E-On Software, makers of the popular Vue line of digital landscape, nature and atmosphere creation and animation engines, are making the next major upgrade, Vue 9.5, available for existing users. The new version adds interactive texture placement, advanced cloud control, atmospheric re-lighting, GPU-accelerated anti-aliasing, a fast hybrid depth-of-field generator, multiple UV layers, custom star maps and more.
The two versions available for pre-release now are Vue xStream (a plug-in that works inside other major 3D programs like Maya, Cinema4D, Lightwave, Softimage and 3ds Max) and Vue Infinite (a standalone application).The program now supports the MDD file format, which allows morphed meshes to be captured as exact geometry for animation frames.
The new texture manipulation gizmo (this is the actual term used by the program itself) makes it much easier to place, angle, scale and rotate texture maps interactively directly onto a mesh. Previews are generated in real-time, making texture additions to existing images — for example adding an advertisement onto a bus — exceptionally realistic and much easier.
Although Vue already has cloud-generation and animation tools, editing and rendering cloud performance has been greatly improved in v9.5. New “cloud restriction zones” keep cloud movements to where they should be, especially useful for realistic mountain-range atmospheres and other types of environments, augmented by the new “cloud offset” capabilities.
Other improvements include the hybrid “2.5-D” algorithm to allow depth-of-field effects to be rendered four times faster than previously, new support for models containing separate UV layers, improved eco-painting (now using the entire brush in Cinema4D and 3ds Max rather than just the brush center), support for custom “star maps” and fixes or improvements to the vector quantization node, frame labeling, velocity pass in render buffer, composite layers for matte shadow and reflection materials.
The new version is available free to all users under maintenance agreements immediately. Users who are not under maintenance should purchase maintenance, says the company, in order to get Vue 9.5 and the future Vue 10 upgrades free of charge. Vue 9.5 xStream and Infinite are expected to be released sometime this quarter. Customers who purchase Vue 9 within 30 days of the final shipping of v9.5 will receive it free.
When shipping, Vue 9.5 xStream will cost $1,495 (or $1,790 with a one-year maintenance agreement), and Vue 9.5 Infinite will sell for $995 (or $1,190 with maintenance). Upgrades from v8.x will cost $495. Vue is available for Mac OS X (10.5 or higher, Intel only) and Windows XP or later, and is currently localized only for English. Vue 9.5 xStream will work with recent versions of 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Cinema4D and Lightwave.
