E-on Software, makers of the popular Vue line of digital landscape, nature and atmosphere creation and animation engines, are now shipping the new 9.5 version of Vue xStream and Vue Infinite. 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.
Vue xStream is a plug-in that works inside other major 3D programs like Maya, Cinema4D, Lightwave, Softimage and 3ds Max), while Vue Infinite offers the same functionality in a standalone application. The two versions both now supports the MDD file format, which allows morphed meshes to be captured as exact geometry for animation frames.
The new “texture manipulation gizmo” 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 labelling, velocity pass in render buffer, composite layers for matte shadow and reflection materials.
Vue 9.5 xStream costs $1,495 (or $1,790 with a one-year maintenance agreement), and Vue 9.5 Infinite sells for $995 (or $1,190 with maintenance). Upgrades from v8.x cost $495. Customers who have purchased Vue 9 within the last 30 days will receive the v9.5 upgrade free. 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 works with recent versions of 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Cinema4D and Lightwave.
