also for other Vue users. My english is not good anough to express myself as clearly. But what Orio wrote is an important point for all of us Vue users. Let's think before we "wish". Please read! """ there are two things that people too easily forgets about: 1) Vue is a $199 application (slightly higher price in Europe unfortunately), it is just too unfair to expect it to perform as a $1,500 application. I prefer to see the glass half-full instead, and say that for the $199 it costs, Vue sports an incredible amount of power that applications that are closer in price often do not offer. 2) Vue is basically a landscape program, and although it can do all sorts of renderings, to test it under the magnifying glass in a typical non-landscape rendering situation is not doing it right. It would be like judging Rhino for it's rendering options. Vue is not made to offer perfect interiors still life rendering, a situation where even a single pixel can cause problems (those with photographic experience know that it's the same, the degree of accuracy required for a still life is much greater than for a landscape). Vue is engineered to offer great looking 3D landscape scenes with people, trees, animals, rocks etc., with great options and realism at an extremely affordable price, and that's what it does and it does it the best way around, in my humble opinion. It is true that to get rid of most artifacts of soft shadows, one has to render with the highest settings (and high rendering times). It is also true, from my point of view, that is better to have one great detailed and accurate scene with a great render than 5 rushed scenes with rushed renderings. It's quality against time, it's not only a Vue problem, it's a common issue. Maybe there are applications who offer a better balance of quality-times, but at a somewhat 10 times the price of Vue, also... so... The truth getting down to this simple bit in the end: if you have a great picture, give it all the rendering time it deserves, and nothing less. If you have a not-so-great picture, maybe it would be better to ask yourself if it deserves to be rendered anyway, or if maybe it deserves some more working time to make it better and valuable for a longer and highest quality rendering. I end up asking this question myself many times, and with the time passing, I do less and less pictures, but those that I make, I try to make them the best that I can. In normal _landscape_situations, a setting of 5 of soft shadows should be enough to handle most soft shadows needs and obtain great results with quality rendering. Sometimes you might find the need to have higher than 5 values. Then just render that particular picture at the highest quality settings. That's what I do and I can say I can get great results. Keep in mind that there is a difference between Ultra and the highest user setting. It is noticeable. Ultra should be enough in many cases. But with extreme settings, always go for "user" at maximum boost. Orio"""

Hi gebe, laughs yes, I've read Orio's message before. But may I quote agiel from above? "Here is what I have so far, some are improvements, some are big additions, and some are obviously dreams (hmmm... radiosity :)), but since it is a 'wish' list..." As I've mentioned before, I totally concur with Orio's posting as seen above, almost word-by-word. But still, this is a wish list--hence I think it's a good idea to just write down things that come to mind. Let Steve and the others at eon decide what is feasible and what isn't. ;) ta, -Sascha.rb

When you wish, you know that you have to pay! to see realizing your wishes:-) Get Lightwave or 3DMAx full version. (You know the prices? LOL

LOL I rather not. :) On the other hand side, I wouldn't mind paying, say, $500 for Vue 5 if it featured all propositions made in this thread by the verious posters . . . ;=) ta, -Sascha.rb

You yes, we not:-)

Hi gebe, but is that a reason to hold back with suggestions how Vue might be improved? I think all here have a good reason to use Vue d'Esprit, and it might not necessarily be its inexpensiveness. I have suggested Vue to many, many people over the past year, and quite a number of those artists have bought Vue and are happy with it. Why? Because it gives them easy to handle tools, excellent atmosphere and vegetation functions, and a more than decent raytracer. I don't see anything wrong with suggesting new features and improvements for this already excellent rendering application, especially not as many of the features presented in this thread can be, I might add, rather easily implemented, too. Nobody is asking for Vue 5 to turn into the next Lightwave or Maya. But who knows how far Vue 10 might come . . . ;) again, sorry if I appear too zealous and inpolite. It is not my goal to offend people. :=) Best wishes, -Sascha.rb

Hi, what about much more speed in the final rendering !! And more insight and control in the great black-box solid-growth (exchange of materials,calibration of the plant parts).At least more precision of the working windows would be nice. ps. why is an imported object almost invisible in the wireframe ? rollmops :-)

http://www.fredivoss.de 

...yippi ah yeah or something like that...

