[NEW]Sketchup 2 Vue

dburdick

yes Vue informed me earlier today that my system was woefully inadequate...

currently running Intel E4300 overclocked to 3.0 ghz 4 gig of ram and 1 gig video

I'm getting ready to go quad core Q9505 and 8 gigs of Ram with (2) 1 Gig video cards.

I'm going to try to squeeze all of that in under $500.00

as discussed earlier in this thread... there are tuts online that show someone working in Vue with 16 cpus...

Vue Infinite suggested system specs.

Windows 64 bit (XP, Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS X v10.6
Multi-core CPU (Intel QuadCore, Core I7, or Mac Pro),
4GB+ of RAM,
4GB+ of free Hard Disk space (on the drive hosting the OS),
An OpenGL accelerated video board (see below for optimal compatibility)

Hi Kristoff,

Looks like a nice set up for Vue there. Why the two graphics cards though? That sounds more like a gaming set up. Vue doesn't push the graphics that hard. Go for more CPU or more memory.

Krisidious

true about the cards but SU only uses 1 core and you need all the help you can get with it. plus I do game... and Sli is just too kool not to do it.

I'll upload that SU model for you to look at.

it's not a professional system, but with todays' economy it's what I can afford. that's why I'm leaning towards the Vue Complete with the huge %50 discount.

I suppose I need to look into what I'll be missing out on with that level vs Infinite...

my problem is that my clients don't pay for renderings... I've tried to charge for them and no one ever orders them, so I end up doing what ever renders I want of a kool project and using them to sell that plan later. and not really doing much of that...

my wesbite is a hodge podge of hand drawn renderings, Sketchup screenshots and some Sketchup renderings.

so far the main draw back for me in doing renders is the time it took to make it look realistic enough to be worth the time. and then not really being paid for the time. with Vue I can do so much work in so little amount of time it pays for itself. not only does it use all aspects of rendering, sky, light, plant, ground plane, sea level it also does post rendering work for you on the fly like lens glare and exposure and contrast...

and the fluid addition of trees and plants is just indescribable...

what's more I feel that Vue will save me time in SketchUp via work I don't have to do and model complexity I won't have to deal with. before vue I would have to add plants and I normally chose 3D plants because I don't care for 2D... this grows the models exponentiationly... and makes them somewhat unwieldy... now I can exclude that from my process altogether and do all my landscape work in Vue. and since Vue does that so efficiently... I will both save time in modelling and use of my model and end up with a great render when I'm done.

I'm very excited...

some things I would like to see.

ability to undock layer list, material view and preview window.
(I have 4 Screens (3)19"s and (1) 42")
ability to render to a fourth screen or maximize current render window on another screen.
ability to assign navigation mouse buttons, rotate, pan and zoom
ability to select materials with an eye dropper.
maximize current view button on each view window
ability to pat you on the back for giving me more than I ever dreamed of in a piece of software... thank you...

Krisidious

is there a way to keep plants leaves from sticking through walls?

dburdick

@krisidious said:

ability to undock layer list, material view and preview window.
(I have 4 Screens (3)19"s and (1) 42")

ability to render to a fourth screen or maximize current render window on another screen.

ability to assign navigation mouse buttons, rotate, pan and zoom

ability to select materials with an eye dropper.

maximize current view button on each view window

ability to pat you on the back for giving me more than I ever dreamed of in a piece of software... thank you...

Hi Kristoff,

#1 and #2 are frequently requested, we've have some interesting things happending here - stay tuned
#3. You can reassing mouse buttons now. Go to File-->Option-->Operations and set the keyboard/mouse shortcuts to anything you want. You can rotate around in the main view by using right mouse down. Most of the time, I just use the camera controls below the preview window or adjust the camera in one of the 4 views.
#4. I've asked for this one for a long time
#5. Good idea - I like the how the zoom entents function works in SU - we need this in Vue as well
#6. LOL - I would settle to see some cool Sketchup/Vue renders

dburdick

@krisidious said:

is there a way to keep plants leaves from sticking through walls?

Not exactly. You can specify a hit radius to use when populating ecosystems which will maintain a safety distance away from objects. Most of the time I end up tweaking the location of veg and trees anyways using the eco-instance selection tool.

