VUE as a companion program to Carrara

Steve K

I will always use Carrara for most animations, primarily because it works great and uses Poser content seamlessly, in particular characters and motion capture.  But VUE has some features that are great additions to the animation toolkit.  Here is a one minute animation showing several of these features: great landscapes, clouds with shadows, and elaborate models.  I purchased the landscape and transportation terminal model, but unfortuantely they seem to have disappeared from the marketplace.  The cloud setup comes with VUE Creator (which BTW is subscription only, list $200/year but on sale frequently for as little as half).  Lots of other complete scenes and models come with VUE, especially plants.  Finally, there are many VUE tutorials free on YouTube, and great lengthy sets of tutorials at geekatplay.com for reasonable prices.

Steve K

A while back I mentioned that Carrara’s Non Photorealistic Renderer can give much better line drawings than Poser’s Sketch Render.  But it is pretty slow, making animations kind of difficult.  I’m finding that VUE’s NPR is very good, with a LOT of adjustment parameters, and fast - e.g. you can use the Preliminary Render for the first pass since anti-aliasing is not needed.  Attached is a single frame of an animation that took about 5 seconds, and a waterfront building that took about the same.  

mindsong

I like the NPR style you've generated.

Vue used to interact with Poser (targeted at mostly human animation, I believe). Do you know if that gateway would work with other content?

e.g. My interest would be in using my older Vue 10 Complete environment for NPR background generation in the style you've achieved, using DAZ/Poser content - probably through Poser, if it worked...

Else, via OBJ/FBX exports from any of them?

What do you think? Vue, or Carrara/DS with clever NPR and post techniques? or?

Thanks for the post/info - interesting idea and nice results.

--ms

 

Steve K

There once was a "Poser Fusion" plugin that allowed use of Poser animation in other programs, but (a) you had to do the animation in Poser, I think, and (b) I see in the Renderosity Forums that its been discontinued.  

I have loaded a Poser format object into VUE via a OBJ export from Poser, thumbnail attached - the big yacht was imported, video here:

I don't use DS so I can't comment, but as I mentioned, I like Carrara for character animations and VUE for NPR. 

Just to mention it, the "Creator" version of VUE does not allow export, and the two higher levels that do are pretty pricey.  Your VUE 10 Complete probably does allow export.

Here is a tutorial about Poser and other programs like VUE by Mark Bremmer, at one time the moderator of the Carrara Forum at Renderosity and very knowledgeable:

If you have trouble with VUE, I've had good rsponses from the E-on Software support folks.

 

3drendero

PoserFusion is discontinued, but it works with the latest Poser 11 version.

mindsong

Steve K said:

There once was a "Poser Fusion" plugin that allowed use of Poser animation in other programs, but (a) you had to do the animation in Poser, I think, and (b) I see in the Renderosity Forums that its been discontinued.  

I suppose I could work some parts in DS, export to Poser (PFE or mcasual's exporter?) and see if that would translate well enough with the PoserFusion tool. hmm.

I have loaded a Poser format object into VUE via a OBJ export from Poser, thumbnail attached - the big yacht was imported, video here:

I don't use DS so I can't comment, but as I mentioned, I like Carrara for character animations and VUE for NPR. 

Just to mention it, the "Creator" version of VUE does not allow export, and the two higher levels that do are pretty pricey.  Your VUE 10 Complete probably does allow export.

Here is a tutorial about Poser and other programs like VUE by Mark Bremmer, at one time the moderator of the Carrara Forum at Renderosity and very knowledgeable:

If you have trouble with VUE, I've had good rsponses from the E-on Software support folks.

Thanks for the great links and tidbits of wisdom there - I kind of lost my tracking of Vue when I realized their 'infinite' ($$$) tier was the only one that did alpha layers, and most of what I had planned to do with it required that function. Then they got hacked, and then they went subscription - and their cornucopia content store club required a CC, and their locked data model... made it easier to just ... not Vue, relative to other options. I did like the environment well-enough, just not enough, relative to the alternatives, etc.

I really like Mark Bremmer's tutorials whenever and whatever he teaches. I'd missed his Vue series. Great catch there!

I may pursue some experiments to see if I can get some backgrounds in that NPR style. Sigh - another whole world of tools and workflows... I suppose I like the travel as much as the destination tho'. :)

cheers!

--ms

mindsong

3drendero said:

PoserFusion is discontinued, but it works with the latest Poser 11 version.

That's great to know - I'm probably not gonna upgrade my Poser unless I run into a specific project that requires its features.

Knowing that Poser 11/Poser Fusion works is good news.

(I assume it works with with Vue 10-ish, but if not verified, it seems like it would be worth pursuing the experiment based on your experience - those version are all part of the same S/W era.)

best,

--ms

3drendero

Here are some more details about the last version of PoserFusion that works up to Poser 11. It is for Cinema4D, 3dsmax, Maya and Lightwave3D, for most of them, not the latest version. http://www.jurn.org/dazposer/?p=11379 /Edit " Vue 2016 R4 didn’t need a plugin, with Vue able to natively import a Poser scene. "

Steve K

mindsong said:

Sigh - another whole world of tools and workflows... I suppose I like the travel as much as the destination tho'. :)

cheers!

--ms

Indeed.  It does seem to get complicated trying to get various programs working together.  In general, I try to use each program's best features, then combine the stuff in the video editor, via chroma key, etc.  Kinda limits the camera movement, but at least it works without a lot of hassle.  Usually.

Steve K

I'm feeling a little better about signing up for the annual subscription for VUE Creator.  I just installed the 2021 updater which has a lot of new features/fixes that I don't yet understand.  AND 2+GB of VUE content that looks pretty useable based on a quick tour.  Models in the 50K to 100K poly range, so kind of lo poly but nicely done.  So for example buildings in a variety of genres (historical, scifi, modern, etc), but no interiors.  Plenty good for setting exterior scenes.  Some items I would (and have) paid for in other formats.  So now to get them into Carrara ... 

3drendero

From http://www.jurn.org/dazposer/?p=16224 "The subscription VUE R6 is out, and it’s a big update. I hadn’t realised that the new subscription Vue now includes major compatibility with… * 3D Studio Max 2016 to 2021 * Maya 2015 to 2020 * Cinema4D R20 to R23 * Lightwave 11.6 to 2020 Or, if it didn’t before, then it does now with the new R6. Therefore, since Vue still has excellent Poser scene import… this could be a way to get your Poser scene over to those big beasts, if either: i) you can no longer get the PoserFusion plugins; or ii) your PoserFusion variety can’t support the very latest edition of Cinema 4D, Maya etc and your boss needs you to."

3drendero

More info about updates in the link above.

Steve K

Several test renders in VUE using the recently released content for subscribers.  All the "Objects" are from that package, the water, atmosphere, and terrains are standard VUE items.  No post.