After working now for a while with Vue on the Mac (great programme!!!) i think there are some little "nice to have" things. Isn't it strange, that vue can import a bunch of formats but is not able to import its own 3.1 format(s)? This cuts us Mac users off from (i would think) 95% ot the stuff which is available on the Internet!!! Not nice. Second, it would be nice to have a feature "collect for output" which collects all the texture files etc which are used i a scene, object or material. I don't know how many materials, object etc i have downloaded so far where some textures are missing. Third, i would like to have a feature which copies/pastes attributes from one element to another. If you have to change 30-40 lights, located in different groups you know what i'm talking about. Last, it would be nice if you qould be able to "sit" on a light source while locating it in a scene. That means, that you could swap between the view from the camera and the view from the light source quickly. That would be nice. All of these things - i think - should be easily implementable because all the elements are available in the software anyway. Hope these are not too personal wishes so that it makes sense to discuss this in a (wonderfull) forum like this. Thanks again Guitta for your efforts! Walther

One day your ship comes in - but you're at the airport.

Just draw a road and it happens. From a path to a super freeway. If the road goes beyond the (15?) degree slope that a real road goes then give an option to build a tunnel or make a bridge or do nothing but build the an extreme road. Draw in rivers the same way. Paint in different textures on land. Put in your own increment for the nudge, like in Illustrator. Mathamatical operators for variables. If you want to change the X,Y,Z variable you could put in X*3 or X/2 or X-2 or X+5 or X=y. Like in Illustrator. When an object is expanded it grows from the center. I would like to be able hold down some key and the opposite corner is locked down so only one side goes out.

Did not read all the post =P but many things sounded really good. My wishlist would be (if implementable); 1. Simple modelling, nurb primitives to manipulate 2. Being able to draw outlines directly on terrains/areas in the active viewport for; adding short/long grass (see nr 3), texture types for blending (ex. drawing exactly where a path in the grass will be or where the water stops and land starts for shorelines) 3. Being able to apply grass to whole designated areas and not as patches (using the feature in nr 2) 4. MORE PLANTS! P.S ...features 2 & 3 would be wery cool!

Dez, buy Max or Maya or lightwave:-)

Gebe, we can allways hope Vue will get closer to the professional programs, leave the "Bryce/landscape/hobby" classification and not skyrocket in price! P.S I am seriously concidering Lightwave =)

Vue is a landscape generator (what can much more then only landscapes) and is sold as it. Vue is NOT a modeler and I hope it will not become a modeler. Vue's price is so low that you have in fact to get one of the big and expensive programs if you want every thing. Vue is easy and fast to learn, Max owners needs years. So do Maya owners. Vue is a very young program, which has so great features! I agree for the plants, but in reallity there ere so many plants, trees and flowers available (for free or to purchase)on the Internet, that you always can find what you need. And you can create your own inside Vue. Of course, they are not of this fabolous SolidGrowth quality, but can help. Vue4 has beaten Bryce anyhow and more again with Mover 4. For November 2002 or so, we will establish our wish list to send to e-onsoftware. But we have to be correct and reasonable when we do so and...we will:-). People who needs more then what Vue is able to offer, have to buy another program. A real artist is able to do more with Vue then a non-artist (or a "wish I was an artist") will ever be able to do with Max, Lightwave or Maya. With all programs, whatever, you need to be inventive, have imagination and love to create. Just my opinion. :-)Guitta

