I'm just tooling around with the demo, trying to decide whether or not I want to invest (I'm regretting my purchase of Bryce 5, and looking for an alternative). For what it's worth, I love the Vue interface (a lot less wasted space than either Bryce or Carrara, my other 3D programs of choice), and I like the renderer (it creates images with an almost painterly quality--not your typical 3D fodder). I have a few questions for those of you who are familiar with the program, however: When I paste textures (proceedurals or textures) to the ground plane, I get strange, swirly results (it looks like the correct texture, but all swirled around). This seems to happen regardless of which mapping mode I choose. Is that normal? Is it possible to use a texture as a bump map? I see controls for creating proceedural bumps in materials, but no texture import. This would be a major problem, since I use images to create bumps quite often.

Hi Felderin, To answer your bump map question, if you click on the "bumps" tab in the material editor, and then right click on the bump production box, and select "edit function", a new window will open. You'll see 2 choices under "Kind of Layer", "mapped values" and "Procedural values". If you check Mapped Values, a button labelled "picture" will appear. Clicking on that will allow you to load an image file for bumps, and it works great. you also have all the same choices for mapping a bump picture as you do a regular texture. The bumps from a picture can come across kind of strong, so you'll want to fiddle with the Gain control, which is right next to the bump production window. As for your ground texture problem, I know what you mean. it could be a limit of the demo though. Usually fully anti-aliasing will slowly correct that, but you might want to adjust the picture scale too. I hope this can help. Cheers, Mike

Here's just a quick and dirty example. This texture is a simple brick texture I found at 3D Cafe, applied to a Vue cube, stretched. I also went and applied the same texture (not a greyscale, just the same texture) to it in the bump production window, as explained above.. I left the Gain at the default of 1.000. For that matter, I didn't alter anything but the texture scale, to 5.0. The top os a bit wonkey, but I assume that's simply because it wasn't UV mapped and painted on.

And also, you can easily invert the bump production, as shown in this pic. If you double click on the bump production filter, and browse to the Other Filters category, there's one called Invert which looks like a diagonal line running from the upper left to te lower right. I inverts the bump exactly the opposite of default, and in this case, it causes the mortar joints to appearto be indented instead of sticking out, on the wall.

Thanks a lot, Mike! I like the way they have functions layered in the interface like that, but it can make things difficult to find if you aren't familiar with the program. E-on should put the manual online as a PDF--that would really help me decide... =) I've used quite a few 3D apps over the years, and the Vue interface really impresses me. It's simple and streamlined without being ugly. Bryce, Carrara, and trueSpace all try to be too fancy, or look "artistic" without much regard for how users actually work. The Caligari folks (trueSpace) need to admit that a 4-view split screen is common because it works (although I see they've added one in ts5), and the 3D widgets are cumbersome and annoying. I hate having to pull out all those "trays" in Carrara--with large scenes, I can't view my scene heirarchy and look at the scene at the same time. Bryce is the King of Wasted Space--all sorts of unnecessarily big icons and empty white space around a view window that only takes up about 65% of your screen. Vue seems to put all the important stuff on the main screen without making a big production out of it. You get a large 4-way split view window, the heirarchy window (I like the layer organization--reminds me of Rhino), object properties... all the important stuff. They keep everything small, though, to maximize the size of the view window. That's good too. $199, huh? Pretty tempting...

I'm fairly sure that e-on has a sidegrade offer for Bryce users. Not sure what it is, but you should look into it. Rich

No problem Felderin, that's what we're here for. :) I totally understand what you mean about Bryce. I downloaded the Bryce 5 demo, and I have to say "Love at first sight" was definitely not what I felt.... I was fairly impressed with the True Space 5 demo for some perverted, sick reason, but I've alreaady got Rhino, which seems far easier, and the interface makes sense. Plus, I'm saving up for 3D Studio Max, but that'll take a while. if I hadn't gone the Rhino route, I probably would have gone with TS 5. I have no experience with Carrarra, so I couldn't say one way or the other. E-on makes a big deal right in the front of the manual of how proud they are of their interface, and I have to agree. Like anything else, it takes a little getting used to, but once you do, which maybe takes a week or so, to remmebr where everything is, you'll love it for it's functionality and the fact that it works well. And the world browser is one awesome feature of that interface. Once you strt really getting into the filters and functions, for the bumps and the color production you'll be astonished the flexibility Vue 4 has for material creation. I highly recommend it. :) And yes, E-on does have a side grade offer for registered Brycers. I think you save about $30.00 U.S. Any more questions, by all means, feel free to ask!

Well, after playing around with the material editor some more, I went ahead and ordered Vue from Daz3D (they have it marked down--$30 off, so it matches E-on's Bryce sidegrade). I figured, what the heck? =) I had a totally love/hate relationship with trueSpace, Mike. Decent modeling tools (although I also have Rhino, which is better on almost every front), an absolutely beautiful renderer (very possibly the best renderer you can find for under $1000), but I hated the interface so much ended up selling my copy on ebay. Ugly floating toolbars everywhere, no consitency or sense of organization... I loved the renders, but hated working with it. Vue seems to be completely at the other end of the spectrum in that regard. Once you figure out how one thing works, you begin to find that everything else works in a very similar way.

heyas; those swirly things on the ground, those are moire patterns. im guessing youre using a tiled texture, right? as the square/tiled bits reach the horizon, they get closer together and appear to curve. um, kinda like those escher prints that get infinitely smaller as they near the edge of a circle. mike went nuts with those things; what did you do, mike? quit using textures on the infinite ground plane, and used a finite plane or cube, didnt ya?

Felderin,I just got Vue 4 that I ordered from DAZ today,and I promise you won't regret it.It loads up poser charactres really great.I upgraded to Bryce 5 and wish I would have gotten Vue first instead.Like I said,I just got it this afternoon and I allready fell in love this program.

"quit using textures on the infinite ground plane, and used a finite plane or cube, didnt ya?" You got that right! In actuality, the only materials I ever use on the ground plane are procedurals, because if I'm using the infinite plane at all, it's most likely for an actual ground texture, like grass or dirt or something. If I'm doing an indoor scene, I might use a texture on the ground plane for a floor of some sort, but only in small rooms. But generally I'll use a UV mapped box which I made for just that reason. I have a few of those which I cloned in various wood and carpet textures with Painter, over the UV template. Takes about 3 minutes to make a new one. Otherwise, if I'm doing an outside scene, everything is going to be procedural. I'm not big on painting textures, and I am in love with Vue's procedurals, so unless I want something really specific, I just use the procedurals, or a small handful of killer textures I've found here and there, like that brick texture above. For that matter, 3D Cafe has alot of great textures for free.