October 23, 2012. Beaverton, Oregon: e-on software, the leader in 3D Digital Nature technologies, today announced the formal unveiling of its upcoming Vue 11 product line - scheduled for release November, 2012.
Concurrently, the company is offering its professional users under maintenance a pre-release version of Vue 11 xStream and Infinite, the latest production-driven version of its professional solutions for the creation, animation and rendering of natural 3D environments.
New features of Vue 11
Key features of Vue 11 include faster rendering, illumination caching, terrain and EcoPainter improvements, 360° population, interactive EcoSystem population, as well as EcoParticles, e-on software's revolutionary approach to particles:
With EcoParticles, users can do all the standard stuff that particles are good at, but they can also do a lot more. Rather than creating simple emitters, and having particles grow out of them, e-on software designed a new way of handling particles that is specifically well suited for Digital Nature.
The Vue 11 Particle system is a direct extension of the production proven EcoSystem™ technology that is a key player in Vue’s success for the film, television, architecture, game, science, educational and entertainment industries.
Here is a shortlist of some of the important new features included in Release 11 of Vue:
- EcoParticles: This new technology is ideal for the creation of animated rain, snow, waterfalls, explosions, fire, smoke, tornadoes, falling leaves, swarm of insects and more. Any object can be set as a particle source (emitter).
- EcoParticles as EcoSystems: EcoParticles are added to any material like a regular EcoSystem material layer. But with EcoParticles, users get in depth control over the way the particles will evolve over time. Users can define the speed, direction, collision properties and duration of life of the particles, as well as subject them to external influences. On top of these new physical settings, all of the classic EcoSystem configuration parameters are used for particle instance population.
- EcoParticles Effectors: Effectors are special objects that will influence the EcoParticles in the scene. Effects like tornadoes, jittering, attraction, etc. are easily created this way.
- Automatic Weather Effects - Rain and Snow: These new atmospheric effects enable artists to create anything from gentle spring rain to a tropical storm, a gentle falling snow to a blizzard, with just a few simple clicks. The heaviness, shape, drop size, speed and falling angle of the precipitation is user controllable. Motion blur can be added if desired too. Weather Effects are available for all types of atmospheres.
- EcoPainter Improvements: The EcoSystem Painter is completely redesigned to allow even more control and flexibility. Users can now create their own brushes using a combination of effectors. For instance, brushes that will resize and align instances at the same time. There are a number of new brush effects to boot, including the ability to lean or rotate instances, raise or lower them, move them around, etc.
- Customizable EcoPainter Brushes: Like the brushes in the Terrain Editor, each EcoPainter brush now has its own dialog that displays all of the parameters that can be adjusted. If users want to display a specific brush parameter directly in the main EcoPainter dialog, they can do so with a click on the corresponding Publish icon. The EcoSystem Selection function is now part of the EcoPainter. This way, users can use the select function to define the instances to work with, directly in the EcoSystem Painter dialog. EcoSystem Instance Selection is now also available in xStream for 3ds Max, Cinema4D and Softimage.
- EcoSystem Fast Population: Thanks to a special population mode, Vue can now refresh the EcoSystem population interactively, without the need of any re-population action
- EcoSystem 360° Population: Vue can now automatically populate EcoSystems from all directions including below objects. This feature works on any kind of object from basic spheres to complex geometry such as rocks, cars, houses... and all applicable EcoSystem settings are supported.
- Faster Rendering Speed: Significant internal optimizations made to Vue 11’s rendering engine will result in dramatically accelerated rendering especially on very dense EcoSystem scenes.
- Illumination Caching: This technology lets the user re-use GI information over the course of an entire animation thus eliminating the need to re-render the GI pre-pass for every frame. This will dramatically reduce the rendering times of Architectural animations, for instance.
- Many other improvements such as Shared Material layers, Nitrous accelerated graphics core support in 3ds Max, support for latest releases of the Autodesk 2013 products and Cinema4D R14, and more...
Release Schedule and Product Lineup
E-on software expects to release the entire Vue 11 product line November 2012*.
The Vue 11 product line is built around the same three-tiered structure:
- Vue 11 for CG Professionals: Vue Infinite and Vue xStream.
Offers CG professionals premiere solutions for creating exceptionally rich and realistic Digital Nature environments with seamless integration into any production workflow. - Vue 11 for 3D Artists: Vue Esprit, Vue Studio and Vue Complete.
Provides 3D artists with powerful modular applications to create rich 3D Digital Nature scenery and landscapes. - Vue 11 for 3D Enthusiasts: Vue Pioneer and Theme-Packs, and Vue Frontier.
Published by Cornucopia3D and powered by e-on software, these products feature content-filled, easy-to-use scenic nature creation for home and family use, with Vue Frontier specifically dedicated to Poser™ and Daz|Studio™ users.
*Professional solutions will ship first, followed closely by products for 3D Artists and 3D Enthusiasts.
Vue 11 Available as Pre-release
Vue 11 is available free of charge for all users under maintenance. Users of Vue 10 who are not under maintenance and wish to advance to Vue 11 should purchase maintenance today (they will receive Vue 11 and the following upgrades free of charge for one year).
If they wish, users under maintenance can immediately download a pre-release version of Vue 11. Users of Vue 10 who subscribe to a maintenance plan today will also be granted access to this pre-release version.
Vue 11 xStream and Vue 11 Infinite are expected to ship November 2012. Customers who purchased Vue 10.5 xStream or Infinite within 30 days of the release of Vue 11 will receive Vue 11 at no cost as part of the Free 30 Day Maintenance included with all new purchases.
More information on e-on software's maintenance plans can be found at: www.e-onsoftware.com/maintenance
Vue 10 Esprit, Studio or Complete users who enrolled in e-on's product subscription program will receive their upgrade to Vue 11 for free as soon as the product is released.
