Vue 6 Infinite or 3d Max for Landscape Architecture

[awilkins]

I am a landscape architect in a small firm which specializes in Botanic Garden design. Right now we do all modeling and visualization using AutoCAD landfx, sketchup and Photoshop - resulting in a mostly non- photorealistic end product. Due to more client interest we are looking into stepping up our services to include higher end photorealistic renderings. Mostly we would be focusing on stills but flythrough animations would also be useful.

 

It seems 3d Max or Viz are the standard applications to use, however I have also been looking into Vue 6 Infinite. I was interested to hear if anyone recommends Vue as a standalone application or is it best used with Max. Any limitations as to how it is integrated with other rendering software, amount of computer power required, etc?

 

As a said we are a small firm and do not have a full time 3d visualization department so price is definitely a factor as well as production /rendering time and hardware power. Also, unlike most of the work I see posted - Plants and Trees are our main subject - architecture is secondary. We often need to show very specific plants (in and out of bloom, large masses of the same shrubs, etc.) and not just a generic tree for accent.

 

I think both programs are amazing and enjoy the process so I do not mind so much a high learning curve. I know I have alot to learn about modeling and rendering to be proficient at either program, but any advice to point in a starting position would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Francisco Penaloza]

Well if landscaping is your area I will definably recommend Vue, 3D max it is a very good tool (it’s the one that I use at my office) but to get nice 3D plants and 3D trees you need to buy other plug ins, so the cost get bigger, With VUE you can use the big library that they have or even make your own plans and trees.

About learning curve they are similar but VUE it is very intuitive so that's make easy. About price well Vue have different versions and different prices so you can pick the one that fit you more, Max it is around 3K and Viz 2K. Vue you start from 300USD. so do your math.

[TheAllusionisst]

I would add that Vue is fantastic in it's output but renderings take forever, it can easily take a few days for a complex high quality rendering, so if you go that route you should have a dedicated workstation for it.

[louis.cho]

Vue seems to be a very powerful software. I am sure its can be a important tool to make complex environments in arch viz. I think it's superior to Onyx because it's can do all the environment and not only trees. It's also make easier animations. The import tool seem to be very intuitive and easy to use. You can import it directly to max and render it with Mental Ray without changes and it's will be good.

 

The only major limitation at my job is that we work with Vray and I don't think you can export to Vray.

[TheAllusionisst]

You should be sure not to confuse Vue Infinite with Vue Xstream, the later integrates with Max, XSI, LW......, Vue Infinite does not.

[Zdravko Barisic]

Can you in few words, workflow 3DSMAX VUE Xtreme?

Can I import VUE scene into MAX? How many polies I can expect for 500-1000 trees?

Can I render with some other render than the scanline/ MR?

Thanks!

[notamondayfan]

vue xstream only works with mental ray.

 

as for workflow, its pretty straight forward. you can work in max, and view your vue scene in the viewports. the only probs i sometimes have is with scale and aligning lighting and cameras, but once you get the nack its fine.

 

but i think vue is best used by its self. my workflow for landscaping would be to model the terrain, buildings, and other non organic models in max, then import them into vue and render in vue.

 

also vue is great for animating wind, skies, trees, water etc.

[louis.cho]

its an interresting method. can you share some pics of the result? Are the materials in max can be import in vue too?

[notamondayfan]

your maps can be exported using obj file format, but things like procedural setting, reflections and stuff are lost, but vue has its own material editor, and more impressively, an eco system feature. one great part of this is to tell only certain plants to grow on a certain degree of slope, or near another object, or below a certain height, etc etc.

 

ill see if i can dig anything out, i havent done a project in vue for ages, and my last peice i completed was my uni work.

[Devin Johnston]

Vue can be great by it's self but unless your going to use it with Mental Ray in Max don't even try it. Vue has the ability to render out billions of polygons but you can only do it with the Vue engine and prepare for it to take a very long time. I purchased Vue to use in architectural renderings and after two years I've never used it once. Onyx trees is quite possibly the best library of trees you can get, together with Vray it just as good if not better than Vue especially in image quality.

[louis.cho]

The import tool seem to be very intuitive and easy to use.

 

Ok I want to take my words back

 

The import tool seem to be very intuitive and easy to use BUT it's finnaly not intuitive and easy to use at all!

