Best way to use Vue for landscape-heavy/detailed landscape visualizations?

[stayinwonderland]

I've been trying to get to grips with the idea of using Vue for some dramatic landscape shots which include architecture.

 

But as far as I've seen, Vue looks good for scenery but awful for architecture renders vs Vray/Corona etc.

 

Is there a recommended workflow to integrate the two? like perhaps using the plug-in to load scenery but render it with vray/corona? or maybe just import assets from Vue standalone?

 

Unless I'm missing something and there's a way to just use the Vue renderer. I just think it doesn't handle materials as well, plus things start to look a little Bryce-ish.

[Nic H]

i did some research into this recently but came across this thread with some professional users that stated it is pretty much useless

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=1325420

 

i think it could be good to make backgrounds, skies and mountainous ranges but as far as integration its lacking.

im not even sure the camera data is easily transferable!

[TomasEsperanza]

My impression has been that it's used more in VFX, and thus is likely to require a compositing pipeline. At least, the only person I know that has used it works in VFX.

[stayinwonderland]

yeah I was wondering if it should maybe be used as a different layer in photoshop or something, as opposed to in and of itself.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I used Vue loooong time ago, and even tho what everybody says about it is true, you can get very nice results if you work with it as a side tool, not as an do everything 3D software. Rendering in Vue is slow, to get quality output, it gets really slow(at least when I used Vue 4 til 6 or 7)

depending of the version, you can export meshes and render passes. or the whole thing. tho when you export as anything but e-on format, the scene becomes insanely heavy. Cameras and animated object are also imported and exported.

 

Radiosity works good for what was designed, large landscape areas but it does not reach detail when used in small object as houses or interiors in close ups. If it is a fly by a complex housing developments or cities, it won't have any problems. Actually building cities in Vue is pretty fast. Building one single house from scratch, is almost impossible.

Skies are beautiful and atmospherics effect can't be compared to other software such V-Ray or what not, fractal textures, dynamic large landscaping, wind and weather works great too, but with today's technology and good post work you could get similar result not using it.

 

If you do Arch Viz forget it, it won't help you. unless you are willing to give us some quality in renderings.

If you do several renders of large areas with complex terrains and landscaping, then Vue is a tool that may help you to do project faster. if you are in the VFX industry, well, you would not be asking here

[stayinwonderland]

but with today's technology and good post work you could get similar result not using it.

 

I'd be interested to hear more about this. By today's technology, what do you mean?

 

I spent a few hours today and yesterday going over tutorials for Vue and I can see why I haven't touched in years - it's ****ing horrible and makes you want to pull your eyes out with confusion. Suddenly the render preview will stop working, suddenly you're under the terrain and can't seem to get back out, then your terrain goes nuts and you can't get it back. Awful.

 

Anyways, I want to use it for concept art or for the odd environment for architecture. Maybe even just for a mountain. I wanted to be able to place a large ish terrain feature in a scene and light it so the lighting is consistent with the scene rather than have to source photography with the same light direction.

[TommyJ]

I feel your pain.

 

I wish there was an alternative to Vue for landscapes and skies.

 

For close up, architecture-level rendering and modelling, I would use virtually any other software.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I'd be interested to hear more about this. By today's technology, what do you mean?

 

Well mainly scattering tools and complex shaders can be done now with tools such Forest pro, or multi scatter. they also let you control color variance, and animated objects. VRay just released a new shader that rotate randomly or controlled a texture over your mesh so it does not look tiled. Memory optimization now in 3D Max, V Ray, or other render engine are way better so you can render millions and trillions of polygons.

 

You can always use fog of volumetric in Mental Ray or Corona, or V Ray, they even have a new physical sky model that looks a lot better.

For real atmospherics effects, well yes that's different, and that's why Vue for me is a specific tool, not a do it all 3D software how many want it to be. You could always buy only Ozone, or Carbon scatter if you want to use e-on tools.

[stayinwonderland]

I get you. The only thing is, this isn't ideal for highly detailed surfaces like rocky areas and distant planes. Great for close up stuff. So I'm thinking maybe Zbrush for anything foreground and maybe even midground. And if one used something like World machine for something quite far off + atmos, then it could all sing from the same render, so to speak.

 

But atmos is the thing. I would confidently argue that vray does NOT do atmos in any sensible, useable way. Any kind of fog will totally destroy render times.

 

Ozone, now that I will look into. Sounds quite interesting as long as it integrates nicely with Vray etc. all their showcase images on their site look like they were just done in Vue though.

 

When you say 'they' even have new physical sky model, do you mean Vray? is this in version 3? I'm using 2.4 I think, still a god-awful sky model.

[Scott Schroeder]

You can't really say Vray is slow for fog when you are on a version that is so old that when you used it, you could only render in black and white. Vray 3 has massive speed improvements over 2.4.

 

All jokes aside, here is the new sky model in Vray 3 SP3.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Yes, the new version of V-Ray 3.3 has a new sky model. It is not Vue, not athmospheric/clouds get in to GI calculations but it has a nice distant fog, that looks way better than original V-Ray sky.

I used Ozone, with mental Ray and V-Ray and it work fine, when you know it limitations. The latest release keep all intensities of V-Ray sun so you can create HDRI no problems. Before you had to so some adjustment here and there to get something similar.

 

But again, when people complain about render time, I think they are not really considering how much work these render engines are doing for them. V-Ray fog is slower but not for much, really it is actually pretty fast considering, comparing with Mental Ray, way faster than Vue.

 

Regarding Vue, they are calculating more than a simple fog, the sky system is more complex, it is considering fog at different distances, radiance of light through clouds, soft shadows and scattering light though clouds all around your scene, that if you are working up to scale, it is huge!!!!

So yes "it is slow" but man you are rendering the whole freaking sky!!

 

Regarding terrain details, what are you trying to archieve? With Vue may be "faster" because of the materials and dynamic mesh, but within 3D Max with good modeling, displacement or normal map you can go really far.

[stayinwonderland]

Thanks for humiliating me Scott those are some impressive improvements!

 

I'd still wonder if their enviro fog is quick enough to use. I mean on previous 2.x versions it practically just stops the render in its tracks. And, the other thing is, even if it didn't, it still wasn't very versatile or useful for anything other than a smattering of basic fog. Will have to upgrade when I can and check it out.

 

In the meantime I'd still like to try Octane's sky and maybe try E-on's Ozone.

[stayinwonderland]

Yeah, I guess it is rendering a lot. It still doesn't take away from the fact that, beyond certain render times (for testing etc) it becomes unusable. Some day, when real-time GPU rendering becomes the norm, we'll look back in horror.

 

 

Regarding terrain details, what are you trying to archieve? With Vue may be "faster" because of the materials and dynamic mesh, but within 3D Max with good modeling, displacement or normal map you can go really far.

 

Well, I'm still trying to nail down exactly what I want to do but something along the lines of some realistic terrain that I can work around some architecture. Either a mountain that I can place a castle on or a rocky outcrop with a flat top that I can place a house on etc. The more I think about it, the more I reckon it'll be more like (for broader landscapes anyway) a compositing thing, whereby I generate the landscape in one package and the building in 3ds max and bring them together in Photoshop, matte-style.

 

This kind of workflow would come in handy for concept art for games/movies as well as some interesting arch viz renders.

 

Here's a good example. This guy used terragen for the sky, some fog in 3ds max (which kinda goes against my rant really) and not sure exactly how he did the mountains but it had something to do with satellite images.

 

I'll also attach a few more examples of things that would be good to re-create in 3d...