e-on's Vue 5 Infinite

Vue 5 Infinite

This page will give you an idea of the key features of Vue 5 Infinite and the system requirements of Vue 5 Infinite.

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Vue 5 Infinite Features :

Create

• Bring your projects to life Set your buildings, characters or any other objects in striking 3D environments
• Create procedural terrains with infinite level of detail
• Instantly populate your scene with thousands of 3D plants, rocks and objects
• Change scene ambiance in a click with over 100 predefined atmospheres
• Customize existing trees and plants, or create entirely new species
• Carve terrains in Real-Time 3D using pressure sensitive tablet (or mouse)
• Modify and Create realistic Shaders with the advanced material editor.
• Use geometry simplification to easily setup multi-million Polygon scenes. Import full geometry for final render.
• Create elaborate 3D text with automated bevels and extrudes.
• Create organic models with Metablob objects.

Animate

• Easily setup impressive fly-through thanks to e-on's unique Dynamic Motion Reaction technology
• Animate plants with wind, breeze, fluttering leaves... Even growth and decay
• Easily create whole forests of animated trees using EcoSystem technology
• Animate clouds, sun, stars, fog, haze, rainbows...
• Advanced animation controls (keyframing, timespline, forward dynamics, spin, vibration, motion blur...)
• Create moving ocean waves with 4D time dependent fractals
• Preview scene thanks to ultra-fast dual-level OpenGL feedback

Render

• Get Professional quality, photorealistic results with Global Lighting, Radiosity and HDRI
• Cut down render times dramatically with automated illumination baking
• Create stunning light effects with soft shadows and volumetrics
• Built-in post processing effects.
• Quick and easy setup of all rendering parameters.
• Boost production by rendering high-resolution stills and animations across hybrid networks (Mac/Win) with HyperVue ™ Network Rendering.

Integrate

• Export objects/skies/entire scenes (including plants, terrains...)
• Export skydomes and skycubes in High Dynamic Range format.
• Accurately match cameras and lights with major 3D applications using synchronization plug-ins.
• Generate all industry standard G-Buffer compositing information.
• Generate multi-pass renders for each separate component (Diffuse, shadow, ambient...)
• Export multi-pass renders as convenient Photoshop files.
• Export as RLA/RPF format for perfect compositing in specialized applications.

Lighting and Atmosphere

• Global Illumination.
• Global Radiosity.
• Global ambiance.
• HDRI support.
• Image based lighting.
• Background and environment mapping.
• Easy GI single slider Global Illumination render quality setting.
• Illumination baking.
• Illumination baking quality adjustable on a global or per object basis (adjustable map resolution and quality boost).
• Adjustment of Global light intensity.
• Indirect lighting can be ignored on specific objects.
• Influence of specific lights can be ignored from the Radiosity solution.
• Advanced control over the indirect lighting engine.
• Show illumination samples in final render.
• Separate maps can be assigned to the background, the IBL and the global reflection map channels.
• Atmosphere presets: Over 150.
• Ultra-realistic standard and volumetric atmosphere models.
• Volumetric clouds, lights, materials (visible rays, with optional dust).
• Shadow and volumetric light optimization for dramatic increase in rendering speed.
• Light gels with realistic projection modes.
• Adjustable light shadow density, negative lights.
• Enable diffuse and highlight on a per-light basis.
• Custom light intensity vs. distance profiles.
• Lights can affect given objects only.
• Variable light color based on distance to light.
• Caustics in the shadows of transparent materials. Caustics realistically depend on the Index of Refraction.
• Complete lens flare system with global/local settings.
• Lens flare editor.
• Lens flare reflections editor.
• Polygonal reflections.
• 70 predefined shapes of clouds, unlimited layers of clouds.
• Point light, Quadratic point light, Spotlight, Quadratic spotlight, Directional light.

