The new release introduces major enhancements, such as spline and road tools, a new rock technology, streamlined terrain editing, a physical water shading engine, and improvements in overall rendering performance and artistic control.
E-on software expects to release the entire Vue 10 product line early November 2011.
The Vue 10 product line is built around the same three-tiered structure:
- Vue 10 for CG Professionals: Vue Infinite and Vue xStream.
- Vue 10 for 3D Artists: Vue Esprit, Vue Studio and Vue Complete.
- Vue 10 for 3D Enthusiasts: Vue Pioneer and Theme-Packs, Vue 3D SuperHero 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 dedicated to Poser and Daz|Studio users.
Professional solutions will ship first, followed closely by products for 3D Artists and 3D Enthusiasts.
New in Vue 10
- Spline and Road Tools: Vue 10 includes a comprehensive spline toolkit that can be used for EcoSystems, terrain effects, building roads or creating objects. An automatic Path-finding algorithm can also be used to build realistic roads at the surface of terrains.
- Dynamic Rocks: Vue 10 features a library of dynamic rock templates that can be used to instantly create single rocks, groups of rocks, or use them in EcoSystems. Each time the user creates a rock from a template, a new and unique variation will be generated.
- Water Shading Engine and Physical Transparency: Physical water adds absorption and scattering parameters to allow for realistic light absorption in the body of water. Ocean waves now accurately affect incident light to produce realistic underwater caustics.
- Render Comparison: The new render display dialog now lets the user stack and compare previous renders. Users can overlay and compare 2 renders (including multi-pass layers) and use HDR difference tools for in depth analysis. Lightweight render clones can be created to test various postprocessing effects, without altering the original render.
- EcoSystem Phase and Lean-out Control: Vue 10 lets the user individually control the phase (animation offset) of animated elements inside EcoSystem populations for creating more natural animations. Phase is totally user-controllable on a per instance basis, using the function graph. EcoSystem Lean-out Control lets the user define how the EcoSystem instances lean out towards zones of lower density.
- Terrain Editing Improvements: Users can now precisely preview the active zones when painting with a brush that has Environment Constraints applied. A new Custom 3D terrain brush is added to the brush collection. Mask rotation can also be enabled/disabled when painting in the terrain editor. Material painting in the terrain editor is markedly improved. A new Strata3D node is added for the creation of realistic canyon walls and stratified rock formations. And much more!
- Edge-based Anti-Aliasing: A new edge-based anti-aliasing algorithm is added to complement the previous color-based anti-aliasing strategy. Both AA settings can be configured independently.
- Improved Depth of Field and Motion Blur.
- Up to 30% Faster Rendering Speed: Significant internal optimizations made to Vue 10's rendering engine will result in dramatically accelerated rendering.
And a "Main View Defined" Aspect Ratio, Multiple Camera Aspect Ratio Variation, Improved Render Area, Texture Projection Node, Mixed Materials Alpha Channel, and Collada Morph Targets.
Users of Vue xStream or Vue Infinite under maintenance will receive the upgrade to the corresponding Vue 10 product at no charge, and if desired, can download a pre-release version of the Vue 10 upgrade immediately.
Vue 10 xStream and Vue 10 Infinite are expected to ship in the first half of November 2011. Customers who purchased Vue 9.5 xStream or Infinite within 30 days of the release of Vue 10 will receive Vue 10 at no cost as part of the Free 30 Day Maintenance included with all new purchases.
Vue 9 Esprit, Studio or Complete users who enrolled in e-on's product subscription program will receive their upgrade to Vue 10 for free as soon as the product is released (early November).