VUE — Reference Manual

Bentley Systems France – E-on Software S.A.R.L

15-17 Rue Traversière
75012 PARIS – FRANCE
 Phone +33 (0)1 83 64 46 95

Web : info.e-onsoftware.com
Support and Feedback : info.e-onsoftware.com/support

Trademarks

VUE, VUE Creator, PlantFactory, PlantFactory Creator, e-on Creator Solution, e-on Professional Solution,
e-on Enterprise Solution, Cornucopia3D, Mover, SolidGrowth, Dynamic Motion Reaction, Solid3D, Render-
Cow, SmartCow, NewCow, Hybrid 2.5D, AccuShadows, EasyGI, SmartGraph, EcoSystem, “The Natural 3D
Studio”, “Natural 3D”, “The Art of Natural 3D”, “Solutions for Natural 3D Environments”, ”Digital Nature”,
”Immersive Nature” are trademarks or registered trademarks of e-on software, SARL.
Windows, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11 are registered trademarks of Microsoft, Inc.
QuickTime, Mac and OS X are registered trademarks of Apple, inc.
Flash and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe, Inc.
3ds Max, Maya, Revit and Softimage are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc.
LightWave is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc.
Cinema 4D is a registered trademark of Maxon, Inc.
Poser is a registered trademark of Bondware, Inc.
RealMovie is a registered trademark of RealNetworks, Inc.
ArchiCAD is a registered trademark of Graphisoft, Inc.
MicroStation is a registered trademark of Bentley, Inc.
CityEngine is a registered trademark of ESRI, Inc.
SketchUp is a registered trademark of Trimble, Inc.
Unreal is a registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc.
All other product and brand names mentioned in this manual are used for identification purposes only.
They may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and, as such, remain the exclusive property of their
respective holders.

Copyright

VUE Program, PlantFactory Program ©1997-2024 e-on software, SARL. All rights reserved.
VUE Documentation, PlantFactory Documentation ©1997-2024 e-on software, SARL. All rights reserved.
This manual, as well as the software described in it is furnished under a license agreement and may only
be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license agreement. Information in this document
is subject to change without notice and does not represent product specification or commitment on the

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part of e-on software, SARL. Algorithms used inside this software were developed for visual performance
only, and may not constitute a precise simulation of real phenomena.
Warning: This software and the accompanying documentation are protected by U.S. copyright law as well
as by international intellectual property conventions. Any reproduction, sale, transfer, transcription, stor-
age in a retrieval system, translation into any language in any form or distribution by any means whatso-
ever of this software or accompanying documentation, in part or in full, without the prior written permis-
sion from e-on software, SARL is strictly forbidden. Any such act shall constitute a copyright violation and
shall be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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Contents
1 Getting Started

Introduction 49
System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Default Folders for All Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Installing VUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Installing VUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Silent-mode installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Installing RenderCow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Installing RenderNode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Install RenderNode Integration Plug-ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Welcome Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Feeling “At Home” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Checking Video Board Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Importing Files from Previous Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Legacy Content Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Memory Management and Fault Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Memory Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fault Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
OpenGL Crash Interceptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Embedded Error Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Compatibility Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Downloading the Extra Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
PlantCatalog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Interface Overview 73
Dialog Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Customizing the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Selecting an Interface “Model” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Further Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Docking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Undocking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Resizing the ViewPorts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

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3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Active View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Maximizing / Resizing Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Full Screen Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
ToolTips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
View Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Saving Default Viewport Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Quick Render. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Saving Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Multi­Pass, Mask and G­Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Additional ViewPorts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Adding a viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
To display an additional viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Displaying a camera that is not active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Navigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Navigating in Camera Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Navigating in Orthographic Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Double Action Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Unfoldable Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Top Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Left Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Scene Information Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Object Properties Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Aspect Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Preview Color and Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Numerics Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Animation Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Forward Dynamics (Linking and Tracking) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Camera Control Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Render Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Camera Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Adjusting a Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Synchronized Cameras and Spotlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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World Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Status Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Objects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Materials Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Increasing Responsiveness in Large Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Material Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Editing Multiple Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Material Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Bottom Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Library Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Links Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Animation Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
The Main Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Auto-Keyframing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Moving around in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Constraining the Current Time Slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Rendering the Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
The Properties Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
The Animation Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
The Animation Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Visual Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Loading other Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Browser Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Virtual Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Plant Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Downloading Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Scene Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Grouped Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
HiDPI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Saving Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Thumbnail Previews in Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
How to use it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
VUE's Installed Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

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Understanding VUE 152

Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Clipping Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Drag and Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Popup Menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
3D Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
World Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Object Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Material Mapping Coordinates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Ray Tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Render Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Soft Shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Ray-Traced Soft Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Shadow Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Area Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Blurred Transparencies and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Reflection Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Depth of Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Hybrid 2.5D Blurring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Distributed Ray-Tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Hybrid 2.5D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Limitation of Hybrid 2.5D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Enabling Hybrid 2.5D Blurring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Fast Hybrid 2.5D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Hypertextures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Bump Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Displacement Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Light Related Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Lens Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Glow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Volumetric Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Volumetric and Spectral Atmospheres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Volumetric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Godrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Volumetric Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

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Volumetric Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Spectral Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Caustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Physically Accurate Caustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Dispersion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Ambient Occlusion, Global Illumination and Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
HDRI and Image Based Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Illumination Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Sub­Surface Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Multiple Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Advanced Effects Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
EcoSystem Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Framing and Picture Composition 186
Making Better Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Choosing the Viewpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Moving the Perspective Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Picture Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Center of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Light and Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Patterns, Colors and Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Power of Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Options and Preferences 192
General Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Generic Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Numeric edition options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Mouse/trackpad configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Undo/Redo Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Interface scaling and colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
3D view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Gamma Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Screen gamma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Default gamma for image import. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

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Default gamma for image output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Working with linear data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
View Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Maintain Instant Draw Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Degraded Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Units & Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Length Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Snapping Grid Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Order of Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
World Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Spherical scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Sea Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Triggers and Trigger Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Shortcuts Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Import Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
VUE Content Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Image Viewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Texture file tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Additional Texture Map Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
OpenGL Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
3D View Display Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
OpenGL Texturing Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
OpenGL Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
OpenGL Atmosphere Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Preview Dynamic EcoSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
OpenGL Clipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Triggers and Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Render Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Render Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Preview Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

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Scene Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Load/Save Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Object Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
EcoSystem Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

2 Building Scenes

Creating Objects 237

Primitive Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Infinite Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Alpha Planes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Real­World Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Map View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Displaying a Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Geographical View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Resolution of Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Area to Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Importing a Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Tile Cache Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Data Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Data Attribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Plants From PlantFactory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Polygon Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Rigged Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
A Rock as an EcoSystem Specimen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
MetaClouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Creating MetaClouds from Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Converting Objects to MetaClouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Conversion Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Performance considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

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Fine­tuning and Previewing MetaClouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Fine-tuning the MetaCloud shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Fine-tuning the Cloud Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
MetaCloud interactive preview settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Creating MetaClouds from VDB files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Lighting & Effects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Converting Clouds To VDB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Simple Light Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Area Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Group Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Boolean Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Metablobs and Hyperblobs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Working with Group Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Ventilators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Camera Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Advanced Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Editing Objects 275
Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Inside the 3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Inside the World Browser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
By Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Walking through a Selection of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Deselecting Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Moving Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Rotating Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Inside the 3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Resizing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Inside the 3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Twisting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Inside the 3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Using the Numerics Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

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Gizmo Manipulators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Selecting the Appropriate Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
The Position Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
The Rotation Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
The Size Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Gizmo Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Customizing Gizmo Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Changing Object Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Changing Object Preview Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Editing Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Point Light and Quadratic Point Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Spot Light and Quadratic Spot Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Lens Flare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Light Gel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Volumetric Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Shadow and Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Light Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Editing Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Editing Bodies of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Geometry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Use Global Wave Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Foam Along Coasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Foam Over Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Underwater Caustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Changing the MetaWater Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Editing Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Applying Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Ventilators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Editing Plant Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Editing Polygon Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Polygon Mesh Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Mesh Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Turbo Smooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

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Illumination Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Published Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Decimating Imported Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Baking Objects to Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Mesh Baking for Internal Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Direct Re­Posing of Rigged Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Animation Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Editing the Torus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Torus Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Editing 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Editing Alpha Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Alpha Plane Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Billboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Editing Planets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Boolean Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Boolean Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Boolean Intersection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Boolean Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Metablobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Metablob Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Hyperblobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Hyperblob Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Using Hyperblobs in EcoSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Ventilators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Ventilators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Directional Ventilators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Replacing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Saving Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Working with Pixologic ZBrush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Installing GoZBrush for VUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
From VUE to ZBrush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Scatter ­­ Replicate Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Scatter Objects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Replicate Objects Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

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Camera Options and Framing 333

Framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Frame Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Display Framing Strips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Safe Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Field Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Golden Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Using the Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Managing Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Camera Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Selection and Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Focusing on Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Camera Backdrop Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Advanced Camera Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Advanced Camera Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Camera Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Rendering 349
Bucket Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Render Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Preset Render Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Render Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Render What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
G-Buffer / Multi-Pass Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Enable Diagnosis Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Enable Relighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Render Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Advanced Effects Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Anti­Aliasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Indirect Lighting Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Re-use indirect lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Deterministic indirect lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Picture Size and Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Locking User Defined Aspect Ratio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Add Information Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

15
VUE — Reference Manual

Panoramic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Stereoscopic rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Convergence modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Render Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Rendering the Selected Render Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Memory Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Closing the Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
G­Buffer Multi­Pass Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
G­Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Saving Pictures as RLA or RPF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Saving Animations as RLA or RPF Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Multi­Pass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Rendering Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Extra Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Layer Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Object Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Material Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
EcoSystem Material Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Cloud Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Saving as Multi-Layer Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Sub­Ray Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Blur Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Number of Passes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Advanced Effects Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Photon Maps Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Anti­Aliasing Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Anti­Aliasing Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Object Anti-Aliasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
Anti-Aliasing Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
Subrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Texture Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Texture Anti-Aliasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

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Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Rendering To Screen ­­ The Render Display Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Current Render Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
The Render Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Comparison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Reloading useful data from stacked renders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Hiding the Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Post Render Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Last render preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Relighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Non Photo-Realistic rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Film Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Lens Glare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Post Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Non­Photorealistic Rendering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Activating NPR and selecting style presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
From the main toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
From the Avanced Camera Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
From the Post Render Options in the render stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Outline Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Line Style Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Line Distortion Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Line Cloning Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Shader Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Saving styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Path Tracer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Cycles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Rendering with Cycles ­­ Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
How the integration between VUE and Cycles works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Running Cycles as an interactive render engine in the viewport. . . . . . . . . . . 445
Cycles render settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Denoise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
Path Guiding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

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Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Light Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Tips and best practices for building and preparing scenes for Cycles . . . . . . . 452
General tips for improving baking speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
EcoSystems and plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Clouds & Atmospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Saving (Exporting) Images 460
Saving Animations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

3 Importing and Exporting

Importing Objects 463

Import Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Poser Import Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Animation Import. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Re­Posing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Rendering Using the Poser Shader Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Exporting Content 473
Export Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Left Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Geometry settings and output format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Asset types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Asset types with specific options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Load/Save Export Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Exporting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Exporting Entire Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
USD Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
EcoSystem Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

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 VUE — Reference Manual

Export Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Export Objects on a Per­Object Basis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
PTex Export Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

4 The Editors

Terrain Editor 509

Terrain Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Heightfield Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Procedural Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Infinite Procedural Terrains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Terrain Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Touching Up Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
Mapping Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
Changing Mapping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
Spherical Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Creating and Manipulating a Spherical Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Basic Spherical Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Planet Spherical Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Planetary Mapping Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Objects in Spherical Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Atmospheres in Spherical Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Editing Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
Handling the 3D Terrain View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Terrain Editor Top Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Terrain Editor ­­ Predefined Terrain Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Terrain Editor ­­ Sculpting Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
Terrain Editor ­­ Brush Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Terrain Editor ­­ Painting Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Terrain Editor ­­ Procedural Altitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
Terrain Editor ­­ Zones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Terrain Editor ­­ Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Terrain Editor ­­ Exporting Terrain Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
Geo­Located Elevation Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Terrain Editor ­­ Importing Terrain Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544

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VUE — Reference Manual

Hint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
User Touch­up Graph Node ­­ Heightfield Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Text Editor 549
Interface Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Text Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Text Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Text Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
Using Vector Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Bevel Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Extrusion Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Materials Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Text Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Plant Editor 560
Plant Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
Plant Preview for PlantFactory Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Mesh Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Published Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Editing Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Trunk and Branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
All Subsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Empty Subsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Trunk and Branch Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Trunk and Branch Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Leaves and Petals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
All Subsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Empty Subsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Leaf and Petal Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Leaf and Petal Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

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Creating Variations of the Same Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571

Creating New Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Exporting Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Leaf Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Response To Wind Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
For VUE .veg files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
For PlantFactory .tpf files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Using PlantFactory Plants With Presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Atmospheres 578
Loading an Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Sun Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Light Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Global Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Light Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Auto Decay Sunlight Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Changes for Photometric Atmospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Albedo Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Sky Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Clouds Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
Standard Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Volumetric Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Spectral Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Simple Cloud Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Advanced editing of clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Cloud Layers as Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Cloud Layer Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Advanced Cloud Material Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
The basics of designing Spectral Clouds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
Color & Density Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
Large scale density Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Lighting & Effects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
SmartClouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Parameter descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

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Fog and Haze Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

Fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Standard Atmosphere Model Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Haze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Volumetric Atmosphere Model Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Sky, Fog & Haze Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Fog and Haze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
Global Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Wind Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
Adjusting Breeze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Breeze Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Gusts of Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Influence of Wind Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Fluttering of Leaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Breeze Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
Effects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642
Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642
Rainbow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Ice Rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Default Lens Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Environment Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Separate Illumination Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Default Reflection Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Use Environment Map Beyond Atmosphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648
Rain & Snow Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Saving an Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
Photometric atmospheres in Integration Plugins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
3dsMax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
V-Ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Cinema 4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Lightwave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Natural Film Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Automatic Sun Softness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
How to use it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656

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Env Map Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657

Environment Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Separate Illumination Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660
Separate Reflection Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660
Use Environment Map Beyond Atmosphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Light Editor 662
Lens Flare Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
Ring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Color Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Random Streaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Star Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
Fading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
Lens Flare Reflections Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
Polygonal Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Adding Interpolated Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
List of Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
New, Load, Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670
Gel Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
Volumetric Light Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
Volumetric Light Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673
Smoke/Dust in Volumetric Light Beams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673
Shadow Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
Enabling Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
Using Shadow Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Projected Hard Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Softness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Additional Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
Lighting Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
Light Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679
Variable Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680
Photometric Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

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Influence Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Specular and Diffuse Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Objects Influenced by Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Material Editor 683
Types of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Multi­Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
Common Material Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
New, Load, Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
Material Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688
Material Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690
Layering Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
Material Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692
Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Basic Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694
Simple Materials in Basic Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
Color Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
Bump Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
Transparency Frame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696
Other Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Mixed Materials in Basic Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Layered Material in Basic Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
PBR Material in Basic Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700
Advanced Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701
Driving Material Settings with Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 702
Published Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Simple Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Material Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Automatic texture loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Channel mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Constant/None. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Mapped Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705
Procedural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

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Color Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710

Procedural Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711
Natural Grain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Color Blend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
Alpha Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
Bump Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
Normal Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715
Displacement Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
Highlights Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Transparency Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722
Reflection Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Translucency Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730
Effects Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732
Presence Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736
Texture Placement Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738
PBR Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742
Automatic texture loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Ambient Occlusion Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Metalness Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Roughness Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Clearcoat Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744
Normal Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744
Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744
Two­Sided Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745
Materials to Mix Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745
Alpha Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746
Mixed Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747
Materials to Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747
Distribution of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748
Smooth Blending Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748
Blending Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748

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Alpha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749
Influence of Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750
Influence of Altitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750
Influence of Slope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751
Influence of Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751
Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752
Grouped Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752
Alpha Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Presence Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Slope Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754
Influence of Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754
Volumetric Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755
Color and Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756
Density Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756
Volumetric Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756
Lighting and Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757
Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757
Flare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758
Volume Shaded Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Hypertextures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Origin of Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Velocity of Material Origin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Global Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Dissolve Near Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Layered Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761
Multi­Layer Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Adding a Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Changing the Order of Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Presence of Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763
Material Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763
The Shared Material Layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763
Texture File Tag Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766
False positives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

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Preserve existing mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Special cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767
Function Graph 768
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769
The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769
What Is a Graph? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769
Input and Output Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769
Output Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770
Multiple and Master Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770
Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771
Types of Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772
Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772
Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773
Function Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
Node Selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
Adding a node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
Connecting Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775
Resizing nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776
Replacing a node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776
Deleting a node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776
Searching for nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776
MetaNodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Node frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Node and Function Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
Published Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
Main Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781
Node Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783
Input Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785
Noise Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791
Common Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791
Cellular Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791
Distributed Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803
Flat Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823
Line Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824

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Math Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827

Other Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840
Perlin Noises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842
Square Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848
Cyclic Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 850
Fractal Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851
Color Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
Color Creation Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
Color Correction Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907
Texture Map Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909
Mapping Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909
UV Coordinates Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919
Filter Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919
Environment Sensitive Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919
Recursive Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922
Input Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925
Constant Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Constant Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Constant Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Constant Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Constant Vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Random Constant Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Value From List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Connectable Constant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931
Turbulence Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931
Combiner Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949
Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949
Combiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950
Color Combiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951
Add . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
Subtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
Multiply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
Input Selector Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
Image Combiner Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953
PBR Workflow Converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953

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Emissive to Luminous Converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954

Dynamics Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954
Layout Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 957
Area Demarcation Node. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 957
Spline Proximity Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 958
Scene Objects Mask Node. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 964
Bounding Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965
Math Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 967
Common Math Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 967
Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 968
Vector Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969
Vector Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 970
Trigonometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975
MetaNodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976
Heightfield Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 978
Erosion nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 979
Slope node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 980
Convexity node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 980
Blur node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 980
Terraces node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 981
Auto-mapping node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985
Wetness Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985
Erosion Presets and Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 987
Nodes Used in Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
Node Selector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
Function Output Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 997
Output Observer for a Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998
Solo Preview Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998
Output Observer for Terrain Altitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998
Node Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999
Node Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999
Searching for Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999
Extracting Constant Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000
Published Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000
Multi­edition of nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001
Link Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001

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Function Node Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1002

Curves and Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003
Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003
Creating Turbulence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003
Slope Dependent Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003
Variable Color­Texture Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1004
Published Parameter Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005
Element to edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005
Edition Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005
Edition mode: Parameter interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1006
Publishing and unpublishing groups and parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1006
Configuring a published parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
Parameter properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
Edition mode: Display conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009
Creating a display rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009
Configuring a display rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010
Assigning parameters that should be controlled by the rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011
Combining multiple rules for a parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011
Scene Graph Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012
Object Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013
Connecting Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013
External Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013
Recall Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1014
Exporting Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1015
Spline Editor 1016
Creation and Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1016
Additional Spline Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019
Material Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019
Material/EcoSystem Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020
Width settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1021
Project/populate material along spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1021
Project/populate material inside enclosed area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022
Cut out other EcoSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022
Objects influenced by projection and cut-out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022
Spline Cross­Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1024
Affect Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1026

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UV Mapping along a Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027

Editing Filters 1030
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1030
Bounds (profile tab) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031
Clamping (profile tab) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031
Filter interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032
Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032
Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034
The curve area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034
Navigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034
Adding Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
Modifying Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
Deleting Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
Influences Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
Dependent of Altitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036
Dependent of Slope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037
Dependent of Orientation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037
Editing Color Maps 1038
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1038
Adding Key Colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039
Adding Key Opacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039
Modifying Key Colors & Opacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040
Manipulating Multiple Key Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040
Deleting Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
Advanced Opacity Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
New, Load, Save. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
Selecting Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
Quick Color Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1042
Color Selection Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1043
Favorite Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1044
Summary of Materials 1045
Loading, Editing and Scaling Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046
Interface Colors 1047
Flat Interface Colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047
New, Load, Save. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049

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Macros 1050
Recording Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1050
Playing Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1050
Macro QuickLaunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1051

5 EcoSystems

Painting EcoSystems 1056

EcoSystem Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1056
EcoSystem Painter Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1058
Painting With Brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059
Building the EcoSystem Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059
Influencing the EcoSystem Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1060
Global Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061
EcoSystem Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1062
Paint What?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1062
Global EcoSystem Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063
Multiple Global EcoSystem Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063
Using the Paint Function to Modify EcoSystem Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1064
EcoSystem Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1065
Brush Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1065
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066
Environment Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1069
Creating an EcoSystem Content Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071
Selecting EcoSystem Instances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072
Selecting EcoSystem Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1073
Manipulating Selected Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1074
The VUE EcoParticle System 1076
Setting up an EcoParticle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1077
General Tab of the Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1077
Particle Characteristics Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1078
Properties Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1078
Evolution Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079
Periodic Emission Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079
Collision Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080
Death Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080

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Bake Particle Motion Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080

Global Particle Configuration Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081
General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081
Collision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082
Forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082
Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1083
Density Tab of the Material Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1084
Scaling & Orientation Tab of the Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085
The Particles Effector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085
Effector Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085
Animating an EcoParticle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1086
Limitations of the EcoParticle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1086
EcoSystems in the Material Editor 1087
Temporary Global Settings for Quality Display of EcoSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . 1089
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1090
EcoSystem Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1090
EcoSystem Item Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1093
Preview Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1094
Underlying Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095
Fast Population Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095
Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1096
Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1097
Density Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1098
Overall Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1098
Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1099
Offset from Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1099
Slope Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100
Clumping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100
Variable Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100
Decay near Foreign Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101
Scaling & Orientation Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102
Overall Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102
Maximum Size Variation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102
Direction from Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103
Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103
Variable Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104

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Shrink at Low Densities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104

Lean Out at Low Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105
Color Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105
Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105
Color at Low Densities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106
Variable Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106
Presence Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107
Altitude Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107
Slope Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
Influence of Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
Animation Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1109
Converting Objects To EcoSystem Instances 1110
EcoSystem Export 1111

6 Animating Scenes

Animating from Scratch 1115

Animation Properties Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115
Types of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115
Animation Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1117
Step 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118
Step 2: Selecting a Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118
Step 3: Global Animation Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119
Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119
Main Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1120
Speed Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121
Step 4: Advanced Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121
Spin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122
Note on Spin and Pivots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122
Vibrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1123
Step 5: Object Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124
Adding Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124
Editing Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
Inserting Way Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
Deleting Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
Scrolling/Zooming the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125

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Restrictions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
The Tunnel Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126
Step 6: Animation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126
Step 7: Animation Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1127
Step 8: Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1128
Animating with the Timeline 1129
Navigating Inside the Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1130
Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1131
Animation Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1131
Standard Primitive, Polygon Mesh, Group, Boolean Object, and Metablob and
Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132
Torus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132
Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133
Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133
Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133
Point Light and Quadratic Point Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133
Spot Light and Quadratic Spot Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134
Ventilators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134
Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134
Animating Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135
Creating the Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135
Published Parameters for Animated Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
Published Parameters for Animated Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
Working with Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
Keyframe Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
Selecting Keyframes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
Moving Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137
Adding Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137
Copy-Pasting Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137
Deleting Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1138
Modifying the Value of a Keyframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1138
Keyframe Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1138
Keyframe Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1141
Quaternion vs. Euler Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1141

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Editing Paths in 3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142

Selecting Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142
Gray Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143
Moving Way Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143
Editing Way Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143
Changing Rigged Mesh Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143
Multi­Spins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143
Animating Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1144
Breeze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1144
Animating Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1144
Animating Plant Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145
Animating Torus Thickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145
Camera Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1146
Animated Post Processing and Motion­Blur Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1147
Animating Post Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1147
Animating Motion Blur Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1147
Animating Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1148
Material Surface Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1148
Material Velocity Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1149
Complete Material Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1149
Material graph animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150
Published Parameters for Animated Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150
Animated EcoSystem Population. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1151
Animating the Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1151
Atmosphere Keyframes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1151
Animating Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1152
Animating the Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153
Working with Animations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153
Pasting Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1153
Destroying Item Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154
Destroying Object Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154
Destroying Material Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154
Destroying Atmosphere Animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154
Shifting the Start of an Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1155
Changing the Duration of an Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1155

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Using Time Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156

Editing Time Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157
The Curve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157
Smooth Time Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157
Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1158
New, Load, Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159
Adding Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159
Modifying Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1160
Deleting Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1160
Animation Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1161
Look Ahead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1162
Smoothed Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1162
Changing the Duration of an Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1163
Spin and Vibrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1163
Motion Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1163
Influence of Acceleration on Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1164
Linking and Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1165
Linked Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1165
Tracking Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1165
Loose Linking and Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166
Forward Dynamics Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1167
Partial Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1167
Loose Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168
Object Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168
Camera Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168
Rendering the Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1170
Animation Render Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171
Channel Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171
Animation File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1172
Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173
Frame Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173
Timecode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173
Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1174
Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175
Closing the Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176

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Advanced Animation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176

Flicker Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176
Field Interlacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177
Pixel Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Automatic Illumination Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Animation Preview Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1179
Recovering TMP Files from an Aborted Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1180
Technical Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181
Rotating Look Ahead and Track Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181
Morphing Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181
Cloud Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1182
Morph Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1182
Synchronizing Cameras and Lights 1183
Import Synchronization Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183
VueSynch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1184
Installing Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1184
Generating Synchronization Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1184
Synchronizing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1185
Importing Vertex Keyframe Amimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1186
Exporting Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1187

7 Appendices

Mouse and Keyboard Operations 1191

Mouse Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1191
Inside any dialog and editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192
Inside the 2D/3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192
VUE navigation triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1192
Industry-standard navigation triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1193
Selecting and Dragging Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1193
Choosing transformation axes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1193
Using Bounding Box Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1195
When Editing Paths in 2D/3D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1196
Inside the World Browser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1196
Inside the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1197
Inside the Animation Wizard Path Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198

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Mouse Wheel Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198

Keyboard Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199
Interface Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199
Viewports and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1201
Object Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1201
Object Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1202
VUE Integration Plugins 1204
Standalone and Integrated Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204
VUE Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204
VUE Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1205
Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1205
V­Ray Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206
Supported Versions of the Host Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206
Adding the VUE Menu and Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206
3DS Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1207
Cinema 4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1207
LightWave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1208
Problem with Menu Display ­­ Incomplete Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1208
Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1210
Integration Plugins Options Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1210
Integration Plugin Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1210
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211
Scene File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211
Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1212
Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1212
Light Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1212
VUE Proxies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1212
Misc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1213
Render Options Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1214
Render VUE Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1215
LightWave renderer (LightWave only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1216
V-Ray (only applications supported for V-Ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1216
Post Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1216
Render Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1216
Final Gather Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217