Environment Creation

• EcoSystem patented technology to easily distribute millions of objects in scenes.
• Create EcoSystems from multiple objects.
• Create entire forests of trees blowing in the wind.
• Scatter millions of animated objects.
• Mix EcoSystems with standard materials.
• Mix several EcoSystems together depending on environment (slope, altitude.
• Automatic placement of EcoSystem population according to a user defined SmartGraph density function (that can depend on position, altitude, slope.
• Advanced coloring control to vary the colors of the population over the EcoSystem.
• Accurate control over the orientation of the EcoSystem population.
• Accurate control over the size and variation in size of the EcoSystem population.
• Automatic decay of EcoSystem density near foreign objects.
• Optional size reduction and color decay at low EcoSystem densities.
• Ultra-realistic SolidGrowth vegetation: 52 editable species.
• Compatible with modified plant species.
• Easy-to-Use Plant Editor for Plant Customization.
• Instantly create variations of existing plants.
• Plant Editor and Leaf Editor let you modify existing plants or create entirely new plant species.
• Create and save new plant species as stand-alone files for future use in your scenes.
• Solid3D real-time terrain modeling.
• 8 preset terrain styles, 4 types of erosion and 12 geological algorithms.
• Procedural terrains with infinite details.
• Ability to switch from one form of terrain to another easily.
• Skin terrains.
• Symmetrical terrains.
• Pressure-sensitive tablet editing of terrains.
• Primitive and Boolean modeling.
• 3D Text edition tool.
• Customizable text beveling, extrusion... and material effects.
• True Metablobs organic modeling from all Vue Boolean primitives.
• Adjustable Metablob envelopes and contribution.
• Unlimited cloud layers.
• Welding of multiple meshes into a single mesh.
• Random rock generator.
• Multiple planets (moon and other planets of the solar system).
• Use any bitmap as a planet.
• Stars, rainbows, ice rings.
• Static Poser 4 & 5 scene import.
• Animated Poser 4 & 5 scene import.
• Create billboards that always face the camera (with a 'force vertical' option).

Materials

• Material presets: Over 480.
• Level(s) of material Edition: 4.
• Basic material editor with possibility of importing images as textures and bump maps.
• Advanced procedural material creation/mixing.
• Advanced Material Editor.
• SmartGraph function Editor.
• Control all material parameters via function graphs.
• New SmartGraph input nodes: screen position, angle of incidence, distance to camera, distance on ray, depth in object, distance to object below, incident light angle, light direction, light color, reflected direction, etc.
• Time dependant noises (including basic 'Open Ocean' water node).
• Materials can be mixed seamlessly.
• Mixed material can be set to react to environment properties (slope, altitude and orientation.
• Material mapping modes parameters (World and Object mapping): standard, cylindrical, spherical, parametric .
• Easy access to all materials in scene (including clouds).
• Direct access to all materials inside multi-material objects.
• Direct access to all texture maps and imported objects.
• Rotoscoping (Use animations as texture maps).
• Detailed function output observer.
• Detailed node previews in function editor.
• Preview of Material limited to the active window.
• Baking of procedural materials as texture maps.
• Adjustable maximum ray depth and Total Internal Reflections.
• Anti-aliasing can be disabled for given materials.
• Receive shadows material option.
• Shadow only material option.
• Backlight option (for one-sided materials only) for realistic backlighting of opaque materials.
• Mixed materials displayed as hierarchies.
• Volumetric materials.
• Mapped pictures can be blended with a solid color (bitmapped materials).
• Luminous and Glowing materials.

Rendering

• Rendering Presets: Sketch, preview, final, broadcast, superior, ultra, user settings.
• Render size limitation: Unlimited.
• Optimized rendering technologies.
• Pictures larger than screen resolution can be rendered to screen.
• Custom Render size.
• Navigation inside the rendered picture using pan controls.
• Alpha and Z depth directly computed during the render process.
• Ray-traced depth of field.
• Hybrid 2.5D depth of field.
• Ray-traced [soft] shadows.
• Ray-traced [blurry] reflections and refractions.
• Blurry reflection and refraction settings for each material independently.
• Fake [blurry] reflections using reflection maps.
• AccuShadows shadow mapping technology for faster [soft] shadows.
• Multi pass rendering (separate renders into the different rendering components - shadow, diffuse, ambient, etc.
• Create separate pictures for Diffuse, Specular, Shadows, Ambient, Refractions, Reflections, Background, Indirect Lighting, Post-process.
• Per layer, per object or per material masks (fully anti-aliased).
• Create layers for additional render information such as Z depth, object ID, material ID, global alpha mask, normal vectors.
• Export all channels and masks into a convenient Photoshop PSD multi-channel, multi-mask file.
• Full support of G-Buffer compositing information.
• Store all anti-aliasing and rendering channel samples on separate G-Buffer layers.
• Render occluded objects (on a per object or global basis) to render hidden parts of the scene.
• Render export as RLA or RPF for advanced compositing options.
• Exclude ground from Alpha map option.
• Objects can be hidden from render.
• Global and per-material reflection maps.
• Rendering in unlimited color depth.
• Optional details in render information panel.
• Panoramic rendering with adjustable rotation angle.
• Spherical panoramic rendering.
• Rendering in all views (including orthogonal rendering).
• Render in views can be set to a different quality than normal rendering.
• Network rendering of animations.
• Network rendering of pictures.
• Rendering across hybrid network of computers.
• Fail-safe HyperVue network rendering.
• Maximum render nodes: Unlimited (through Rendercow pack expansions).
• SmartCow automatic node detection and activation.
• Hotplug render nodes to add/remove nodes during render: MacOS X only.
• NewCow automatic updating of render nodes.
• Render area can be temporarily disabled.
• Render blow-up option.
• Geometry anti-aliasing: Up to 256 rays/pixel.
• HyperMipMap material anti-aliasing (including procedural materials).
• Advanced anti-aliasing strategies.
• Optimized render memory management to allow the rendering of very large images.
• Post processing to adjust color, contrast, saturation, gamma.
• Create custom render effects using user-defined python callbacks.
• Ability to resume an interrupted render.

