Vue 10 Studio

Lighting

• Global Illumination.
• Global Radiosity.
• Fast in-depth computation of reciprocal object lighting for accurate indoor lighting.
• Radiosity engine optimized for: Indoor or infinite scenery.
• Global ambiance.
• Ambient occlusion with user definable occlusion range.
• HDRI support.
• Image based lighting.
• Background and environment mapping.
• Sub-Surface Scattering: Absorption.
• Sub-Surface Scattering: Multiple Internal Scattering.
• Easy GI single slider Global Illumination render quality setting.
• 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.
• Separate map option for background, IBL and global reflection map channels.
• 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 specific objects only.
• Variable light color based on distance to light.
• Area light panel for soft, natural lighting.
• Light emitting objects.
• One-click conversion of objects into light sources.
• Fast, fake caustics in the shadows of transparent materials. Caustics realistically depend on the Index of Refraction.
• Accurate computation of caustics in the shadows of transparent objects.
• Realistic optional "spreading" of the light spectrum in caustics (rainbow-prism effect).
• Per-light adjustment of the quality of soft shadows.
• Complete lens flare system.
• Controllable lens flares per light.
• Lens flare editor.
• Lens flare reflections editor.
• Polygonal reflections.
• Point light, Quadratic point light, Spotlight, Quadratic spotlight, Directional light.
• Lens Glare effect simulates internal lens diffusion.
• Lights can be disabled with a single click.
• NEW! Accurate accounting of backlight when computing GI.

Terrains

• Solid3D real-time terrain modeling.
• Sculpt terrains in all directions.
• Create overhangs and grottoes.
• Sculpt, inflate, free form and smooth brushes.
• NEW! Pinch, Plateau, Flatten and UniSlope brushes.
• User definable brush tip profile.
• Automatic subdivision of terrain geometry when sculpting.
• Adaptive subdivision adds polygons only where needed.
• Edit terrains in context (view entire scene in editor).
• Option to view terrain clipping planes in editor.
• Option to display the terrain with a shiny surface to enhance details.
• Constrain painting and effects to clipping zone.
• Option to display the terrain in wireframe mode to view polygons.
• Create edition "zones" to modify procedural terrains locally.
• Create nested "zones" to build massive detail where needed.
• NEW! Convert a zone of a procedural terrain into another terrain.
• NEW! Zone extraction optionally creates a void in the source terrain.
• Paint material distributions at the surface of terrains.
• NEW! Paint material distributions with unlimited number of materials.
• NEW! Use material masks to constrain painting to existing distribution masks.
• NEW! Material distribution masks independent from material mapping mode.
• Import, view and edit distribution maps in the Terrain Editor.
• Terrain effects optionally affect material distribution map.
• Preset terrain styles: 8.
• Erosion types: 9.
• Geological algorithms: 12.
• Glaciation, alluvium and dissolve erosion effects.
• High definition data in standard terrains.
• Procedural terrains with infinite details.
• Infinite procedural terrains.
• Planetary terrain rendering.
• Flat, spherical and planetary procedural terrains.
• Switch between flat, spherical and planetary terrains (geometry may be affected).
• Combine image data with procedural functions using dedicated blending nodes.
• Ability to switch from one form of terrain to another easily.
• Skin terrains.
• Symmetrical terrains.
• NEW! Extract parts of procedural terrains into new terrains.
• NEW! View bitmap textures in terrain editor to sculpt from photo references.
• Pressure-sensitive tablet editing of terrains.
• NEW! Reset 2D and 3D painting independently.
• Customizable brush shape for terrain editing.
• Control distribution of materials on terrains from within the procedural terrain altitude function.
• Control procedural terrain altitudes based on relationships with other objects.
• The altitude of procedural terrains can be dynamically affected by other objects.
• Realistic procedural terrains thanks to dedicated natural effects noise nodes.
• Infinite and local procedural terrain style presets to easily create each-time-different terrains of the given style.
• Library of procedural terrain presets with associated materials.
• Create your own procedural terrain style presets.
• Efficient displacement mapping of infinitely detailed procedural terrains.
• Procedural terrain preview in function editor.
• Multi-processor procedural terrain construction.
• Stratified terrains thanks to the recursive strata filters.
• NEW! Rocky mountain fractal.
• NEW! Full user control over Rocky mountain fractal patterns.
• NEW! Rocky mountain fractal can be used to drive material distributions.
• NEW! Decal and Smear terrain brushes.
• NEW! Retopologize terrains to optimize sculpting over vertical areas like cliffs.
• NEW! Lock material masks to prevent sculpting in the locked areas.
• NEW! Create standalone masks (not associated to a material) for precise sculpting/painting.
• NEW! Global Freeze mask can be used in combination with other masks.
• NEW! Extend terrain canvas option adds "more terrain" around your terrains.
• NEW! Automatic Terrain Zone creation when extending the canvas (to preserve the sculpting).
• NEW! Contextual terrain brushes influenced by slope, altitude and orientation.
• NEW! Create custom terrain brushes.
• NEW! Organize your brushes and create libraries of your favorite ones.
• NEW! Preset brush settings can be easily overriden.
• NEW! Easily access your preset brushes with a single click.
• NEW! Optiomized sculpting automatically selects between 2D and 3D effects.
• NEW! Ability to restrict sculpting to 2D only.
• NEW! Terrain altitudes are consistent with actual terrain size.
• NEW! Randomize terrain fractals with a click of a button.
• NEW! Terrain Editor displays real-world units.

