Considering purchasing Vue xStream 7.0 (7.5)

#44

Here’s one example of someone successfully using Max and xStream.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=162&t=729224

Seems a positive experience. I wish I could say the same for Vue & Maya.

#45

Okay, I havent read much of this thread, but I am assuming you havent made a purchase yet, as 7.5 is not released. So i will address this post as if you havent.

Dont buy 7.5 if you already have 6 or another version. Vue 8 will be right on that releases heels. I am still using 6 xStream and likekly will not even consider upgrading until at least 8. They are peddling the minor releases at this point as majors ones, but mostly they are just bug fixes. If you do decide to by 7.5 make sure and get the maitnence plan as I think E-On has garrunteed the upgrade to 8.

I use Vue inside of Max daily, and have absolutely no complaints. There are a few renders in my portfolio and more to come. But my environment for the FXwars this month is made entirely in Vue 6 xStream inside Max 2009. I rarely use Vue as a stand alone anymore unless I am messing aroung the the 7 PLE. But anyhow, I dont care what anyone says, Vue xStream is amazing if you know how to work aroung the minor bugs.

That is just my two cents.

  • Evan
#46

I had seen that thread, but couldn’t see where he was using xStream. Vue and Max, butnot xStream (at least from what I could see).

Evan, you are the first one I have found that is using xStream inside Max that doesnt hate it. Do you follow any particular methodolgy to maintain stability? I have never hear the bugs were minor, usually just the opposite…

All the E-on products I have tested are just buggy. We have 7.0 PLE but have yet to install it. What are your render times like?

Thanks for the feedback…

David

#47

Hey Dustin,

Yeah, it bugs me sometimes because everyone always gets down on E-On for having bad software, but alot of the times the same people dont understand that normal production settings dont apply when using one app inside of another.

One things that I always keep in mind is that this is two entirely different applications, the one working inside the other one. Max being the MAIN app, and Vue acting as the plugin. Therefore I do as little in the Vue interface as I can. If you keep that in mind, most of the crashes you will see are not in fact bugs, just errors that are the fault of the user.

I personally am not a big fan of the Vue 7 workflow, but that is only because I am used to 6. It is just confusing fore me to have all of the Vue options in a little flyout menu, but honestly it cuts down on the switching back and forth and the crashes when I forget the crucial fact I mentioned above.

Render times all depend on mainly your atmosphere. Considering what I sometimes render, it amazes me the speed that Mental Ray (usually very slow with volumetrics) renders complicated scenes. Meta clouds seem to be amone the slowest things to render, but that isnt Vue’s fault, it is Mental Ray’s.

I have used Vue xStream to do HUGE environments and have never encountered the “bugs” that most people always complain about. I have discussed this stuff on the E-On registered users forum too, but nobody can admit that the problems they run into are either corrupted windows installs, Max installs, or just there own impatience and errors.

Anyway, if you ever need any help with the workflow just ask.

  • Evan
#48

Are you doing stills or animation ? In my experience stills are not the problem with xstream. But animation is. Rendertimes are terribly long to get trees to stop flickering, even without any fancy skies or vols. I can use particle flow and multisub mats and maps to place thousands of random (scale/rotation/material) proxy trees around the scene in just a few minutes, and even with transparent/translucent leaves, rendertimes for 1280x720 animations are around 20 minutes/frame with MR. Also, I do not like the way that the Vue trees look when up close to the camera. They just dont hold up. They do look alright from a far distance, but not up close. Especially compared to EM or Onyx trees. And with Onyx you get wind animation.

IMHO, if you are going to do heavy Veg “animations” in Max, you are better off just using proxy trees/bushes/flowers instead. They will look better and render ALOT faster. I dont just say this from reading forums. We have had Vue xstream since version 6, and have only been able to use it successfully on 1 project. And this was mostly because we had no real deadline.

Here is a frame from a first draft animation that I am currecntly working on. It isnt that great, I know, but the trees are animated, and the rendertimes without flicker are about 20 minutes/frame. The Veg in this file is still just instanced, not proxy, and there will be about 10 times as much as there is now when the finals are run. And there is no variation applied to the materials yet.

This image is not going to wow anyone, its just to give an example of what is very easily done in Max without Vue for animation.