Animation

• Animation output resolution: Unlimited.
• Animate objects, materials, atmospheres, clouds, waves.
• Import animated Poser4 & 5 characters.
• Intuitive Animation wizard for easy animation setup.
• Dynamic Motion Reaction™ easy movement setup.
• Easy setup of cloud movement using direction and speed of movement controls.
• Pre-animated Mesh support.
• Animated post-processing effects.
• Camera switcher lets you switch cameras during render (ideal for storyboarding).
• Spin and vibration effects.
• Twinkling stars.
• Automatic synchronization of cameras and lights: With 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Maya, LightWave & Softimage XSI.
• Synchronization data incorporated into scene for easy retrieval.
• Timeline with animation properties and animation preview.
• Direct editing of filter key points and tangents.
• Spline time control, field interlacing, non-square pixels, flicker reduction.
• Enhanced time spline editor.
• Advanced flicker reduction options.
• Reduced indirect lighting pulsation evaluation mode.
• Automatic keyframe creation.
• Auto-keyframing can be disabled.
• Copy-pasting of animation keyframes.
• Keyframes can be created for single properties only.
• Action safe and title safe frames and field grids (user configurable).
• Dithered motion blur.
• Adjustable and animatable amount of motion blur.
• Motion-blur on object deformation.
• Fast Hybrid 2.5D™ motion blur.
• Separate animation channel for camera exposure.
• Automatic simulation of breeze on plants.
• Strong wind effects defined on individual plants or groups of plants.
• Advanced breeze customization with OpenGL preview.
• Animated wind intensity and direction.
• Plant geometry keyframing for spectacular animated lifecycles.
• Automatic start of movie player after animation render.
• Non-animatable objects.
• Object linking and tracking - forward dynamics.
• Option to output temporary images when network rendering an animation as independent frames.
• Optional display of time code on frames (on a separate layer when rendering as multi-pass).
• Time display as: SMPTE, frame #, time.
• Optional automatic illumination baking of meshes.

User Interface

• Fully multi-threaded interface for fast response.
• Direct access to main functions within the main interface.
• Efficient, uncluttered interface layout.
• One view/4 view layout.
• Object Properties, Real-time scene preview.
• World Browser scene management.
• Organize objects in layers: Unlimited layers.
• Enhanced World Browser with direct access to materials, texture maps and imported objects for efficient management of complex projects.
• Display of material hierarchies with direct access to sub-materials.
• Easy replacement of textures throughout the entire scene.
• Scatter-replicate tool.
• Scatter replicate tool creates variations of plants, terrains, rocks.
• Replication tool with configurable position/size/orientation offset.
• Summary of materials to quickly access all materials in the scene.
• Drop button to easily set your object on the terrain surface.
• Undo-Redo: Mutliple undo-redo.
• Ability to reorganize the view panes.
• Resizable viewports.
• Dockable Timeline.
• Access to all G-Buffer channels and layers in interface.
• Access to all render passes and masks.
• Trackball-type camera operations and advanced camera management grouped into Camera Control Center.
• Each camera possesses a target object for easier aiming and setting of focus point.
• Camera targets can be linked to other objects in the scene (e.g. to automatically keep that object in focus).
• All cameras can appear on screen.
• Camera group manager in World Browser.
• Resizable World Browser and Scene Preview.
• Sort objects by size, name or type.
• Lock or hide entire layers.
• Python scripting.
• Directly access frequently used scripts.
• Python console for direct input.
• Python functions to add, modify and remove EcoSystem instances.
• Picture printing with user definable DPI resolution.
• User-definable startup scene.
• Real-world units for object size.
• Pivot position in object coordinates (toggle). Pivot position can be reset.
• Object resizing relative to opposite corner (toggle).
• Mesh splitting by material.
• Object decimation for faster scene setup.
• Spotlight view through for accurate aiming (OpenGL only).
• Full-screen mode.
• List of default folders when searching for texture maps.
• Optional independent panning and zooming of views.
• Non modal terrain editor.
• Objects can be locked/hidden independently.
• Baking of objects to polygons (including Boolean operations).
• Incorporation of texture maps in scenes.
• User-definable keyboard shortcuts.
• Only show active layer' preview option.
• Object replacement by other objects.
• Automatic detection and creation of new browser collections.
• Cloud layers can be easily hidden/restored.
• All preview displays are fully anti-aliased.
• Linear and angular snapping grids when moving and rotating objects.
• Customizable linear and angular grid snapping when moving and rotating objects.