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VUE Light Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1218

Native Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1218
VUE Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220
VUE Scene Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1221
Spherical scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1221
Sea Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222
VUE Render Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222
VUE Integration Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223
VUE Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223
Scene Display in Host Application Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1225
VUE Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1226
Proxy Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1226
VUE Proxy Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
Scene Loading Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
VUE Splines in a Host Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1228
Editing the VUE Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1228
Special Case for Lights and Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1229
Animating Your VUE Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230
Further Edition of the VUE Scene. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230
Display of the Proxy Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
3DS Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
Cinema4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
LightWave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
Editing Proxy Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1232
Scene Updates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1233
VUE Integration Plugins EcoSystem Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1234
Painting EcoSystems in 3DS Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1234
Painting EcoSystems in Cinema4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235
Notes about Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235
Rendering with VUE Integration Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235
Render Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1236
G­Buffer and Multi­Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1237
Post­Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1237
Advanced Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1238
Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1238

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Saving Global Illumination Prepass for Reuse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1238

Motion Blur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1238
Motion Blur with 3DS Max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239
Motion Blur with Cinema 4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239
Motion Blur Settings in Cinema 4D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239
Depth of Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1239
Specific Render Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1240
LightWave 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1240
Saving Your Work with VUE Integration Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242
Automatic Backup of 3DS Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242
Incorporating VUE Scenes inside Native Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242
Additional Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242
Sharing Scenes with Other Users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1243
Export Animation to VUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1243
Converting VUE Objects into Native Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Selecting and converting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Convert Tool options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1246
Geometry resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1246
Material export mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1246
Native material types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1247
Instance types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1248
After the conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1249
FBX Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
Camera Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
Supported features from Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
Nuke EXR Exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253
Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253
Relighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253
Tutorial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1254
VUE Integration Plugins EcoSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1254
Ecosystems on and with native objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1254
Loading of Carbon Scatter scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255
Display quality of ecosystem instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255
Proxy files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1256

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Network Rendering 1259

RenderCows vs. RenderNodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1259
Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1259
HyperVUE™ Network Rendering Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1260
RenderCow™ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
Maximimum number of RenderCow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
Setting Up RenderCows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
Installing a RenderCow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
Launching RenderCows at Boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
RenderCow Port Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
CPU Affinity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1263
Installing a RenderCow on the Computer Running VUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1263
Rendering With HyperVue™ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1263
Configuring HyperVUE™. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1264
Putting RenderCows to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1265
Starting a Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1265
Monitoring the Render Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1266
Aborting a Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1266
Managing RenderCows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267
Showing RenderCow Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267
Adding RenderCows During Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267
Pausing a RenderCow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267
Shutting Down a RenderCow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1268
Updating RenderCows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1268
RenderNodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1268
RenderNode Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269
RenderNode Network Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269
Temporary Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269
Command to Execute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1270
Arguments in the Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1270
Sample Setup for BackBurner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1271
Hints on Setting Up Your Network Rendering Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272
Setting Up RenderNodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272
Controlling RenderNodes via Command Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272
Saving Global Illumination Prepass for Reuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1274
Reusing a GI Prepass File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1274

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Integration Plugin Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1275

Saving Native Scenes for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1275
VUE Licenses for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1276
Setting­up Your Workstation for a Network Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1276
Python Scripting 1277
Python Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1277
Running Python Scripts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1278
Startup Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1278
Running Python from Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279
Creating Python Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279
Python Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279
Python Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1280
SkinVue 1281
Advanced PlantFactory Parameters 1283
2D Spline Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1283
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1283
Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1284
Axis Spline Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
The spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
3D view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
Control points manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
Tangents manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
Profile­Section Spline Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1288
The spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1290
Some math notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1290
Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1291
3D view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1291
Control points manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1291
Tangents manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1291
Section Spline Sets Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292
The section splines set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1293

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Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1293
Section curve editor (A). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
Control points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
3D preview (B) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
Longitudinal editor (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
Control point properties editor (D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295
Hot Tips 1296
Resuming Render. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1296
Using Layers for Faster Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1296
Resuming Animation Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1297
Using Motion Blur in Still Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1297
Avoiding Object Detection in Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1298
Rendering Time Dependent Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1298
Reducing Animation Render Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299
Compressing Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299
Opening Objects from the Command­Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1300
Troubleshooting 1301
Scenes Take Ages to Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1301
Camera Moves by Itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1302
Bright Fringes Appear at Wall Base in Radiosity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1302
Render Time Estimation is Pessimistic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303
Long Preparation Time for Small Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1303
Program Crashes Randomly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1304
Noise Appears in Volumetric Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1304
Atmosphere is Different in Preview and Final . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305
Undesired Lens Flares Appear on Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305
Missing Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305
Vector Graphics Don't Load in Text Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1306
Invisible Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1306
Unable to Select Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1306
Objects Don't Render. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1307
Close­up Materials Look Like Tiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1307
Look Ahead Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1307
Objects Overreact to Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1308

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Materials don't Move with Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1308

Objects Keep Getting Animated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1309
Animations Flicker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1309
Texture Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310
In Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310
Texture Filtering Will Influence 2 Components at Render. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310
Animations Pulsate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1311
Dark Triangles Appear on Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1311
Wrong Material Scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312
Soft Shadows Look Noisy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312
VUE Objects Lose Relative Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313
RenderCow Not Responding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313
Unable to Export Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1314
Volumetric Plugin Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1314
License Agreement 1315
TERMS AND CONDITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315
1. DEFINITIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315
2. GRANT OF LICENSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316
3. RESERVED RIGHTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316
4. TERM AND TERMINATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316
5. NO RENTAL OR COMMERCIAL HOSTING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
6. COPYRIGHT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
7. LIMITATIONS ON REVERSE ENGINEERING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
8. NO EXTENSION OF CAPABILITIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
9. Support Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
10. DISCLAIMER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1317
11. STATUTORY CONSUMER RIGHTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318
12. EXPORT CONTROLS AND SANCTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318
13. U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318
14. Entire Agreement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318
15. Amendments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1318
16. GOVERNING LAW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1319
17. Arbitration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1319
18. NOTICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1319

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Third Party Licenses 1320

Glossary 1321
Substance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321
PBR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321

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Section 1
Getting Started

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Introduction
System Requirements

VUE is a 64-bit application, designed for the 64-bit versions of Windows® 8, Windows® 10, Win-
dows® 11 and Intel macOS 10.14+ platforms.

Like all 3D packages, it is highly demanding in terms of computer power. Although the appli-
cation is totally multi-threaded to ensure the smoothest possible response, you have to realize
that there is a lot going on when you work in VUE. This is why we feel that running it on reason-
ably recent and fast computer is best suited. We recommend a minimum of 16GB of RAM.

If you find that the program is not responding as quickly as you would like it to, there are a
certain number of actions that you can take that will help speed it up. Please turn to Options
and Preferences for a complete description of these actions.

Installation

The VUE installation files are downloaded in .zip file format. Unzipping this file into a work
directory on your hard drive will give you all the files you need to install the software on your
computer.

Default Folders for All Versions

By default, VUE installs in the following folders:

Windows 8, Windows 10 or Windows 11:

• Program files: c:\Program Files\e-on software\
• Configuration files: c:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\e-on software\
• Content Library: c:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware\VUE\
• PlantCatalog files: c:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware\PlantCatalog\
Some are hidden directories. You will need to have the capability of seeing this directory and
its folders turned on the the Windows Folder option of the Control Panel.

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Macintosh:
• Program files: Applications/
• Configuration files: Users/[User Name]/Library/Application Support/e-on software/
VUE/
• Content Library: /Users/Shared/e-onsoftware/VUE/
• PlantCatalog files: /Users/Shared/e-onsoftware/PlantCatalog/
VUE will also create an empty content directory structure for your own personal content in a
location that you can designate during installation. By default, this is created on the PC in the
/Users/[Your User Name]/Documents/e-on software/VUE/ directory. On the Mac, this directory
with its set of folders is created in the /Users/[Your User Name]/Documents/e-on software/VUE/
directory.

You can change the destination folders for the Program files and Content files at installation
time.

Installing VUE

Installing VUE
Follow these steps to install VUE onto your computer. Double-click on the Setup application
file. The software will now be installed.

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Language

Software language Select the language you want to use VUE in, and click Next.

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Introduction

Introduction An introduction dialog appears, with general instructions. Please read them care-
fully before clicking Next.

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Software License Agreement

Software License Agreement Please read the license agreement carefully. These terms must be
agreed to in order to continue with the installation.

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Product Choice

Product Choice Choose the application you want to install. 3 possible choices:
• VUE: will install VUE standalone application. Also installs plug-ins in different 3D host
applications, if applicable.
• RenderNode: will install both a command line render tool (to render .vue scenes created
in VUE), and RenderNode plug-in(s) in 3rd party 3D host applications. More details here:
Installing RenderNode
• RenderCow: will install a RenderCow application – which can take part in a network ren-
der (initiated from HyperVUE network manager). More details here: Installing Render-
Cow
Then, click Next to continue the installation.

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User Information

User Information Enter your name and company, then, click Next to continue the installation.

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Installation paths

Installation paths

Installation paths At this step, you can change the installation path for both the application and
content files.
• Application folder: define path where VUE should be installed.
• Default user folder: root folder where your personal assets or scenes will be loaded and
saved by default.
• Content library is the content installed with VUE. You can choose not to install it (typically
if you already installed it before) by unchecking the option.
• PlantCatalog folder: this folder is shared with other e-on software products. It’s the di-
rectory where you would install the PlantCatalog™ collections, if applicable. Please read
the PlantCatalog section to know how to purchase or obtain those collections.
Press Next to validate those paths and continue.

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Installing VUE as a Plugin

Plugins

Installing Plugins

You have the possibility to install VUE as a plug-in in different 3D host applications (Maya, 3DS
Max, Cinema 4D and LightWave). At this step, you can check the applications you want to install
the VUE plugin in. The installer should automatically detect the available host applications. In
some cases (typically if you installed host applications to custom locations), you will have to
check the application(s) manually, and then browse to the folder where it is installed on your
machine.

For more information, refer to the general introduction to VUE Integration Plugins.

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V­Ray Configuration

V-Ray Configuration

V-Ray Configuration If one or several host applications support V-Ray, this screen will let you
configure it. Make sure that the V-Ray version is correct for every host application listed here,
and then click Next.

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Final Installation Steps

Required Dependencies

Required Dependencies VUE will first install the required dependencies. Press Next when this
completes.

Installation Progress

Installation Progress The installation can be cancelled at any time as long as the progress bar
is visible by clicking on Cancel. If the installation is cancelled, the installation process must be
restarted completely, as described above.

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Installation Complete

Installation Complete The software has now been installed and the installation program will
end. Additionally, you can choose to:
• launch the application now: the program will be started as soon as the installation pro-
gram is closed.
• open a startup help page in your web browser: this help page is a basic introduction
to VUE.
• create a shortcut on your desktop: only possible on Windows.

Silent­mode installation
You can run the installation in silent mode (no graphic interface), which can be useful to deploy
VUE on a local network, via a script. To do so, you must add -q or -quiet to the command line,
and then populate the command line with following options:
• -quiet, -q: silent mode
• -product '<PRODUCT_NAME>' (required): specifies the product to install. Possible val-
ues are:
– VUE: install VUE (standalone application and plug-ins)
– RenderNode: install VUE RenderNode (command-line rendering tool and plug-ins)

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– RenderCow: install VUE RenderCow

• -dest_path '<PRODUCT_NAME>': specifies the destination folder for the application
• -doc_path '<PRODUCT_NAME>': specifies the destination folder for content library
• -user_doc_path '<PRODUCT_NAME>': specifies the destination path for user’s collec-
tions
• -no_content: do not install content
• -floating: install a floating license
• -serial '<ACTIVATION_KEY>': specifies the activation key
• -rlm_ls_host '<HOST_NAME>': specifies the host name (or IP address) of the machine
where the RLM License Server is running
• -rlm_ls_port '<RLM_PORT>': specifies a custom RLM License Server port.
• -lang '<LANG_NAME>': specifies the application language. Possible values are:
– en: English
– fr: French
– de: German
• -user '<USER_NAME>': specifies the user name (as displayed in About screen)
• -company '<COMPANY_NAME>': specifies the user’s company name (as displayed in About
screen)
• -help, -h: activate help mode (displays a screen with all available options)
• -log '<FILE_PATH>': specifies a custom path for installer logs
Note:

For the perpetual freeware version of VUE, use the -floating option, and no -serial field.

Installing RenderCow

RenderCow is an application involved in VUE’s own network rendering system called Hyper-
VUE™ Before installing it, please make sure you are familiar with HyperVUE Network Rendering

The installation process is almost the same as for VUE, except that you will not have to choose
any license type, nor enter an activation key, as the license of the master VUE application will
be used during the whole network rendering process. Also, no content library will be installed.

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Installation Complete

Installation Complete At the end of the installation, you can choose to auto-run the RenderCow
application at system boot.

This is recommended, as it will avoid having to start it manually on each machine every time a
reboot is needed.

Installing RenderNode

A RenderNode is composed of 2 different kinds of tools:

• a command-line render application (see RenderNode command-line tool documentation
for more details)
• plug-ins for third-party 3D applications (see RenderNode Integration Plug-ins for more
details)
The installation process is exactly the same as described here.

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Install RenderNode Integration Plug­ins

RenderNode plug-ins installation is identical to standard VUE Integration Plugins Installation.

Welcome Dialog

The Welcome Dialog appears when you open VUE.

Startup Screen

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It displays the most recent files you’ve worked on for selection (on the left side) or you can
browse to open another file.

On the right is a list of preset files to choose from for starting a new image file.

There are links to various resources:

• Kickstart Tutorial: provides access to the beginning tutorial for VUE.
• Reference Manual: accesses the VUE wiki
• My license: displays the activation key for this product.
• Interface preset: you can select a keyboard interface for VUE that matches other soft-
ware products like Max, Maya and others (see Feeling at Home section below).
• Preferences: opens the VUE Options page where you can set your preferences.
• About this product: displays product name, registered users name and the build number
of the most current update applied.
• e-on software Website: displays the front page of the e-on website.
If you don’t want to see this dialog next time you launch VUE, check the Don’t show this dialog
again option at the bottom of the dialog. If you decide you want to see it again, you can access
the screen from the Help>Show startup panel option on the VUE menu.

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User Interface Presets Dialog

Feeling “At Home”

If you are used to working with other 3D software packages, you have probably grown very
accustomed to the particular keyboard shortcuts of that package. Learning a whole new set
of keyboard shortcuts is probably not something you are looking forward to! This is why we
have implemented the ability to set the interface to match as closely as possible, the interface
of other popular 3D packages.

The first time you launch VUE, a dialog will popup letting you select the type of interface you are
familiar with so that VUE’s interface can be adjusted to make you feel “at home” as much as pos-
sible. Simply select the type of interface of your choice and press OK. The keyboard shortcuts
and color scheme of the VUE interface will be adjusted to match your selection.

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Checking Video Board Compatibility

Because VUE makes extensive use of advanced OpenGL features, low quality video boards with
obsolete drivers will not perform appropriately.

To ensure that the operation of your software is as smooth as possible, a video board checking
mechanism has been implemented in VUE. What this does is check that your video board and
driver are on our Qualified Hardware list, and determine the video capabilities in order to define
appropriate default settings for some settings (read below).

If a potential problem is detected with your video board, either because your video board doesn’t
appear on our list of Qualified Hardware, or because you are using an obsolete driver, a warning
will appear explaining what the problem is. If the problem is severe, you will be given the op-
tion to disable OpenGL hardware acceleration. It is highly recommended that you either ensure
that your video board meets our standards, or that you disable OpenGL hardware acceleration.
Failing to do so may result in highly unreliable performance.

We update our Qualified Hardware list regularly. Please help us by taking the time to report any
issues or driver fixes to our technical support.

VUE checks your video board the first time it starts on your machine (after a fresh installation),
and you can also ask VUE to check it again and revert some settings to their defaults by click-
ing Auto display config in the 3D View Display Quality frame of the Display Options tab in VUE
Options panel.

The settings affected when resetting to the recommended defaults are Max usable video mem-
ory, Limit OpenGL polygons and Max number of displayed instances.

Note: the display quality settings related to texturing, lighting, atmosphere and dynamic EcoSys-
tems previews in the OpenGL viewports are not affected by the reset. These options are yours
to customize depending on personal preference, the complexity of your scenes and the focus
of your workflow.

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Importing Files from Previous Versions

If you purchased some copy-protected content from Cornucopia3D for a previous version of
VUE, or if you created scenes containing plant species made in PlantFactory 2016 (or any older
version), you will be able to load it in this version of VUE, provided you register a special key file
which you have to request on the Technical Support Center.

Legacy Content Compatibility

Go to the Help > Legacy Content Compatibility menu.

Legacy Content Compatibility

Clicking the link in the middle of the dialog will open a web page where you can request your
legacy content compatibility file. Before submitting your ticket, please ensure you copy the
Host ID as displayed in the dialog, and indicate the e-mail address under which you had reg-
istered your previous licenses in Cornucopia3D or E-on Software’s former website. Once we

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receive all information, our support technicians will generate the .key file and send this by e-
mail.

Once you receive it, copy the file to your desktop (or anywhere on your disk), and locate the
file by clicking the Locate key file button. If keys are successfully read, your previous content
should load fine within this new version of VUE.

Afterwards, please make a backup of this file:

• Windows C:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware\EON_common\legacy_content.key
• MacOS /Users/Shared/e-onsoftware/EON_common/legacy_content.key
It can be used on another machine to load your former Cornucopia3D content without having
to request a new Legacy Content Compatibility Key.

Note:

Please be aware that the service to request a new key from technical support for future instal-
lations will not be available for much longer.

Memory Management and Fault Protec­

tion

Memory Management

VUE features advanced memory management technologies such as texture and geometry virtu-
alization. When the amount of RAM required to process a specific scene exceeds the amount of
physical RAM available on your system, your system will automatically store and retrieve data
to disk (virtualization).

Virtualization happens automatically, without any user action being required. The only side ef-
fect of virtualization, is that the application will become more and more sluggish as it becomes
increasingly large.

If you find that application response is becoming extremely slow, your memory may need re-
organizing. Select the menu command File | Purge Memory to automatically reorganize the
system’s memory and ensure memory defragmentation and cleaning up of any data that is not
immediately required (for instance, if you delete a very large object, this object stays in memory
in case you decide to undo this operation – by purging the memory, the object will be removed
from RAM and stored on disk, until it is completely removed when the delete operation goes

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out of the undo list).

Fault Protection

Fault protection is the generic term that covers the different technologies that have been im-
plemented in VUE in order to avoid as much as possible application crashes and loss of data,
as well as improve the behavior of the application on particular setups.

The most noticeable effects of these fault protection technologies will be some warnings when
your system is getting low on RAM, as well as automatic scene saving when the system returns
a memory allocation failure. The system may return such an error although system monitoring
tools indicate that there is still a lot of free memory available in the system – this type of error
is caused by what is known as memory fragmentation, and is, generally speaking, a result of
the fact that, unlike most other applications, 3D applications often require massive chunks of
memory to operate. The risk of a memory allocation errors occurring increases if your total
memory consumption exceeds half of the total memory available.

Whenever VUE’s fault protection technology intercepts such a memory allocation error, it will
attempt to save the current scene. Usually, the application will crash very shortly after saving
the scene (if not during saving…). Next time you restart the application, VUE will automatically
detect the backup scene and offer to reload it. However, because the system was in a very
unstable state at the time of saving this scene, you should be advised that it may not be valid
and could lead to another application crash.

OpenGL Crash Interceptor

There is a system in VUE that will try to intercept OpenGL crashes and make a backup of the
scene prior to signaling the user of the fault.

When that happens, the user has two choices: either to restart VUE or to try to continue working
with VUE. The second choice exists to allow for possible editing of the suspected problem area
before saving the scene and eventually restarting VUE.

During this time, all OpenGL zones will be grayed out.

When VUE is restarted, the user is given the option of loading the backup scene that was created
just after the crash. Refer back to the Memory Management section for more information.

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Embedded Error Reporting

Error Report

If VUE should encounter an error, it will bring up the E-on Software Error Report dialog. By
filling out and sending the report, a Crash Report is automatically created for this error on the
e-on software support center. These reports provide vital feedback to our maintenance effort.
If this product is not activated, no notification will be sent. While all of these reports are read
and routed to the development group when necessary, you probably will not receive any reply
from support technicians to this Crash Report.

Compatibility Mode

If the application crashes for any reason other than running out of memory, the next time you
restart it a message will appear offering you to enable the Compatibility Mode. Compatibility
mode has been designed to minimize the risks of incompatibilities between the application
and the particularities of each user’s setup (video board driver incompatibility, conflicting ap-
plications, etc.). What compatibility mode does is disable the features in VUE that may cause
the most problems (typically, advanced multi-threading and previewing options).

Note:

Don’t enable compatibility mode if you think you know why the application crashed. Enable it

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only if you find that the application crashes randomly without any apparent reason.

Following is the exact list of features disabled by the compatibility mode:

• Hardware acceleration of OpenGL in 3D views: VUE will use the slower, but 100% compli-
ant OpenGL mode instead,
• Background draw thread: some video boards have issues with this; also, this feature re-
quires a lot more OpenGL resources,
• Decimated mesh previews: decimating meshes requires a lot of system resources,
• Boolean and Metablob previews: like the decimated mesh previews, this requires a lot of
system resources,
• Automatic rendering of material previews: having too many threads running simultane-
ously can sometimes cause issues with certain setups,
• Automatic scene preview: this requires a lot of system resources.
• Multiple undo-redo operations: this also requires a lot of system resources.
Once you have enabled the compatibility mode, you can re-enable these feature one by one
using the Options dialog until you find the feature(s) that cause(s) problems with your particular
setup.

Downloading the Extra Content

In this version of VUE, Extra Content needs to be downloaded separately.

Extra Content Popup

We may implement an automatic download mechanism in a future version.

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PlantCatalog

If you use the perpetual freeware version of VUE, you can load all species available in the Plant-
Catalog™ without any additional activation. This content needs to be downloaded separately
from the Software Center.

To install this content, unzip and run the different PlantCatalog installers. By default, the con-
tent will be installed here:
• Windows C:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware\PlantCatalog\
• MacOS /Users/Shared/PlantCatalog/
Note:

On Windows, this is a hidden directory. You will need to have the capability of seeing this direc-
tory and its folders turned on the the Windows Folder option of the Control Panel.

This path can be customized during the installation (see here), or afterwards, from the Options
panel.

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Interface Overview

A snapshot of the main software interface

1. 3D Views 8. Object properties panel

2. Selected objects are drawn in red 9. Material of selected objects
3. Resize handles 10. Camera Control Center
4. Rotate handles 11. World Browser
5. Triangle means unfolded icon 12. Selected objects are highlighted
6. Dull icons are disabled 13. Camera view
7. Square dot for double action icon 14. Status bar

The VUE interface was designed with three goals in mind: ease-of-use, workflow and clarity.

This is why the interface is designed “in layers”. What this means is that every user works with
the program at his/her own level of proficiency. Although the initial impression may be that

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of excessive simplicity, as the user works along and delves in deeper, he will realize – de facto
– how many options and possibilities are truly available but couldn’t be seen at first glance.
Facing all these possibilities right from the start would have been overwhelming.

The final layout dedicates as much possible space to the 3D Views, because this is where the
user spends most of his time. Three large panels are available on the right, displaying all useful
scene and object information within mouse reach, thus allowing for quick navigation inside the
scene.

Dialog Bar

On the right edge of most dialogs you will notice a bar that contains a number of icons. This bar
is called the dialog bar. The icons in this bar depend on the dialog:
• OK: click this icon to close the dialog and accept the modifications.

• Cancel: click this icon to close the dialog and cancel all modifications.

• Help: click this icon to display contextual help information.

• New: click this icon to reset the settings in the dialog.

• Load: click this icon to load settings from the disk.

• Save: click this icon to save settings to the disk.

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Customizing the Interface

Selecting an Interface “Model”

The first time you launch VUE, a dialog will pop up asking you how you want to set up the pro-
gram’s interface. If you are used to working with another 3D application, you will have the op-
portunity to automatically customize the VUE interface so that your favorite keyboard shortcuts
work the same, the colors of the interface are familiar, and the overall feel of the application is
as close as possible to your favorite 3D application.

You can change the interface “model” anytime using the Load interface preset button in the
Options dialog.

Further Customization
You can modify the colors of the interface using the Interface Color Editor.

You can further customize the behavior of the interface and change Triggers_and_Modifiers
(Documentation/Getting_Started/Options_and_Preferences/Operations) using the Options di-
alog.

Docking

Toolbars and dockable dialogs may be rearranged at will in the main window. You can tell if a
dialog is dockable by just moving it in the interface. If it is dockable, available docking areas
will show in the interface. Freely floating windows can be moved by left-clicking on their upper
bar and dragging. While dragging, trapezoids show up in the other windows. You can dock
anywhere within the trapezoid. Moving the window and dropping it on such a trapezoid will
dock it there.

