e-on Pre-releases Vue 8.5 for Users Under Maintenance

New features of Vue 8.5

Vue xStream and Vue Infinite are the company’s flagship solutions for the creation of natural 3D environments. While Vue Infinite is a standalone application, Vue xStream operates seamlessly inside 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, LightWave and Cinema4D. Specifically designed for graphics professionals, these products combine a multitude of cutting edge features that easily integrate into existing production pipelines.

Release 8.5 of Vue adds a number of breakthrough features:

• Global Gamma Control: the ability to fully control the gamma in Vue ensures perfect coherence all along the user’s pipeline and will result in much higher fidelity of color and light in the final images. Users can fully control input and output gammas as well as the gamma used for displaying textures and colors inside the application.
• Interactive Cloud Control: cloud layers can be manipulated, rotated or resized interactively using the standard manipulation gizmos. They can also be animated using standard animation tools.
• Animated Planetary Cloud Density Maps: users can define animated maps to control the density of cloud layers on a planetary scale (e.g. to create animated hurricane shots).
• Diagnosis Render Passes: users can easily detect rendering bottlenecks and optimize render times by using the diagnosis render passes. For each pixel in the image Vue can indicate total render time of the pixel, number of anti-aliasing rays, number of texture anti-aliasing samples, total number of sub-rays in the pixel, total number of shadow rays, max recursion depth reached by a sub-ray, and number of final gather samples for that pixel.
• Unlimited Material Painting: the material painting tool allows painting distribution maps with any arbitrary number of materials. These painted materials can also be used as paint masks to constrain painting of other materials inside existing distribution maps.
• Zone Extraction: specific areas of a procedural terrain can be extracted by simply selecting a zone and converting it to a separate procedural terrain. This is ideal to create customized textures on specific areas for instance.
• New Terrain Sculpting Tools: Vue 8.5 introduces 4 powerful new sculpting brushes: Pinch, Flatten, Plateau and UniSlope. Also new in Vue 8.5 is the ability to use a bitmap for reference when sculpting in the terrain editor.
• Advanced EcoSystem Control: with Vue 8.5, artists can easily control the influence of the color variations on EcoSystem populations, drag multiple objects or plants from a browser into the EcoSystem population list, EcoSystem painting can be constrained using the underlying EcoSystem material rules (for instance, using influence of slope and altitude or the coloring rules) and more…
• Improved OpenGL Engine and Viewport Display: auto-exposure is now reflected in OpenGL views, terrain maps can be viewed directly in the terrain editor, the display quality of EcoSystem instances can be changed on individual population elements, OpenGL preview displays normal mapped surfaces, the EcoPainter brush size is now displayed in xStream for 3ds Max and C4D
• Other improvements: the Z-Depth buffer can now be (optionally) anti-aliased, preview a Dynamic EcoSystem anytime by clicking the Preview button in the EcoSystem material, the user may define his own shortcuts in editors (panning, rotating, etc – for instance to match settings of other applications) together with many other improvements.

Vue 8.5 Available as Pre-release

Vue 8.5 is available free of charge for all users under maintenance. Users of Vue 8 who are not under maintenance and wish to advance to Vue 8.5 should purchase maintenance today (they will receive Vue 8.5 and the Vue 9 upgrade free of charge).

If they wish, users under maintenance can immediately download a pre-release version of Vue 8.5. Users of Vue 8 who subscribe to a maintenance plan today will also be granted access to this prerelease version.

Vue 8.5 xStream and Vue 8.5 Infinite are expected to ship during Q2 2010. Customers who purchased Vue 8 xStream or Infinite within 30 days of the release of Vue 8.5 will receive Vue 8.5 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: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/maintenance.

Standard Retail Price:

Vue 8.5 xStream will retail for $1,790 with one year maintenance ($1495 without maintenance). A one year standard maintenance plan for xStream costs $395.

Vue 8.5 Infinite will retail for $1,090 with one year maintenance ($895 without maintenance). A one year standard maintenance plan for Infinite costs $295.

Upgrades from Vue 7.x xStream to Vue 8.5 xStream will be available for $595. Upgrades from Vue 7.x Infinite to Vue 8.5 Infinite will be available for $395.

Annual subscriptions for Educational licenses of Vue xStream and Infinite are available respectively for $149/year/seat and $99/year/seat. Upgrades to Vue 8.5 are free for owners of active educational licenses of Vue 8.

Site licensing discounts are available, contact e-on software for further details and pricing information.

Availability:

Vue 8.5 xStream and Vue 8.5 Infinite will be available in English for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, for both 32 and 64 bit, and on Mac OSX 10.5+ as a 32 bit application - Mac Intel only (a beta version of Vue 8.4 and 8.5 for Cocoa 64 bit will be released during Q2 2010).

Vue 8.5 xStream is compatible with the following renderers: Mental Ray for 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage (integrated and MR satellites), V-Ray for 3ds Max and Maya, Maya Software, as well as the native Cinema 4D and LightWave renderers. Other renderers are under consideration. Vue 8.5 xStream adds compatibility with 3ds Max 2011, Maya 2011 and Softimage 2011.

About e-on software

E-on software is the leading developer of solutions for the creation, animation, rendering and integration of natural 3D environments. Offering a wide array of Digital Nature products and applications, e-on software provides solutions adapted to every project and budget. E-on software products are used worldwide by the film, television, architecture, game, science, educational and entertainment industries.

E-on software products were used in features film such as “Avatar”, “Clash of The Titans”, “The Wolf Man”, “2012”, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", "GI Joe – The Rise of The Cobra", "The Proposal", "Land Of The Lost", "Terminator 4, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, "Indiana Jones 4", "Monster Vs Aliens", "Australia", "The Spiderwick Chronicles", "KungFu Panda", "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" and TV series such as "Battlestar Gallactica", "Stargate Atlantis" and more. Read more on these stories in e-on software's Spotlights section: www.e-onsoftware.com/spotlight.

E-on software was founded on the premise that powerful graphics tools should never get in the way of the designer’s creativity. By investing significant resources into research and development, e-on software is able to deliver cutting-edge, user friendly technologies that produce stunning Digital Nature scenery.

E-on software is based in Beaverton, Oregon with a European office in Paris, France.

For more information, visit http://www.e-onsoftware.com.

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See Also

Additional News

Apr 16 - e-on Pre-releases Vue 8.5 for Users Under Maintenance
Apr 13 - e-on Drops Maintenance Price of Vue 8 Infinite, xStream
Apr 7 - Vue 8.4 Frontier Adds Native Support for DAZ 3D Models
Feb 23 - e-on Software Releases Vue 8.4 Update for Free
Jan 29 - e-on Software Ships Language Versions of Vue 8
Dec 10 - e-on software Ships Vue 8 Personal Learning Editions
Nov 3 - e-on software Ships Vue 8 Infinite, xStream
Oct 14 - e-on software Unveils Vue 8 Product Line
Oct 1 - e-on Develops Vue, Ozone for Mac Cocoa 64
Jun 9 - e-on Releases Free Versions of Vue 7.5, Ozone 4.0 PLE
May 28 - e-on Ships Vue xStream, Infinite v7.5 for Rendering
Apr 30 - e-on Unveils Vue xStream, Infinite v7.5
Apr 1 - e-on Ships Ozone 4.0 Beta Atmospheric Plug-in for Free
Mar 25 - e-on Ships Vue 7 Pioneer for Free
Mar 4 - E-on Offers Free Placement on SIGGRAPH Show Reel
Jan 23 - E-on debuts free Vue 7 Personal Learning Edition

Source: Material used in press releases is often supplied by external sources and used as is.