Hi Guitta, no offence, but I still don't grasp the concept behind this: "People who needs more then what Vue is able to offer, have to buy another program." What's the point of a wish list, then? Or releasing ANY further versions of Vue, for that matter? I totally agree with your other arguments in your postings such as "a real artist is able to do more with Vue than a non-artist" and the like, but yes--let e-on decide what's completely over the top and what's not. This is not least of all a business decision. There's no need to pre-filter a wish list. After all, Lynn and Steve read this board too, have read the suggestions, too, and quite probably have received more suggestions directly by e-mail as well . . . Just my 2c, and as I said: no offence meant. :=) ta, -Sascha.rb

Since years we always have done a reasonable wishlist and sent to e-on. And we pre-filter, anyhow:-). Guitta

My thought on this topic was what people would post what the would "wish" have implemented...implementable or not (I'm no programmer). In my post, I suggested simple manipulation of primitives....not lightwave modelling capabilities. That's what I meant and understood Guitta! =)

:-) OK, tht's a good wish DeZ

Honestly,Vue in his assumption of features is a wonder- full programm !Although Im using other software as well (even of the 1990 Euro-league),I decided to buy Vue after testing the demo for a few months.To get a result Im not using only one programm for a project. But anyhow there is everytime something to improve; not in general perhaps,but in details. rollmops :-)

http://www.fredivoss.de 

...yippi ah yeah or something like that...

I think my wish for Vue 5 would be an improvement of the export abilities (plants!?). rollmops :-)

http://www.fredivoss.de 

...yippi ah yeah or something like that...

Since Vue4 always drops new objest into the center of the screens, it would be nice to have crosshairs in the three windows so precise aiming is possible. Either move the screen manually or be able to put in x,y,z variables. How about if E-on made a plugin that would give you all the functions of a regular 3d program.

Vue4 only drops new objects into the center of the screen if you have this option checked. What do you mean with moving the screen manually? You can move inside each screen in using the right mous button. You also can place any object by using x,y and z, you can toggle each of the 4 views to fill the screen. Guitta

I know about the center drop option. I didn't know about the right botton trick for moving around the screen. Much better than the the shift/left mouse button. I still think the crosshairs idea is a good one. It would make for quick placement of objects.

I don't know what other users think, but personally, such crosshairs would disturb me very, really very much. There are so many "tricks" you can use to place objects exactly where you want and even better then with any crosshairs. :-) Guitta

When needed, and only when needed, not always:-)...

What did you do to get the grid? I would want to be able to switch the crosshairs on and off from the option pallet.

I think I have to translate my "tips and tricks for Vue" in English language. For the momenet they only exists in french and german.

In the image above, I created 1 terrain which I have resized and flattened and pushed it completely under the ground. It doesn't disturb at all in the image and you can make the grid invisible or not whenever you want.

In my previous post I created 2 terrains, each one colored differntly and placed them shifted under the ground. I also created a vertical terrain, resized it to fit in the views and put it very very far away. Here again, you can make them invisible or not by just a click.

Is it possible to have a curved alpha plane so that I could make a curved graphic panel without the image wrapping around the back?

You can do it with booleans on a cylinder.

To Gebe: Say what? I didn't get what you were saying. An option to turn on/off crosshairs seems much easier. I'm still voting for crosshairs. Nice bombsite for dropping objects. I downloaded the program Shapemagic and I wonder if something like that can be added to Vue5. That program takes up little memory. I'm not askeing for a big fancy 3d modeling program with nurbs and metaballs and what not, but just a little more ability to make shapes would be nice addition.

