Vue 5 Esprit Reviewed

Vue 5 Esprit Reviewed
By Lambros Potamianos

Lambros Potamianos (M.sc. in Economic Theory) is working as a freelancer in the Greek visualization industry and currently uses 3dsmax and softimage XSI. Vue 5 esprit was installed on a dual screen P 3.4Ghz / ASUS P4800E / 2GB DDR400 / Gforce fx5950 Ultra256 workstation.


A five minute sample render

Introduction

The first thing one realizes 5 minutes after launching the program is what the developers claim: a piece of software that actually “grows” with the user, as one can choose the way he approaches the software's features: like a beginner, using ready-made stuff and environment variables or like a professional, by digging into the many tweaks and parameters, rendering beautifully photorealistic scenes either way. Of course, do not expect a max/softimage/maya level of complexity as this is not what this program is all about.

But what is this program about, anyway? The Vue d'esprit series has been known as a landscape generator, among many rivals which include Terragen, Mojoworld, Bryce, World Builder, Vista Pro and World Construction Set to name but a few. As the technology grew, Vue developed many new features, and now it stands as a high-end natural 3d scene generator: it models terrains, plants, rocks, primitives, organic metablobs, imports 3d models, assigns textures using a material editor and renders atmospheres, lights, fogs using Global Illumination and HDRI. Oh, and let us not forget, it can animate too!

E-on software adopted a modular approach in the Vue line of products which seems to form as a major trend in our days. There is a basic “esprit” application, the “pro studio” bundle which adds 4 extra modules and the “infinite” version which is yet to hit the market.

A sample screen rendered in 20 minutes

Modeling

To take things from the start, let us concentrate on the modeling features. Vue 5 features a fully-blown terrain generator with a plethora of real-world weathering effects. It is a real pleasure to model using a pressure sensitive tablet and terrains can be exported in a variety of industry standard 3d formats to use in other 3d applications. Naturally, several bitmap formats can be imported to translate into elevation data forming a terrain, including dem, bmp and jpg. You can even copy and paste to and from Photoshop, applying all sorts of effects. Another major feature is the procedural terrain which can be zoomed upon with no loss of detail, and edited to your heart's content using the extensive function editor.

The terrain editor at work

To complete a landscape, several other features can be inserted, such as infinite terrains that extend to the horizon, water surfaces (finite or infinite), cloud layers, which can be extensively parametrized, fractal rocks that are never the same (saving much editing time). All these landscape features are easy to handle and position in the scene and do not pose any problems to the experienced or inexperienced user. The atmosphere editor, one of Vue's strong features, is pretty straightforward, and includes many usable presets that give an immediate, yet photo real effect. Sun, sky, clouds, volumetric effects can be parametrized at will to suit all conditions, from mid-day sunshine to heavy cloud sunsets.
 

Various preset atmospheres

Then, we get to the plants feature which is one of the most beautifully implemented features, as the plants provided render smoothly and add to the photorealism of a scene. There are 52 species of vegetation available, and more can be downloaded from the e-on software web site, some for free, some for $10. The plants are fractally created, so that no two plants look the same, but to edit a plant species or create a new one, the Botanica module must be purchased.

Material editor

Once you create your first terrains you will most certainly want to texture them. The provided material samples are very good and you may stick to them or explore the material editor. The editor takes two forms, a simple one and an advanced one. Both are effective, and the advanced editor, based on the nodes concept, offers extensive features. It is quite easy to get acquainted with if you have previous experience with node-based material editors, otherwise you will need to study the manual and experiment a little bit. The Deep Access module offers more control over texturing among other extra browsing features.

Poser import - Animation

Vue 5 esprit imports static Poser characters and can be expanded with the Mover 5 software which among others allows for import of animated Poser characters. The animation features of standalone Vue are easy to get along: standard keyframe animation on the timeline to control meshes and other attributes, such as light intensities, material parameters, virtually everything that Vue contains. An animation wizard provides several quick options simulating smooth drive or fly-by animation, simply by drawing a path.