Trapezoids sometimes have a gradient of lighter borders that allow you to dock along side a
group of areas. The nearer the border the bigger the group.

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Docking Node Options Toolbar to New/Load/Save Toolbar

Undocking

Windows that are already docked have a grip bar on their left or top edge. Left-click on the grip
and drag it to undock the window.

If you are satisfied with your current window organization, you can lock it using the Lock Workspace
command of the Display | Workspace option of the VUE menu. The lock workspace will pre-
vents you from docking or undocking inadvertently, but you will still be able to resize any areas
using the moveable splitters. In the Display | Workspace menu you can load default and saved
docking presets as well. Docking configuration is preserved from one VUE session to another.

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Resizing the ViewPorts

All of the viewports in the workspace can be resized and moved around in the workspace. For
example, you might decide to move the Top View to the lower left. You can rename the view-
ports by using the View Display Option icon in the title bar of each viewport. You can resize
the Object properties, Camera Control and World Browser areas as well.

Once you have your workspace defined the way you like, use the Display | Workspace com-
mand from the menu to save the layout and lock the workspace. You can save several different
workspace setups and change between them if you wish.

3D Views

These are the large windows sitting in the middle of the interface. This is where you build your
scenes. By default, these windows display four different views of your scene: the Top view dis-
plays your scene as seen from above, the Front view displays the scene as if looking at it from
straight ahead, and the Side view as if looking at it from the right. Since all of these 3 views are
orthogonal projections, they are also known as the orthogonal views. They are ideally suited
for moving, rotating and sizing objects. The last view, which is the bottom right one, is the Main
camera view. It displays a preview of your scene, as seen from the camera. If you move the cam-
era around, you will notice that this view changes interactively. This view enables you best to
handle picture framing and composition.

When a Spot Light or Quadratic Spot Light is selected, the Main camera view can also be used
to look at your scene from this light source origin and adjust the light.

Active View

At any given time, there is one of these views that has a highlighted title bar. This is the Active
view. Keyboard operations (e.g. nudging with the arrows) will always be directed to the active
view. Simply click in a view to activate it.

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Maximizing / Resizing Views

You can maximize a 3D View anytime by double-clicking on the title bar of the view. If you don’t
like the 4-view layout, you can maximize the main view, and do everything there. It’s a matter
of personal preference. You can also maximize a view by clicking the Toggle Current View /
Four Views icon ( ) in the top toolbar, or by selecting the corresponding menu items Display
| Toggle Current View / Four Views and Display | Maximize | xx View. To toggle back to the
4 views, simply do this again. Views can be moved around by clicking and dragging them with
the right/Ctrl mouse button. You can also zoom into or out of them by pressing Control while
you drag. Furthermore, the Main camera view can be panned by Shift dragging it.

When the mouse cursor is on top of the window separators, the cursor changes indicating that
you can click and drag to modify the proportions of the views. The ratio between the various
views is indicated in the Status Bar as you drag the mouse. Drag the mouse outside the view
ports to restore previous settings.

Full Screen Mode

By hitting Alt-Enter, you can maximize the view ports so that they fill-up the screen, providing
all available space to the view ports. In this mode, the menu bar and the other tool-bars are
hidden, but you can revert to the standard layout by hitting Alt-Enter again. When Full Screen
mode is activated, all menu commands can be accessed via the popup menu.

ToolTips

If you let the mouse cursor stand still over the interface, a ToolTip will pop up, telling you what
is under the cursor. This works for icons, controls in the Object Properties and Timeline panels,
as well as for objects in the views. The latter is particularly useful to find out which object will
be selected when you click.

View Display Options

The button appears in the title bars of all the views. Clicking on this button displays a popup-
menu that lets you customize the behavior of that view.

The options in this menu are:

• Maximize/Restore: select this command to maximize the view when all views are dis-
played, or to switch back to 4 views when a view is currently maximized. This is the same

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as double-clicking on the title bar.

Following this option is a list of view types that you can use to modify the type of the view. A
check appears in front of the current view type:
• Top View: select this option to make the view display your scene from above,
• Front View: select this option to make the view display your scene from the front,
• Side View: select this option to make the view display your scene from the side,
• Main Camera View: select this option to make the view display your scene as seen through
the currently active camera,
• Perspective View: select this option to make the view display the scene in perspective,
from a viewpoint that is not related to the active camera. If you select this view, several
different icons display on the title bar. ( ) The icon to the far right toggles be-
tween perspective and main camera view. The icon second from right has two functions:
Copy current view to activate camera view or Store current view in new camera.
Options related to the display quality of the objects in the view:
• Wireframe Box: the least detailed, but also the fastest,
• Filled Box: same as wireframe box, except the box is solid,
• Wireframe: useful when you want to see through objects,
• Flat Shaded: almost as good as smooth shaded, only a little bit faster, and
• Smooth Shaded: the best quality, and also the slowest. This is the default.
• Interactive Path-Tracing: uses the Interactive Path Tracer renderer. Note that this will
turn off temporarily the OpenGL atmosphere preview in all viewports.
This setting acts as a maximum display quality for the objects in the view. For instance, if a
sphere has a “Wireframe box” display quality setting, and the view has a “Wireframe” display
quality setting, the sphere will be displayed as a wireframe box. Of course, since the display
quality options are defined independently for each view, you can have a view in Wireframe and
another one Shaded.

The second set of options are relative to the view’s fog settings:
• Show Fog in View: this option turns OpenGL fog on for the view. Fog is useful to give an
additional information on the distance to objects. When this option is selected, the fog
density options become available.
• Density From Atmosphere: when this option is selected, the density of the OpenGL fog
is automatically matched as closely as possible to that of the fog in the scene.
• Adjust Fog Density: this option is only available when the Density From Atmosphere op-
tions isn’t selected. It lets you adjust the density of the fog manually. If you select this
option, the mouse cursor will turn to an Up-Down arrow. Click in the view and drag the
mouse up or down to increase/reduce fog density.

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• Refresh sky: this option refreshes the sky if you’ve made any changes.
The next group contains one or two options depending on whether the current view is the main
view or one of the orthogonal views:
• Show Only Objects From Active Layer: this option will hide all objects from the view
that are not in the currently active layer. Although the objects don’t appear in the view,
they are still in the scene and will be rendered (unless they are disabled from rendering)
as any other object. This option is handy when your scene becomes complex because
it enables you to only display in the views those objects that are part of the layer you’re
working on at a given time. Using different preview options helps keep your scene sorted
by hiding or displaying items differently.
• Frame Guides…: this option is only available in the Main camera view. If you select this
option, the Frame Guides dialog will popup letting you configure safe areas and visual
guides.
• Zoom Extents Selected: this option is for use with the Space Navigator.
After these are the lighting options:
• Light From Scene: if this option is selected, the first 8 lights in the scene are used to light-
up the 3D view. If it isn’t selected, the 3D view gets its light from a source placed on top of
the viewer’s left shoulder.
• Shadows: this option is only available in the Main camera view. If this option is selected,
objects placed above the ground cast a vertical shadow onto it. This is useful because it
gives a better idea of the altitude of the objects above the ground.
The Display options menu of the main view offers a few additional options:
• Show Last Render in Back: this is a truly fantastic option when it comes to finding/placing
an object precisely. What it does is draw the objects in the view on top of the last rendered
picture. So you get the OpenGL preview of your objects on top of the real render! This
option can significantly slow down the 3D display on computers that are not equipped
with an OpenGL optimized video board…
• Show Only Selected Objects: this option is only available when the above option is en-
abled. Because objects are usually displayed in OpenGL as smooth shaded, they will
cover-up the picture that is in the background. In order to see the background, you’d
have to turn all objects to wireframe, or hide them manually. What this option does is
hide all objects that are not selected from the Main View so you can see the render in the
background without having to do the above.
• Display 3D View: select this option to display the OpenGL 3D view.
• Display Color Channel: select this option to display the color channel of the last ren-
dered picture.
• Display denoised Color Channel: select this option to display the denoised color chan-
nel of the last rendered picture.
• Display Alpha Channel: select this option to display the alpha information in the last

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rendered picture.
• Display Depth Channel: select this option to display the depth information in the last
rendered picture.
• Non Photo-Realistic Render: select this option to enable this rendering feature.
• Display Multi-Pass, Masks and G-Buffer: select this option to display the different Multi-
Pass render components, masks, or the contents of the G-Buffer (this option is only avail-
able if you have enabled rendering of Multi-pass, mask or G-Buffer information.
This also allows you to display any of the diagnosis buffer information.

Saving Default Viewport Configuration

Once you have customized your 3D views (by choosing the display options as explained above,
or activating the Interactive Path Tracer in a given view, for instance), you can save your config-
uration as default, using the menu entry Save Current Viewport Configuration As Default, in
Display menu. The viewport configuration is also saved within your scenes. If you load a scene
which uses a different viewport configuration, VUE will offer you to choose between the scene’s
configuration and your default viewport configuration.

Note that because of how resources-hungry the Path Tracercan be, you can decide it should al-
ways be turned off when loading a scene, whatever the setting storeds in your default viewport
configuration and in the loaded scene’s viewport configuration. See the Reset Interactive Path
Tracer option in VUE’s Display Options.

Quick Render

Click the Quick Render icon ( ) in the title bar of a view to do a quick render of the view. The
rendering will always take place inside the view, and will always be performed using the in-
ternal renderer. If the view is an orthogonal view, an orthogonal camera will be used and all
atmosphere effects will be disabled.

By default, the quick render is done using the Preview preset render quality. However, if you
long-click on the icon, a menu will appear letting you select the preset render quality to be used
for the quick renders.

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Saving Pictures

When you have finished rendering a picture you can save it to disk by clicking the small Save
Displayed Picture icon ( ) in the view’s title bar, or use any of the other methods to save
renders.

Channels

When it renders a picture, VUE generates three different types of information for each pixel
in the picture: the color of the pixel (Color channel), whether an object is visible in that pixel
(Alpha channel), and the distance to the closest object at that pixel (Depth channel, also known
as Z-Buffer).

This information is known as channels. All three channels of information are available when
the rendering of the picture is complete. This extra information is extremely useful when you
want to do some post-processing on your pictures (e.g. compositing, or applying Photoshop
filters that are distance sensitive, such as blur).

To display each channel after rendering a picture, use the group of buttons that are at the right
hand end of the Main view’s title bar ( ), or select the corresponding menu option from
the View Display Options menu:
• Color channel: click this button to display the color information in the picture. Long-
clicking changes the button to and opens the Render Display window.
• Alpha channel: click this button to display the alpha information in the picture.
• Depth channel: click this button to display the depth information in the picture.

• Non Photo-Realistic Render: click this button to enable this rendering feature.
These buttons are not available until you have rendered a picture. To switch back to 3D view,
click once on the title bar.

Multi­Pass, Mask and G­Buffer

The Multi-Pass, Mask and G-Buffer icon ( ) expands into a menu that lets you display the dif-
ferent render passes, object or material masks as well as G-Buffer channels.

These Multi-Pass, Mask and G-Buffer viewing options are only available if you have rendered a
picture with the Multi-Pass or G-Buffer data collection options enabled.

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If you select a G-Buffer channel, you can change the G-Buffer layer using the arrow icons.
The number in between the arrows indicates the rank of the currently displayed layer. Because
there is only one layer of information defined in Multi-Pass and Mask renders, these options are
not available when displaying multi-pass render components of masks.

This icon is also used to display the Diagnosis Render Buffer information. To render with this
option, you need to set this on the Render Options panel (within the Render What section).
Unlike the other buffers, this information is available for all renders, even Preview quality.

To the top and to the left of these views are two toolbars. Before taking a closer look at these,
we would like to introduce you to two special types of icons available in VUE.

Additional ViewPorts

Previously, the number of OpenGL views inside VUE was limited to four. It is now be possible
to have up to 16 views at the same time.

There are two major changes concerning camera handling. Until now, the perspective view was
unique to the scene. Now it’s a camera specific to a viewport. This means you can have up to
16 perspective cameras in a scene, not only one. Before, you could only take the viewpoint of
the active camera. This meant that when you had several cameras in your scene, you could
only ever view one at the same time. You are now able to display the point of view of whatever
camera you choose, additionally to the active camera.

Adding a viewport

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Additional ViewPorts – Selecting a ViewPort

To display an additional viewport

Additional ViewPorts – Displaying an Additional ViewPort

Open the Display menu and choose Add View. Then, in the submenu, choose the type of view-
port you want to add.

Displaying a camera that is not active

To make a viewport display a camera from the scene that is not the active one, just open the
options of the viewport and choose a camera.

In the image above, choosing one of the menu entries between “Main Camera View” and “Cam-
era 5 View” will make the viewport display the chosen camera, regardless of the active camera.
Having duplicate Perspective Views Like always, if you want to switch to the Perspective View,
you have lots of possibilities. One of them is to open the viewport options and choose “Perspec-
tive View”. To profit from the 16 possible perspective cameras, you just have to switch several
viewports to their “Perspective View” mode. Then, naturally, their position and orientation re-
main independent.

Navigation

Navigating in Camera Views

There are two distinct ways to navigate in camera views, ie. views that use a perspective projec-
tion as opposed to an orthographic projection (Top/Front/Side). This includes the Main Cam-
era view, as well as additional Perspective Camera views, but also all 3D views found in object
editors like the Terrain Editor, Plant Editor, Text Editor, etc. as well as any other 3D view use
throughout VUE to display 3D objects like the Texture Manipulation Editor, etc.

The same kind of operations like panning and zooming are of course available in both modes,
but their exact behavior differ. Depending on your workflow habits or the kind of operations

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you want to do in your scene, you can choose a mode or switch between the two as needed.

Each camera can be independently switched to one of the two modes using the entries in the
menu Display | Navigation Modes or the corresponding shortcuts:
• Mouse-Centered Navigation uses Control + Alt + C.
• Target-Centered Navigation uses Control + Alt + F.
In practice panning and zooming speed as well as the center or orbiting operations all require
us to know what is your center of interest in the displayed scene. The difference between the
two navigation modes mostly lies in the way the focus point is determined.

In both cases, moving the camera will get slower as you come nearer to the focus point, and
faster as you get farther from it.

Mouse­centered Navigation
In this mode, the focus point is typically the point of the scene found “below” the mouse cursor
when you start navigating. This allows to easily navigate around a specific part of an object,
like a plant’s leaf, by panning at a speed compatible with its size, and orbiting directly around
it instead of around some object center or other off-focus center.

When there are selected objects, we assume they are the focus of your action, so the focus
point is restricted to the selected objects. As a fallback, the selection’s center is used, or some
reasonably spaced point in front of the camera (when there is no selection).

For panning and zooming actions, the speed is adjusted depending on the distance to the focus
point. When zooming, the camera will move in the direction pointed at by the mouse cursor
without changing its orientation.

For orbiting actions, the center is chosen at the same distance as the focus point, but lies always
directly in front of the camera (ie on its forward axis), because we found that orbiting around a
point that is not on the “forward” axis is counter-intuitive and that using this compromise made
for a smoother navigation.

Target­centered Navigation
In this mode, you can explicitly choose the focus point, and operating the camera will always
use it instead of looking at the scene point below the mouse. The target point is unchanged
when orbiting or dollying, whereas panning and rotating the camera will move the target as if
attached to the camera.

There are several methods to choose the target point of a camera:

• When first switching a camera to Target-centered Navigation, the point before the camera
located in the focal plane becomes the default target.
• Using the Frame Selection tool (F key) in this mode will also make its center the new cam-

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era target.
• Finally, in Display | Navigation Mode, the tool Choose Targeted Point (Alt + T) allows you
to target a scene position chosen by clicking on the scene in any 3D view. This is especially
useful when your center of interest is a small detail part of a larger object, for example a
single leaf of a tree, or generally a point on the surface of an object.

Navigating in Orthographic Views

Operations for transforming the viewpoint are simpler in orthographic views, as only two of
them are available: panning and zooming (no rotation is possible). There is no distinction be-
tween mouse- or target-centered navigation, and the focus point for zooming operation is al-
ways the point below the mouse cursor, which allows to easily zoom into an area of interest.

Double Action Icons

Some icons in the toolbars can perform differently, depending on the way you click on them. If
you click on them, they will perform the default action, as expected. However if you do any of
the following, they will perform an alternate action:
• Click with the right mouse button,
• Shift (or Control) click,
• Click and maintain the button depressed until the icon changes to the alternate display.
Double action icons are identified by a small dot on the right border (e.g. the Render icon ).

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Unfoldable Icons

Other icons in the toolbars can have multiple actions, also depending on the way you click on
them. If you click on them in the normal way, they will perform the default action, as displayed
in the icon. However, as with the Double action icons, if you do any of the following, they will
unfold to display a set of alternate actions:
• Click with the secondary mouse button,
• Or click and maintain the button depressed until the icon changes to the alternate dis-
play.
To select an alternate action, drag the mouse through the unfolded icon, onto the requested
action, and then release the button. The default action of the unfoldable icon becomes the last
selected action.

Unfoldable icons are identified by a small white triangle on the right border (e.g. the Sphere
icon unfolds to reveal other Primitives ).

Top Toolbar

This toolbar is placed at the top of the interface, immediately below the menu. It provides
shortcuts for most common operations like file manipulation or undo. It contains the following
icons:
• New…: click to open a new file.

• Open…: click to select a file to open from the Scene Browser.

• Save / Save As…: click to save the current scene. Right-click to open the Save As
dialog. More information about save scene modes

• Cut: click to cut the selected object/plant/terrain.

• Copy: click to copy the selected object/plant/terrain.

• Paste: click to paste what was previously cut or copied.

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• Duplicate / Scatter/Replicate Objects: click to duplicate the selected object/plant/terrain.

Right-click opens the Scatter/Replicate Objects screen for making multiple copies and
defining placement.

• Undo… / Undolist: click to undo the previous action. Right-click to display previous
actions that can be undone.

• Redo… / Redolist: click to redo the previous action. Right-click to display previous
actions that can be redone.

• Atmosphere Editor / Load Atmosphere…: click to open the Atmosphere Editor

for the atmosphere currently loaded. Right-click to open the Atmosphere Browser to se-
lect a new atmosphere.

• Edit Object: click to display the Polygon Mesh Options dialog for the currently se-
lected object.

• Paint EcoSystem: click to display the EcoSystem Painter dialog to set up and create
an EcoSystem by painting.

• Show Material Summary: click to display all the materials used in the current scene.

• Show Timeline / Animation Wizard: Click to display the Timeline. Right-click to

open the Animation Wizard.
• Select by …: right-click to unfold this icon giving you three options when selecting items
in a scene
– Select by Wireframe Color:

– Select by Object Material:

– Select by Object Type:

Click the icon again to cancel the selection.

• Frame Selected Area / Frame All/Selected Objects: Click, then select an area to
frame. Right-click to frame the selected item.

• Zoom Into View: Click to zoom in closer in the view port.

• Zoom Out of View: Click to zoom out in the view port.

• Toggle Current View / Four Views: Click to toggle between one viewport and four.
The current (selected) viewport becomes the enlarged one.

• Browse Previous Render (R) / Save Color Picture: Click to browse previous ren-

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der in the Render Display. Right-click to save the last render.

• Select Render Area: Click to select a render area in any 3D or orthogonal viewport.
Click again to remove the selected render area.

• NPR Options: This turns on the Non-Photo Realistic options and displays the win-
dows for setting up this option

• Render / Render Options: Click to render the scene using the settings as they
currently exist in the Render Options dialog. To change the render settings, right-click to
display the Render Options dialog.
Clicking on empty parts of the toolbar will deselect all selected objects.

Left Toolbar

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This toolbar is also known as the object bar. It provides shortcuts for creating, grouping, and
selecting objects.
• Water / Ground / Cloud / Enable Rain / Enable Snow ( ).

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• Sphere / Cylinder / Cube / Pyramid / Cone / Torus / Plane / Alpha plane ( ).

• Text Editor ( )
• Heightfield Terrain / Procedural Terrain / Load Procedural Terrain Preset / Import
From Real-World ( )

• Create plant icon ( ). The alternate action is Load plant species ( ).

• Rock / Load rock template ( )

• Add cloud layer / Load cloud layer / Add metacloud / Metacloud from preset / Meta-
cloud primitive / Convert to MetaCloud / Load and Convert To MetaCloud ( ).

• Planet ( )

• Spline / Road ( )

• Particle System / Particle System From Preset ( )

• Particles Effector / Directional Ventilator ( )

• Load object icon ( ). The alternate action is Save object ( ).

• Point light / Quadratic point light / Spot light / Quadratic spot light / Directional light
/ Light panel / Daylight Portal ( ).

• Group Objects / Ungroup Objects ( )

• Boolean difference / Boolean union / Boolean intersection ( ).

• Metablob object icon ( ). The alternate action is Hyperblob ( ).

• Drop object icon ( ). The alternate action is Smart Drop ( ).

• Drop object on Top icon ( ). The alternate action is Smart Drop on Top ( ).
Clicking on empty parts of the toolbar will deselect all selected objects.

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Scene Information Bar

The scene information bar is the bar that sits on the right hand side of the interface. It is com-
prised of 3 sections:
• the Object Properties panel that displays information on the currently selected object(s),
• the Camera Control Center that displays a real-time preview render of the scene, and
• the World Browser that shows a hierarchy of all objects in the scene.
You can resize the Scene Information bar by dragging its left edge with the mouse. All the con-
trols in the bar will be resized, including the Preview Render. You can make the Preview Render
larger that way.

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Object Properties Panel

Object Properties panel – Nothing selected

This is a contextual panel that displays information relative to the selected object(s).

If no objects are selected, the panel is empty (see opposite).

The Object Properties panel is made of 3 tabs, identified by the following pictograms:

• Aspect: this tab displays information on the visual aspect of the selected objects.

• Numerics: this tab gives numerical control over the position, rotation, size, twist
and pivot position of the selected objects.

• Animation: this tab gives control over the animation characteristics (motion, link-
ing, etc.) of the selected objects.
The title of the panel is the name of the selected object (or “Mixed objects”) followed by the
number of selected objects inside square brackets, if several objects are selected. If you don’t
need this panel, click the ( ) button to fold it up. Click again to unfold it. Double-clicking the
title bar does the same.

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Aspect Tab

Object Properties panel – Aspect tab

The Aspect Tab of the Object Properties panel displays the material of the item currently se-
lected in the material preview. This small box also contains a lot of information about that
material and presents some material editing options.

Preview of material assigned to the object. Materials define the aspect of the object’s surface.
You can edit the material by double-clicking this picture.

MultiMaterials Selection

If several objects are selected, and they use different materials, or if the selected object is made
of several materials (e.g. plants or imported objects), if you right-click on the displayed mate-
rial, menu entries corresponding to the different materials will be grouped in a submenu.

Also, a set of arrows will appear on the bottom of the preview, together with the number of
materials in the selected object. You can browse through the different materials using the left

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and right arrows, or you can use the bottom arrow to display a list of the different materials.

This material popup menu displayed by selecting a material will also exhibit the following com-
mands:
• Assign To All: this option will replace all materials of the object with the currently dis-
played material.
• Collapse Identical Materials: when this option is active, identical materials that are as-
signed to different material zones in the object will only appear once in the list of mate-
rials. If you uncheck this option, all material zones will be displayed, letting you access
individual material zones that have the same material assigned to them.
• Edit All Materials: select this option to edit all materials simultaneously. The Material
Editor will appear, letting you edit the currently displayed material. All changes made to
this material will be replicated in the other materials (provided the materials are of the
same type – e.g. all materials are “simple materials”, or all materials are “mixed materi-
als”). You can also edit multiple materials simultaneously using the Materials tab of the
World Browser.
• Load Multi-Material: this loads a material that has been saved as a multi-material. The
preview of these materials in the Visual Material Browser displays as a mosaic of all of the
materials within the one .mat file.
• Save Multi-Material: this saves all of the materials in the object or plant as a multi-material,
or one .mat file containing several materials.
• Copy Multi-Material: this is used to copy a multi-material from this object/plant.
• Paste Multi-Material: this is used to paste a multi-material copied from another object/plant.
There is a row of icons running down the left side of the box. Depending on the item selected
these icons may or may not be available.
• Edit selected object: this opens the editor for the type of object selected. If a tree is
selected, the Plant Editor will open; if an object is selected, the Polygon Mesh Options
panel displays.
• Edit material: this opens the Material Editor for the material currently displayed.
• Edit all materials: this opens the Material Editor for you to make a change to all materials
for that particular object currently selected. For example, you can reset the highlighting
for all materials using this option.
• Load material: this opens the Materials Browser for you to select a replacement material
for the material currently selected.
• Randomize: this makes a random change to all fractal and noise nodes used for a mate-
rial. You can keep clicking until you find the effect you like.

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Preview Color and Options

The Preview options icon displays a menu when clicked. This menu lets you define the display
options of the selected object in the 3D views. These settings are global to all the views. The
first set of options relate to the quality of the preview. These options are the same as those of
the views:
• Wireframe Box: the least detailed, but also the fastest,
• Filled Box: same as wireframe box, except the box is solid,
• Wireframe: useful when you want to see through the object,
• Flat Shaded: almost as good as smooth shaded, only a little bit faster, and
• Smooth Shaded: the best quality, and also the slowest. This is the default.
Keep in mind that these settings can be overridden by the view settings. If the object has a
display quality that exceeds that of the view, it will be displayed in that view using the view’s
quality setting.