Materials

• Material presets: Over 550.
• 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.
• NEW! Consistent unit system in Function Editor.
• NEW! Function Editor displays real-world units.
• NEW! Option to reset material to default with each creation.
• Control all material parameters via function graphs.
• Advanced 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 dependent noises (including animated 'Open Ocean' water node).
• NEW! Math nodes in the Function Editor: 48.
• Browse material hierarchy inside material editor, with direct access to sub-materials and layers.
• Layered material system.
• Add names and comments to SmartGraph nodes.
• Individual access to identical material zones.
• Change material settings for several materials simultaneously.
• Stack layers according to alpha, slope, altitude and orientation.
• Alpha (non refractive) transparency channel.
• Color and alpha map editor.
• Rendering of Poser characters using the Poser shading tree.
• Perfect blending of lighting and GI with Poser shading tree.
• Optional texture mip-mapping.
• Global control over the level of mip-mapping.
• 16 bit texture support.
• Materials can be mixed seamlessly.
• Mixed material can be set to react to environment properties (slope, altitude and orientation.
• NEW! Mixed materials can react to environment and alpha controls.
• Material mapping modes (World and Object mapping): standard, cylindrical, spherical, parametric .
• Easy access to all materials in scene.
• Direct access to all materials inside multi-material objects.
• Direct access to all texture maps and imported objects.
• NEW! World Browser option to show only the materials of the selected objects.
• Rotoscoping (Use animations as texture maps).
• NEW! Forbid animation option in Material Editor.
• Detailed function output observer.
• Detailed node previews in function editor.
• 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/Layered materials displayed as hierarchies in World Browser.
• Volumetric materials.
• Volumetric materials with internal volumetric color and shading.
• Hypertextures.
• Luminous and Glowing materials.
• Easy highlighting of sub-materials and layers to visualize the influence of each material in the final render.
• Ability to map textures only once, controllable independently for each axis.
• Control materials based on the properties of other objects.
• Highly realistic natural material effects thanks to dedicated noise and coloring nodes.
• Easily control bump or displacement amplitude based on slope.
• Option to re-evaluate contribution of materials based on displaced surfaces.
• "Foam" output in Open Ocean node to easily control the distribution of foam on water surfaces.
• Separate bump and displacement channels.
• Constrained displacement (horizontal, vertical, etc).
• Ability to control the direction of displacement through the material graph.
• Displacement smoothing to eliminate noisy displacement artifacts.
• Normal mapping.
• Recursive strata and constrained strata filters for stratified effects.
• Direct access to the alpha channel in the Advanced Material editor.
• Per material texture anti-aliasing quality boost.
• Per material simplification of sub-ray effect calculation.
• Planetary mapping node with ability to set location of origin (latitude and longitude).
• NEW! Material mapping can be absolute, relative to sea, by object or by material.
• NEW! Sea level input node in graphs.
• NEW! External dependency inputs can provide dimensions in real-world units.
• NEW! Multi-materials let you change all the materials of an object in one single operation.
• NEW! Drag-drop and copy-paste multi-materials between objects.
• NEW! Move groups of keypoints in the color map and filter editors.
• NEW! Invert entire color maps or filters.
• NEW! Copy paste keypoints in color maps or filters.
• NEW! Control the hue, saturation and brightness of entire color maps or groups of keypoints.
• NEW! Assign colors to graph nodes for improved readability.
• NEW! Mixed materials can be used as layers.
• NEW! Button to randomize material fractals.
• NEW! Altitude node produces altitudes in the range of -1 to 1 on each object.
• NEW! Material Editor displays real-world units.