 

My biggest source of frustration come from the units system in vue. What I don't like is scales my scenes and changes units for no reasons. When I ecport my max model to bring it in the vue environment, units are not proprely understand by Vue. My building who is 10m height is now 1m(and trees very big). E-On technicians seems to not have problems about scale up by 10 and scale down to re-integrate in max. So I made a try: yes my house was now back to 10m but all trees are very small.

 

So, Is there any solution to work with the real units, made trees with real units and NEVER use the scale tool?!

 

I don't see the point to buy XStream to integrate my Max models in Vue if it's didn't take in consideration the very basic but essential fact that I want my units to be the same.

[Devin Johnston]

That is exactly what is wrong with Vue, it can't scale models appropriately without a lot of work. Try this and see if you get any better results, I honestly gave up working in Vue years ago it simply isn't ready for architectural work.

 

-export 3ds model from max with no lights, materials or other objects besides the building.

-import 3ds into Vue, don't check any of the boxes in the import dialogue box.

-change scale from 1 to 10

 

That should allow you to bring in a model at the right scale, then you have to rework all your textures and landscaping.

[Brian Smith]

Vue can be great by it's self but unless your going to use it with Mental Ray in Max don't even try it. Vue has the ability to render out billions of polygons but you can only do it with the Vue engine and prepare for it to take a very long time. I purchased Vue to use in architectural renderings and after two years I've never used it once. Onyx trees is quite possibly the best library of trees you can get, together with Vray it just as good if not better than Vue especially in image quality.

 

i completely agree. it has a lot of promise and gives you a glimpse of what max will probably integrate automatically in 5-10 years, but vue is simply not there yet from a production/workflow standpoint. the fact that it doesnt render with vray is a huge turnoff for many. i would say the only people that should even consider it would be intermediate/advanced mental ray users. if your not, you'll be doing things the hard way.

 

+1 on the onyx comment.

[louis.cho]

-export 3ds model from max with no lights, materials or other objects besides the building.

-import 3ds into Vue, don't check any of the boxes in the import dialogue box.

-change scale from 1 to 10

 

That should allow you to bring in a model at the right scale, then you have to rework all your textures and landscaping.

 

Yup, I tried that method but all my trees need to be aslo scale up by 10, it's make scaling an endless job no?

 

+1 on the onyx comment.

 

yes onyx make such nice trees but it's not that efortless. You have to work a lot on textures to make it realistic. Also, it's add a huge amount of poly in your scene, you have to use the vray proxy and ruins the possibilities to make animations or very big environments.

 

So I have a choice to make:

- work with impossibles units and make it's looks like 'proportionnal'

- work with onyx, explode my scene poly and kill the animation possibilities.

[Devin Johnston]

if your using Onyx trees as proxies in Vray you can put in a lot of them, hundreds if not thousands. I'm working on an animation right now that has a poly count of almost 7 million, most of that is Onyx trees and I can render it out on a machine with 2 gigs of ram no problem.

[Brian Smith]

Yup, I tried that method but all my trees need to be aslo scale up by 10, it's make scaling an endless job no?

 

 

 

yes onyx make such nice trees but it's not that efortless. You have to work a lot on textures to make it realistic. Also, it's add a huge amount of poly in your scene, you have to use the vray proxy and ruins the possibilities to make animations or very big environments.

 

So I have a choice to make:

- work with impossibles units and make it's looks like 'proportionnal'

- work with onyx, explode my scene poly and kill the animation possibilities.

 

you shouldn't ever to recreate materials over and over from scratch if that's what you're implying. whenever i create a new palm, i use a material from my library which was created years ago for one of the 1st palms i created. the same goes for oaks, pines, etc.

 

if you use vray proxies then you shouldnt have to worry about exploding scenes. especially if you use 64bit

[elloquito1]

Hey guys,

I was reading your posts and I am very interested in all this.

Onyx trees are great but as vrayproxys, NO REAL WIND ALLOWED IN ANIMATION (no realism).

Vue is offering this, really great wind for animations.

 

As a professional vray user, my issue is the following...