The second set of options relate to the visibility of the object in the views. These options are:
• Locked: the object will be displayed gray and transparent. It isn’t possible to select locked
objects when clicking in the 3D views. This is useful when you don’t want to select an ob-
ject, but still need to see it in the views for reference. Locked objects are displayed in gray
in the World Browser. You can still select them there. Infinite planes are created Locked.
• Hidden: the object won’t be displayed in the 3D views. It won’t be possible to select it
either. Hidden objects are displayed in pale gray and italic inside the World Browser. You
can still select them there.
• Main View Only: the object will only appear in the main view, but won’t be displayed in
the other (orthogonal) views. Planets are created as “Main view only”. Selected objects
are visible in all views, whatever their visibility setting. Removing one of the above op-
tions won’t necessarily make the object appear (e.g. if it is inside a locked or hiddenlayer.
)
Selected objects are visible in all views, whatever their visibility setting.

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Object Properties panel – Multiple materials

If the object currently selected has multiple materials, you’ll find a downward arrow in the left
corner of the picture. This will list all of the materials for this object, allowing you to select
a different material, or will give you the option of collapsing identical materials or editing all
materials.

Directly under the picture, the current Scale of the selected material is displayed. This only
affects the size of the material when it is rendered in your scene. If several objects are selected
that use materials at different scales, this item will be blank.

The Preview color is a drop-down list that lets you select the color of the object when displayed
in the 3D views. When you select a new color, the selected objects will be flashed inside the
views to show the new color. Assigning a different color to your objects is good practice; since
it lets you identify them more easily. By default, objects are created a dark gray, or the same
color as you last selected in the list. Plants are always created green, lights yellow and planets
pale blue.

Neither the Preview Color nor any of the Preview Options will affect how an object renders.

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Next to the Preview Color, you will find a set of small icons.
• Hide from render: this option lets you hide objects from rendering. When this option
is set, the object will not appear in rendered pictures or animations. It will however still
appear in the 3D Views (unless you explicitly hide the object from the views as well). This
is ideal for creating objects that are used as scene helpers (e.g. objects that are tracked
but mustn’t be rendered). When an object is hidden from render, it’s icon is crossed out
in the World Browser (you can also hide an object from render by clicking this icon in the
World Browser).

• Render area occluded by object in G-buffer: this option is relevant only when gen-
erating G-Buffer information. If you select this option, rendering will not stop when it en-
counters this object; instead, it will continue gathering information about what is behind
it. Using this information, it subsequently becomes possible to remove objects from ren-
dering during a post-processing phase or, for instance, to perform accurate motion blur
effects without any missing information issues. You can also force the rendering of all oc-
cluded regions using the option in the G-Buffer and Multi-Pass Options dialog. This is the
same as enabling the Render occluded option on all objects in the scene. Make sure this
option is not selected if you only want to render occluded information for certain objects.

• Ignore object(s) when populating EcoSystems: when this option is selected, the
object will have no influence on the population of EcoSystems that are sensitive to the
presence of foreign objects, even if they are placed right in the middle of an EcoSystem.

• Ignore indirect lighting: this option is enabled only when either the Global Illumina-
tion or Global Radiosity lighting models. In some cases, you may decide that the benefit
of computing indirect lighting on certain objects may not be worth the investment in ren-
dering time. This option is designed for such cases: indirect lighting will not be evaluated
on objects that have this option set. The objects will however still participate in the illumi-
nation of other surrounding objects (e.g. by generating a dark halo around their bases).

• Don’t cast shadows: when this option is selected, the object will cast no shadow on
other objects.

• Don’t receive shadows: when this option is selected, the object will receive no shad-
ows from other objects in the scene.

• Only shadows: when this option is selected, the object will not render. Only it’s
shadow will render.
• Enable collisions: select this option to enable EcoParticle collision with the selected
object.

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Numerics Tab

Object Properties panel – Numerics tab

This tab lets you enter precise numerical values for position, rotation, size, twist and pivot posi-
tion along each axis. The fields are color-coded to correspond to the 3D axes in the viewports.

This tab is divided into 5 sub-tabs: Position, Orientation, Size, Twist and Pivot position each
represented by an icon in the panel’s left icon bar. Press the required icon to display the corre-
sponding numerical values. Drag the mouse over the axes to get visual feedback on the type
of modification the object will undertake. Click-drag the controls to adjust the values, or type
values in the corresponding fields.

• Position: numerical values given for position are relative to the World origin, which
is the center point of the orthogonal 3D Views when you create a new scene. Clicking in
between axes lets you move the object inside a plane.

• Orientation: numerical rotation angles relate to the object for Pitch and Roll, but

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relate to the World for Yaw.

• Size: numerical values for size relate to the object. They are independent of the
object rotation. Consequently, using Numerics to size an object that has already been
rotated is a quick and precise method. Clicking in between axes lets you resize the ob-
ject along both axes simultaneously. Clicking in the middle of the control lets you resize
the object globally. The Lock sizing proportions ( ) is a toggle button that locks the
proportions of the object; meaning that, when you change the size along one axis, the
sizes of the other two axes are adjusted in such a way that the proportions of the object
are maintained. The Display true object’s dimensions On/Off ( ) is a toggle button
that will display the real size of the object when selected (otherwise, internal dimensions
will be displayed instead). The Resize around opposite corner button ( ) is also a tog-
gle that indicates whether the object is resized around its center, or around the opposite
corner (as when resizing objects inside the views).

• Twist: Numerical values for twisting are less straightforward. Basically, they will
twist one axis of the object towards another axis. This is rather difficult to visualize, so the
best is to try it out. However, please understand that, due to complex matrix operations,
twisting and untwisting objects in several directions may not restore the initial object
conformation.

• Pivot position: use the Pivot position sub-tab to display the location of the object’s
pivot point. The pivot point is the point around which the object will be rotated or scaled
(e.g. the pivot point of a window would be at the windows hinge). Press the Show pivot
toggle button ( ) to show/hide the pivot in the 3D views. The pivot point is displayed by
a green handle that you can grab and drag to a new location using the mouse. Alterna-
tively, you can enter numerical values for the location of the pivot point. You can elect to
display the position of the pivot in world coordinates, or in object coordinates by using
the Relative coordinates toggle button ( ).
Note:
If expressed in world coordinates, the position of the pivot point is modified when you
move the object. However, the relative position to the center of the object remains the
same. Press the Reset pivot button ( ) to reset the pivot: a left click will reset it to the
origin of the object, a right click to the center of the object. The origin is the point of
the object with local coordinates (0, 0, 0), whereas the center is the apparent “middle”
point of the object. Origin and center are usually the same point except for some objects
(usually imported from an outside source) where the origin can be some distance off the
apparent center.

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Animation Tab

This tab deals with object animation and forward dynamic hierarchy (linking and tracking).

Animation

Object Properties panel – Animation tab

To animate an object, select a type of Motion other than Not animated. Basically, types of
motion let you specify how the object will react to its motion (e.g. airplanes bank as they turn,
automobiles follow the surface of the ground…). If you don’t know which to pick, select Stan-
dard, which is the standard type of animation found in usual 3D packages.

When you select a type of motion other than Not animated, the Animation Wizard pops-up
to help you setup your animation easily. The instructions that appear on screen are relatively
straightforward, but it is recommended that you read the section on the Animation Wizard to
fully understand each setting.

To destroy an objects animation, select Not animated from the drop-down list or click the For-
bid Animation icon (see below).

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Whenever an animated object is selected (or the selected object tracks another one – see be-
low), the Main Axis drop down list becomes active. This list lets you select which axis of the
object should be pointing in the direction of travel (useful only for objects that have the Look
Ahead property, or which axis of the object should be pointing at the tracked object.
• Forbid animation: the forbid animation icon ( ) is the topmost icon in the icon bar. As
long as this icon is selected, the object will never become animated. If you click this icon
and the object is currently animated, a warning will appear informing you that all anima-
tion data will be lost.

• Non switchable camera: there is an additional icon ( ) that appears just below the
Pick link object icon when the selected object is a camera. When selected, this icon for-
bids animation of the camera (as above) and also prevents camera switcher keyframes
being created in an animation when you switch to this camera. If the camera is already
being used in the camera switcher, selecting this option will remove all switches to this
camera.
Click the icon in the icon bar to display the Animation Toolbox for the selected object. This
toolbox lets you adjust the global behavior of animated objects.

Forward Dynamics (Linking and Tracking)

Forward dynamics is a hierarchical animation feature that greatly simplifies the animation of
complex structures. Basically, it lets you link some objects to others (the link parents), thus
building a hierarchy of objects. When an object is linked, modifying the link parent will auto-
matically affect the linked object.

To link an object to another one, you may either:

• select the parent object from the Link drop-down list,

• press the icon or select the menu command Object | Pick link parent, then click on
the parent object in the 3D views (objects will be highlighted as the mouse passes over
them), or

• press the icon or select the menu command Object | Pick link parent, then click on
the parent object inside the World Browser. This last method is the only one that lets you
link to objects that are inside groups or Boolean objects.
You can decide how the linked object will be affected by modifications made to the link parent
by checking or unchecking the link options boxes (Position, Rotation, Size, Join).

Object tracking lets you decide that the selected object will always point in the direction of the
tracked object. To select which object is tracked by the selected object, use any of the following
methods:
• select the parent object from the Track drop-down list,

• press the icon or select the menu command Object | Pick tracked parent, then click

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on the parent object in the 3D views (objects will be highlighted as the mouse passes over
them),

• press the icon or select the menu command Object | Pick tracked parent, then click
on the parent object inside the World Browser. This last method is the only one that lets
you track to objects that belong to groups or Boolean objects.
When a track is defined for the selected object, the Main axis drop-down list becomes active.
This lets you define which axis of the object will be pointing in the direction of the tracked ob-
ject (e.g. a camera that tracks an object should have a +Z main axis so that it looks straight at
the object it tracks; selecting +X will make the camera look straight up (90° upwards from the
tracked object direction).

While standard forward-dynamic linking or tracking produces exact motion, this motion usually
looks unnatural and jolty. This is because computers perform linking and tracking in a much
too perfect manner, whereas a real operator would have a hard time following a rapidly moving
target (he would always be catching up or compensating overshoots).

VUE is now able to simulate this “human behavior” by introducing loose tracking and linking
algorithms with the Response slider. You can very easily customize the reactivity of the forward
dynamics engine for each object, from standard (i.e. perfect reactivity) to slack responsiveness.

Camera Control Center

Camera Control Center

The Camera Control Center is made of two parts that can be docked independently: the render
preview, and the camera controls.

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The title bar of the panel displays the name of the currently active camera. If you don’t need
this panel, click the ( ) button to fold it up. Click again to unfold it. Double-clicking on the
title bar does the same.

Render Preview

The top half of the panel displays a real-time thumbnail render of your scene. Modifications
you make to your scene are immediately reflected in the preview. This can prove extremely
useful, especially when adjusting subtle parameters, such as atmosphere and lighting. You can
increase the size of the preview by adjusting the width of the Scene Information bar, or even
undock the preview area entirely from the main window to resize it as much as you want, if you
can afford to wait longer for the preview to be rendered.

When you click on the preview while it is being rendered, it will be interrupted. On the other
hand, clicking on a finished or interrupted preview will make it start a new render.

When enabled, the auto-exposure of the active camera can be computed by rendering this
small preview. An estimate of the exposure is computed after each progressive pass of the
render, to cut down the waiting time. This is particularly useful because the interactive 3D
viewports may be hard to use until a correct auto-exposure has been computed, and also be-
cause in certain lighting conditions, the auto-exposure may have to be adjusted every time you
move the camera (facing towards then away from the sun, for example). In this case, a small
hence fast and reactive render preview is more useful than a larger one.

There is a number of ways you can act on the speed and reactivity of the preview; if you right-
click on the preview, a menu will appear that lets you customize its behavior.
• Auto-Update: the first option in this menu instructs VUE to automatically refresh the pre-
view each time a modification takes place. This is checked by default, but if you find that
the program is not reacting as fast as you would like, disabling this feature may be a good
way of speeding things up (especially when dealing with scenes that contain lots of ad-
vanced rendering features, such as volumetric lights, depth of field, etc.). Click on the
preview each time you want it to be updated.
• Show Framing Strips: this option (selected by default) tells VUE to only render the part
of the scene that is framed by the camera. Black frames will be displayed around the
picture, as required by the aspect ratio of the picture. If this option isn’t selected, the
entire preview area will be rendered, regardless of the picture’s aspect ratio. This option
is only available when the picture’s aspect ratio has been set to something other than 4/3
(the aspect ratio of the preview).
• Preview Quality: this option lets you select the overall precision of the render preview.
If you find the preview is too slow, select Fast quality. Using Best quality is generally not
recommended, except on really fast machines.

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• High Priority: by default, VUE renders the preview at the same time as it completes other
pending tasks (e.g. refreshing all material/function previews, refreshing all dialogs, draw-
ing the detailed version of the 3D views). This obviously slows down the preview signifi-
cantly, and, when a timely response from the render preview is what you need, you may
want to select the High Priority option. When selected, this option will postpone all back-
ground tasks until rendering the preview is complete – with the consequence that the
other tasks will be delayed accordingly. Also, clicking on the preview when the High Pri-
ority option is not selected will temporarily grant maximum priority to the preview.
• Render Dynamic EcoSystems: by default, VUE computes dynamic populations for the
preview, which can take a large amount of resources depending on the complexity of the
EcoSystems. You can choose to deactivate this feature for the preview.
• Render Displacement Mapping: by default, VUE computes displaced geometries for the
render preview. Here again, this can be turned off. Then, no displacement will be com-
puted. Beware the results can be very different from the final render, if the displacement
amplitude is high.
Note:

In order to increase responsiveness, breeze is not applied to plants in the render preview.

Camera Controls

The lower half of the panel features a group of controls that let you manage cameras and easily
move around in your scene.

• Pan: click and drag on this control to move the camera left-right and/or top-bottom.
The movement is done in the camera plane, which means that if the camera is pointing
down and you pan towards the top, you are actually moving the camera forwards. De-
pending on the part of the control you click on, either one or both directions of movement
are possible. Movement is blocked by the clipping plane.

• Move camera back/forth: click and drag on this control to move the camera for-
wards or backwards in the direction it is pointing. If the camera is pointing down and you
drag forwards, you are actually moving the camera down. Also, make sure you under-
stand the difference between moving back/forth and modifying the focal process (move-
ment of the camera is blocked by the clipping plane).

• Rotate camera: this icon rotates the camera 360 degrees.

• Rotate camera around selection (aka. Orbit): this icon rotates the camera around

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a selected object. If no object is selected, a reasonable orbiting center is chosen based

on the objects before the camera.
Note:

you can slow down the camera controls by holding down the W key as you move this can be
customized using the Operations tab of the Options panel.

• Focal: click and drag on this control to adjust the focal length of the camera. Drag-
ging the mouse up will zoom into the scene, dragging down will zoom out. The camera
doesn’t move in the process.

• Copy to Camera: The first icon is the one that will be shown when you are
in perspective view. Click on this icon to store the persepective view to the active cam-
era. The second icon is the one that will be shown when you are in main view. Click on
that icon to store the main view camera settings to the perspective view. Right click on
either of this two icons will create a new camera based on the current camera settings.
You won’t be prompted to name the camera. Instead, VUE will automatically name it as
’Camera ##’, where ## is an automatically incremented number.

• Secure Active Camera: enable this option to change the main view in perspective
view whenever you modify the camera settings with the mouse. This will permit you to
play with the perspective camera, and once you are satisfied with the settings you can
then store them into the main camera.

• Switch to Perspective View / Previous Camera / Next Camera: the first

of these three icons right above the Render preview lets you switch the current camera
to perspective view. The other two icons let you circulate through the list of stored cam-
eras in the World Browser. If these cameras are animated and you switch cameras at a
non zero time, a camera switch keyframe will be created in the Timeline. Please turn to
Camera Switching for details on switching cameras in an animation.
In between the Switch to Perspective View/Previous/Next camera icons, you will see the
name of the active camera. Please turn to Camera Manager for more details on managing cam-
eras.

Adjusting a Spotlight
If the selected object is a spotlight or quadratic light and the View through option is selected,
the controls will act upon the position, orientation and spread angle of the spotlight, rather
than the camera.

Note:

The Render preview still shows the scene as viewed from the active camera.

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Synchronized Cameras and Spotlights

If the current camera or the selected spotlight is synchronized, the camera controls will be dis-
abled. This is because you cannot modify the animation of a synchronized object (to avoid
losing synchronization) with cameras and lights.

World Browser

The World Browser is at the bottom of the Scene Information bar, underneath the Camera Con-
trol Center.

The World Browser is used for fast navigation inside your scene. Click on the Expansion icon
( ) to expand the World Browser so that it fills up the entire right column.

The World Browser displays a list of all the objects in the scene.

The World Browser displays four tabs. Each tab is designed to let you access a different type of
information regarding your scene.

• Objects: this tab lets you view the objects in the scene; you can list the objects
using different sorting methods.

• Materials: this tab displays all the materials used in the scene, together with their
hierarchy (for mixed materials).

• Library: this tab displays all the objects that are used several times in the scene
(including all EcoSystem populations). Using this tab, you can modify all copies of the
same object simultaneously.

• Links: this tab displays all linked items in the scene (texture maps and imported
objects).
At the bottom of each tab is a small toolbar that display tools frequently used in each specific
tab.

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Status Bar

This is the general information bar that sits right at the bottom of the interface. The left side of
it displays current render status, and menu command help messages.

To the right, you will find an indication on the number of processors on your computer as well
as the number of objects and the number of lights in your scene. While the only limit to these
figures is the power of your machine, we feel that keeping them under 200 objects and 20 lights
would be reasonable.

The rightmost figure is an estimate of the equivalent number of polygons that your scene would
require if it were modeled inside a “standard” 3D package. A drop-down list lets you switch to
displaying the free resources or used GPU resources instead.

Objects Tab

Organization of the List

World Browser – Objects Tab

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The first tab in the World Browser displays a list of all the objects in the scene. This list of objects
can be organized in several ways; when the Objects tab is the active tab, clicking on the tab will
display a popup menu that lets you change the way objects are displayed:
• Organize In Layers: in this type of organization, a list of the different layers in the scene
is displayed, with all the objects that belong to this layer appearing below it. This is the
default type of organization. Read here for a more detailed description of VUE layers.
• Sort By Names: in this type of organization, the objects are displayed in a list that is
sorted by name in alphabetical order. This is useful when you want to locate an object in
a complex scene and you only remember its name.
• Sort By Size: in this type of organization, the objects are displayed in a list that is sorted
by order of increasing size. Tiny objects will appear at the top of the list, whereas very
large objects will be displayed at the bottom. This is useful for locating very small objects.
• Sort By Types: in this type of organization, the objects are displayed in a hierarchical
list sorted by object types (e.g. Spheres, Terrains, Boolean operations). This is useful to
pinpoint objects of similar nature.

Using the List of Objects

You can select objects by clicking on their name in the list. This also works for objects that are
placed inside groups, which means that you don’t have to

Ungroup and re-Group groups or Boolean operations to modify one of their members! Click
again, and the name of the object changes into a label where you can edit the object name
(press Enter to confirm the new name).

You can move up and down in the list using the Up/Down arrows.

And you can drag and drop objects from one position to another. You can also drag objects into
or out of groups or Boolean objects!

Pressing Control while dragging objects will result in a copy of the dragged objects being gen-
erated, and placed at the drop point.

Multiple objects can be selected by Control clicking on them. Shift clicking will select all ob-
jects in the marked range.

Pop­Up Menu
If you right-click on any object (plant, object, terrain) in the list of objects in the World Browser,
a menu displays. The options available depend on the type of object you’ve selected.
• Frame Selected Objects: selecting several objects and clicking this option puts a frame
around them for easy moving as a group. This applies for the perspective camera as well
as the other cameras.

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• Show All Layers: if some layers have been hidden, this restores all to show.
• Hide All But This Layer: this option hides all but the selected layer from view. This does
not hide from render.
• Show Current Layer: this unhides a selected layer.
• Lock Current Layer: if a layer is locked, its objects are displayed in gray and cannot be
selected in the viewports.
• Hide Current Layer: this hides the contents of the layer in the viewports. This does not
hide them from render.
• Collapse All But Current Layer: this collapses all open layers except the selected one.
• Expand All Layers: this opens all layers to show contents. World Browser Objects Tab
• Cut: Removes selected object from scene. The object can be restored with a Paste oper-
ation.
• Copy: click to copy the selected object. Use a Paste operation to add the copy of the
selected object to the scene. This works with cameras as well as other objects in the
World Browser.
• Paste: adds an object to the scene from a previous Cut or Copy operation. This works
with cameras as well as other objects in the World Browser.
• Delete: removes selected object from scene. Unlike Cut, it cannot be restored with a
Paste operation. You would need to use Undo.
• Select All: selects all objects in the scene.
• Deselect All: deselects all objects in the scene.
• Hide From Render: hides the selected object from a render.
• Enable Collision: when toggled on, EcoParticles will collide with a bounce off this object.
• Group Objects: places the selected objects into a bounding box.
• Ungroup Objects: removes the bounding box from selected objects.
• Replace By (Keep Proportions): use this command to replace an object with the object
of your choice, keeping the proportions of the original object. All copies of the object
will be replaced by the new object. If you select multiple objects to replace, all selected
objects will be replaced by the new object.
• Replace By (Fit Object): use this command to replace an object with the object of your
choice, fitting the new object into the bounding box of the original object. All copies of
the object will be replaced by the new object. If you select multiple objects to replace, all
selected objects will be replaced by the new object.
• Bake to Polygons: converts any selected object in a VUE scene into a polygon mesh ap-

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proximation. The word “approximation” is important here, as some objects used in VUE
simply don’t have a polygonal equivalent (for instance, spheres or plants).
• Convert to Area Light: converts the selected object to an area light. This action cannot
be undone.
• Add Daylight Portal to Object: adds a daylight portal to the object selected.
• Change Material: opens the Visual Material Browser for new material selection.
• Edit Material: opens the Material Editor for editing of material.
• Edit Object: If the item selected is an object, the Edit Object dialog displays. If the item
selected is a plant, the Plant Editor opens. If the item selected is a cloud layer, the Atmo-
sphere Editor displays.
• Save Object: saves the selected item as a VUE object (.vob). This includes terrains, plants
and cloud layers.
• Rename: allows you to rename an item.
• Help: displays the help manual.

The Bottom Toolbar

At the bottom of the World Browser is a small toolbar. In the Objects tab, the effects of the
buttons in this toolbar are:

• New layer: click this button to add a new layer to your scene.

• Delete selected object(s): click this button to delete the selected object(s) and/or
layers. This button is only available when one or several objects or layers are selected.

• Edit selected object: click this button to open the Object Editor for this object (e.g.
the Plant Editor for a plant).This button is only active when the selected object is editable.

• Export selected object: click this button to export the selected object. This button
is only available when a single exportable object is selected.

• Edit Objects Graph: Click this button to open the object graph for this object.

Object Identification
Objects are depicted by small pictures placed in front of them. These pictures are designed to
facilitate object identification. The signification of the pictures is:
• Infinite Plane: this object is typically a water, or ground plane.

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• Sphere: this object is a Sphere,

• Cylinder: this object is a Cylinder,
• Cube: this object is a Cube,
• Pyramid: this object is a Pyramid,
• Cone: this object is a Cone,
• Torus: this object is a Torus,
• Plane: this object is a Plane,
• Alpha Plane: this object is an Alpha plane,
• 3D Text: this object is 3D Text object,
• Terrain: this object is a Terrain,
• Symmetrical Terrain: this object is a Symmetrical terrain,
• Skin Only Terrain: this object is a Skin Only terrain,
• Symmetrical Skin Only Terrain: this object is a Symmetrical Skin Only terrain,
• Procedural Terrain: this object is a Procedural terrain,
• Procedural Symmetrical Terrain: this object is a Procedural Symmetrical terrain,
• Procedural Skin Only Terrain: this object is a Procedural Skin Only terrain,
• Procedural Symmetrical Skin Only Terrain: this object is a Procedural Symmetrical
Skin Only terrain,
• Plant: this object is a Plant,
• Global EcoSystem: this object is a Global EcoSystem,
• Rock: this object is a Rock (the icon appears yellow if the rock’s illumination is baked),
• Polygon Mesh: this object is a Polygon Mesh object (i.e. an imported object. In VUE
Pro versions,the icon appears yellow if the object’s illumination is baked,
• Animated Mesh: this object is either a Rigged Mesh or an Animated Poser object (In
VUE Pro versions, the icon appears yellow if the object’s illumination is baked),
• Bone: this object is a Bone,
• Point Light: this object is a Point light,
• Quadratic Point Light: this object is a Quadratic point light,

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• Spot Light: this object is a Spot light,

• Quadratic Spot Light: this object is a Quadratic spot light,
• Directional Light: this object is a Directional light (e.g. the sun),
• Light Panel: this object is a light panel,
• Daylight Portal: this object is a daylight portal,
• Light Emitting Object: this object is a light emitting object,
• Group: this object is a Group,
• Boolean Union: this object is a Boolean union,
• Boolean Intersection: this object is a Boolean intersection,
• Boolean Difference: this object is a Boolean difference,
• Metablob: this object is a Metablob object,
• Hyperblob: this object is a Hyperblob object,
• MetaCloud: this object is a MetaCloud object,
• Cloud: this object is a Cloud layer,
• Ventilator: this object is a Ventilator,
• Python Object: this object is a Python object created by a python script,
• Camera: this object is the Camera,
• Spline: this object is a Spline group,
• Particles Effector: this object affects EcoParticles. It will usually be hidden from ren-
der.

