Any Vue Xstream Users?

[windrockwater]

I have tried many times to integrate Vue Xstream into my archviz workflow but have not been that successful. Some of my beefs are:

1) You need to buy rendernode licenses to DR render from within Max
2) Rendering can be slooooow
3) It lacks something as simple as replacing a max object with a Vue plant with variations
4) The standalone Vue app really cannot compete with the Max interface so working in Vue is kinda painful
5) Many of the plants have poorly geometry and/or are scaled all over the place

I am not trying to bash the program. It seems to excel at fantasy work but not good, organized arch-viz workflow. I am wondering if anyone has opinions or disagrees. I would love to put it to use because it cost a pretty penny! So any advice or pointers would be nice too.

[Bathyscaph]

Item 1 is true and annoying. The network and distributed rendering in Vue work great but neither work when rendering Vue elements from within max unless you buy render nodes license. This is fairly obnoxious.

Item 2 is true and annoying and exacerbated by item 1.

Item 3 doesn't bother me. I think Vue seems better suited to large areas of terrain. I use GrowFX for and ForestPro for near vegetation.

Item 4. The Vue interface is weird but no longer bothers me. I am used to it kind of like ZBrush and a bunch of other tools with odd interfaces.

Item 5. true

I would think for most people Ozone would be the best way to use Vue technology inside of max because the Vue skies are pretty cool. Mostly, I've used the standalone version of Vue for rendering environment maps and sometimes for quick concept stuff combined with max. Mostly though, I don't really combine the two all that much. The slow rendering really kills me. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Vue myself. It's not really something I'd recommend but I use it enough to keep my own license current.

[Dave_Wortley]

The software has massive potential and can yield amazing results occasionally.... until you actually want to have extra control, then it becomes slow and painful to work with. Getting proper Render Passes is a complete nightmare, gbuffer masks don't work properly, Ecosystems always populate differently as there's no seed value. Flickering is always a nightmare and there are always problems rendering.

That said, the Clouds in Vue 9 are really very very good, nothing comes close as far as i've seen, it can do some nice water effects with fake wave foam which works from a distance. I've rendering something like 300,000,000,000 polys in one scene with no grumbles, and it can do some really nice procedural terrains. Just a shame the bits piecing it together are so poor.

[windrockwater]

So I guess I agree with both your comments. My Vue maintenance plan is up for renewal and since I only used Vue on one job in the last year, I think I will not renew. But you know how that feeling goes. "Maybe I will use it soon so i should pay up" Argh. I keep trying a way to get it in my workflow. But then I regret the time I spend trying. I am having much better luck with a growing library of simple Max plants (Xfrog, etc.) and simple maxscripting. I could see using vue for maybe three things: clouds and backdrops, painting ecosystems, painting some plants like Vines on architecture. But thats about it! I agree with the Love/Hate comment too....Like no other software. I just scrolled thru the Vue Gallery and there are almost no Arch Viz projects. Everything seems to be fantasy where you can fudge your way around and make good looking renders but not necessarily real-world, reproducible ones. IMHO.

I am still checking out the various other plant plugins for max as that seems to be more valuable for me than all the other stuff vue can do.

This would have given me a migrane if I used Vue. It probably wouldnt be hard for others in Vue but would be for me.