Rich has kindly developed a website for our not for profit amateur dramatic organisation. This has recently been launched and we are pleased be receiving some very positive feedback. Please visit our site to see Rich’s work first hand. Please also feel free to sign up to the forum and comment on the website.
James Howe – Chairman of Kaleidoscope Theatre
This is a partial review of E-on softwares Vue 7 Complete. It is only partial becuase at present I am only able to work on a lower specification computer (although still higher than the minimum specification) than I previously worked with Vue 6 Pro Studio on, having just moved to Sweden.
Firstly although like everyone else who bought Vue 7 Complete, I was forced to wait for a couple of days in order to be able to sync my copy with Cornucopia 3D, this will not influence my judgement of the program overall. Servers can and will crash at the worst possible time.
I will try to cover several areas with this review, stability, rendering, and new features.
Like its predecessors, Vue 7 complete suffers from a number of stability problems, (from my experience and that of the users of E-on softwares forums.
As I am using a slightly older computer than I will be in a couple of weeks time it will remain to be seen if this is purely the reason for the number of crashes I have encountered. Often when I start Vue I am faced with an instant crash and a message telling me that I should send a service note to the technicians at E-on software When I open the software again I am told that the program has recovered from a serious crash and that I should use Software Open GL drivers instead of hardware.
This is then followed by a message telling me that a save of my previous work was made, which is highly unstable, opening this file reveals a blank file (obviously). This leads to a good new feature though. Vue 7 Complete doesnt give you a slightly patronizing error message of “save your work and hope for the best”, it automatically saves a copy, which is then opened the next time the software opens. And as a bonus, so far, it has worked every time.
The software runs a lot slower on this computer than Vue 6 Pro Studio does, this I understand, is a greater reliance on the Graphics Card which means on a more powerful computer, theoretically, it should be more stable, with less OOM issues. (This will be reported when possible)
It should be noted that downloading items from Cornucopia 3D still doesnt work properly.
Rendering is a lot faster in Vue 7 Complete, then in Vue 6 Pro Studio, noticeably so. It should also be noted that it renders in a different style to the Vues of old. Non technically speaking, from side to side, rather than up in strips. This means that areas of your render are completed quicker enabling you to see changes that need to be made quicker.
New features of note are the water editor, and excellent feature which is written about elsewhere on this site, and the ecopainter tool, which more will be written about later.
It should be noted that in this pre release version, a couple of features appear to be missing from the specification sheet. The ability to import skp files has been mentioned on E-on softwares forums. And the plant editor is exactly the same as of that in Vue 6 Pro Studio.
Vue 7′s editor is top, Vue 6 is below it.
The only extra buttons are the “reaction to wind” setting and the “export plant” options which are the result of an upgrade from Pro Studio to Complete.
Although this review probalby appears to be all doom and gloom, this is still a stunning product. Hopefully when the first patch is released or when product is officially released (not as a pre-release) the problems with stability and apparently missing components will be rectified.
The water editor and ecopainter alone make it worth the upgrade, although many people will probalby be put off by the fairly prohibitive upgrade price from Vue 6 Pro Studio.
A further review will be entered when I am able to test the program fully with a more powerful computer.
Another object model, this time a chair. Once again modelled in Daz 3D’s Hexagon and textured in E-On Software’s Vue 7 Complete.
Below is the mesh model, followed by the completed, rendered chair.
The chair model is availiable to purchase for $2 through paypal, if you are interested in this model please contact me. It is also availiable as a Stool for the same price.
Another simple creation using Vue 7 Complete and its great EcoPainter tool for a little bit of festive fun. Firstly we need to creat a snowy christmas tree, which will be done by adding a fir tree, then copying it and pasting it over and changing the leaf colour and trunk to white, an idea I came across on the Cornucopia3D forums
Now we need to model a bauble. This will be done in hexagon 2.5, a software by Daz3D by manipulating a sphere object.
The baubles then need to be texured in vue 7 complete, so that they can be used in the ecopainter. In this case i will be using the standard “Red Metal” and “Bronze” Textures so it is nice and shiny for the tree.
Then the ecopainter tool will be used, single instance, with the bauble object selected in order to be able to place the objects on the tree.
Place a cone around the christmas tree in order to paint the instances onto a surface, this will be deleted later. Once all the baubles have been added, delete the cylinder and render the image. (It is also possible to paint the instances directly onto the tree)
For more information on these techniques or to buy the bauble model ($1) please contact me
A new website I have designed for Shaun Pritt has been completed at http://shaun-pritt.co.uk.
If you are interested in a similar website please contact me
Yet another cool feature of Vue 7 Complete’s Water Editor: adding foam around the shores. This is a function that automatically detects shorelines or foreign objects in the water and adds a layer of foam around them. It can be turned off if you like, for renders with boats at sea and the such, and can be edited both in texture, and its depth and amount. Below is an example of a very basic island with a fairly high level of foam and a lot of foam depth. This render is done at 800×600 on broadcast quality.
For a larger version of this image, please contact me
Today I modelled a train using Hexagon 2.5 from DAZ software. Here I will show some development shots and a render of a “nearly” completed model which I am going to try to sell on Cornucopia 3D as soon as I have opened a broker account (hopefully!)
This is the beggining of the construction, created from a 3D cube and a sphere.
Some futher details added including wheels, modelled from a line model and some extrapolation.
Almost finished here, just needs texturing in E-On Software’s Vue 7 Complete
Needs a bit more work on it, and soon enough I will put it in a landscape and with some extra carridges and the such.
If you are interested in this model It can be purchased for $10 dollars through paypal. Please contact me for details
Vue 7 has introduced a new feature, the water editor. This stunning addition allows you to add displacement mapping to the surface layer making it massively more realistic and allowing acurate shadows to be calculated.
Firstly we will look at the standard water which has been rendered in vue 6 pro studio with “ultra” settings and at 1024×768 pixels with just the default atmosphere.
Looks fairly good, but in vue 7 the new water editor feature improves this massively by adding a displacement map.
Below is an example of a similar image from vue 7 complete with the water editor used again with default atmosphere, on “ultra” setting at 1024×768
A massive improvement. This isnt all the water editor does though, it can be used to change the levels of wind, direction of wind, foam, wave height, wave amount, choppiness and agitation.
Below is an example of a similar image from vue 7 complete with the water editor used but with a slightly rougher sea again with default atmosphere, on “ultra” setting at 1024×768
Foam can also be added by the editor both around shorelines and on the tips of waves as demonstrated below.
This is a very powerful feature.”
If you would like larger pictures or futher information please contact me
Welcome to my new blog, a space which I intend to use in order to post updates of my recent work, tinkerings with Vue 7 Complete, Web design and 3D CGI projects.
I am currently availiable to take up new projects, so please don’t hesitate to contact me.