Object Renaming
You can rename objects by clicking twice on their name. This will open a little field letting you
enter the new name for the object. You can rename several objects simultaneously using the
Rename… command from the popup menu. The Object Renaming dialog will appear, letting
you enter a new name for all the selected objects. If the Keep object numbering option is
selected, any digits that appear at the end of the object names will be appended to the new
name.

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Hidden From Render / Switch Off

You can also show/hide an object from render using the Aspect tab of the Object Properties
panel.

When an object is hidden from render, or when a light is turned off, a small cross will appear
on top of the object’s identification picture (as described above) indicating that the object is
now hidden from render (or that the light is turned off). Objects that are hidden from render
(or lights that are turned off) still appear in the list of objects and in the 3D Views, but they don’t
appear when you render the picture (or animation). Hiding objects from render is particularly
useful when creating helper objects.

Groups, Boolean Objects and Metablobs ­­ MetaClouds

Group objects also have a symbol in front of them (PC: or , Mac: or ).

The / symbol means that the object is folded up; members of the group are not displayed
inside the browser. Clicking on the picture will unfold the contents of the group.

The / symbol means that the object is unfolded; members of the group are displayed
underneath the group, and are linked to it in the list using a dotted line. You can access any of
the members directly by clicking on them. Clicking on the picture will fold the group back up.

The ability to select objects that are inside groups makes for tremendously convenient use. Ob-
jects can be modified even once they are inside a group. Better still, objects may be added or
removed from groups simply by dragging them into, or out of the group (in order to do so, the
group has to be unfolded).

MetaClouds are a slightly specific type of group in that they can only contain MetaCloud primi-
tives. You cannot add any other type of object to a MetaCloud.

Camera Group
The camera in the list of objects also has the group symbol (PC: or , Mac: or ) in front
of it. If you unfold the camera group, you will see a list of all the different cameras in the scene.
The current camera is identified by the active camera symbol ( ), whereas other cameras are
identified by the inactive camera symbol ( ). Click on an inactive camera to select it, and
double-click to make it the active camera. Notice that the name of the camera group changes
to reflect the currently active camera.

Note:

You can also select inactive cameras by clicking on them in the 3D Views, and you can switch
active cameras by double-clicking on the camera to activate.

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Layers
All the objects that you create are automatically placed inside layers. In order to see the layers,
you need to organize the list in layers.

When the list is organized in layers, the objects will be displayed under the layer they belong
to. Layers act as organizers for the objects inside your scene. Objects will render the same,
whatever layer they are placed in (unless you tell the renderer to ignore specific layers).

To create a new layer, simply press the New layer button ( ) at the bottom of the World
Browser. A new layer will automatically be added at the bottom of the list, and new objects
will subsequently be placed in this layer. You can add as many layers as you want.

To delete a layer, click on the layer to delete, and then click on the Delete selected object(s)
button ( ). All objects in the selected layer will be deleted, and the selected layer will be re-
moved. If you delete all of the objects within a layer, the layer will not be deleted automatically.
The empty layer may remain or be deleted manually.

The contents of the layers may be visible or hidden, depending on whether they are unfolded
or not. Unfolded layers are depicted by a ( on Mac) on the left of the browser. To fold
up and hide what the layer contains, click on that picture. The layer folds up, and the button
changes to ( on Mac). Please understand that objects inside the folded up layers still exist,
although they are not listed in the World Browser. Folding layers up is a good way of limiting
the number of objects displayed by the browser.

Layers can be hidden from render globally. Just check the Hide from render icon ( ) next to
the layer name to hide the entire contents of the layer from the render. If you choose not to
hide the entire layer, you can still hide any item in that layer by checking them individually.

Objects may be moved from one layer to another by dragging them out of the old layer and drop-
ping them into the new one. Layers can be moved freely up or down in the hierarchy, whether
they are hidden, locked or active.

Clicking on the name of a layer will select all objects inside the layer. Clicking again will let you
rename it (press Enter to validate the new name).

On the right side of the layer is a little picture indicating the state of that layer. This can be any
of the following:
• Active layer: objects inside active layers are visible and may be selected in the 3D
Views.
• Locked layer: objects inside locked layers are displayed in gray and cannot be se-
lected in the 3D Views.
• Hidden layer: objects inside hidden layers are not visible and cannot be selected in

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the 3D Views. All layers can be hidden.

To change the state of a layer, click on the state picture. The state of the layer cycles through
Active / Locked / Hidden. Double-clicking on the state picture always activates the layer.

The ability to change the state of a layer is the key to their organizational power. The fact that
you can lock or hide layers means that you can decide to temporarily hide away parts of your
scene by putting them into a hidden layer. In doing so, objects will still be there for rendering,
but won’t clutter up your 3D Views as you concentrate on another part of the scene. When you
need them back, just click on the layer state, and here they come! Alternately, putting objects
in a locked layer will keep them visible in the 3D Views (e.g. for reference), while not hindering
selection of other objects you are working on. Objects can still be copy/pasted to locked or
hidden layers.

All layers can be freely moved up and down in the World Browser. This doesn’t affect the image
in any way.

The state of a layer has absolutely no influence on the way objects are rendered (unless ex-
pressly asked for – see Render Options). Not convinced? Take a look at a sample scene. Objects
in the scenes are usually organized in layers. Try activating or hiding the different layers, and
you will see how cluttered the scene can become, making selection and progress tedious.

When you start a new scene, all objects are, by default, positioned in the first layer. Successive
objects that you create will be placed in the layer that has the focus. The name of the layer that
has the focus appears in red. It is the last active layer you used. Selecting an object from an
active layer will give focus to that layer.

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Materials Tab

World Browser Materials Tab

The second tab in the World Browser provides a handy list of all materials used in the scene.

The materials are gathered into 6 categories:

• Standard materials: this category holds all standard materials (i.e. materials that do not
belong to another category),
• Plant materials: this category holds the materials used for plants,
• Imported materials: this category holds the materials that were created when an object
was imported from another application,

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• Cloud materials: this category holds the cloud materials used in the Clouds tab of the
Atmosphere Editor,
• EcoSystems: this category holds all the materials that define EcoSystems(that is EcoSys-
tem materials, mixed or layered materials with one of the sub-materials being an EcoSys-
tem,
• EcoSystem materials: this category contains all the materials used on the population of
the various EcoSystems in the scene.
In a similar way to how layers operate, the contents of each category can be folded up. Unfolded
categories are depicted by a ( on Mac) on the left of the browser. To fold up and hide the
contents of the category, click on that picture. The category folds up, and the button changes
to ( on Mac). Although the materials are no longer displayed in the list, they still exist, and
unfolding the category will show them back. Empty categories are depicted by a . Clicking
on this has no effect.

Clicking on a material name will select all the objects that use this material. This is a handy way
of checking which objects use a given material. Click again and a small label will appear, let-
ting you modify the name of that material. Material names that are framed by a gray rectangle
indicate that the material is used by a selected object, but other objects using the material are
not selected.

Double-click on the material name to open the Material Editor and edit this material. Please
look here for details on the Material Editor. You can also edit cloud materials directly. This is
much faster than opening the Atmosphere Editor and browsing to the desired layer.

Increasing Responsiveness in Large Scenes

In large scenes, with many materials, the list of materials in the World Browser can become hard
to work with. You can select a group of materials to view, limiting the materials to a certain
criteria.

Right-click on the Materials tab to display the choices. Your options are:
• Show Only Materials of Selected Objects: select an object(s) and choose this option to
display only those materials for the selected objects. If no objects are selected, the World
Browser will display empty.
• Show Only Materials Names: this displays names only, without the small icons, simpli-
fying the displayed list.
• Hide Materials of EcoSystem Specimens: this hides materials used in objects of EcoSys-
tems.
These options are saved in the User preferences so it is applied to all scenes in each session of
VUE. These options can be toggled on/off.

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Material Types
The different types of materials are identified by a symbol in front of the material name:
• Simple material: this material is a simple material (see here and here). It can be used
to define the entire material, or sub-materials of mixed materials, or layers of layered
materials.
• Bitmap material: this material is a simple material with its colors based on a bitmap
image.
• Mixed material: this material is a mixed material (see here and here).
• Layered material: this material is a layered material (see here and here).
• Volumetric material: this material is a volumetric material (see here).
• EcoSystem material: this material is an EcoSystem layer (see here).
Mixed and layered materials appear in the World Browser as a hierarchy, letting you access sub-
materials or layers directly. They are identified by a small symbol in front of them (PC: or
, Mac: or ). EcoSystem materials will also appear that way, letting you access the un-
derlying material directly.

The / symbol means that the material is folded up; sub-materials or layers of this material
are not displayed inside the browser. Clicking on the picture will unfold the contents of the
material.

The / symbol means that the material is unfolded; sub-materials or layers of this material
are displayed underneath the material name. You can edit any of the sub- materials directly by
double-clicking on it. Clicking on the small symbol will fold the material back up.

This feature is very handy when material hierarchies become complex. Because you can access
remote sub-materials directly, you don’t have to open all the intermediate material levels first
(this can also be done using the material popup menu). The material hierarchy of individual
materials can also be accessed using the Material Hierarchy of the Material Editor.

To the far right of each material and material group listed is a small icon. This icon has three
states:
• The default setting for this icon is to render normally.
• Click once and the material is hidden from render.
• Click again to render the material as a flat color. Right-click to open the Color Selector to
change the color.
This can be useful if you want to see the exact impact of the environment settings on the edited
layer, or if you want to concentrate on a given layer without losing the other layers (in this case,
just hide all other layers temporarily).

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Editing Multiple Materials

You can edit all the materials that are assigned to a given object or group of objects by selecting
the Edit All Materials option from the material preview popup menu in the Object Properties
panel (see Changing Object Material).

Material Preview
In front of each material name is a tiny preview of the material used to facilitate identification
of the material. You can adjust the size of the preview using the Preview size ( ) control in
the toolbar at the bottom of the World Browser (see below). Click on this control and drag the
mouse up to increase the size of the preview. Drag down to reduce the size.

The Bottom Toolbar

At the bottom of the World Browser is a small toolbar. In the Materials tab, the effects of the
buttons in this toolbar are:

• Edit material: click this button to open the Material Editor and edit this material.
This button is only available when a single material is selected.

• Replace material: click this button to open the Material Browser and replace the
selected material with another one. This button is only available when a single material
is selected.

• Edit material graph: click this button to directly access the graph of the selected
material (see here for details on the Function Graph).

• Preview size: this button is used to resize the material previews (see above for de-
tails).

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Library Tab

World Browser Library Tab

The Library tab displays a list of all the objects in the scene that are used several times. If the
multiple copies of the object were created by copy-pasting, duplicating or replicating, the ob-
jects will be identified as Master objects. If the multiple copies were created using an EcoSys-
tem, or the EcoSystem Painter, they will appear under the EcoSystem population category.

If you select a master object on this list, all the copies of this object will be selected.

If you right-click on an object/plant in an EcoSystem, a menu displays. One option is to go

into Master Object Edition Mode, the other option is Materials, which displays a submenu
of materials for that item with options to edit, copy or save the material for that item. This

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provides quick access for changing a material for all EcoSystem items.

Popup Menu
The options of the popup menu in the Library tab are:
• Replace By (Keep Proportions): use this command to replace a master object with the
object of your choice, keeping the proportions of the original master object (see Replac-
ing Objects). All copies of the master object will be replaced by the new object. If you
select multiple objects to replace, all selected objects will be replaced by the new object.
• Replace By (Fit Object): use this command to replace a master object with the object
of your choice, fitting the new object into the bounding box of the original master object
(see Replacing Objects). All copies of the master object will be replaced by the new object.
If you select multiple objects to replace, all selected objects will be replaced by the new
object.
• Edit Object: if the selected item is editable, use this command to edit it. This will open
the corresponding type of editor. Any modifications made to the master object will be
applied to all the copies of the object.
• Master Object Edition Mode: if you select this option, a veil will appear, cloaking all the
objects in the 3D Views except for a single copy of the master object. If the object is a
group, a Boolean or a Metablob object, this mode lets you edit the different components
of the master object directly in the views. To exit the Master Object Edition Mode, simply
deselect the master object or reselect this menu command. Any modifications made to
the master object will be applied to all the copies simultaneously.
• Convert to individual objects: this removes the duplicated object from the Master ob-
jects list so edition of each object can be made separately.
Note:

you can edit an individual copy of a master object like any other object. If you modify a copy of
a master object, the “connection” with the master object will be automatically broken.

The Bottom Toolbar

At the bottom of the World Browser is a small toolbar. In the Library tab, the effects of the
buttons in this toolbar are:

• Edit selected master objects: if the selected items are editable, use this button to
edit them. This will open the corresponding type of editor. Any modifications made to
the master object will be applied to all the copies of the object.

• Master object edition mode: click this button to activate the master object edition
mode; A veil will appear, cloaking all the objects in the 3D Views except for a single copy
of the master object. Using this mode, you can resize or rotate the master object. If the

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object is a group, a Boolean or a Metablob object, you can edit the different components
of the master object directly in the views. To exit the Master Object Edition Mode, simply
deselect the master object or reselect this menu command. Any modifications made to
the master object will be applied to all the copies simultaneously.

• Delete selected master objects: click this button to delete the selected master ob-
ject(s) and all their copies. This button is not available for EcoSystem populations.

Links Tab

World Browser Links Tab

The last tab in the World Browser maintains a list of all the external items that were loaded
into VUE, and the way they are linked. Some internally generated assets are also listed, like
terrain altitude maps or terrain textures imported using the Real-World_Terrain (Documenta-
tion/Building_Scenes/Creating_Objects/Terrains) feature.

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The list is organized in two categories:

• Texture maps: this category displays all the texture maps (imported pictures) used in
the scene together with a small icon indicating the way the texture map is linked. Please
check the details on the Material Editor – Mapped Picture for an example of loading a
texture map.
• Objects: this category holds a list of all the objects that were created in another 3D ap-
plication and imported into VUE (see here for details on importing objects from other
applications).
In a similar way to the categories in the Materials tab, the contents of each category can be
folded up. Unfolded categories are depicted by a ( on Mac) on the left of the browser. To
fold up and hide the contents of the category, click on that picture. The category folds up, and
the button changes to ( on Mac). Although the items are no longer displayed in the list,
they still exist, and unfolding the category will show them back. Empty categories are depicted
by a . Clicking on this has no effect.

Texture Maps
The first category displays a list of all the texture maps used in the scene. Clicking on a texture
map name will select all the materials that use this texture map, and all the objects that use
these materials. This is a handy way of checking which objects use a given texture map. Missing
textures will be identified as broken links. For performance reasons, this feature is disabled
when your scene contains more than 2000 images, materials or objects.

Double-click a texture to view the texture map at full resolution (using external viewer).

Alongside the name and preview of the texture map, you will notice a small symbol that identi-
fies the way the texture map is linked. Possible linking options are:
• No symbol: with this linking option, only the name of the file is saved in the scene.
When you reload the scene, the texture map will have to be at the same location in order
to be successfully loaded. If you modify the texture map in an external application, the
version used by VUE will not be updated until you reload the scene.
• Synchronized: this is similar to the previous option, except that the texture map is
automatically reloaded if it has been modified in an external application (a prompt will
appear offering to reload modified texture maps).
• Incorporated: with this option, the texture map is saved together with the scene. You
don’t have to worry about modifying or deleting the original file, because a copy of this
file will be stored inside the scene. Of course, this results in much larger scene files, but is
very useful when you need to transfer items to another party or publish them; you don’t
need to worry about including appropriate texture map files. If the texture map is modi-
fied in an external application, it won’t be modified inside VUE until you reload it.
• Incorporated and synchronized: this is similar to the above option, except the texture

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map will be automatically reloaded if it is modified in an external application.

You can toggle the linking options of a texture map using the popup menu (see below).

Metadata
Image have some meta data associated to them:
• Size in pixel
• Channels (RGB or Greyscale)
• Bit depth (8/16/32 bits, integer or float)
• Color space / Gamma : for now we only support approximate sRGB and gamma adjust-
ment.
• Map type : the data represents color, normal map, roughness map, etc.
The gamma only matters when an image is connected to something that evaluates into a color
(like the color channel of material). The image data is converted to a linear color space for use
by the renderer. When connected to a channel that is linear by nature (normal map, metalness,
etc.) it is ignored, the raw data of the image is used.

The map type is equally important to detect potential problems in material definition, either
automated (message if you connect something labelled X into Y) or for yourself to remember
what data an image is.

In the future it will also be used for special transformations like rotating normal maps, which is
not correct in the current version: as in addition to moving the pixels inside the map, it should
also rotate the normal itself (it means modifying the “color” value of the moved pixel)!

Texture Map Preview

In front of each texture map filename is a tiny preview of the texture map used to facilitate
identification. You can adjust the size of the preview using the Preview size ( ) control in
the toolbar at the bottom of the World Browser (see below). Click on this control and drag the
mouse up to increase the size of the preview. Drag down to reduce the size.

Imported Objects
Whenever you import an object created with another 3D application, this object will be listed
in the Objects category of this list. Clicking on the name of an object in this list will select the
corresponding object. Double-clicking on the name of the object will open the Polygon Mesh
Options dialog.

When you import an object from another 3D application, you have the possibility of decimating
the object (see here for details on polygon decimation). Objects that have been decimated are
identified by a small pictogram ( ) to the right of the object’s name. You can remove decima-

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tion by re-importing the object without decimation (see below).

Popup Menu
The popup menu of this tab offers the commands below. Menu commands apply to the se-
lected items or the item under the mouse cursor at the time of displaying the menu if no item
is selected.
• Incorporated: select this menu option to toggle the incorporated status of the texture
map under the mouse cursor. This option is only available if the item under the mouse
cursor is a texture map.
• Synchronized: select this menu option to toggle the synchronized status of the texture
map under the mouse cursor. This option is only available if the item under the mouse
cursor is a texture map.
• Downsample: this option allows you to non-destructively change the current resolution
of the material. Your options are:
– To halve resolution
– To divide it by four
– To divide it by eight
– To select a custom downsampling coefficient
This can be reversed by selecting the Original size option.
• Replace Link: selecting this menu command will display a standard Picture or Object
File Browser letting you select a picture or an object file that should replace the selected
item.
• Export Link: selecting this menu command will display a Picture or Object File Browser
letting you select the name of the file under which you would like to save an incorporated
texture map or an imported object. This command is only available if the item under the
mouse cursor is an incorporated texture map or an imported object (see here for details
about exporting objects).
• Reload Link: select this menu command to reload a texture map or an imported object
that has been modified in an external application. For VUE Pro users, if the reloaded item
is an imported object, and this object has been decimated, it will be reloaded with the
same level of decimation as previously imported.
• Reload Link with Options...: Same as above, but the Import options dialog will be shown
again for you to change import options as desired.
• Reload Meshes Without Decimation: this menu command is only available if the item
under the mouse cursor is an imported object, and this object has been decimated. When
you select this command, the object will be re-imported without being decimated. Us-
ing this feature, you can import a large object, decimate it to facilitate placement and

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test rendering, and then re-import it without decimation when you are ready for the final
rendering.
• Reload All Without Decimation: this command will reload the full geometry of all im-
ported objects that have been decimated.
• Incorporate All Texture Maps: this command will simply incorporate all the texture maps
that are not yet incorporated (see above for an explanation of incorporated texture maps).
This is very handy if you want to make sure that all the texture maps are included with
the scene before you transfer it to another party.
• Copy all Texture Maps in a Folder: this option copies all textures from the imported ob-
jects into a folder for future reference.

The Bottom Toolbar

At the bottom of the World Browser is a small toolbar. In the Links tab, the effects of the buttons
in this toolbar are:

• Replace link: clicking this button will display a Standard File Browser letting you
select a picture or an object that should replace the selected item.

• Export link: clicking this button will display a standard Picture or Object File Browser
letting you select the name of the file under which you would like to save an incorporated
texture map or an imported object.

• Reload link: click this button to reload a texture map or an imported object that has
been modified in an external application. If the reloaded item is an imported object, and
this object has been decimated, it will be reloaded with the same level of decimation.

• Delete object: click this button to delete the selected object(s). This button is only
available when the selected item is an imported object.

• Preview size: this control is used to resize the texture map previews.

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Animation Timeline

The complete Timeline (Properties, Graph and Preview Timeline unfolded)

1. Navigation & keyframing 6. Preview/Render animation

2. Animated items list 7. Animation Toolbox
3. Property animations 8. Path display options
4. Graph legend 9. Show in Graph & Property TimeSpline
5. Property graph 10. Animation preview

The animaation Timeline is VUE’s animation control center.

To display the animation Timeline, select the menu command Display | Display Timeline or
click the Display Timeline icon ( ). This displays the Animation Wizard together with the

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Timeline (you can disable this feature using the checkbox on the first page of the Wizard). The
Animation Wizard helps you easily setup an animation of your scene. If you don’t want to use
the Wizard, just press Escape or click Close.

The Timeline panel is subdivided into 4 sections: the Main Timeline, the Properties Timeline, the
Animation Graph and the Animation Preview. Initially, only the Main Timeline is visible.

You can display the other sections of the Timeline by pressing the corresponding unfold icons:
• displays the Properties Timeline

• displays the Animation Graph

• displays the Animation Preview.

Click those icons again to fold-up the corresponding part of the Timeline.

The Main Timeline

The Main Timeline

The Main Timeline summarizes the animation information contained in your scene. It com-
prises a set of controls ( ) that are used to navigate and preview the animation. Un-
der this set of controls you will find the Current time edit box. This box displays the current
time inside the animation. You can modify it by entering a new value, or by dragging the Current
time slider to a new position. The current time can be displayed as:
• Seconds
• SMPTE
• Frames
To the right of the animation controls, you will find a ruler. It is this ruler that displays sum-
marized information about your animation. It allows you to position events in time, and is
graduated in seconds.

The solid bar in the middle of the ruler is the Duration bar. It depicts the total duration of the
animation. It is not possible to adjust the length of this bar manually, because it automatically
adapts to the duration of the longest property animation in the scene.

This Duration bar is struck through by a yellow line. This yellow line indicates the active part of
the animation. This is the part that will be played if you press the Play icon ( ), or rendered if

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you press the Generate preview icon ( ). You can modify the active part of the animation by
dragging the handles situated at both ends of the line ( ) and ( ). The line will shrink or
expand accordingly. By default, the end of the active part of the animation “clings” to the end
of the Duration bar. If you modify the end of the active part of the animation, this is no longer
the case. You can restore it by dragging the end slider to a negative time value.

The Current time slider sits above the Duration bar. Drag it to the left or to the right to change
the current time. The views will be automatically updated to show the scene at the new time.

If the Current Time | Constrain Current Time option is selected from the Timeline menu, the
current time slider will not be able to move beyond the beginning and end of the active part of
the animation.

Below the Duration bar are drawn the Keyframe handles. Only the keyframes belonging to
the currently selected objects are displayed in the Timeline. This reduces clutter when many
keyframes have been defined in a scene. If no objects are selected, the keyframes of all objects,
materials and atmosphere in the scene appear.

Auto­Keyframing
By default, keyframes appear each time you define a new property for an object, at a differ-
ent time. This is called auto-keyframing. For instance, if you select an object, modify the cur-
rent time and then drag the object to a new position, a position keyframe will be created. This
newly created keyframe will appear under the Duration bar. You can modify the time at which
a keyframe occurs by dragging it to the left or to the right.

The Auto-Keyframing icon ( ) lets you control the way keyframes are created.

If you click on this icon, a menu will appear with the following options:
• Enable Auto-Keyframing: select this option to enable/disable auto-keyframing. When
auto-keyframing is disabled, keyframes will not be created automatically; the Auto-Keyframing
icon will be changed to the Manual Keyframing icon (see below).
• Add Keyframe to all Properties: select this menu command to add a keyframe to all the
animation properties of the selected objects at the current time.
• Add “xxx” Keyframe, where “xxx” is the name of an animation property: selecting this
menu command will add a keyframe to the “xxx” property at the current time.
When auto-keyframing is disabled, the Auto-Keyframing icon changes to the Manual Keyfram-
ing icon ( ). Click this icon to create a new keyframe (when auto-keyframing is disabled,
keyframes are not created automatically as soon as you change an object’s property. If you
check an object’s property and click the icon, appropriate keyframes will be created. If you
don’t, the animated object will revert to its original state as soon as you change current time).
If you long-click the Manual Keyframing icon, the keyframe menu will appear.

