Fourth impworks Vue Theatrical Lighting Rig Updated

I've published the fourth Vue Theatrical Lighting Rig update: single spot in front.

Cloud Tutorial

Terrence Walker has posted a video tutorial, Cloud Control, on working with Vue's meta clouds and using spherical renders from Vue in other software (in the example Poser).

Fixing Poser Clothing Tutorial

Silverblade has posted a new tutorial for Poser and Vue on Fixing Poser Clothing.

Tutorial: Creating Forest War Goblin Shaman

Silverblade has posted a new tutorial showing how he created a scene using Vue, Poser and Photoshop -  Creating Forest War Goblin Shaman.

SkinVue 64-bit Platform Support

From Dave Burdick:

A couple of quick updates on the subject of 64-bit platform support for SkinVue.

For current SkinVue 6 PC users, you can download a multi-platform wxPython installer here in order to install either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of wxPython into your main Vue application folder:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zzitjgoormh

This will allow you to run SkinVue6 on 64-bit PC platforms.

For the upcoming SkinVue7, 64-bit support is already built in to the product so there is no need to download the additional wxPython library.

New Poser and Vue Tutorial from Geekatplay Studio

Geekatplay Studio has a new video tutorial about how to use Poser and Vue together. It starts with setting up a model in Poser with animation. It then goes on to show how to bring it into Vue including the animation or just a single frame of the animation.

Poser Pro

I've ummed and arred about posting something about Poser Pro's release here and decided that while it's a bit tangential to the usual Vue news its probably of interest to at least some Vue users so I'll carry the press release. Your usual Vue service will be resumed just as soon as I have some Vue related news...

Smith Micro Software's Consumer Group Releases New Poser Pro For Professional 3D Artists

Poser Pro Provides Character Content for 2D and 3D Applications to Save Time and Development Resources for Studio and Production Environments

April 29, 2008

ALISO VIEJO, CA – Smith Micro Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMSI) Consumer Group today announced the immediate availability of Poser® Pro. Building on the global success of Poser® 7, long used by digital artists and hobbyists to create 3D images and animations, Smith Micro developed Poser Pro with a feature set and functionality geared for professional content creators within studio and production environments. To save users time, resources and development costs, Poser Pro offers advanced features that include scene-hosting plug-ins for popular 3D environments, as well as a 64-bit render engine, COLLADA™ support and advanced network rendering.

Poser Pro delivers a powerful, yet easy-to-use 3D character design and animation tools that help artists integrate custom and pre-built characters into professional projects and production pipelines. Poser Pro lets artists fine tune light, shadow, color and detail on figures, and ships with distributable 3D characters that are specially designed to provide a starting point for scene development, thereby saving production time. For comprehensive content and creation, Poser Pro offers the sophisticated character functionality and features of many higher priced products on the market.

"When planning the feature set for Poser Pro, we noticed professionals using Poser 7 were looking for better ways to integrate Poser content into their production pipelines," said Steve Yatson, Senior Director of Graphics Solutions for Smith Micro Software. "As a result, Poser Pro is a significant step forward for professional 3D designers looking to add character content in a cost-effective way. With the new rendering features and image controls, we're confident that Poser Pro will be well received by production artists across various industries including advertising, architecture, entertainment and education, who use 3D imagery to bring their ideas to life."

Poser Pro includes PoserFusion™ plug-ins, which enables hosting of both animated and static Poser scenes in Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya® and Maxon's CINEMA 4D. Poser Pro supports COLLADA data interchange, which permits the import of 3D data and the export of Poser scenes with character rigging and blend zones, morph targets, texture information, lighting, cameras and other scene details.

To save production resources and time, Poser Pro includes a distributed Network Render Queue and Queue Manager, which allows users to set up and manage a cross-platform rendering network. Background rendering enables users to continue working on Poser Pro scenes while rendering, and the updated 64-bit Firefly Render Engine permits full system memory to be utilized for the rendering of large scene files.

For extreme realism in rendered images, Poser Pro provides both high dynamic range (HDR) image import for textures and image-based light (IBL) maps plus optimized export of those rendered HDR images. Gamma Correction permits users to accurately match rendered image output to the final output or display device by setting gamma values on a material-by-material basis.

Poser Pro offers new content specific features, including Normal Mapping support to increase surface detail without increasing polygon count. Also unique to Poser Pro is a collection of four medium-resolution, face room compliant, rigged human characters that can be modified and freely redistributed as new content, serving as an excellent starting point for the development of new characters for games, movies and other real-time 3D projects.

Pricing and Availability

The MSRP for Poser Pro is $499.99. The application is available at the Smith Micro web store at www.smithmicro.com/poserpro, and at select resellers and distribution partners worldwide.

Registered users of Poser 6 and Poser 7 can side-grade to Poser Pro for $199.99 until July 31, 2008. Please visit: www.smithmicro.com/poserpro/upgrade for more information.

To learn more about Poser Pro and our complete line of software, visit: www.smithmicro.com.

Vue 6 Esprit Special Offer for Poser Owners

E-on software are running a half price sale on Vue 6 Esprit for Poser Owners.

Theatrical Lighting in Vue

impworks launches, Vue Lighting Rig #1: Single Spot Overhead, the first in a series of tutorials foe Vue 6 focusing on the creation of lighting rigs that simulate lighting used in theatres.

e frontier Vue offer for Poser Users

e frontier are offering existing Poser 7, for a limited time, owners Vue 6 Esprit for $189.99, a savings of over $39 on the regular price. For more information see the e frontier web site.

Poser 7 & Vue 6 Esprit Bundle

e-on software, the makers of Vue, and e frontier, the makers of poser, are offering a bundle deal on the English version of Poser 7 and Vue 6 Esprit. The regular price for both packages would be $478.99 but with the bundle you save $179 so you can get Poser 7 and Vue 6 Esprit for $299.99

For more details and to place orders see either the e-on software web site or the e frontier web site.

Cell Shading in Vue with Poser

McSAnimations has made an tutorial on creating cell shaded pictures using Vue with Poser. I've given it a try and it's easy to follow and gives excellent results.