User Interface

• Productive, uncluttered interface layout.
• NEW! Neutral interface with stylized design.
• NEW! Customizable interface colors via presets.
• Re-posing of Poser meshes directly inside Vue.
• Direct re-posing of rigged meshes.
• NEW! Access polygon mesh options for Rigged meshes.
• NEW! Rig mesh reposing can use Inverse Kinematics solver.
• Support for mesh morphs.
• Select and manipulate bones directly in views.
• Manipulate bones numerically using the Skeleton editor.
• Support for wired helpers.
• Highly optimized mesh skinning for fast refresh during animation scrubbing.
• Efficient memory management: multiple instances of identical objects are stored only once in memory.
• Automatic object instantiation.
• Interactive alignment tool.
• Accurate alignment and drop operations.
• Quick color selection tool with customizable color presets.
• Custom previews can be used to represent saved items.
• Drag items (e.g. objects, materials...) into your scene from the non-modal browsers.
• Unified light editor.
• Place an image in the background of the OpenGL views for reference.
• Change the size of the animation preview in the Timeline.
• Merge scenes.
• Repeat last operation to create an array (extend or subdivide).
• Alt + move object creates a copy of the object.
• Gizmo object manipulators (optional).
• Adjustable gizmo size.
• Spherical abstraction gizmos.
• Dynamic spherical terrain unwrapping allows easy object placement.
• Local, global, camera and parent manipulation modes.
• Multiple object renaming.
• Fully multi-threaded interface for fast response.
• One view/4 view layout.
• 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 material hierarchies with direct access to sub-materials.
• Easy replacement of textures throughout the entire scene.
• Library tab in World Browser shows all objects used several times.
• Easily modify all instances of a reference object using the Library tab.
• Scatter-replicate tool.
• Scatter replicate tool creates variations of plants, terrains, rocks.
• Replication tool with configurable position/size/orientation offset.
• Random scattering and replication of objects.
• Automatic instantiation of scattered/replicated objects.
• Summary of materials to quickly access all materials in the scene.
• Resizable material summary.
• Drop button to easily set objects on the surface of underlying objects.
• Smart drop rests the dropped object on the surface of the underlying object.
• Undo-Redo: Multiple undo-redo.
• Resizable viewports.
• Dockable Timeline.
• 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.
• Run Cornucopia3D third party Python scripts.
• NEW! Compatible with Python version: 2.7.
• Directly access frequently used scripts.
• Picture printing with user definable DPI resolution.
• NEW! Consistent Real-world unit system throughout the entire application (Material Editor, Terrain Editor, Function Editor.
• Real units for object sizes.
• Display measurements as real-world units (metric or Imperial).
• Coherent display of real-world units.
• Centered or relative to opposite corner object resizing.
• Mesh splitting by material.
• Spotlight view through for accurate aiming (OpenGL only).
• Full-screen mode.
• Non-modal object editors.
• Objects can be locked or hidden individually in OpenGL views.
• Incorporation of texture maps in scenes.
• "Only show active layer" preview option.
• Object replacement by other objects.
• When replacing plants, use the geometry of the replaced plants to generate the new plants.
• Automatic detection and creation of new browser collections.
• NEW! Ability to lock browser collections to avoid accidental modifications.
• Cloud layers can be easily hidden/restored.
• Linear and angular snapping grids when moving and rotating objects.
• Content files accessible from all system accounts.