Let me say lastly, that the only real way to find out for sure if Vue is going to be good for your particular pipeline, be it stills or animation, is try the demo for a while. I always take into account what others have to say about software, but I always try for myself to be sure.

Regards,
Mike

BTW, nice pod racer you got there Evan. It looks really cool.

#49

BTW…here is the same Veg upclose…

Regards,
Mike

#50

Mike,

For what I do, that style would be perfect.
Are those onyx trees? If so is that Treestorm?

I have looked at purchasing it just for the animation capabilities of it.

Thanks,
David

#51

DDustin,
max 2010 and Exstream 7.5 is working great for us. I would not try to play in VUE if you are in 32 bit or a Mac users. If you get into subscription you will get your hands on the pre release 7.5. Wow!
I am on subscription with VUE because I am not going anywhere I love this program.
VUE works great through back burner as well.
Just keep in mind VUE wants 64bit power house systems.

#52

Jack,

Great to hear from you again!

What are your render times like?
Any images you can share?

David

#53

Hi Jack,
thanks for the info! Great to know that 7.5 is working well.

Do you use VRay or Mental Ray ?

How is License Server with rendernodes and Backburner working together ?

Best,
Martin

#54

It was great talking to you ya best of luck.

#55

I would stay away from Vue 7.5 xStream. My opinion…this software is BETA! Many Bugs, many crashes, does not perform as advertised, no phone support (unless you pay). support is pretty much useless until they release an update and so far there are none. This is my own experience and what I’ve heard from others.

.

#56

Sorry I did not get back to you sooner but I did not get a email saying anyone responded in this thread until today.

here is a link to a test render i did using max 2010 and mental ray with vue 7.5. I had no issues at all with this shot.
I rendered with a setting of medium in mental ray.
This was rendered out on a render farm with Boxx system render nodes through backburner and it render out at 6 minutes a frame with a with a aspec of 1024x544

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaqvZhXxp-M

#57

http://www.3dm3.com/video/2009/04/10/realtimeuk-stormbirds/

you must have seen this a while back? these guys used max and vue and use vray, obviously it works! theres plenty of vue and maya/max in movies like pirates of the carribean etc.
they’re all using the same software as the rest of you (that are complaining) maybe just a little more experience and care goes a long way.
build scenes in layers, use compositing for bigger shots, etc etc.
Im using max and vue 7 on a project right now and havent had problems so far…

www.chrisdebney.com

#58

Vue is a sloppy, broken, damaged mess of a plug-in for Maya. I’ve seen plenty of examples of it working in Max, but not one decent example of it working for Maya.

And in the end, Vue is a sloppy workaround for Maya users really. Everything Vue can do, Maya can also do, only better (physical accuracy, photons, importons, irradiance particles…) Vue’s a great standalone app, albeit still VERY buggy and fickle. But Vue’s lighting model is even outdated; you’ll never get the same results you would achieve from a strategic use of Maya and mental ray.

I agree: Vue Xstream should have stayed in Beta. Even the 64-bit version with loads of RAM and wicked-fast CPU’s is unstable, at best. As if Maya weren’t buggy enough…

#59

yeah dam all the software companies, I’m not buying anything until EVERYONE can animate and render using telepathy…

www.chrisdebney.com

#60

We realize Vue seems to work for some people, but after our experience with Ozone and previous attempts with using Xstreme we will avoid the frustration of using it.

It is wrong for software companies to expect end users to jump through hoops, chant or wait for the correct phase of the moon to get their software to work.

David

#61 
  no it's not obvious it works.   Just because someone made some pretty pictures doesn't mean they were done in Vue and that it is a reliable tool.  and no they are not using the same software (my comments are about Vue 7.5 xStream).  
 
 ILM may have used it on Pirates but they also have plenty of proprietary programs and tools as well to integrate their shots that are not available to the average user. We know ILM used it on that project but to what extent and whether or not it was a nightmare will probably not be known.  Also I'm sure ILM gets support no one on else on the planet would get.
  
  The comment about  having more "experience and care" is BS, you have no idea how much experience and care those posting their opinions have.  I myself have worked on many major vfx films at huge vfx studios and have never seen a piece of software as buggy and unstable as Vue 7.5 xStream.  
  
  These are not "complaints" but warnings to those considering dropping $2000 on an unstable, unsupported app.
  