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Moving around in the Timeline

The triggers for use in handling the timeline are those configured for the 1D and 2D Views in the
Operations panel, and that are also used in Orthographic viewports, etc.:
• To Scroll the Timeline, use the Panning trigger (Right MB+Drag by default).
• To Zoom in or out of the Timeline, use the Zooming trigger (Alt+Right MB+Drag by default).

Constraining the Current Time Slider

You can constrain the Current Time slider to the length of the animation, so that the slider can-
not go before the beginning of the animation, or move further than the end of the animation.
This feature is controlled using the menu command Constrain Current Time on the popup
menu.

Rendering the Animation

Use the icon to refresh the animation preview. Activate the alternate action ( ) of this icon
to access the Animation Preview Options dialog.

Use the icon to render the animation (read more here). Activate the alternate action ( )
of this icon to directly access the Advanced Animation Options dialog.

You can resize the Timeline horizontally. You can also resize it vertically. If the Animation Pre-
view Timeline is displayed, resizing will add new lines of previews. If the Properties Timeline
is displayed, resizing will add new lines to the Properties Timeline. If the Animation Graph is
displayed, resizing will increase the size of the graph. If both the Animation Graph and the Prop-
erties Timeline are displayed, you can adjust the respective size of these two elements using
the resizer handle in between them.

The Properties Timeline

The Properties Timeline unfolded

When you press the button, the Timeline expands to include the Properties Timeline.

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The Properties Timeline gives you a detailed view of all the animated items of your scene. To
the left, you will find a list of all these items (animated objects, animated materials, animated
atmosphere…). This list operates much like the World Browser except that all objects can be ex-
panded (they are preceded by a / , like groups in the World Browser). Clicking on the /
will display all of the animatable properties of the object (e.g. position, orientation, size…).
However, unlike in the World Browser, pressing Delete will not destroy the object, but only de-
stroy its animation.

This list of animated items also introduces 3 new identification pictograms:

• Animated material: this element is an animated material (either Surface, Velocity or
Complete animation; read everything about Animating Materials here.

• Animated cloud: this element is an animated cloud material (either Surface, Velocity
or Complete animation; read everything about Animating Clouds here).

• Animated post processing: indicates that some global post-processing applies to all
cameras, and that this post-processing is animated (see here for details on post-processing).
The ruler to the right displays a list of all keyframes defined for the properties, together with a
solid bar that depicts the total duration of the properties animation. Keyframes are automat-
ically added each time you modify a property of an object (e.g. a new Position keyframe will
be added to the object animation each time you move it at a different time). You can modify
the time at which the keyframe occurs by dragging it with the mouse. To delete a property
keyframe, just click on it and press Delete (or select the Delete keyframe from the Timeline
popup menu).

To the right of the properties ruler, you will find a set of controls that let you further customize
the behavior of your objects animations. The first three relate to the way the path followed by
the object is displayed in the 3D Views (they are only useful if your object actually moves during
the animation):
• Persistent path: select this option to display the path even when the object is not
selected.

• Show path as ribbon: this affects the way the path is displayed in the 3D Views. In-
stead of being displayed as a thin line, it will be depicted by a ribbon, giving an idea of
the orientation of the object as well as its position.

• Show tangents: this will display the tangents of the objects path at each keyframe.
Note:
It is not possible to modify these tangents directly (you have to modify the path to modify
the tangents), because it is spline driven. It is possible to edit these tangents directly in
the timeline’s animation graph, however.
The last button ( ) opens the Animation Toolbox for the property.

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Opposite each animation property, you will find the Show in curve ( ) toggle button. When
this button is pressed, the corresponding animation property will always appear in the anima-
tion graph (see below), even when the property is not selected. This is useful e.g. if you want
to adjust the curves of one property according to that of another property.

Alongside the Show in curve button you can see a curve. This is known as the Time spline. This
Time spline lets you fine tune the flow of the animation.

The Animation Graph

The Animation Graph unfolded

When you press the button, the Timeline expands to show the Animation Graph.

The Animation Graph provides advanced control over the way each animation property evolves
with time. The list to the left of the graph shows all the animation properties of the currently
selected objects. If you select one of these properties, one or several curves will appear on the
graph to the right of the list, showing the evolution of the property over time.

The number of curves that are displayed for each property depends on the type of the property:
• If the selected property is a color or a position, three curves will appear in the graph; one
for each component. The property will be preceded by a / symbol in the property

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list, indicating that it can be expanded, letting you select individual components of the
animation properties (XYZ for a position and RGB for a color).
• The Orientation property is also preceded by the / symbol. By default, orientation
is processed using quaternion arithmetic. If you want to access the individual angles of
rotation, you need to convert the animation to the Euler model. This is done automati-
cally when you expand the animation property (after displaying a warning). You can then
access the individual rotations in the graph.
• All other properties are displayed as a single curve in the graph.
By default, the colors used to display the curves in the graph are Red, Green and Blue for X, Y
and Z. You can change these colors by clicking on the color swatch alongside each animation
property/component.

You can select single or multiple keyframes in the graph using standard selection tools. You
can drag keyframes around in the graph to modify keyframe times and values (the keyframes
of some properties do not correspond to “values” per se – for instance, a terrain geometry
keyframe is not a “value”. For such properties, you can only modify the keyframe time).

You can add keyframes to a specific component of an animation property (e.g. add a keyframe
to the X coordinate of the Position property) by selecting the appropriate component in the list,
and selecting the Add Keyframe command from the popup menu in the graph.

The Animation Preview

The Animation Preview unfolded

The last part of the Timeline features a real preview render of your animation. Click on the
button to display it. VUE renders a small preview of the animation, and then plays it repeatedly

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inside a tiny window. Press Escape or click to stop playing the animation.

A set of tiny windows appears, displaying successive frames of the animation. The window
that is framed by a solid line displays the frame at the current time. If you drag the Current time
slider, the frames will scroll accordingly. Clicking on a frame sets the current time to that of the
frame.

Press the Render animation preview icon ( ) to refresh the preview. Activate the alternate
action ( ) of this icon to access the Animation Preview Options dialog.

You can play-back the animation preview alone (i.e. without animating the 3D Views for smoother
playback) at any time by activating the alternate Play icon ( ).

Visual Browsers

Selecting a scene using the scene browser

Whenever you need to select a file, VUE will display a Visual Browser to help you make your
selection.

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The Visual Browser lets you select files using preview pictures instead of filenames. Moving the
mouse over one of the preview pictures ( or clicking on the icon ) will display it a larger size
next to the selected item in a popup, along with the title of the file and a short text description.
The name of each item is displayed by passing the cursor over the item.

Underneath the text description, you will also notice the name of the file. This is useful when
you want to delete a file, or move it to another folder.

To select an item, simply click on it.

If the items in this collection display on more than one page, use the dots at the bottom of the
browser to display other items currently not visible.

Right-clicking an item will display a menu. You can Show a ToolTip, Add to Favorites list, Re-
move the image from the browser and Load the file. You can also delete items in the list by
highlighting them and hitting the Delete key. A prompt will appear asking if you want to delete
the item completely (i.e. delete the file from your hard drive) or if you just want to hide the item
from the collection.

Some visual Browsers are non-modal, so that you can leave them open and drag content from
the browser into the scene anytime.

Collections

Inside the Visual Browser, items are organized in collections. The collections are displayed as
icons ( ) across the top of the browser.
Running the mouse over the icons displays the name of the collection. The items that are cur-
rently displayed belong to the highlighted collection. If the collection has subfolders, these will
be listed on the left side of the browser. Click on any folder in the list to display contents.

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Selecting a subfolder from a category

In the lower left of the browser are plus (+) and minus(-) signs. Click on the plus sign to enlarge

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the pictures of the items in the browser; click on the minus sign to display those images smaller.
You can also use Ctrl+Wheel to change the size of the previews.

Collections are in fact shortcuts to directories containing items of the requested type. You may
add as many collections to the list as you like by creating new folders in the root folder of the
type of item displayed by the Visual Browser (e.g. Materials folder for Material Browser) or by
clicking the plus sign icon at the end of the current list. Browse to the folder location on Stan-
dard File Browser that appears. Browse to the new collection’s folder, and select the desired
folder. You will be prompted for a name. This is the name the collection will have inside the
Visual Browser. Click OK, and wait for a couple of seconds while VUE builds the item previews
and displays them).

If you add files to a folder that is listed by a Visual Browser as being a collection, the correspond-
ing new items will automatically be added to the previews.

Collections may be removed from the list by right-clicking the icon for that collection and se-
lect Hide Collection. A prompt asks you to confirm the removal of the currently highlighted
collection.

Note:

Removing a collection does not delete any actual files from your hard disk.

The contextual menu of the tabs can also change the icon of a collection or move the tabs right
or left.

Loading other Files

If the file you wish to load is not displayed in any of the available collections, you may access
it directly by clicking the folder icon at the top right of the dialog( ). A Standard File Browser
will appear, letting you browse and select your file.

You can bypass the Visual Browser completely when loading items by checking the Use System
Browser option in the General Preferences tab of the Options panel or in the browser options.

Search

You can search/filter items by using the search toolbar: .

Typing on the text box will trigger a research on the whole collection on icon names. While there
is a custom input on the text box, when you navigate inside the categories, the visible previews
will be filtered by this text. You can clear the filter by clicking on the icon .

The icon opens the search option panel.

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Search Option Panel

• Titles: Search on the titles of items
• Descriptions: Search on the descriptions of items
• File Paths: Search on the name of the items file on the hard disk.
• In the current category and subfolder: When you validate a research, you will search
only on the current subfolder.
• In the entire category and subfolders: When you validate a research, you will search
only on the whole selected category.
• In the entire collection: When you validate a research, you will search on all items in the
collection, on any of the categories.
• In this folder: Select a folder to search on the hard drive.

Browser Options

There are some general options that can be selected by clicking the settings icon ( ). This
displays the setting dialog with these options :

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Browser Options

.
• Show items names on preview: Filter if you want to see the name of files on the previews
according to the size of the previews. You will still have the files name by moving the
mouse over a preview.
• Auto popup item details: This will deactivate the auto tooltip on previews and show the
icon)
• Use system browser: This allows to bypass the visual browser when selecting an item
to load. Your operating system browser displays instead. Since the visual browser will
no longer show, the only way to revert this option is to uncheck “Use system browser”
in the Options dialog, General Preferences tab. Note that if you want to bypass the vi-
sual browser just once when loading an object, image, etc. you can usually use Alt+click
on the button that would have opened it. For example, to load a single object using the
system browser, you can Alt+click on the Load object icon in the Left Toolbar (an-
other possibility for this particular case would be to drag and drop the file from your OS
explorer).
• Single click to load items: You only have to click once to choose item.
• Deselect other items on click: When you click on an item in the browser, any other items
that have been checked are unchecked, or deselected. Having this unchecked may cause
problems when selecting items for an EcoSystem. If you select one item, you will get all
checked items in the browser into your EcoSystem.
• Show tab names on tabs: This displays the name of the categories on the tabs.

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• Apply to All: All these options are defined for the current browser. This button apply the
current options to all the browsers.
Directly below, is the Favorites icon ( ). Click to open your list of Favorites.

Next to that icon is the icon ( ) that will display your recent choices.

In the lower right corner are the icons to increase/decrease the items’ size in the browser ( )

Virtual Collections
Some collections have a slightly different behavior, because files from these collections are not
necessarily available on your Hard Disk. These collections are known as Virtual.

The whole purpose of Virtual Collections is to offer you a large selection of files, without requir-
ing massive amounts of Hard Disk space.

When you select a file from a Virtual Collection, the following pictogram appears in the preview:
. This means that the file you have selected was not physically copied to your Hard Disk at
the time of installation. Instead, a reference was created to this file on one of the product’s Extra
CD.

If you load the file, a dialog box will appear instructing you to insert a given CD. Simply insert
the CD in your CD ROM drive and press OK.

If you don’t want to have to fetch the CD next time you use that file, select the option Copy the
file to my Hard Disk. When you press OK, the file will be first copied to your Hard Disk, and
then loaded into the program. Next time you select this file in the collection, you will notice
that the pictogram has disappeared from this file’s preview.

You can also decide to copy all the files from the collection to your Hard Disk by checking the
option Copy all files in this collection to my Hard Disk. When you press OK, all the files in
the collection will be physically copied to your Hard Disk, and the collection will no longer be
virtual.

If you don’t want to use files in this collection any more, press the Remove collection button.

If you have to locate the file manually, press the Locate file manually button. A Standard File
Browser will appear letting you browse to the location of the selected file.

Plant Filter
When you open a plant browser, you have an option to show only the plants made by Plant
Factory and hide old solid growth plants.

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Selecting a plant in all species

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Selecting a plant in plant factory species only

The icon / allows you to choose between both modes.

Downloading Collections

If you wish to download all of the scenes (or objects), select the icon in the upper right of the
browser. This will download all of the scenes to your hard drive so you won’t need a continuous
Internet connection to get the scenes, downloading one scene at a time.

Scene Versions

This section is specific to the Scene browser. When several backup versions of a scene exist, a
pictogram representing a clock appears on its preview, to let you choose between the available
backup versions.

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Easily identify scenes with backup versions

When you click on the pictogram, you can see the list of available versions, and select any of
the latter.

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Choose the backup version you want to load

You can also display this list from the contextual menu which pops up when you right-click over
a scene preview.

Contextual menu for scene browser

Note:

When you remove a scene from the browser using the Remove Item menu command, and choose
to remove the file from disk too, all backup versions of the file will be removed from disk too.

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Grouped Dialogs

Related dialogs or panels can now be grouped for easier use and the saving of space in the user
interface.

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Panels grouped

When you are on a dialog (for example, the Atmosphere Editor), important sub-dialogs like the
Advanced Cloud Material Editor can optionally open in the same window. By default, the sub-
dialog will be tabbed with the first one. A dialog can have many sub-dialogs (Atmosphere editor
can have Advanced Cloud Material Editor or Function Graph as a sub-dialog, or both).

Sub-Dialog attached at right

Another option is to attach the sub-dialog to the right of the first dialog.

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Each dialog has OK/X buttons. If there is more than one dialog grouped together, every dialog
will be affected by the OK/X on the main dialog. In other words, if you select X on the main
dialog, all dialogs will close.

A menu can be accessed by right-clicking on the tab/caption of the dialog. You can choose
to ungroup sub-dialogs by right-clicking on a tab and selecting to use the dialogs as floating
(separate dialogs) or to have the second dialog attached to the right of the first dialog. If, after
you’ve selected to ungroup the dialogs and use them as floating, you wish to group them again,
this is set in the main or first dialog.

HiDPI

HiDPI, or High Dots Per Inch, is a high res display available on Windows. It’s the PC equivalent
of the Mac Retina screens.

This means VUE scales the user interface with Windows scaling.

To activate, open the Windows Control panel and select Appearance and Personalization>Adjust
screen resolution. Changing a value on this screen will make the VUE user interface larger by
the same ratio. (With Windows 7, 125% and 150% are proposed).

Windows 10 latest updates allows to have a setup with screens with different DPI (example:
a normal screen and a 4K screen).In that case, VUE will rescale automatically the dialog that
changes screen.

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Saving Scene

There are 3 modes to save scenes:

• Save as... is the default mode (Fast-save mode, it creates a .fsvue file): This mode is
the fastest ; it should be used during the creation of your project, as long as you edit it
alone, on your machine. Unlike scene snapshots, which were lost when VUE was closed,
.fsvue scenes are persistent. They are based on the same incremental system as snap-
shots (heavy data such as EcoSystem populations are not written each time you save the
scene, except if they were actually modified). Those .fsvue files do not incorporate tex-
ture maps or EcoSystem variations. Therefore, you should use another mode to share a
projects with other artists (see below).
Warning:
.fsvue files are not compatible with previous versions of VUE.
• Consolidated Archive: incorporates all dependencies so that the scene can be easily
shared with other artists. This mode will produce .vue files, which are compatible with
previous versions of VUE.
• Network Rendering: should be used for scenes which are about to be rendered on a
RenderNode network: in addition of all dependencies, it also incorporates data which
will speed up the rendering process (.tpf plants species render cache, typically)

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Thumbnail Previews in Windows

Folder View

VUE now displays its content directories as preview thumbnails. Even without VUE being launched,
you are able to see the preview of VUE files. Also, when opening a native browser window in-
side VUE, you can still see the preview, but it won’t be in a special control at the bottom of the
window, it will be directly integrated inside the window.

You must have the option to Use System Browser selected on the Options panel, General Pref-
erences Tab.

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How to use it

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to a folder containing a format supported by VUE. The
example shown here is a folder of atmospheres. When using the Windows Explorer launched
by VUE, do not forget to change the display mode to ’[Small/Medium/Large/Extra Large] icons
to see the previews of the files.

At this time, this feature is only available for Windows. It will be available later for the Mac.

VUE's Installed Content

VUE installs with materials, atmospheres, terrains and other content. The default location for
this content is now installed in these locationss.

On the Mac, the default location is /Users/Shared/VUE/

On the PC, the default location is C:/ProgramData/e-onsoftware/VUE/

The content is installed with subdirectories for /clouds, /materials, /objects, and so on.

The location of these directories can be changed at installation.

If you should use the default location for the installed content, on the PC, this location is a hid-
den directory/file. So to see the directory of installed items while browsing in the Windows File
Explorer, you must have the option to see these hidden directories/files turned on in Windows.
To turn this on, on the Windows File Explorer window, from the menu, select Tools>Folder Op-
tions. On the Folder Options dialog, select the View tab. On the list that displays, under Files
and Folders, select Show hidden files, folders, and drives. Click on ’Apply, then OK. Then
you will be able to see this contents directory.

During installation, you also have the option of creating a new user content directory. This is in
addition to the VUE installed content directory. Or you can point to an existing directory that
you use for your content.

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Understanding VUE
Operations

Clipping Plane

You may have noticed that objects below the ground are not visible in the main 3D view. This
is because they are automatically clipped below the ground, to improve the visual comprehen-
sion of the view.

This feature can be turned off by using the Options dialog in the View Options section of the
Display Options tab. It may also be activated in the orthogonal views using that same dialog.

To decide which plane is going to be the clipping plane, VUE looks through all of the layers of
the scene, to find the first infinite plane that is perfectly horizontal, and facing upwards (so if
you rotate the ground plane so that it is no longer horizontal, it won’t be a valid clipping plane
any more, and will not be retained). If you add water to the scene, another infinite plane will
be created above the ground. It will be placed in the World Browser just before the ground,
thus becoming the first available clipping plane. This is why everything under the surface of
the water is now invisible (which is usually what is wanted). If you drag the ground above the
water in the World Browser, the ground will become the new clipping plane again (e.g. when
you want to see underwater).

It is important that you understand how VUE decides which is the clipping plane, to avoid get-
ting confused after having inadvertently manipulated the infinite plane that happens to be the
current clipping plane.

Note:

Do not confuse this with the OpenGL clipping planes that define the range of minimum and
maximum distances from the camera of objects displayed in the OpenGL 3D Views (this can be
adjusted using the OpenGL Clipping frame of the Options dialog.

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Drag and Drop

Drag and drop is everywhere in VUE:

• you can drag a material onto objects inside the 3D Views or the World Browser, or onto
other materials,
• you can drag materials onto several objects using the Shift key to extend selection,
• you can drag materials from the Summary of Materials onto other objects or materials,
• you can drag functions, filters and color maps from one material to another,
• you can drag items from the Visual Browsers into your scene, for instance, drag materi-
als from the Material Visual Browser onto objects, or drag objects from the Object Visual
Browser into the scene, and
• you can drag objects around inside the World Browser, into groups, out of groups, dupli-
cate them, move them from one layer to another.

Popup Menus

Popup menus (also known as contextual menus) are available almost everywhere in VUE. A
popup menu is a menu that lists operations relative to the item under the mouse cursor. It is
called by clicking on the desired item with the right mouse button. In the 3D views, you have
to be careful not to move the mouse in between the moment you press the button and the
moment you release it; if not the views will be moved and no popup menu will appear.

3D Coordinates

World Space

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The three axes of world space

To understand how objects are positioned and oriented relative to each other, we have to define
a coordinate system. In VUE, this is (very classically) constructed from 3 axes, all at right angles
from one another.

The center of the world, also known as the origin, is the point located in the middle of the or-
thogonal views, when you create a new scene. All positions are indicated relative to this point.
The ground is also initially positioned at altitude 0.

The vertical axis is known as the Z axis, with positive numbers representing points above the
ground, and negative ones representing points under the ground. Although this may seem un-
usual, it is the correct International Unit System.

Looking at Top view, the X axis is the horizontal one, with positive values representing points to
the right of the origin, and negative values representing points to the left of the origin.

Also in Top view, the Y axis is the vertical one, with positive values representing points above
the origin in this view, and negative values representing points under the origin.

Note:

If you are familiar with other coordinate systems, you can configure VUE to use another ‘up axis’.
This is available on the Options panel, Units & Coordinates Tab.

Object Space

World space

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Object space

Same material, different space

Object space is linked to an object, and is independent from the orientation of the object inside
the World. You may rotate, stretch and twist an object in any way you like, object space will still
indicate the same axes for the object, because it is relative to that object.

It is important to understand the difference between the two coordinate systems, and when
each one is used. The 3D views operate only in world space, that is, object independent coordi-
nates. If you resize an object using the resize handles inside the 3D Views, the resulting object
depends on the objects orientation: try creating a cube, resizing it vertically, and then rotating
it 45°. Now create another cube, rotate it 45°, then resize it vertically. The result is not the same.

The Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel operates in object space. Try repeating the
above operations, this time using the Numerics control. As you will notice, the results are iden-
tical in both cases.

Material Mapping Coordinates

Standard

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Cylindrical

Same material, different mapping

Materials can be expressed in either coordinate system. Imagine you have a cube, made out
of a black and white checker pattern. If you rotate the cube, the checker pattern won’t fit the
object any more. The solution consists in defining the material as being in Object space, so that
the axes of the checkerboard match those of the object. Obviously, this is not what you would
want all the time.

Both of the coordinate systems can be represented in either one of 4 modes:

Standard

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Spherical

Same material, different mapping

• Standard: this is the standard (Cartesian) coordinate system, where X and Y represent the
coordinates of the point in the horizontal plane, and Z represents the vertical elevation.
• Cylindrical: X represents the distance to the vertical axis, Y represents the angle (in the
horizontal plane) of the line that joins the point to the origin, and Z represents the vertical
elevation. Cylindrical mapping is best suited for cylindrical objects.
• Spherical: X represents the distance to the vertical axis, Y represents the angle (in the hor-
izontal plane) of the line that joins the point to the origin (the heading), and Z represents
the pitch of that same line. Spherical mapping is best suited for spherical objects.
• Parametric: in this mode, the mapping coordinates are automatically adjusted in such a
way that they are independent on the size of the object. This mode is particularly useful
when mapping e.g. a picture on a cube, because resizing the cube will not affect the
number of times the picture is mapped on the cube.
Since cylindrical, spherical and parametric mapping modes are computed relative to the origin,
they give best results when expressed in Object coordinates (because in these coordinates, the
origin is the center of the object).

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Ray Tracing

Ray tracing is probably the most powerful 3D imaging technique for rendering photo-realistic
pictures. It’s incredibly complex too! The major drawback of this technique is long render times.
It’s the usual tradeoff: quality or speed.

Ray tracing was not invented for computers, as most people think, but for capturing the physics
of rainbows. And this was back in 1637! The idea is that a picture is the result of the interaction
of light with the objects that build up a scene. The optical principle behind ray tracing is that
light follows exactly the same path, whether it travels forwards, or… backwards. So, what ray-
tracing does, is follow all those light rays reaching the camera back through the scene, up to the
light source. For each and every pixel of a picture, the render engine will trace the ray of light
back into the scene, decide what objects were hit by the ray, bounce that ray back if the surface
is reflective, transmit it through the object’s surface if it is transparent, and eventually head
for light sources, making sure nothing is getting in the way, that would shadow the object… A
simple scene made out of a water plane and a ground plane requires tracing 7 rays per pixel !
(And this is if you are not using any elaborate features, like soft shadows, blurred reflections or
transparencies, depth of field, super-sampling; you could go up to hundreds…).

This complexity is the reason why ray-tracing yields such beautiful results. And also why it is so
slow.

For VUE, we wanted the best. So we chose ray-tracing… However, numerous optimizations and
special ways of displaying pictures as they render have enabled us to produce what we think is
a render engine fast enough to be enjoyable.

Render Engine

This is the process that converts the mathematical description of 3D scenes into 2D pictures. It
scans each line of the picture, deciding what should be the color of every pixel of the line. When
Tile rendering is selected it proceeds in several passes, doubling the resolution of the picture
at each pass. The first pass renders groups of 16×16 pixels, the second groups of 8×8, the third
4 × 4, the fourth 2 × 2, and finally, the last pass renders the picture at full blown resolution. In
doing so, the user rapidly sees his picture take shape and can decide early if the result is going
to be as expected, or decide to stop the process by pressing Escape. The render engine may be
customized to a large extent through the Render Options dialog. This is explained in detail in
the section on Framing and rendering.