Here is the option for a real environmental solution for animations but I have to export my max model and work with vue´s textures and lightning. (that is what I undesrtood by reading your posts, please let me know if I am ok so far)

 

As we all know in animations, the textures qualities are a bit lower than the ones for still images, so I am wondering if vue´s rendering quality (textures, Global ilumination) is good enough to match in a 50 % of vray´s top quality.

If I can reach that, then it will pay real attention to this software (vue xstream 6 or 6.5).

 

If there is another software out there with trully wind solutions for vray animations, please let me know.

 

Thanks in advanse, great topic

elloquito1

[Devin Johnston]

On Vue's best day it's not going to be able to reach Vray's quality and speed, and then you’re going to have to deal with the scaling problems that Vue seems unable to deal with. Just getting your Max model into Vue is a problem; once you add all the environmental objects and you animate it then you’re going to need a render farm to render out the sequence unless you have no realistic deadlines. Vue is simply not ready for architectural work, it's great at creating landscapes but that's really it.

[elloquito1]

Thanks Maxer for your quick response,

The thing is that I still think it is in some way worth effort, because what they offer (in terms of realism in vegetation for animations) I think is a lot of steps forward from the competition. I do have a render farm so I think that is not the problem for me.

Onyx trees have great quality for still images, but the wind issue in animations when they are proxies make me go out and find some other solution.

I think vue6 could be one, please let me know if you know of any other program compatible with 3ds max and/or vray that can manage the wind issue and I will go for it. I do not know of any.

 

What do you think?

[Devin Johnston]

I've tried several times to incorporate Vue into my workflow, it's never worked. Not only is it difficult to get your model in but then you have to deal with Vue's interface which is very basic in a bad way. Navigating, moving cameras, zooming is all very difficult compared to Max. Then there's material creation which uses lots of procedurals and wasn't really made with architectural projects in mind. To get photorealistic results you'd have to set up the GI on it's highest settings which kills render times and even then I doubt it would look as good a Vray. You only get 5 render cow licenses with Vue, if your going to animate you'll need a lot more than that and they aren't cheap.

 

As for other options there really aren't any, Onyx trees is the best plugin I've seen for trees, shrubs, and flower plants. It's true that you can't animate wind if you use them as proxy's but really there's nothing else.

[blowback]

I agree Maxer. All your points are 100%. I tried using Vue last year. experimenting, Max to Vue, render time etc. Nightmare.

[Horhe]

Well I tried the demos of both Vue 5 and 6. There is one thing missing on the packaging:

 

 

"WARNING! EXTREME INSTABILITY COULD LEAD TO HEART STROKE OR/AND INSANITY. USE AT OWN RISK,"

[mikedeerf]

For what it's worth, on a quality level

 

I've never used Vue 6, so maybe it's better.

But comparing Vue 5 Infinite head to head with Onyx Trees, the Landscape Architects here gave a BIG thumbs up to the Onyx results, but had trouble finding a single tree in Vue they considered something they would plant.

 

In their opinion, Vue (5)'s vegetation is well suited for a jungle/woods shot - unkempt, natural trees. But there's no easy way to trim it up the way a street tree would be.

 

Last week's job was the first with Onyx, and the LA's flipped out (in a good way).

 

oh, and diddo on all the technical problems with Vue.

 

On a cost note, it IS a pain that Onyx doesn't have a demo. That's why we hadn't bought it yet. I made a $600 gamble on this one - bought it myself, said I'd make it up in billable time.

Long story short, I didn't make up the cost in time savings. BUT, once my bosses saw the results, they had no problem paying me back for it.

So there it is. You can't try it out to see if you like it. But once you have it, you'll see it's worth every penny.

[quetz67]

I got the Poser/Vue bundle and upgrades Vue to Infinite at a total of some $800. It can do things I would either spend forever in Maya or spend a fortune in Max.

 

Render times can be pretty bad, yes, but I think it is acceptable for stills. The problem is animation, you can easily render half an hour per frame and still the result isnt perfect - but then I dont know how long Maya/Max would render a few hundret thousand trees with some nice ambient lighting.

 

About the instabilty, yep Vue crashes from time to time. And it can be pretty slow with lots of objects. You should have enough RAM to be sure it wont go into HDD trashing.

 

In Vue6 at least you have some influence on the plants to form them to your liking, if they are sufficient for your requirements but they were for mine.

[Nic H]

animated vray proxy meshes in next service pack = wind on trees