• Easily change the location of your content folder after installation.
• Intelligent re-titling of files when saving under new filename.
• Use preset MetaNodes to easily assemble elaborate SmartGraph graphs.
• Group parts of SmartGraph graphs as MetaNodes.
• "Publish" specific MetaNode parameters for easy access from the level above.
• Build your own MetaNodes library of commonly used graph snippets.
• NEW! Create custom interfaces by publishing function graph parameters.
• NEW! Control published function graph parameters at top interface level.
• Ability to fix the altitude of the camera above the ground.
• Press "Ctrl" to slow down the controls in the Camera Control Center.
• Dedicated water editor to easily create and adjust infinite water planes.
• Go from still to stormy waters with a single slider.
• Easily add true displacement to the water surface.
• Customize the look of water surfaces using the MetaWater materials.
• Support for 3Dconnexion tracking devices (SpaceNavigator, SpaceExplorer, etc).
• Automatic renaming of Standalone- and HyperVue-generated frames if overwriting.
• Global EcoSystem visible as proxy object in World Browser.
• Select and delete Global EcoSystem instances with one click.
• Format specific options accessible through a special button in Save file box, and no longer prompted for each time.
• Adjustable separator in Timeline to change width of animated items list.
• Material preview option which displays materials mapped onto a small terrain object.
• Name of atmosphere appears in Atmosphere editor caption.
• Name of edited function appears in Function editor caption.
• NEW! Visual motion browser lets you select rig poses or animations visually.
• NEW! Preview motions/poses before applying them.
• NEW! Typical motions directly accessible from skeleton rig editor.
• NEW! Customizable camera altitude locking (above terrains, above other objects, etc).
• NEW! Default views are automatically adjusted according to internal units.
• NEW! Automatic Smart-Saving technology that saves your scene in the background.
• NEW! User defined Auto-Save time intervals.
• NEW! Auto saved backup files are accessible directly through the application menu.
• NEW! Push-button scene snapshot technology.
• NEW! Non destructive texture resizing in the Link tab of the World Browser.
• NEW! Option to restore full size version of downsampled images.
• NEW! Double-click texture map in World Browser to view at full resolution (using external viewer).
• NEW! Missing textures are identified as broken links.
• NEW! Automatic range adaptation in Function Graph.
• NEW! Slopes can be expressed in the -180°;180° range.
• NEW! Manually adjustable EcoSystem population threshold before triggering a warning.
• NEW! Freely move layers up and down in the World Browser (even if they are closed).
• NEW! Edit fields automatically expand to accomodate large numbers when editing.
• NEW! Edit fields display rounded values (but retain original values).
• NEW! Ruler indicating the scale in each viewport.

Minimum System Requirements

Vue 10 is a 32 & 64 bits application, designed for the Windows® 32/64 bits XP, Vista and Windows 7 and Intel Mac OS X platforms.

Like all 3D packages, it is highly demanding in terms of computer power. Although the application is totally multi-threaded to ensure the smoothest possible response, you have to realize that there is a lot going on when you work in Vue 10.

Please note that using Vue on a system carrying the below specification may result in slow response time and longer render times!

Please read further on for recommended minimal specification for an optimal Vue experience.

Macintosh 

• Mac OS X v10.5+ 32/64,
• 2GHz Intel processor or faster,
• 1GB of free RAM,
• 200 MB of free Hard Disk space,
• 1200x768 in 65K colors/16 bits (24+ bits recommended).