  BTW you should peruse the E-on private owners forum and see there are a lot of [i]professionals[/i] that are very unhappy with their purchases.  
 
 .
#62

…Vue 7.x for Maya is NOT production-ready. Anything that is more unstable than mental ray for Maya is simply not programmed correctly, not debugged properly, and (especially) should have never, ever left Beta.

I myself have worked on many major vfx films at huge vfx studios and have never seen a piece of software as buggy and unstable as Vue 7.5 xStream.

I have seen one more unstable: Vue 6.x.

Some background, for those who are interested. After following Bryce since version 3.0, Vue seemed the next logical step, as Bryce didn’t have any decent way to place or implement vegetation and Bryce’s “Tree Lab” was a wreck; trees shouldn’t be made of metaballs, people.

Meanwhile, in 2004, I shifted tracks from Bryce/Rhino for arch/viz to Maya and Rhino. Maya is vastly powerful and also vastly annoying to learn, but worth it for certain, especially given the massive rendering options and blazing fast mental ray renderer. But my issue with Maya artistically is that it’s obnoxious to create landscape scenes with Maya. Mental ray in 32-bit Maya/Windows can barely handle a million polys of real geometry (uninstanced), and of course the level of detail I am looking for calls for many billions of polys in foliage and vegetation.

So I tried Vue Xstream, version 6.0, using the Maya plug-in. Nothing. It crashed Maya every time, and I was never even able to render a scene with it. So I worked with vue 6.x as a standalone app, simply to get used to it and see what it could do and give it the benefit of the doubt. It works okay as a standalone (Infinite) but crashes constantly when working with Ecosystems. Sometimes they would disappear entirely after painting them in, sometimes they would work, sometimes Vue would just outright crash. I spent over nine months working on a scene, and am just now finally finishing it in Vue 7.2 Xstream in standalone mode, after finally ditching all my Maya and Mudbox geometry.

Let me repeat: Vue 7.2 will not work with high-poly geometry imported from Maya or Mudbox.

Then I switched my OS’s over to 64-bit, and also of course switched to 64-bit Maya, Mudbox, Photoshop CS4, and Vue 7.2 XStream. Same issue: Vue will not work with high-poly geometry, even when it has loads of RAM to work with under 64-bit everything.

But finally now I can finish my scene. Vue 7.2 XStream in standalone (Infinite) mode will push all the RAM you can throw at it, but ONLY if you’re using Vue terrains and Vue Ecosystems. Trying to “instance” any geometry imported from a more powerful plant editor like Onyx or from personal plant models made in Maya will NOT work.

So in my experience, Vue 7.2 x64 works in standalone, so long as you don’t try to import any geometry that you’d like to plant Ecosystems on. You can see all kinds of wonderful Vue artwork here and on DeviantArt, especially Nukeation’s experiments with fractal subdivisions, but ALL of that is internally Vue, and displacement maps still work far better and faster in Maya itself anyway.

Vue XStream failed with Maya 8.5, Maya 2008, and Maya 2009 64-bit. Feel free to try this yourself, and honestly I’d LOVE to be wrong about it all. I can’t believe I suckered my employer into three different versions of Vue, and I really hope nobody else does the same. If you’re going to use Vue, get the Infinite version, although it’s very obvious nobody at E-on knows what the word “Infinite” actually means.
(end rant)

#63

Fair enough didnt mean to offend anyone!

I guess my point is that since CGI began its been about trial and error. Things crash thats the way it (sadly) is. We are constantly pushing the boundries on what we want to achieve and the pretty pictures we want to see.
I myself have worked in the industry for over 12 years and been disapointed many times.
I remember having a conversation with John knoll when I was working on the starwars prequels, he was telling me that he used to have major problems way back when, with things not going as planned. and being forced to make the most out of what resources were available.
Just because ILM can find solutions now didn’t mean they always did. true we shouldnt have to pay money for stuff that doesn’t work. But at the same time we all have to understand, that it is all of us that is the guinea pig in this industry, problems will arise thats part of it.
It is frustrating i know. But with a little patience and careful thinking you can achieve the results you want with the off the shelf software thats available.
If people are that dissatisfied then do what Matt Fairclough did whilst at Uni in the north of England (he wrote Terragen!)

www.chrisdebney.com