Most of my wishes come from comparisons to World Builder, which I think is overpriced and has an inferior renderer to Vue4. * Area definition, including the ability to define a separate material for an area and constrain the scatter/replicate function to an area. It would be nice to be able to 'draw' a lake or wooded area directly in the scene designer and tweak its properties directly. * True 3D grass for covering a terrain (not replicating and scattering the 'patch of grass'). This looks really good in WB (IMHO). You can obviously get close with procedural textures, but the difference gets clearer the tighter your shot is to a grassy area. Considering packages like Poser and Carrara are coming out with support for 'fur' and other similar strand-based textures, this should be part of a landscape generator these days. * A wind model that can consitently influence plant models, waves, clouds, etc. Very key to realism when you move from stills to animation. * Weather effects like snow, rain, animated fog (would be great if influenced by a wind system). This could be real unique feature if done well, because it doesn't exist in any other package, save for plug-ins for After Effects and high-end 3D modelers. * Improve water and wave dynamics and their interaction with other objects. Real collision detection between objects and water surfaces, resulting in dynamic ripples, foam, wakes, etc. would be another feature that would put them solidly out in front of other packages. * I like the other suggestions above about better light management and a more robust object management scheme. I probably haven't done detailed enough work to encounter these issues yet :-) * In general, I'd like to see them concentrate on landscape generation and animation issues, rather than beefing up model libraries and modeling functions. I like the fact that there's a lot of flexibility in the package, but at least IMO, its not intended to be a competitor with Animation Master, Cinema 4D, etc, but with World Builder and Bryce.

Having had a chance to think about this topic for a while, and having gotten spanked for trying to start a new thread about it, I guess I'll post my thoughts here.

It seems to me a feature that would be most easily implemented and most artistically relevant, would be the addition of a material paintbrush to the terrain editor. Were already using brushes to sculpt and deform terrains, so it should it shouldnt be that difficult to brush on material assignments.

Think about how Vue currently handles terrains with multiple materials. Vue uses the material Mix function. This has the following problems:

1. Its very difficult to balance the individual materials using the Mixing proportions function.
2. The results of Influence of altitude and Influence of slope are unpredictable, can change if the terrain is resized or repositioned.
3. Theres no way using the mix function to lock a particular material to a particular point on a terrain.
4. If you have more than two material you have to stack mixed materials on top of each other creating new mixed materials. All this only serves to compound the difficulties.

Just think what could be done if Vue had a material paintbrush in the terrain editor. Take a Mountain terrain for example. Using simple, non-mixed materials, you could:

1. Paint a grassy meadow at the base of the mountain
2. Paint dirt further up the mountain
3. Paint rock on cliffs and peaks
4. Paint a snow field on one small face of the mountain
5. Paint a little stream running down a gully
6. Paint a pathway running through the grassy meadow
7. Paint a trail running up the mountainside
8. Etc.

The material assignments would be locked to the surface of the terrain and so would be unaffected by resizing the terrain or re-scaling the individual materials.

From a purely artistic point I can think of no function that could be added to Vue that would give you greater control over the final appearance of your picture than this.

If I had one and ONLY one function that would be added to Vue 5, a Materials Paintbrush would be it.

-SMT

I'd rather stay in my lane than lay in my stain!

I've been stewing on a wishlist for awhile. So here is my current Vue 5 wishlist:

1. An Undo Manager. This would be the ability to undo and redo multiple events. A Manager so that the user could open an Undo Manager dialog and choose a point-in-time to restore. Also, the user could also allocate resources (RAM) the Undo Manager.

2. Automatic terrain mapping for pictures. A picture mapped to a terrain using Automatic mapping and a scale of one would cover the top of terrain perfectly. When Automatic mapping is chosen, the user would be able to disregard the picture dimensions and terrain dimensions. Other mapping modes should produce differing results.

3. A blur control for the 'turn reflective with angle' on the transparency tab.

4. Introduce a parameter-based solid-growth plant making ability. Each plants default parameters could be adjusted and managed for customized plant-growth.

5. New feature: Cubic terrain generation and edit. I would like to see the terrain editor rotate the terrate in 3D-space and adjust elevation on x, y, and z planes (point of action is perpendicular to the plane rotation. This is the same type of control that z-brush brings to object transform.

6. The ability to right-click and copy/paste material channels. I would like to be able to right-click on a material channel-tab and copy/paste the entire channel.

7. The ability to right-click and copy/paste light gels. This isn't an option on the gel pop-up menu.

8. I would like to import brushes for terrain painting. Vue could store brush presets in a folder for archiving. There are many possible brushes: roads, forrests, rivers...