Daniel

Dave,

Thanks for coming on this forum and speaking with us about Vue. I use Vue 7 Infinite - love it, and can't wait to try this plug-in, and hopefully upgrade to 9 soon. One aspect about Vue that I like is that you can generate a rendering of any of the three orthagonal views (top, front, side), but unfortunately your limited by the size and there is no way to create a large size rendering or to save it without doing a screen capture. It would be great to be able to apply the rendering settings for the perspective view to the other three views (and maybe add the other side and rear views).

thecravatman

Dave can you please clarify the upgrade options if the complete 8 version is purchased now? I started with vue 3 upgraded to 4 and then have tested every version since, but never found a stable enough set up to justifying purchasing. However, I have just purchased the new exporter that I am delighted to see but unfortunately can't get to work. It produces unreadable vob files or the python script yields only a dome, both problems are noted on the cornucopia forum by others too. This is even without textures. I would like to progress to 9 infinite or xstream if I can get the export to work seamlessly.
I use Max and Bionatics at the moment but struggle with grass, ground cover and clouds; why Bionatics didn't ever produce a complete solution amazes me. I could also do with a couple of suggested system specifications to cope with SU 8, Vue 9 & Max 2011. I hope that 2011 is going to be the year that I finally buy Vue software again!
Many thanks in advance.
Tim

Burkhard

Thanks Dave, all works as expexted.

dburdick

@daniel said:

Dave,

Thanks for coming on this forum and speaking with us about Vue. I use Vue 7 Infinite - love it, and can't wait to try this plug-in, and hopefully upgrade to 9 soon. One aspect about Vue that I like is that you can generate a rendering of any of the three orthagonal views (top, front, side), but unfortunately your limited by the size and there is no way to create a large size rendering or to save it without doing a screen capture. It would be great to be able to apply the rendering settings for the perspective view to the other three views (and maybe add the other side and rear views).

Hi Daniel,

Yes, I agree with you - we need to add unlimited render size for orthographic view rendering. We have this on this list.

dburdick

@thecravatman said:

Dave can you please clarify the upgrade options if the complete 8 version is purchased now? I started with vue 3 upgraded to 4 and then have tested every version since, but never found a stable enough set up to justifying purchasing. However, I have just purchased the new exporter that I am delighted to see but unfortunately can't get to work. It produces unreadable vob files or the python script yields only a dome, both problems are noted on the cornucopia forum by others too. This is even without textures. I would like to progress to 9 infinite or xstream if I can get the export to work seamlessly.
I use Max and Bionatics at the moment but struggle with grass, ground cover and clouds; why Bionatics didn't ever produce a complete solution amazes me. I could also do with a couple of suggested system specifications to cope with SU 8, Vue 9 & Max 2011. I hope that 2011 is going to be the year that I finally buy Vue software again!
Many thanks in advance.
Tim

Hi Tim,

What version of Vue are you using? You must have Vue 8 or later (build # 51429 or higher) in order to read the exported .vob files. The problems experienced by others were those using the Sketchup 7 on the Mac which has a ruby problem. Sketchup 8 on the Mac and Sketcup 7 and 8 on the PC work just fine with the exporter.

On the upgrade options for Vue 8 Complete, you have the ability to upgrade to Vue 9 Complete when it becomes available. There is also a trade-in path where you can trade in you Vue 8 Conplete to Infinite for $495. In your case however, given that you are using Max 2011, I would recommend waiting for Vue 9 xStream (should be released in a couple of weeks). Vue xStream can work in standalone mode or as a Plugin inside of Max/Maya/XSI/Lightwave/C4D and it's fully integrated in with the render engines of those systems.

thecravatman

Thanks for the upgrade info Dave. I used the latest down loads plus SU 7 & 8. I have had no luck reading the vob files so I have removed every vue version and cleaned my machine and intend to do a clean install when 9 is released. Max imports Sketchup really well now so with Xstream + the plugin I have two paths I suppose.
Any thoughts on a machine spec? what do you use at e-on?

dburdick

@thecravatman said:

Thanks for the upgrade info Dave. I used the latest down loads plus SU 7 & 8. I have had no luck reading the vob files so I have removed every vue version and cleaned my machine and intend to do a clean install when 9 is released. Max imports Sketchup really well now so with Xstream + the plugin I have two paths I suppose.
Any thoughts on a machine spec? what do you use at e-on?