Download a Procedural Terrain animation sample (1.1MB)

Global Illumination

Global Illumination seems to have been established as a standard for every new 3d software. Actually, Vue 5 can render close to photorealistic scenes without using the GI, therefore reducing render times, but scenes that include 3d objects other than plants (houses for example) can largely benefit from the use of GI. Vue 5 uses 3 levels of GI: global ambience, global illumination and global radiosity, that can be tweaked easily using the “easy GI slider” which provides a faster-better GI trade-off. Actually, one can tweak the GI using much more parameters if he wishes so. These three levels provide a scalable approach to GI: global ambience just adds sky ambience, global illumination adds the soft GI shadows, and global radiance adds the color bleeding. The results can get as good as using high-end software (max's lightracer and radiosity, or softimage mental ray) although it takes much longer to get the best results. It is possible to get a decent GI within a few minutes, but bear in mind that if you push the easy GI slider deep into in the quality region, renders may take many hours or days to complete. It is not unusual to wait for a whole day for a 2k global radiosity scene, so try not to top the quality sliders.

The raytracing engine on its own is fast enough, and able to provide decent results and supports all kinds of high-end effects like caustics and blurred reflections. Also, antialiasing can be tweaked using a quality slider and has a great impact on render times, especially when set to superior mode.

A global illumination render with Haze

Technology  

One of the well appreciated features is the multi-threading architecture which allows for normal computer usage during painstaking GI renders, something that all max users would be dying to get. Also, the program can handle millions of polygons without bottlenecks using the dual resolution opengl technology, and provides a handy preview icon that updates itself whenever there is no user activity. In many cases, you do not need to render in preview quality, you can actually see the preview in real time! I also liked the drop object feature, that vertically drops the selected object onto the closest object beneath, which comes in handy when scattering trees or other objects on a terrain. The manual covers all features extensively and the included samples (objects, scenes and materials) are excellent. Some scenes are really impressive!

On the other side, I would really like to see an even better user interface, especially when it comes to viewport navigation (perhaps some keyboard shortcuts). Also, I am awfully stuck with max's align function and usually dislike the way it is implemented in all other 3d programs, but that's just my personal taste. But I think that even if Vue 5 esprit is not considered a modeling program, it would certainly benefit from more sophisticated modeling features. The most annoying thing about Vue 5 esprit though, is that render times can get quite long when using high antialiasing or radiosity settings. Results are good, but nowadays that speed is crucial, it seems to be a drawback. The base software offers little control on lights, and the LightTune module must be purchased to get shadow maps or selective lighting. Oh, and please, allow for more undo operations, it does make a difference.

 

 

Refraction, superior antialiasing with blurred reflections in 1h45min

 

 

Conclusion

To conclude things, Vue 5 esprit is a fine piece of software, which can be used according to one's needs. It can be used by the hobbyist as a standalone program, just for the fun of it (and its very fun, believe me), or by the cg professional in conjunction with a major 3d modeling application (remember that Vue 5 is not designed to be a modeler, although it can do some primitive modeling). On what concerns the architectural visualization industry, I think that it can easily fit in our work flow pipeline: model a building in your favorite 3d application, import the .3ds into Vue 5 esprit, add vegetation, sky, sunlight, haze and render beautiful GI scenes. Alternatively, it could be used for rendering backdrops for compositing. I would strongly recommend downloading the 30-day trial though, to see whether it can fit in one's pipeline.

3ds house rendered in Vue

The software is stable and mature (even features a compatibility safe mode), talented and a major upgrade over version 4. It is priced at $249, between the budget and full price apps, and you can upgrade by purchasing the four available modules, Botanica, DeepAccess and LightTune and Mover 5, providing many more features including the ability to create custom plant species, selective lightning, shadow mapping, asset control, and many more rendering options (the full Vue 5 Pro Studio bundle retails at $399). An infinite version of Vue at $599 is scheduled for the first quarter, targeting the serious professionals. So, if you are really interested in the best landscape generator in the market (along with Terragen I think in terms of photorealism), and are willing to use it in conjunction with a 3d modeling program, the Vue 5 series seems to be a right choice. Hobbyists with lower budgets should consider Terragen or Bryce.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com

A trial version is available at:
https://secure.e-onsoftware.com/Products/vue5/trial/

 

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