9. A new light: a parallel spotlight. Great for creating realistic volume light beams.

10. An atmosphere randomize mixer. This could be fun.

11. Vue should remember file paths in each file dialog (open/save/load/import/etc.) between sessions.

12. Offer an optional DirectX view. Great for when OpenGL fails to work.

13. An Optimize function to reduce terrain polygon count during terrain generation. The user could lower the polygon count dynamically and still achieve excellent results.

Charles

Charles

WOW! Charles, what whishes! I have to ask you later when we bring up the list to vote what you mean (for several things:-)) No time yet. But I print out ALL wishes and will try to put it in an ordered list. Guitta

Mannn!!!...reading all the wishes here including those that started by Mike...this is so awsome that I'm gonna get myself a rocking chair and spoke a pipe evryday till these wishes come true. Well, if its too much for e-on to handle, at least have Vue 5 able to export WYSIWYG on Vue world into 3ds and obj format...with texture in tact of course.

Here are some of my wishes: 1. Radiosity 2. More advanced sunlight/atmospheric settings allow for things like sun light through clouds from any sun position. 3. More advanced night sky settings for things like nebulas and stars. 4. Better nighttime haze/fog settings that allow for volumetrics at night (moonlit haze, fog etc) 5. Improved volumetric rendering within non standard vue objects (like imported objects). 6. Add improved cloud layer editting tools, to include true 3d clouds with hieght as well as width. Add capability to define cloud layer coverage using a greyscale function that uses greyscale for height information. 7.Allow terrain meshes to be "frozen" so that they can be further molded in the x and y dimensions after generating terrain with height map. Perhaps a sort of airbrush that acts like a magnet on resulting object, pushing and pulling points in x,y and z axes. 8. Add a rainbow primitive or support for rainbows within volumetric atmospheres.

My wishes would be... Simple particle effects. Lattice deformers of some sort. Mover support Poser 5.(I know not directly Vue, but you know) Some sort of scripting ability. Brian

Bacth rendering of animations would be nice :) Not sure if I can wait till vue5 though :(

An option for lights: turn off specular highlights. This feature is useful for hiding the influence of fill lights.

Charles

Didn't read through all of this, so I'm not sure if someone have mentioned it before. But my biggest wish, is the possibility to merge objects into 1 object. I still end up with hundreds of primitives and objects, each time I make an object.

But Alekssander, you can group the objects and give the group of the name of the final object.

I agree with Alekssander. It would nice if Vue could convert boolean objects into a single mesh. It would cut back on the clutter, reduce polygon count, and even make boolean operations export-able.

Charles

I'm afraid I have to agree as well on this one, Guitta. A single object of 100,000 polygons renders faster than a group of 100 objects at 1000 polygons each. That's why I now go through cartwheels using Deep Exploration and Polytrans to convert every object into a single mesh before I import it. "Original 3DS object into Polytrans -> export as a Direct X single mesh -> import into Deep Exploration -> export as a 3DS single mesh -> import into Vue" Would love it if Vue just had an "import as single mesh" option. -SMT

I'd rather stay in my lane than lay in my stain!

Here is another idea for the Function Editor, a blur transformation. Right now we have Fractal layer, Turbulence, and Rotatation. With the addition of an optional Blur control (avec slider) would be a nice way to take the edge off of a function.

Charles

Gebe: ;p ..... (I'm allready using groups, but that don't realy help.) ;) Another wish, is better control with the torus.

