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Does anyone here have experience with Ozone or Vue Xtream? I'm wondering if these atmosphere systems can only be rendered with mental ray or VRay. What are these programs actually creating? Maps for the environment or actual cloud geometry?

http://www.ozone-plugin.com/

The skies look really nice.

I'm not sure the answers, but whatever it is I want it! Actually part of why I downloaded the free Bryce Pro thing right now is they have skies in there as well which you can render out, but I don't believe they are HDR.

Best,
Jason.

I have Xstream. My understanding is that it will only render with Vray or mental ray, and I'm not even sure they are actually rendering the Vue elements. I think it might be the Vue engine that is doing those parts - not really sure.

I haven't done a ton of stuff with it yet - still learning and playing.

In terms of what they create - it depends I think on the atmosphere model you select (there are 4), but you can definitely create geometry that is rendered with volumetric shaders to create the more realistic clouds. They can be used to create just about any sort of shape in smoke/vapour too - it's pretty cool.

The volumetric shading of Vue is actually pretty impressive. It's capable of some amazing stuff that I hadn't realized it could do. But it makes Maxwell look like a biased rending speed demon when doing hi-res stuff

/b

I use Vue xStream to make skies to use with Maxwell. I create a 360 degree render and save as an .hdr. In Photoshop I duplicate the layer and set to multiply and save again as .hdr.

I've also exported Vue plants and terrains and used them in C4D and rendered in Maxwell. I have to redo the materials in Maxwell's material editor. It's a pain though, and I wish I could render directly from Vue to Maxwell.

Walter

Thanks, it's good to know that there's a workflow that works. I'm curious about the quality of the hdr that is rendered out for use as an environment map.

Since I'm just a hobbyist the quality has been good enough for me so far. When rendering them from Vue I haven't set the render settings all that high, and I'm not a Vue expert either. Someone more skilled could probably come up with a better result. If you like I can send you a couple of samples. I'd post a render but I forgot to renew my domain.

Walter

Thanks Walter. You can post your images to photobucket and link them here. That's what I use.

Brian, I sent you 2 zipped hdr images. I apologize for the file size, and I hope you receive them.

Walter

Thanks! I'll take a look at them!

My impression is that the HDRs created with Vue are poor -unfortunately. I tried lighting a scene with a sky system then replaced it with an HDR of the same and re rendered the scene. They did not look at all the same. When posting a Q to their forum one of the tech support were like -why would you want to do that?

I haven't had good results when using the hdrs inside Maxwell either.

A lot of stability issues with the software as well -at least with my machine and setup.

But I would love to be proven wrong. So pls investigate and let me know what you find.

The concept is great and unique...

I have VUE Infinite 9.5. I m able to save my sky renders out as .hdr and .Exr straight from VUE. I have not tried any yet as IBL in Maxwell.

Got your email, I'll check it out, thanks!

I played with it. The coloration was fine but no hard shadows. I would like to know how to get the hard shadows produced. I guess it is a quality issue. Still wondering if it can be achieved with VUE.