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Soft Shadows

Standard ray traced shadows

Soft, natural shadows

Soft shadows

Real shadows seldom look as sharp as their computer generated counterpart. You always find
smooth transitions between light and shadow; the farther the object casting its shadow, the
smoother the transition. This is because light emanates from a surface rather than from a single
point.

Such subtle effects can be captured by VUE.

Ray­Traced Soft Shadows

When the render engine must decide if a point is standing in the light or in shadow, it casts a
ray at the light source. If the ray reaches the source without hitting anything opaque, the point

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stands in the light, otherwise, it stands in the shadow. To generate soft shadows, the render
engine sends a bunch of rays, aimed at the whole surface of the light. It then compares the
results to decide if more rays are needed. When enough rays have been cast, it computes an
average luminosity for the point. The quality and efficiency of the result depends on that of
the algorithm that decides how rays are cast. This technique is so powerful that it captures soft
shadows cast by one complex object (e.g. a tree) onto itself.

Soft-shadows are turned on, on a “per light” basis, using the Object Properties panel. Use them
with care, due to the extra computation they require. 5° is a good Softness value.

Shadow Map

Shadow Mapped shadows

While ray-traced soft shadows have the distinct advantage of being technically accurate, they
have a severe drawback: they are very time consuming – especially if you want to get rid of
noise artifacts, because you will have to increase the number of samples taken for each light.
This is why VUE offers the shadow map alternative.

Shadow maps are a good way of rendering smooth soft shadows with very little noise and,
most importantly, they are significantly faster to compute. To be more precise, the efficiency
of shadow maps when compared to ray-traced shadows increases with the scene’s complex-
ity. This is an important rule to keep in mind. Of course, shadow maps have drawbacks too:
performance is obtained at the cost of a loss of accuracy.

There are several ways of finding a good compromise between performance and accuracy when
using shadow maps.

Here is a basic description of how shadow maps work: the shadow map is an approximation of
the scene representation from the light’s point of view. The light’s field of view is divided into
cells, each cell containing information about encountered objects. The limited number of cells
reveals the main shadow map weakness: accuracy. Too few cells will result in a coarse approx-

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imation of the scene (and shadows will therefore suffer from a lack of precision), whereas too
many cells will result in a very accurate representation of the obstacles encountered by rays
leaving the light source, but will result in a huge memory consumption as well as a drastic loss
of performance.

VUE uses an advanced proprietary shadow mapping technology known as AccuShadows™. This
technology is similar in some ways to the deep shadow mapping technology. It allows for the ef-
ficient processing of shadows created by transparent objects as well as directional light sources
(e.g. sunlight).

The behavior of shadow maps can be customized using the Shadows tab of the Light Editor.

Area Lights
Unlike simple light sources, area lights emit light from all points of their surface. Because ob-
jects placed in front of area lights will only block part of the light emitted by the area light source,
they will create nice soft shadows. Area lights are very useful to recreate smooth, real-life-like
lights. They are unfortunately a lot slower to compute than the other types of light.

The Lights section has more details on area lights.

Blurred Transparencies and Reflections

Standard ray-traced reflections

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Blurred reflections. Note how the farther tropic is more blurred

2 tropics reflecting in a cylinder

Once again, the standard ray-traced, mirror-surfaced sphere (on a checkerboard?) is a poor
approximation of what would really happen in nature. Perfect reflections or transparencies
rarely occur. Instead, as reflected (or transmitted) light travels further, it spreads out, due to
imperfections on the surface of the objects. Therefore, the reflected (or transmitted) picture
eventually gets blurred. Although some natural surfaces are really smooth, this effect always
ends up happening, as light travels further.

VUE can also capture this extremely subtle effect, in much the same way as that used for gener-
ating soft shadows. Instead of casting one reflected (or transmitted) ray, it casts a whole bunch,
spread out at an angle dependent on the quality of the surface. It then decides if enough rays
were cast, and, if so, computes the average color. As for soft shadows, the quality and efficiency
of the result depends on that of the algorithm that decides how rays are cast.

Blurred reflections and transparencies are turned on, on a “per material” basis, using the Re-
flections and Transparency tabs of the Material Editor. 5° is a good value. You can even decide
to vary the amount of blurring over the surface of the material! Use blurring with care, however,
due to the extra computation it requires.

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Reflection Maps

Spring with Reflection Map for faster reflections

Computing true reflections can sometimes be very costly, especially for blurred reflections that
require distributed ray-tracing (see above), which can suffer from noise artifacts in addition to
a strong increase in rendering time. In order to speed up rendering of reflections while getting
rid of noise artifacts, VUE offers the possibility to use reflection maps.

A reflection map is a bitmap that is used as if it were mapped onto a static sphere enclosing
the scene. Thus, for reflective objects using a reflection map, this bitmap will be “reflected” at
their surface instead of the real surrounding environment. This feature can speed-up render-
ing time amazingly, but should only be used when reflections don’t need to display the true
surrounding environment. For instance, this technique is particularly useful for chrome-like
objects which must exhibit a reflective behavior without necessarily having to produce truly
accurate reflections in order to look realistic.

Like Shadow maps, reflection maps trade-off picture quality for improved render times. Reflec-
tion maps usually produce satisfactory results when used in animations.

Reflection maps can be assigned globally, or can be used on a per-material basis:

• To find out how the default reflection map is assigned, turn to section Default Reflection
Map.
• To assign a reflection map only to a given material, edit the material and use the Reflec-
tion Map settings in the Material Editor.
You can also force the render engine to use reflections maps instead of ray-traced reflections
for all objects using the Force use of reflection map option in the Render Options dialog.

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Depth of Field

clear version

blurred version

Realistic depth of field

Depth of field is what makes some parts of a picture blurred, while other parts, in focus, are clear.
It defines the depth of the band inside which objects are in focus. This band is centered on the
focus distance. All real-life lenses have depth of field. Even the human eye. This is because the
depth of field of a lens is related to the proportion of light it lets through. This proportion of
light coming through the lens is called the aperture. The higher the aperture, the shorter the
depth of field.

Note:

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In the pictures, look how the black sphere appears in the blurred picture. No amount of post-
processing applied to the clear picture will ever capture this.

With computer generated pictures, luminosity is not really a problem, since the lens is defined
mathematically. Hence, it becomes possible to have a very large depth of field, so large, in
fact, that everything is always in focus. Although it is straightforward, it is not natural… And
don’t think realistic depth of field can be achieved by blurring parts of a clear picture in a paint
program: realistic depth of field can only be generated at render time, because of the way light
is spread by the lens (see sample renders on the right).

VUE can also capture realistic depth of field. This is done by taking into account a real lens
aperture, rather than considering it to be a pinpoint. Instead of casting one single ray through
the center of the pinpoint aperture, a bunch of rays are cast from all over the aperture, and
traced into the scene. Results are then compared to decide if more rays are required. If not, an
average value is computed and displayed.

Depth of field is turned on by increasing the Blur value from the Object Properties panel, when
the camera is selected. The focus distance is adjusted using the Focus control. Beware, depth
of field will make render times several times longer…

In VUE, rendering of depth of field can be done using either a standard distributed ray-tracing
approach, or a Hybrid 2.5D approach.

Motion Blur

An example of motion blur.

Motion blur is a natural phenomenon that makes rapidly moving objects look blurred when
they are photographed. The reason why this happens lies in the principles of traditional pho-
tography: light enters the camera through the lens, passes a shutter and exposes the film. The
longer the shutter remains open, the more light reaches the film. So that it is exposed properly,
the film requires a given amount of light that depends on its sensitivity. Which means that the
shutter must remain open some amount of time, usually no longer than a small fraction of a

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second.

Giving a sense of speed to a still picture

However, this fraction of a second is long enough for a rapidly moving object to change its posi-
tion between the start and the end of the exposure. This is why it appears blurred. You can see
on the previous picture an example of motion blur on a shiny black sphere moving from left to
right. Note the blurred highlight and shadow.

Although this may sound like a defect, it is actually very close to what happens inside the human
eye: since the human brain can only process something like 24 pictures per second, rapidly
moving objects are seen blurred. If you present the human eye with a set of perfectly sharp
pictures of an object that moves rapidly, the resulting animation will be perceived as flickering.
Because the eye is used to seeing rapidly moving objects blurred.

VUE handles motion blurring as efficiently as possible. It does however adversely affect render
times. To simulate motion blurring, VUE samples the scene at many different times inside the
frame, (obviously concentrating its efforts on moving objects). It then averages the results of
these samples to produce the desired blurring. VUE takes the simulation of motion blur very far,
since every aspect of an animation supports motion blurring (including animated materials),
resulting in perfectly smooth animations.

Note:

Motion blurring is only available from Broadcast preset render setting upwards (refer to the
Render Options section for further details on preset render settings, and on how to turn Motion
Blur on).

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Simulating motion blur is the only way to provide smooth animations. But it is not only useful
for animations. It can also dramatically increase the realism of still pictures, giving an impres-
sion of speed to moving objects (check the Animation Wizard introduction picture opposite for
an example).

In VUE, motion blurring can be achieved using a standard distributed ray-tracing approach, or
a Hybrid 2.5D approach. Please read below for a discussion on both approaches.

Hybrid 2.5D Blurring

Distributed Ray­Tracing
Motion blur and depth of field are features that are usually rendered with distributed ray-tracing.
This method is a physically accurate approach that converges towards the exact solution as the
number of samples per pixel increases. Unfortunately, if the number of rays is not sufficient, dis-
tributed ray-tracing suffers from noise artifacts, especially in areas that display a large amount
of blur. To reduce this noise, a solution is to boost quality by increasing the number of sam-
ples per rendered pixel. This method works but can lead to dramatically slow renderings. To
avoid such a loss of performance, VUE offers the possibility to compute an approximation of
the motion blur and depth of field effects, known as Hybrid 2.5D blurring.

Hybrid 2.5D
Hybrid 2.5D is a method that is totally noise-free and much faster to compute. Also, computa-
tion time is not very dependent on scene complexity. The one drawback is that this method is
not as physically accurate as its distributed ray-tracing counterpart.

In most cases, for complex scenes, using hybrid motion blur or depth of field rather than dis-
tributed ray-tracing will speed-up your renderings to an amazing extent. Of course, since it is
built on approximations, this method has a few limitations that will be detailed below.

Note:

Hybrid 2.5D is not compatible with network rendering, due to the way this algorithm works. The
distributed ray-tracing blurring method will be enforced when you enable network rendering.

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Limitation of Hybrid 2.5D

Same example with Hybrid 2.5D Motion Blur

To render motion blur, VUE uses a Hybrid 2.5D technology that produces smooth results very
quickly. Basically, VUE looks at the speed at which all the pixels in the image are moving (or
how blurry they are), and spreads them out according to their velocity (blur level).

This method of rendering motion blur is very efficient, but it has some limitations.The main
limitation of Hybrid 2.5D effects is that information regarding what is lying behind blurred ob-
jects is missing. This is why Hybrid 2.5D blurring will always appear stronger than ray-traced
blurring.

You can reduce this defect by increasing the number of passes. This will reconstruct a reason-
able amount of information about what is taking place in the background – especially for depth
of field, as blurred objects in the foreground will cover significant areas of the background. This
will however slow down rendering time accordingly.

Generally speaking, rendering strong depth of field will require a large number of passes to pro-
duce accurate results. On the other hand, motion blur, which is usually subtle, doesn’t require
as many passes (actually, one pass is usually sufficient). Keep in mind that rendering with 10
passes will take exactly five times longer than rendering with 2 passes.

This is an important point: avoid using a too large number of passes.

Another limitation is that Hybrid 2.5D motion blur and depth of field don’t work well together. If
you decide to use both effects together, you might get totally unexpected results. This is due to
the fact that for performance reasons, each blurring effect has its own approximation method
which is not compatible with the other.

When your scene exhibits both motion blur and depth of field, it is recommended that you use
distributed ray-tracing rather than Hybrid 2.5D.

Finally, concerning motion blur, you might notice that for moving objects that cast shadows on
the scene (on the ground, for instance), these shadows will not be blurred. This is unavoidable
as a projected shadow not only depends on the object that casts it, but also on the receiving

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object that is not necessarily animated. Moreover, it is not always possible to tell which object
is responsible for a specific shadow.

This is not true for camera animation. When the camera is moving, the whole scene looks like it
is moving. As a result, shadows will be blurred as expected. More generally, Hybrid 2.5D motion
blur shows better results when associated to a camera movement, especially camera rotation.
Scenes with animated camera orientation are the best candidates for Hybrid 2.5D motion blur.

Enabling Hybrid 2.5D Blurring

Hybrid 2.5D is automatically selected when you enable Broadcast or Superior rendering presets.
Ultra uses Distributed ray-tracing instead.

Hybrid 2.5D can be enabled and adjusted using the Blur Rendering Options dialog.

Fast Hybrid 2.5D

The Fast Hybrid 2.5D option uses a new algorithm for depth of field generation. It is based on
image blur like Hybrid 2.5D but uses a faster color spreading algorithm and works in conjunction
with distributed ray tracing. Usually several passes are required to get all of the distributed ray-
tracing noise smoothed out.

Systematic object anti-aliasing is incorporated inside Fast Hybrid 2.5D. Therefore anti-aliasing
settings become linked to the depth of field settings. This means that only systematic anti-
aliasing becomes available, and the minimum number of rays per pixel becomes equal to the
number of depth of field passes (changing either of them changes both values).

Hypertextures

Hypertextures are an interesting hybrid between solid materials and volumetric materials that
are very well suited for rendering porous materials (such as sponge or corroded metals). They
are created using a specific subset of volumetric materials in the Material Editor.

Bump Mapping

Bump mapping consists in artificially perturbing objects surface normal using a height map (or
more generally any scalar function that represents a height value through space), in order to
add detail, as if the surface was much more complex than actually described by underlying ge-
ometry. As acting only on the surface normal, the bump-mapped object outlines won’t change
accordingly, as opposed to displacement mapping (see the following section). However, it is
very efficient as it does not generate additional small scale geometry, thus rendering faster and
using less memory than displacement mapping.

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Displacement Mapping

Bump (left) vs. Displacement (right) Mapping. Notice how the displaced sphere appears larger.

Displacement mapping is the ultimate way of adding detail to the surface of your objects. In-
stead of only fooling the eye into seeing detail (by modifying the normal vector to the surface),
displacement mapping really adds those details to the geometry of your objects. Because they
are true geometry, those details will cast shadows and create very pleasing soft shadows when
rendering with global illumination.

with Bump

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with Displacement

Same brick material

The typical example of the use of displacement mapping is in the case of rendering a brick wall.
If you use a bump map to simulate the fact that the bricks stick out of the mortar, looking at the
wall from a low angle of incidence will show that the wall is flat. On the other hand, if you use
displacement, the edge will no longer be flat, and you will see the bricks protruding from the
wall.

Displacement mapping dynamically adds detail to the geometry of your objects. The higher
the render resolution, or the closer you look at the objects, the more detail gets automatically
added, so that your objects will always look fully detailed.

Light Related Features

Lens Flares

Lens flare caused by looking at a bright light

Lens flares appear when the camera is pointed towards a bright source of light. They are caused
by light rays being reflected and refracted inside the lens – or the eye – and are generally con-
sidered by photographers and directors as an unwanted effect. It is precisely in order to avoid
– or minimize – this defect that camera lenses are often equipped with sun visors.

However, this defect is also a great addition to Computer Graphics, because it adds a touch of
imperfection to an otherwise too perfect look, thus largely enhancing realism.

Because lens flares happen inside the camera, they are not affected by the rest of the scene.
They won’t appear in the reflections of other objects either.

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In VUE, lens flares are generated at the time of rendering, which means that you get a very quick
impression of what the result will be, without having to wait for the render to complete. Please
read here for details on how to setup lens flares in your scenes.

Glow

Glow is a haze of light that appears around certain objects. It is an interesting feature that can
help you achieve amazing effects. It is generally useful when representing very hot materials
that will illuminate the air around them. Although glowing materials seem to illuminate their
whereabouts, they do not cast any actual light. Glow works best with self-illuminating materials
(i.e. luminous materials).

A glowing sphere placed behind a checkerboard sphere

Glow is a post-processed effect meaning that it is added after the rendering of the 3D scene is
complete.

Because of this, glow has a number of limitations:

• The most important one is that you won’t be able to judge the effect, until rendering is
complete.
• The second limitation is that there will be no glow displayed if the glowing object is com-
pletely hidden behind another object. Glow will begin to show as soon as a tiny part of
the glowing object becomes visible. As a result, a glowing object that disappears behind
another one will see its glow vanish suddenly, whereas you would expect the glow to
disappear more gradually.
If these limitations are not acceptable, you can reproduce the effects of glow by using volumet-
ric materials/lights. However, you must realize that setting up the effect is going to be a lot
more complex, and render times will be notably increased.

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Volumetric Effects

Volumetric effects, common in everyday life, add a degree of realism to your scenes. Instead
of computing the interaction of light and materials at the surface of objects, volumetric effects
will compute these interactions inside the entire volumes.

Because of this added dimension, and the resulting increase in complexity, volumetric effects
can play a significant role in creating ever more realistic environments. The counterpart is a
dramatic increase in render times…

Volumetric and Spectral Atmospheres

VUE’s volumetric and spectral atmosphere models are incredibly elaborate models that com-
pute the interaction of light with the various types of particles in suspension in the Earth’s at-
mosphere all along the path followed by the light.

For each ray of light that it processes, VUE evaluates the density of all the components of the at-
mosphere (humidity, gases) along the ray, and calculates the corresponding scattering of light.
These results are then integrated to produce such realistic effects as the reddening of sunlight
close to the horizon.

Volumetric Lights

Beams of light created by a group of spheres in a volumetric light

Volumetric lights will give physical volume to the beams of light. If an object is placed in front
a volumetric light, the shadow of the object will be visible inside the beam of light.

Volumetric lights are particularly well suited when trying to achieve a dramatic environment.

In real life, beams of light are created by light bouncing off the surface of numerous tiny particles
in suspension in the air (e.g. dust, smoke, …).

When computing a volumetric light, VUE determines whether each point inside the volume is
actually exposed to the light, or is being shadowed by an object placed between it and the

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source. VUE evaluates the brightness of the air at any given point by combining the exposure
of all the points along a ray.

These lights can be customized using the Volumetric Light Options.

Godrays
Godrays appear when the sunlight is partially hidden by thick, obscure clouds. This effect is
particularly noticeable when facing the sun, and the cloudscape is dense, but with holes in it.

Just like in the real world, godrays only happen under very specific conditions – they are not an
easy effect to achieve.

Although they are similar, godrays and volumetric lights are two different types of effect in VUE.
Godrays take into account the shadowing produced by clouds – and only by clouds – whereas
volumetric lights take into account the shadowing produced by other objects in the scene – and
not the clouds.

Godrays are only possible when using the Spectral atmosphere model. They are enabled using
the Godrays option in the Atmosphere Editor.

Volumetric Materials

Sample use of volumetric effects

Volumetric materials are extremely useful when recreating objects that don’t have a well estab-
lished frontier, such as clouds of dust, gas, smoke, etc.

When rendering volumetric materials, VUE evaluates the density of the material in many points
along each ray, and computes the resulting global density and lighting.

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Volumetric Clouds
Volumetric clouds are very similar to volumetric materials in the way they are processed. For
increased realism, they use a special algorithm that takes into account the internal lighting of
the clouds.

Spectral Clouds
Spectral Clouds are a particularly advanced type of volumetric effect that is specifically opti-
mized for the rendering of extremely realistic clouds. They take into account the subtle interac-
tion of light with the water particles that form the clouds. Spectral clouds are used in spectral
cloud layers as well as the standalone MetaClouds.

You can edit Spectral Clouds through a specific subset of volumetric materials in the Material
Editor.

Caustics

Caustics for different IORs – left to right: Water, Glass, Crystal

If a transparent material has a greater density than air (i.e. an Index of Refraction greater than
1), it bends the rays of light that cross its surface. This bending not only occurs on what you see
through a magnifying glass, it also occurs on rays of light coming from a light source and cross-
ing the magnifying glass; it focuses the rays of light onto a given point (this is how you burn a
piece of paper using a magnifying glass, by concentrating all the light onto a small area). Be-
cause all the rays of light are focusing onto one point, all the other points behind the magnifying
glass get darker. The total amount of light behind the glass is still the same, but its distribution
changes.

The fact that light behind a transparent object is being concentrated onto some areas rather
than being distributed equally over the surface of the shadow is called a caustic.

The higher the index of refraction of the material, the more concentrated the light will be; so
the brighter the central spot, and the darker the rest of the shadow. This behavior is correctly

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simulated by VUE.

Physically Accurate Caustics

When rendering caustics, you can instruct VUE to generate physically accurate caustics. To gen-
erate the physically accurate caustics, VUE follows the path that light would follow inside the
material, in order to determine the exact location where light is focused.

The processing of physically accurate caustics is a lot more complex than the default caustic
effect, but can produce interesting results when rendering detailed refractive materials. Physi-
cally accurate caustics will also capture caustics created by reflective materials (such as in the
metal ring opposite).

Caustic refractions in a glass prism

Reflective caustic

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Caustics with dispersion

Physically accurate caustics

Reflective caustics happen when light gets bounced off the surface of reflective materials. Re-
flective materials reflect the light in a preferred direction. As a result, depending on the geom-
etry of the object, light will either be “focused” by concave areas of the object, creating caustic
“hot spots”, or “scattered” by convex areas of the object.

In the ring image opposite, you can see a caustic “hot spot” at the center of the ring, where
light is concentrated by the concave interior of the ring – and you can also see a slightly brighter
area around the outside of the ring, where light, reflected by the convex exterior of the ring, is
scattered.

Note:

Because by construction the surface of infinite planes is infinite, infinite planes cannot generate
physically accurate caustics. When such an effect is required, you should use standard planes
instead. While infinite planes cannot generate accurate caustics, they can still receive them
from other objects.

Dispersion

Dispersion takes place when the different wavelengths in the light are not refracted the same.
This results in the well known spectrum effect after light goes through a crystal prism. This
effect is simulated by VUE.

Ambient Occlusion, Global Illumination and

Radiosity

Standard render with 15% sunlight

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In the standard ray-tracing lighting model, objects receive light from the different light sources
placed in the scene. If an object is not directly lit by one of the sources of light in the scene,
it is considered uniformly dark. Obviously, this is not the way light behaves in the real world,
because objects that are not directly lit still receive light from the other objects around them.
To compensate for this fact, the standard ray-tracing model adds a uniform light known as am-
bient light. Unfortunately, this only constitutes a very crude approximation of the way light is
scattered around in the real world.

A number of techniques have been developed recently to improve this basic lighting model.
These techniques are usually referred to under the generic term of “Global Illumination” tech-
niques. Unfortunately, these techniques work best when the scene is confined in a relatively
small area – typically not the case when rendering outdoor scenery. Our engineers have put a
significant amount of effort into developing lighting models that are capable of simulating the
subtlety of natural light throughout extensive outdoor scenery. The result of this research has
been included in VUE as 3 different models of increasing accuracy. Unfortunately, the more
refined the model, the slower the rendering speed. This is why, despite the use of highly opti-
mized algorithms, when using the Global radiosity model (which is the most accurate model)
you should expect render times that are at least an order of magnitude slower than with the
ray-tracing model.

Global Illumination render. Notice the shadows around the object

The simplest of these models is actually only a refined version of the ray-tracing model, where
the intensity and color of the ambient light is defined by the color of the sky around the objects.
As a result, objects that are in the shadow and looking away from the sun may take a different
color tone than objects pointing towards the sun. This model is known as Global Ambience
and is the fastest to compute among the advanced lighting models.

VUE’s Ambient Occlusion and Global Illumination models are more accurate than global am-
bience in that they take into account the light cast by the sky onto the scene, as if the sky were
constituted of an infinity of small colored lights. The shadows cast by each one of these little
lights is taken into account, resulting, among other realistic effects, in very soft shadows ap-
pearing around the base of objects.

The main difference between Ambient Occlusion and Global Illumination is that, in the Ambi-

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ent Occlusion model, only objects that are close enough together will cast soft shadows on
each other. As objects get further apart, the shadowing effect diminishes until it totally disap-
pears at the Ambient Occlusion range. Because VUE only searches for occluding objects within
a given range, rendering with Ambient Occlusion is usually faster than with Global Illumination.
Ambient Occlusion also leads to lighter shadows.

Despite the use of very advanced optimizations, the rendering of all these subtle shadows re-
sults in much longer render times than with the standard ray-tracing model. The effects of
global illumination are particularly noticeable when there is a lot of ambient light in the scene.

Global Radiosity render. Notice how the picture is brighter due to color bleeding.

The main limitation of the Global Illumination model is that it really only scatters shadows
around objects. To model the full subtlety of natural light, you need to scatter light around
objects. This is what the Global radiosity model does by taking into account the light cast by
each object onto all the other objects in the scene. With this model, a bright red object will
cast red highlights onto other objects around it. The radiosity model is obviously much slower
to compute, but will yield incredibly pleasant and realistic results, and is essential to achieve
convincing interior renders.