What kind of better control, Alekssander?

as far as plants are concerned, what we really need is a programmable plant creator... What this means is, don't have more trees that are oaks, or ginko or whatever, but have a plant generator with parameters that one can input... It is easier to provide parameters for different plants than have the plants themselves... That way it's easy to get a wide variety of plants and change the existing plants so one can get more variety... The plant creator would have to be divided, one part for trees, the other for bushes and non-flowering plants.. I think it's too ambitious to have it generate flowers.. Flowers would be hard.. But trees and bushes are not as hard... Since this very likely is not going to happen, I would think that for Vue 5, Eon should include whatever plants it's trying to sell individually... I mean, that approach worked fine for earlier versions of Vue (2 & 3) but at this stage of the game the "extra plants" are a little too expensive to buy individually or as a group... Also, add some birch trees, some oak and elm trees... Different kinds of pines... Gnarly trees without leaves... anyway, that's my 2 cents... :)

Plant creators" exists already and they are quite expensive:-( From Vue's existing plants we can already create an infinity of new plants. This was my 2 cents too (LOL) Guitta

Plants wishlist (as requested) : - weeping willows - real conifers (think christmas trees) - bamboo - vines, ivy (plants growing on a plane or against a wall)

• agiel - www.linfa.net

agiel, bamboo we have already in Vue 4:-)

Tradivoro,

You and I are thinking of the same thing (see post 104-#4). I put some more thought into it. Imagine this: From inside the current vegetation creation dialog, offer a custom button. Layering complexity is a good way to maintain the simplicity of a system.

From there, you could pick a plant or load a preset, adjust parameters, choose a leaf or leaves, adjust bark material(s), and save the plant as a preset.

So this must be a good idea if others are doing this already and charging alot of money for it. So much the better for Vue. Maybe after creating this module for Vue, e-on could make it a plug-in for other software?

Charles

Charles

Little vines with flowers on them......Sharen

I agree with tradivoro and sittingblue, a "parameter-based solid-growth plant generator" is the answer.

I doesn't have to be a full featured application like Greenworks' Xfrog. A simple hierarchy of editable paramatric elements would be already enough (something like treeMaker, treeGenerator or PantStudio).

I agree that "From Vue's existing plants we can already create an infinity of new plants", but what if I need a high-polygon model for close up ? Or if I want to reproduce a tree from my garden ? Loading pre-made low-polygons models with small variations is not enough. We really need a complete "plant editor" !

:) Eric

The fir tree that comes with Vue has in its description that it grows to heights of up to 60 feetnot with the version provided by Vue, it doesnt! The Vue fir tree looks to be 6 to 8 feet maximumfine for a tree farm, but not for a forest. I grew up in the mountains of northern California, USA, and evergreens are a big part of my life. Id love to see fully adult evergreens in Vue. Pine, cedar, redwood and yes, even a true adult fir. Other vegetation: Id like to see ground cover flowers and plants. Poppies, daisies, pansies, mums, clover, groups of petunias, etc. BUT MOST OF ALL: BUSHES, BUSHES, BUSHES!!! For every tree in the world, there are at least 100 bushes! One more thing: PLEASEnormalize the scale of solid growth vegetation! The grasses are not in scale with the trees which are not in scale with the ferns, etc., etc., etc. Im tired of rescaling each plant after it loads. -SMT

I'd rather stay in my lane than lay in my stain!

Okay, ;o) more accurate caustics. At the moment we only have refractive caustics...reflective caustics would be a great bonus. With reflective caustics you can shine a light onto a mirror, and then see the reflected light on the floor, wall or any other object in the scene. Cheers

 

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Well, yes, I must have missed your earlier post Charles... :) But yes, what Charles and Eric are saying makes the best sense, although I doubt they'll come out with a complete tree editor and Eon could capitalize on this by making it as a plug in for other modelling programs... And guitta, I know what you mean that they're expensive, but the ones out in the market are just overpriced... :) Actually making the plant generator itself is not such a big deal... I think with the plant info that eon has for solid growth, they could make something that allows editing of all the parameters, branch length, trunk size, type of leaf, etc... And inasmuch as yes, we have the capability of doing it by hand now, it's a lot of work... Just getting the masks to work is a lot of work... :) Anyway, we'll probably just wind up with a Banyan tree or Baobab, like in Le Petit Prince... :)

