Beaverton, Ore.
- E-on software, maker of digital nature solutions, announced the
immediate availability of its Vue 8 line of products for CG
professionals. The company has also released the rest of the Vue 8
product line: Pioneer & T-packs, Frontier, Esprit, Studio, and
Complete.
Vue 8 xStream, e-on’s flagship solution, offers CG professionals a solution for creating rich and realistic digital nature environments, fully immersed within Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, and Softimage XSI, Maxon Cinema 4D, or Newtek LightWave. All Vue tools are integrated in the host application as menus and toolbars and accessible from within the host interface, providing immediate access to advanced 3D environment creation technologies.
Vue 8 Infinite offers CG professionals the ability to create rich and realistic environments in a stand-alone package. Vue 8 Infinite is well suited to multimedia and entertainment professionals, architects, and graphics designers.
With this new release, all aspects of the program have been improved in the areas of natural scenery creation, precise artistic control, performance, immersive integration, and content, says a company representative.
Vue 8 includes new features, such as:
- 3D Terrain Sculpting: Allows users to freely sculpt terrain features such as overhangs and caves directly into Vue standard and procedural terrains, with on-the-fly mesh subdivision.
- Localized Infinite and Procedural Terrain Sculpting: Combine the best of both worlds with the ability to locally sculpt features on the infinitely detailed procedural terrains. Now, users have the ability to fine tune or completely rework localized areas on procedural terrains providing even greater artistic control and creativity.
- Scene Context Sculpting: Allows users to sculpt terrain features in the context of scene elements. Sculpt rocks and reliefs around vegetation and architectural structures.
- New Stratified Terrain Fractals which allow the creation of richly detailed stratified terrain features.
- New Directional Displacement Engine for textures to create more detailed and life-like surface features with greatly increased performance.
- 3rd Generation Spectral Atmospheric Technology which dramatically improves the quality and realism of clouds, god rays, atmospheric shadows, and scene light inteaction.
- Direct Re-Posing of Rigged Meshes: Rigged and pre-animated mesh objects can now be re-posed directly inside Vue. Currently supported formats: 3DSMax, Collada and Vue Pre-animated Meshes.
- New Shader-based OpenGL Preview Engine for improved real-time performance and previewing accuracy.
- Deeper xStream Immersive Integration offering more seamless operation and improved workflow with the leading CG applications. Vue 8 xStream adds support for Maya 2010, Cinema 4D R11.5, Softimage 2010 and V-Ray for Maya to the list of compatible applications (see below).
Vue 8 xStream will retail for $1495, with upgrades from Vue 7.x xStream available for $495. Vue 8 Infinite retails for $895, with upgrades from Vue 7.x Infinite available for $295. Other upgrade paths from Vue 6 Infinite and Vue 6 xStream are also available.
Annual subscriptions for Educational licenses of Vue xStream and Infinite are available respectively for $149 and $99 per seat and per year. Upgrades to Vue 8 are free for owners of active educational licenses of Vue 7.5.
Site licensing discounts are available for both products. Contact e-on software for further details and pricing information.
Special Offers:
Customers who purchased Vue 7.5 xStream or Vue 7.5 Infinite between October 1, 2009 and October 12, 2009 are eligible for a Late Buyers special and will receive their upgrade at no charge. Such customers will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to get their upgrade.
Customers who purchased Vue 7.5 xStream or Vue 7.5 Infinite after October 12, 2009 will also receive their upgrade to Vue 8 at no charge, following the terms of their complimentary 30 day maintenance.
E-on software is also offering the option to purchase Vue 8 Infinite and xStream pre-bundled with a yearly maintenance plan, providing a saving of respectively $100 and $200 on the regular cost of maintenance.
All special offers will end on January 4, 2010.
E-on software will be releasing a Personal Learning Edition of Vue 8 Infinite and xStream later in the year.