Hi Tim, when you say "latest downloads" do mean Vue 8 or just the latest downloads of your earlier Vue versions?

On the machine specs for Vue, I would recommend:

64-bit multicore cpu - I like the quad cores I5 and I7 from intel
8 GB of RAM at least
a decent graphics card - GeForce 460 or better or Quadro 2000 or better

Also, it might be nice to scrounge up a few machines to use as render nodes and build your own mini render farm.

jpalm32

I would like to see IES lighting for VUE.
Great for landscape applications.

dburdick

@prisoner said:

Using SU with Vue (plus l3dt for terrain creation) could be very interesting for me (rendering outdoor top view maps), but rendering with parallel perspective would be necessary. Does anybody know if Vue can do this by now? I tried Vue once 1-2 years ago and from what I can recall there was no way to render orthogonal views. Would be great if that changed. Vue master solo?

Hi There. You can render orthagonal views in Vue, but it's currently limited to the size of the viewport. I can render out 1600 x 1024 orthagonals on my 1900 x 1280 screen.

Prisoner

@dburdick said:

Hi There. You can render orthagonal views in Vue, but it's currently limited to the size of the viewport. I can render out 1600 x 1024 orthagonals on my 1900 x 1280 screen.

Thanks for the info. That's a shame because what I need is more like 8k x 8k. Could have been the perfect tool

Prisoner

Using SU with Vue (plus l3dt for terrain creation) could be very interesting for me (rendering outdoor top view maps), but rendering with parallel perspective would be necessary. Does anybody know if Vue can do this by now? I tried Vue once 1-2 years ago and from what I can recall there was no way to render orthogonal views. Would be great if that changed. Vue master solo?

thecravatman

@dburdick said:

Hi Tim, when you say "latest downloads" do mean Vue 8 or just the latest downloads of your earlier Vue versions?

Thanks for the follow up Dave, I tried 8 complete and also 8.5 ple and trial version, don't tell me they only work with registered versions?
The pc spec is useful, I aim to start with 12 meg and move on to 24 when the system works well.

dburdick

@thecravatman said:

@dburdick said:

Hi Tim, when you say "latest downloads" do mean Vue 8 or just the latest downloads of your earlier Vue versions?

Thanks for the follow up Dave, I tried 8 complete and also 8.5 ple and trial version, don't tell me they only work with registered versions?
The pc spec is useful, I aim to start with 12 meg and move on to 24 when the system works well.

It's entirely possible the SU to Vue exporter won't work with the trial versions because they are older build numbers than the registered versions - I need to check this - thanks for pointing this out.

KarolinaLundbladh

@unknownuser said:

Hi Tim,

What version of Vue are you using? You must have Vue 8 or later (build # 51429 or higher) in order to read the exported .vob files. The problems experienced by others were those using the Sketchup 7 on the Mac which has a ruby problem. Sketchup 8 on the Mac and Sketcup 7 and 8 on the PC work just fine with the exporter.

On the upgrade options for Vue 8 Complete, you have the ability to upgrade to Vue 9 Complete when it becomes available. There is also a trade-in path where you can trade in you Vue 8 Conplete to Infinite for $495. In your case however, given that you are using Max 2011, I would recommend waiting for Vue 9 xStream (should be released in a couple of weeks). Vue xStream can work in standalone mode or as a Plugin inside of Max/Maya/XSI/Lightwave/C4D and it's fully integrated in with the render engines of those systems.

Hi Dave,

I have just purchased Vue 8 Studio + the SketchUp exporter. I'm using SketchUp 7 Pro on my Mac and Vue is not able to read the .vob files that I export from SketchUp. Can the "ruby problem" with SketchUp 7 on Mac be solved?

d12dozr

Hi Dave,
I see that Vue 9 Complete is due to be released soon, around the same time as the Vue 8 Complete sale is due to end (that makes sense, I guess ), so I want to ask for advice...

I'm going to purchase Complete, preferably version 9, is it going to be on sale or am I better off buying Vue 8 Complete and then upgrading to 9?

Also, that relighting looks awesome...will that be available in Vue 9 Artist versions?

Thanks,
Marcus