Opinions on the learning curve of Vue (VUE 9)

[simmsimaging]

I am looking at a project that I either need to cobble together some really tough-to-match shots to create a landscape that sort of covers the breadth of North America, or I need to create that landscape in 3D. Unfortunately time is super tight, I have maybe a week to get it done.

wondering if anyone here can offer some words (from experience) on how hard it is to pick up Vue and get up and running with creating some decent landscapes. They would be fairly "long range" so not super detailed, but need to stand up to high res (print ads).

Is it realistic to think I can buy it and learn it well enough to pound something good out in 5-6 days? 5-6 *long* days?

EDIT: I should say that it needs to be *fairly* photorealistic. They are not looking to have it look like a miniature thing, so I need to avoid that feel as much as will be possible for something like this.
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[plastic_]

I don't know VUE, but it's surprisingly easy to create a realistic looking forest with Forest Pro, VrayFog and a good tree library.

[simmsimaging]

Thanks Marc. I have ForestPro, but I need more than just forests - mountains, rivers, fields of wheat, rocky coastline, etc. It's beyond the scope of what I can model or do manually in the time I have (plus my two regular modelers are both out of commission for a couple of weeks, which doesn't help much )

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[flino2004]

If you don't have time to model it in the time you have, knowing the tools that you already use.It will be even more difficult to do it with a tool that you don't know at all

[joconnell]

Vue is very easy to get hugely slow rendering results with. There's a lot of idiosyncrasies that go with it that you only find out through a lot of continual use. I've no doubt that it and terragen are immensely powerful programs and either are the correct way to do what you're asking but in a short space of time it'll be touch to deal with all of the personality quirks of either. One idea would be to look at FXphd's vue courses - I've done the 301 level course there and it's great. They've a 201 level course too which'll give you a solid intro to the lot as well as production friendly methods of getting things out within reasonable times. The standard of your work is extremely high so I've no doubt you'd learn it given them time, but in this case would you be better off with a matte painter or hiring someone that uses vue a lot? http://www.linkedin.com/pub/eran-dinur/13/377/14b is the guy who teaches the fxphd course, perhaps he could put you in touch with someone or you could actually sign up to fxphd and download his course?

[simmsimaging]

Thanks for the insight John - very much appreciated. I do agree that finding a Vue artist is the way to go, but so far I haven't had any luck finding one that is available. I have a few more feelers out but no word back, and was looking at a crash course as my last viable option. Vue has always interested me anyway, just never quite enough to drop a thousand or two dollars, but more so the fear of needing to drop a thousand or two hours as well

I'll definitely check the courses out and the contact you suggested - thanks for that.
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[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Vue is quite amazing soft- but still buggy and quite hard to render.

U can get really amazing results using vray in max n vue, just have to know which settings are useless and how to set it up. For instance Vue preloaded scene with sky renders for around 20 minuts on their settings, with mine vray tweak if I'm not wrong I manage to get it down to 1 min or so...

Its great program but u really have to take ur time and learn it, it give us huge options and a lot of assets so take ur time and dig in . In my opinion its not hard enought to go for courses and learning etc etc, just buy some tutorials and use ur imagination

[prateekvishwa]

m very impressed with the vue output in terms of photo realism specially for landscaping.. ( output of other guys, i have never experimented with vue myself ) but after reading several threads about its compatibility in terms or architectural visualization i am afraid if it is worth spending huge amount specially when you have very less time to experiment. What i got from forum reads is that it can make pretty good landscape but if you want to model something precisely i.e. base on contour data it may be difficult to produce same.. also rendering time is huge.. it is worth reading this

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...ht=vue+xstream

Hope this will help u taking right decision. cheers!

[simmsimaging]

Thanks Dadal and Prateek.
My general feeling is that Vue has the stuff, but I don't, and probably won't have enough time to learn it for this project. Too much at risk if I miss the deadline. I'm waiting to talk to a Vue artist still, and hopefully that route will work.

Appreciate all the insights - thanks guys.
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[flino2004]

Another good thing about Vue is the libraries are very affordable....one can buy a good collection for less than $15....You don't have to pay full price for Vue, I got Vue several years ago in Ebay for 25% of the retail price and they allow to transfer the license so you could buy even an older version and pay for the update.

Fernando

[simmsimaging]

Good tip - thanks.

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[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

He cant ''really'' Get older version. Vue aint supporting Vray 2.1. I think the latest 9.5 patch does, so its tricky ! Make sure u can use vray and that the license is STILL transferable b4 u buy anything

[joconnell]

What's the major part you need it for brett? Is it the terrain modelling or the foliage bits? If you want something just fopr the terrain bits look at geocontrol, it's really cheap and only does one thing but it's got a gorgeous erosion engine for different types of terrain. http://www.geocontrol2.com/

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Wow, interesting ! How does it work with integration to 3ds max/ textures quality ?

[joconnell]

Well, you can export an obj and bring in a huge mesh, or it'll also put out up to a 4k displacement map. You can send out various different texture and selection elements too so it's handy to make blend masks for materials. It's a bit fiddly and there's no undo but for the price it's great.