Real-Time Preview

• Real-time thumbnail render preview.
• Fully customizable OpenGL previewing options.
• Realistic OpenGL preview of plants, planets, lens-flares, texture map atmosphere...with instant and detailed feedback.
• Dual-resolution OpenGL preview for faster response.
• OpenGL preview of EcoSystems using billboards.
• Textured OpenGL preview.
• OpenGL and Wireframe preview.
• OpenGL Preview of Boolean operations.
• OpenGL Preview of Metablobs.
• Automatic selection of preview color based on procedural material color.
• Show objects as box, wireframe, shaded or smooth shaded.
• Axis preview in viewports.
• OpenGL and rendered plant preview in Plant Editor.
• Decimated object preview for faster previewing.
• Minimum setting for preview frame rate (dynamic preview simplification to maintain frame rate).

Import/Export

• Object exports: All objects, with textures.
• Optimized object and texture maps exports.
• Textured model imports as: 3DS, 3DMF, COB, DEM, DXF, LWO, OBJ, PZ3, PZZ, RAW, SHD, VRML.
• Textured object exports as: 3DS, C4D, COB, DXF, LWO, OBJ, SHD.
• Animation export: QT MOV, QTVR, AVI, RealMovie, Mpeg 1 & 2, independent frames.
• 2D Import: BMP, BUM, DEM, GIF, HDR, IFF, Jpeg, PCX, Pict, PNG, PSD, RLA, RPF, TGA, Tiff.
• Animated 2D import: Sequence of pictures, MOV (Macintosh only), AVI (Windows only).
• Exposure and contrast controls in HDRI images.
• 2D Export: Tiff, TGA, Pict, BMP, GIF, HDR, PSD, Jpeg, PNG, PCX, IFF, RLA, RPF.
• Sky exports as sky-boxes or sky-domes.
• Export high dynamic range images (including skydomes).
• Export 48 bit color images.
• Scene exports: 3DS, LWS.
• Object animation export (motion, orientation, size): 3DS, MOT.
• User-definable mesh and texture map resolution.
• Automatic re-importing of externally modified texture maps and 3D objects.
• Objects can be marked as not being exportable.
• Advanced unwrap algorithms for low-distortion UV mapping.

Fault Tolerance and Degraded Modes

• Automatic memory monitoring system attempts to preserve scene integrity after memory allocation failures.
• Optional compatibility mode minimizes hardware compatibility issues.
• Degraded display mode (dynamic simplification of OpenGL preview when resources become critically low).
• Optional limit on OpenGL polygon count.
• Automatic suspension of mesh simplification, Boolean/Metablob preview and background draw threads when system resources become critically low.
• Automatic software updating (optional).
• Video-board compatibility checking.
• Automatic checking of OpenGL driver compatibility.
• Option to clear OpenGL before rendering.

Miscellaneous

• Multi-processor rendering: Unlimited number of processors.
• Hundreds of preset atmospheres, objects, materials.
• Optimized for G5 and P4 HT processors.
• Printed documentation: 583 pages.
• Packed full of content on: 2 CDs.

Vue 5 Infinite System Requirements:

Macintosh

• Mac OS X v10.3+,
• 1.25GHz G4+ processor or faster,
• 512 MB of free RAM (1GB recommended),
• 100 MB of free Hard Disk space,
• 1024x768 in 65K colors/16 bits (24+ bits recommended).

Windows

• Windows 2000/XP,
• 1.5GHz Pentium III or better processor,
• 512 MB of free RAM (1GB recommended),
• 100 MB of free Hard Disk space,
• 1024x768 in 65K colors/16 bits (24+ bits recommended).

Supported Video Boards

• Windows 2000/XP (Professional & Family):

  All boards with NVidia Quadro and GeForce chips. All boards with ATI Radeon 9x00 chips.

• Macintosh OSX:

  All boards with NVidia GeForce chips. All boards with ATI Radeon 9x00 and Rage 128 chips. Boards that are not on this list may still work with Vue, but they haven't been tested.