Plants I should like to see Most importantly, more trees - European oak, ash and elm, rowan with and without berries. weeping willows and cherries. some different pines and spruces fruit trees - apples, and pears for the pear tree. Cherry with fruit. hedges - privet and laurel bush materials - brambles, gorse, nettles flowers (but only if they are realistic) roses (standard, bush and climbing) climbing plants for walls and fences - wisteria, clematis, ivy, morning glory, honeysuckle sunflowers bluebells

Among the plants... What about a pregenerated flag to set,that specifies what -season- it is? That would allow Eon to keep the Solid Growth stuff encapsulated, and allow for more color variance. We definitely need more trees; birches, willows, redwood, cypress. Maple. Blue spruce. =lots= more conifers, possibly with a resolution slider, to allow for distant trees to be as low poly as possible (distant forests anyone?). Several of the ground covers would be very nice, like heath, ground ivy, and for the real sicko's, kudzu. Can't do a proper Appalachian render without the stuff there somewhere... :P Definitely hedges like boxwood. Snapdragon. Maybe some flowering bushes. Lichens and mosses would be a wonderful addition, as well. Those tend to get forgotten as they are so small, but the abscence of them is noticed almost all the time.

A Eucalyptus tree A weeping willow some flowers like roses, or lilies, or carnations...things that will grow in fields and crops UV mapped primitives ;-)

I second the vote for a "complete" plant editor. This doesn't mean we'll need a whole lot of complex options and the like, but just a simple front-end to change - bark (colour, bumpmap, textures) - foliage (colour, density, textures, size) - spread or the like. I know you can change most of those settings by hand, but a plant editor would come in very handy. Then, some more "basic plants" to complete the offer. Those should include - conifers - oak - birch - shrubbery - vines. A shader for grass would be a nice addition, too. Apart from plants, let me reiterate a point from my posting further up the thread: Radiosity, please. Or even full global illumination. ;) Nowadays, other low-cost programs such as trueSpace and Carrera offer either or both. What's more, using a raytracing engine, both can be implemented very easily with Vue. Such an implementation wouldn't be exceptionally fast or easy to set up (lots of parameters to handle, render time would at least double, more likely quadruble), but it would be there for the freaks who want to play around with it or for those renders that simply require the extra quality. ta, -Sascha.rb

I'd like to see a faster renderer and dynamic grass zach

1. Various Roses from buds to full bloom. 2) Tropical Orchids like Golden Shaower, Vanda, Spider Orchid etc.. 3)Water lilies from bud to bloom 4) Tropical flowers like various type of Hibiscus, Frangipani, Morning Glory etc...all bud to bloom. Guess that's too much alread :)

great stuff -) ..file management - It's logical that Load Object takes me to the vob folder - With the XP file structure its a real pain that Import Object takes me to the same place, instead of the last folder I imported from. ..posing - I wish we could capture verts in camera viewport and either drag or arrow-nudge them.

Another one: - Interrupt and continue renders, at least when using render to disk. ta, -Sascha.rb

And just to make it bald faced plain: If at all possible, full support for Poser 5 PZ3 import and all the new goodies it has, like the shaders and the dynamic hair and the cloth.

Cel Shader...That's all, a simple anime/cartoon cel shader. Please:)

Stay Focused.

I want to apply fuzzy material to ALL objects, not only Vue primitive objects but plants, rocks, OBJ, 3DS, etc.

h-kana, you can do this. Just do it :-) in the material editor! Guitta

DarkSkills, I have no clue what a Cel Shader is. Can you (or somebody else) explain to me, please? Thanks, Guitta

Hi Guitta, very short, non-technical explanation: different from usual shaders which often aim at (photo-)realistic results, cell shaders produce cartoon-/comic strip-like output, i.e. images with reduced colour palettes, stark outlines and contrasts etc. Imagine creating a Vue scene, and render the image with a cell shader--you'll have a perfect background for a comic book or graphic novel. Hope this helps, -Sascha.rb

Thanks, Sascha. I understand now:-) Guitta

The ability to use imported animation files as textures and gels.

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