The other drawback of global illumination techniques is that they are often complex to setup,
with dozens of exotic parameters that you can act upon to improve quality or speed. Because
we think that artists should not be asked to cope with such complex parameters, our engineers
have developed a unique technology known as EasyGI™. What this does basically is allow you
to adjust the quality of the global illumination renderings with one single slider!

These lighting modes are activated on the Light Tab of the Atmosphere Editor.

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HDRI and Image Based Lighting

Typical Image Based Lighting render with a reflective sphere.

HDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Image. It is a special picture file format (.HDR) that is
capable of describing pictures with very important variations in light intensity. In other words,
this file format is capable of storing pictures with details in the very high lights as well as in the
very dark areas. Imagine a photo that would be so bright in places that it would actually light
your face as you look at it.

HDRI pictures are created by combining several identical pictures taken at different exposures.
Although HDRI images could be any shape and could be used to map any object, they are usu-
ally designed to be mapped on a sphere and used as an environment map.

One of the typical applications of HDRI images when setup as an environment map is to use
the lighting information in the picture to illuminate the scene. Each pixel in the HDRI picture is
then considered as a source of light and traced into the scene to determine illumination. This
is known as Image Based Lighting, and is a technique commonly used by the motion picture
industry to ensure that the lighting of a CG scene matches exactly that of the real environment
(captured as a HDRI image).

Setting up a scene for Image Based Lighting (IBL) can be a little tricky, but VUE actually lets you
do this within a few clicks! Also, because VUE lets you combine IBL with its own atmosphere
engine, you can create stunningly realistic pictures easily (by matching the atmosphere of the
scene with that of the background image you will avoid the typical IBL image discrepancies
between the CG rendering and the atmosphere seen in the background image).

Setting up a scene for Image Based Lighting is done from the Effects Tab in the Atmosphere
Editor.

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Illumination Baking

Sample baked illumination rendering

Illumination baking is a very useful technique when rendering static objects in global illumina-
tion or global radiosity. What illumination baking does is create a separate texture channel for
the baked object, evaluate the amount of indirect lighting that reaches the object at each point
of its surface, and store this illumination information in the texture map.

That way, after the illumination has been computed and stored once, it can be retrieved as many
times as necessary, very quickly. If you are rendering an animation, this will result in a dramatic
increase in rendering speed. This is typically the case when rendering architectural projects. If
some objects in the scene are animated, the baked illumination may not be correct throughout
an entire animation (because indirect lighting is influenced by surrounding objects). However,
depending on the level of lighting accuracy required by your projects, this may not be an issue.

Illumination baking can also be a fantastic time saver when working on stills. Because creating
a satisfactory still usually involves numerous renders, you end up evaluating indirect lighting
numerous times. By baking the illumination once and for all, you can save a lot of time in sub-
sequent renders.

Part of illumination map for above sample

Because only indirect lighting is taken into account when baking illumination, the position and
intensity of lights can be changed without affecting the validity of the baked illumination (when

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using the global radiosity lighting model, this is only true to the extent that illumination of envi-
roning objects is not affected too severely by the changes in lighting conditions). Direct lighting
(including shadows) will be recomputed as expected.

Illumination baking only works with polygon meshes. If you wish to bake the illumination of
a non-polygonal object, you will first have to convert the object to polygons (see here). If you
want to bake the illumination on the ground plane around an object, you should create a plane
below the object and bake the illumination on that object. Baking illumination on the entire
ground plane will lead to poor results (due to the size of the ground plane).

You can export baked illumination information together with objects.

Sub­Surface Scattering

Rendered without

Rendered with

subsurface scattering

Translucent materials react to light in a very different way than “regular” materials. With a regu-
lar material, incident light is either diffused, reflected, or refracted. With translucent materials,
the light is also absorbed by the surface of the material and re-emitted at a point that is not the
same as the point where it arrived.

This results in very subtle light showing up in parts of translucent objects that would otherwise
be in the shadow. Typical translucent materials are marble, jade, human skin, fruit flesh, milk,
orange juice, etc.

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The technology used to render translucent materials is known as sub-surface scattering. In

order to properly render translucency, it is important to take into account both aspects of sub-
surface scattering: absorption and multiple scattering.

Absorption
Also known as “single-scattering”, absorption is what happens when light travels through a
translucent material and bounces as it hits imperfections in the material. Depending on the
properties of the material, this light will bounce either backwards, forwards, or in all directions.
The ligth picks up the color of the material as it goes. In the case where light is bounced “mostly
forwards”, this effect will be visible when the source of light is placed behind the translucent ob-
ject (typically what you see when you place your finger on a bright light: a red glow appears on
the thinner parts of the finger). It’s also absorption that makes a wax candle glow as it’s illumi-
nated by the flame above.

Multiple Scattering
With multiple scattering (sometimes also referred to as “diffusion”), light that penetrates inside
the material bounces off all the little defects inside the material, in random directions. Eventu-
ally, part of that light makes it back to the surface again, at a point that is different from where
the light penetrated the material.

While absorption is relatively easy to implement, multiple scattering is a lot trickier. Don’t be
fooled by the simple interface: there is a lot going on under the hood when rendering multiple
scattering, and memory requirements to properly handle this effect can be staggering.

Translucency can be activated for your materials using Material Editor settings.

Advanced Effects Quality

The quality of the visual effects generated by VUE depends on the time the render engine spends
rendering them. For instance, when rendering volumetric effects, the quality of the result de-
pends on the number of samples evaluated for each ray in the image. If the number of samples
isn’t sufficient, noise will appear in the volumetric effects. If there are too many samples, ren-
dering times will be horrible.

This is true for all types of volumetric effects, and, generally speaking, for all the advanced visual
effects available in VUE.

In order to provide an idea of the results of advanced effects during the development process
without slowing render too much, VUE automatically adapts the render quality of the advanced

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effects (and henceforth the time they take to render) to the overall Render quality setting (see
the Render Options dialog). Usually, when you design a scene, you will be working in “Preview”
render quality (the default). At this setting, VUE generates a very rough approximation of the
advanced effects that will look very noisy or crude, but will render quickly. As you switch to
higher render quality settings, the rendering of the advanced effects will automatically improve
and the “noisiness” will disappear.

The quality of individual advanced effects can be adjusted by a Quality boost setting. If you
increase the quality boost, more time will be spent generating that particular effect, so it will
look better, but the render time will increase…

Note:

it is generally bad practice to increase the quality boost setting of advanced effects to achieve
perfect results in “Preview” mode, because as you switch to higher quality settings to produce
the final image, the advanced effects quality will automatically increase too, resulting in an
excessively high amount of time being spent rendering those effects It is better to adjust the
quality boost settings of the advanced effects once you switch to the final render quality you
are going to use to output your work.

EcoSystem Technology

Typical EcoSystem forest

EcoSystem™ is the name of e-on software’s revolutionary set of patented technologies to dis-
tribute, manage and render millions of instances of plants or objects in your scenes. With this
technology, you are able to recreate the millions of plants, trees and rocks that are required to
create convincing environments.

EcoSystems behave like materials in the sense that they define the aspect of an object. What
this means is that, whether you want grass or sand at the surface of an object, the interface is

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the same (or at least very similar). Like other materials, EcoSystem materials are assigned to
objects. When you assign an EcoSystem material to an object, VUE will populate the surface of
the object with instances of the EcoSystem population. The EcoSystem population is the most
important aspect of an EcoSystem material; it lists all the elements that will be distributed at
the surface of your objects. These elements can be plant species, imported objects, rocks…
They can even be animated elements!

EcoSystem based on imported objects

The EcoSystem™ technology uses advanced instantiation techniques to distribute the elements
of the EcoSystem population over the surface of your objects. When creating EcoSystems based
on plants, the technology is combined with SolidGrowth™ to create a wide variety of plants of
the selected species.

The fact that EcoSystem™ works with instances means that you can get tremendous visual com-
plexity at a relatively low cost in terms of system resources: the actual geometry of the objects
is not duplicated. Instead, “virtual” copies are used (this is not the case with rocks and Solid-
Growth plants where variations are automatically created).

EcoSystem™ uses a patented rendering technology that dramatically speeds up the rendering of
the millions of instances required to create convincing environments. Without this technology,
it would not be possible to render such scenes in a reasonable amount of time.

Like other types of materials, EcoSystem materials are based on functions and parameters that
control the aspect of the EcoSystem. The most important parameter (aside from the actual type
of elements to be placed at the surface of the object) is density. The density parameter controls
the number of instances of the EcoSystem population list that will be placed at the surface of
the object. Items are automatically distributed at the surface of objects in a realistic way (no
items are placed where they could fall down!).

New to the third generation of the EcoSystem technology is the ability to dynamically populate
infinite expanses. And the latest addition to EcoSystems is faster processing times for smaller
instances, for example, gravel.

EcoSystem materials are created and modified in the Advanced Material Editor.

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Framing and Picture Compo­

sition
In this section, you can read about the basics of framing and picture composition. If you are
well aware of these topics, you won’t find anything there that you don’t already know, so we
suggest you simply skip the section.

Making Better Pictures

This section doesn’t aim to give you a list of rules that must absolutely be followed to guarantee
successful pictures. And the reason for this is simple: such rules do not exist! Framing and
composing pictures is an art form. And, as such, anything can be imagined; no rules will ever
replace artistic talent.

However, what we intend to do is attract your attention to the importance of careful framing
and composition, by detailing a series of concepts that should be understood and taken into
account. Just like a photographer wanting to make a picture of a landscape would spend hours
deciding on the best viewpoint, the best picture format, and the best time of the day, you, the
virtual photographer, should think about this when you make pictures. With a tremendous
advantage over a real photographer: you can act upon every aspect of the picture… Plus you
can fly!

Choosing the Viewpoint

The viewpoint affects to a large extent the final result of a picture. In some cases, moving the
camera slightly can completely modify the composition of a picture. A good way of improv-
ing the quality of your pictures is to take the habit of moving the camera around the scene,
in order to find the best possible viewpoint. Storing several viewpoints (using Display | Store
Camera) is also good practice, because it gives you the opportunity to compare several framing
attempts.

Most scenes are composed of a foreground, a background, and a subject. Relative positions
(and importance) of these elements can be modified by moving the camera around. You may
chose to give more importance to the foreground, for instance by moving the camera down. Or

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you could choose to display less sky by moving the camera upwards, while still aiming at the
same subject… Of course, some subjects may offer several interesting aspects. In that case, it
all depends on which aspect you think should be emphasized.

Moving the Perspective Camera

In the OpenGL view, when using Main camera view or Perspective view, it is possible to move
the camera along the horizontal or vertical axis by holding Ctrl+Shift+Right mouse button (this
shortcut can be changed in the Options dialog, Operations tab).

Which axis is used depends on the position of the mouse when the buttons are pressed, if the
mouse is close to the window’s horizontal central axis, movement will be constrained to this
horizontal axis. Else it will be constrained to the vertical axis.

The following schema shows a window. Black lines are the axes of the window. If the buttons
are pressed when the mouse is in the green area, movement will be constrained to the hori-
zontal axis. If the buttons are pressed when the mouse is in the blue area, movement will be
constrained to the vertical axis.

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Picture Format

Unlike real photographers, users of VUE may choose the format of their pictures at any time.
You should use this advantage to give more impact to your pictures. Picture formats are se-
lected from the Render Options dialog (menu Render | Render options).

Usually, horizontal formats make for calm, peaceful pictures. On the contrary, vertical formats
make for more dynamic pictures. If you are making a picture of a sunset on the horizon, a long
stretched horizontal format will probably be the one you want.

But, of course, this is not the rule. Sometimes, best results are achieved by breaking precon-
ceptions; framing a landscape vertically will display interesting details in the foreground and
the background.

Center of Interest

Any picture whatsoever will always have more impact if the composition attracts attention to a
particular element. This means that, before deciding on the way you will handle a subject, you
should decide on the center of interest of the picture.

Sometimes, it can be quite straightforward: it could be a tree, a hill, or a lake. If you find no
distinctive feature, keep looking, or make one. Once this research is complete, figure out how
you could best exploit it, and avoid any other details that could compete with it. There are two
ways of doing so; they can be used separately or combined.
• Frame out any details that could distract attention,
• Build up contrasts in color and shades between the main subject and the environment.
You could also use depth of field to blur out the background of the main subject (beware of
render times though!).

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Balance

Black dots mark the strong points

The principles of composition should never be followed to the letter. However, understanding
them will help you make more pleasing and balanced pictures.

Following a basic principle, the main subject of a picture should be placed on a strong point. If
you divide your picture into three vertical and three horizontal boxes, the strong points of the
picture are where the lines (known as strong lines) intersect. De-centering the main subject
onto one of these strong points usually yields good results, provided some elements are there
to counterbalance (for the sake of clarity, this is not the case in the opposite illustration). How-
ever, if your picture only has one point of interest, it is better to nearly center it, because this
balances a background devoid of any particular interest. Obviously, if the main interest of a
subject is that it is symmetrical, intensifying that symmetry by precisely centering it yields best
results.

To give impact to a picture, you can also use lines or colors to guide the eye towards the main
subject. Converging lines will guide the eye to the point where they meet. You can achieve the
same result by using a gradation in the colors: dark in the foreground, with colors becoming
brighter as they get closer to the subject.

In the opposite picture, the castle in the foreground (i.e. the main subject), although de-centered,
is counterbalanced by the opposing castle in the distance. The fact that the two castles seem
to be trapped each in an opposite corner of the picture emphasizes the rivalry between them.

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Light and Shape

Lighting conditions affect the way we see shapes. Light helps the eye to perceive bumps, dips,
curves and perspective. If you light up your subject from the back, you’ll get a dark picture of it,
with no relief. If you move the light so it illuminates your subject from the side, the gradation
of shades produced will let your eye understand the surface of the subject.

Optimal intensity and direction of light depend on the subject, and what you want it to express.
Early morning or late afternoon lights produce long, stretched shadows. They are best suited
when you want to attract attention to details on the surface of objects. They also usually give
warmer, more pleasing colors to the eye.

If you want to reveal soft, round shapes, such lights would not be suitable, because they in-
crease contrast between bright and dark areas. You’d have to select a soft, diffused light, with
a lot of ambient light, and probably soft shadows.

Patterns, Colors and Textures

Patterns are made of repeating shapes, colors or lines. They have fantastic visual power.

You can make patterns even more pronounced by using low-angled lights that will add a suc-
cession of bright and dark areas, and make the relief more visible.

With a well chosen light, you can render the roughness or the softness of any given surface,
where other lighting conditions would only show a flat surface. If you want to insist on the
texture (e.g. surface roughness) of an object, you should use low-angled lights. This makes
bumps more pronounced, and will darken any recessed areas.

Powerful lights will hide small details but are particularly well suited for shiny surfaces.

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The Power of Lines

Lines are often the basis of the composition of a picture. If you take a careful look at your scene,
you will realize that some lines or strong contours give it strength.

Lines can be used to balance a picture by attracting the eye to the main subject, and by creating
links between other objects in the scene, or they can create conflicts. With low-angled lights,
strong shadows can give incredible power to a picture. Also, lines can give the idea of depth,
due to perspective. The lines could converge outside the picture, thus giving the impression
that they are escaping from the screen.

The shape of dominant lines often affects the atmosphere of a picture. Sharp edges and angles
express energy and aggressiveness. Round curves express calm and peace...

Conclusion

Understanding, and taking in, these basic concepts will help you get more visual power out of
your pictures. Experimenting is the key to success. Isn’t it worth trying?

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Options and Preferences

To display the Options dialog, select the menu command File | Options. This dialog lets you
customize the way VUE behaves.

General Preferences

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Generic Options

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The Options dialog – “General” tab

• Change language: click this button to change the interface’s language. You will have to
restart the application for the change to take effect.
• Load interface presets:

User Interface Presets Dialog

VUE’s interface defaults to a dark grey theme, and can be changed to a lighter theme
named “Flat Grey”. It can also be automatically configured to emulate that of other pop-
ular 3D applications.
Select this option to display a dialog that lets you select the software interface you would
like to emulate. The presets presented as buttons in this dialog have been carefully tuned
to match the corresponding software. Presets for other applications can be loaded from
the Shortcuts tab.
Select this option to display a dialog that lets you select the software interface theme that
suits you best.
• Reset options to default: click this button to reset all options to the factory settings. All
modifications made to the Options dialog will be lost.
• Restore disabled messages: click this button to restore all messages that have been hid-

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den by selecting the “Don’t show this message again” option in the message box. This
is particularly useful if you have created a default behavior for one of the messages by
checking the option and want to change this default behavior.
• Dockable editors:

’Dockable Dialogs’
Choose in this subdialog the type of editors that you would like to be able to dock, and
those that should always open as floating and never dock along with other parts of the
U.I.
• Send feature usage data: As explained in VUE’s installer, you can disable this service at
any time without loss of functionality.
• Enable tooltips: This can be used to disable tooltips globally in the application.
• Show OK/Cancel on floating dockable dialogs: If checked, the buttons will show in the
lower right corner. Otherwise, the floating dialogs can only be closed with the small cross
button (top-right, in the caption bar), or using the Escape key, and cancelling is not pos-
sible.
What are Feature Usage Data and why do we collect them?

On a regular basis, VUE will collect and send certain usage statistics. For example, we may track
your device information (OS, CPU or video board brand etc.), products and features, and other
usage data, such as the date and time the application was used.

Collecting pseudonymized information about your use of our applications allows us to:
• Perform research and analysis aimed at improving our products, services, and technolo-
gies

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• Help prioritizing development efforts where it matters most

• Get a better understanding of how our applications are being used so we can improve
them
• Further help diagnose potential problems in our applications
For more information, please note that VUE complies to Bentley Systems privacy policy. The
full legal details can be found in the software license agreement and terms of services, (also
available as a separate download from our website).

Numeric edition options

• Interactive numerical field changes: If this option is selected (the default), the interface
is automatically updated as you enter numerical values in the input fields. For instance,
if you enter a new position using the Numerics field of the Object Properties panel, the
position of the selected objects will be updated as you type the new position. If you prefer
that the interface is updated only when you have finished entering the value and press
Enter or switch to another control, deselect this option.
• Interactive slider changes: If this option is selected, changes are made in synch with the
slider movement.
• Edit objects upon selection: If checked, selecting an object immediately opens the cor-
responding object editor, if any.

Mouse/trackpad configuration

• Emulate 2nd mouse button using Ctrl+First mouse button: Useful for old-style one
button mice or trackpads.
• Do not freeze cursor on U.I. widgets: Some widgets “capture” the mouse cursor when
you click and hold inside them, for example up/down arrows right to edit fields, or inter-
active camera navigation controls. This can be an issue when using a graphic tablet or a
mouse sharing utilities, so the behavior can be disabled here.

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Undo/Redo Options

The options in this group are used to control the number of operations that you can undo or
redo.
• Maximum number of operations that can be undone…: this setting controls the num-
ber of operations that you can undo by hitting the Undo button in the Top Toolbar. Pro-
vided system resources are sufficient (see below), you will be able to undo/redo that num-
ber of operations at any time.
• Keep history of operations until system resources drop below: this option lets you
configure the maximum system resources that can be used before VUE stops storing undo/redo
operations. When system resources drop low, the number of operations that can be un-
done may be reduced. The default value is 25%; you shouldn’t set this to 0%, as it will
eventually lead to a total system lockup.
The Current system resources field displays the percentage of system resources that are avail-
able. If you have lots of undo/redo operations and system resources drop low, you can press
the Flush history button. This will discard all undo/redo operations and free-up some system
resources.

Interface scaling and colors

The U.I. widgets can be scaled by a customized factor to adapt to high resolution monitors or
other specific situations.
• View background: Background color of the interactive 3D viewports, when no atmo-
sphere preview is visible, and for orthographic viewports.
• Interface colors: click this button to display the Interface Colors Editor and customize
the colors of the interface.
• Gamma Options: click this button to display the Gamma Options dialog.

3D view

• Video board info: this button displays your video card information and the display qual-
ity you are currently using.
• OpenGL “Shader engine”: select this option to enable OpenGL previewing of the scene
using this display engine, based on the programmable shader supported by recent graph-
ics cards. When you first start VUE, if your card supports this feature, it will be automat-
ically selected. This setting provides per pixel lighting for diffuse and highlights. It will
also enable the shaded billboard feature for EcoSystem previews.

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• OpenGL “Fixed pipeline” (legacy): select this option to enable OpenGL previewing of
the scene using the fixed hardware pipeline in your video board. An OpenGL optimized
video board is recommended (although not necessary) to get best performance from this
option. Unfortunately, it has been frequently observed that some video board drivers
don’t correctly implement all the required OpenGL features used by VUE, which may lead
to system or software instability. You should test the compatibility of your video board
(see below) before using hardware acceleration.

Gamma Options Dialog

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Gamma Options Dialog

The gamma correction is part of color management. The various gamma settings define how
to convert luminosity values from a linear space (which are used internally in the rendering) to
non linear ones that are used to encode image files or to send the picture to the screen buffer
for display.

Note:

All devices (that can be image files, screens, printers, scanners ...) have their own gamma value.

When we say that a device has a gamma of G, it means that the conversion to linear of a value
xInGammaG is : xLinear = xInGammaG ^ G. The reverse conversion is xInGammaG = xLinear ^
(1/G), with values normalized in the [0; 1] range.

In rendering engines, all of the lighting computations must be computed in linear space to have
a realistic result. For images files and screen buffers, using a non linear space allows to keep
more precision in the dark values, for which our eyes are more sensitive to. When using gamma
correction correctly, you can be assured that all people working on a scene will see the same re-
sult, even when monitors have different behaviors (if they also use gamma correction correctly,
which is unfortunately not always the case !).

Screen gamma
This setting allow to adjust the gamma used to convert linear value to the gamma space of
your screen. Nowadays most screen are calibrated on sRGB, which is approximately a gamma
2.2 space.

You should see the test pattern as an homogeneous area. If it is not homogeneous , adjust the
screen gamma preferably using your OS display settings, or the screen gamma slider if you
can’t. It is preferable to use the OS settings, so that all the applications display the same thing,
as a lot of them just assume an sRGB display and allow no correction.

Screen gamma is used for all displays (render, preview, color pickers, ...) but the interface itself
which is drawn as if the screen was sRGB.

Default gamma for image import

This is used as default value to assign to images that you import as color maps. Most images you
get from the internet are sRGB, so you should keep this value to 2.2, unless you know the data
you are loading is not in that space (like a normal map for instance which holds linear data).

Note you can set the gamma per-image once they are imported by using the Gamma option
located to the right of the image preview in the Material Editor or any texture map nodes in the
Function Editor.

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Changing the import gamma setting only affects subsequent image imports, it does not affect
what you already imported in the scene.

Note also that for any texture map node, even one eventually connected to the color output
node, evaluating through either its gray-scale or alpha output won’t apply gamma correction.
Only its color output will be gamma corrected, the gray-scale output is considered linear as it’s
main use is for effects like displacement.

Default gamma for image output

This is the default value used to encode images that are written as image files (png, jpeg, etc.).

For now we don’t write the gamma in which we encode the file. That means the files will be
interpreted as sRGB by default by other software if you don’t tell them otherwise. So you should
not use anything else than 2.2 unless you want to produce linear data for some very specific use.
It that case you must give that information to the other software !

Working with linear data

For import you must be certain the image you import do contain linear data. It is a very bad
idea to say that an image has linear data when actually it has not !

For export, if you set the output gamma to 1, you must not judge the resulting image by what
you see in any viewer if you cannot tell that the image data is actually linear. If it isn’t, the image
will look darker because it is interpreted a sRGB data and not linear data. You must set the input
gamma in the other application for that image to 1. Only at the end of the pipeline, you apply a
gamma conversion from linear to the device on which you want to display/save your image.

And in all cases, don’t change anything to the screen gamma setting, your screen has not changed
because you want to work in linear.

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Display Options

View Options

• Center views on objects selected…: turning off this feature will stop the views from
moving each time you select an object using the World Browser.
• Stop camera going below clipping plane…: this is useful to avoid getting black renders
when the camera goes inside the ground. It can be turned off for special cases when the
camera should go below the clipping plane (e.g. underwater scenery).
• Clip objects under first horizontal plane: checking this will make all objects invisible
under the clipping plane, in all views (not only in Main view).
• Clip objects… in main view only: checking this will make all objects invisible under the
clipping plane in the main view. This is useful for the comprehension of the 3D View.

Preview of meshes (from front to rear): original frog ~20000 polygons, slight decimation
~10000 polygons, standard ~5000 polygons, strong decimation ~2000 polygons
• Show decimated mesh previews: in order to provide instant feedback, polygon meshes
that comprise many polygons are only partially drawn. This means that only certain poly-
gons of the object are drawn, resulting in a ghost-like preview with lots of holes. When
this option is enabled, VUE will attempt to display a simplified version of the object (a
decimated version) that retains the overall outline of the initial object. Although the re-
sulting geometry may be seriously distorted, it usually retains enough to be identifiable.
The amount of decimation depends on the preview quality settings. This decimated ver-
sion of the object is created in a background task (to avoid slowing you down in your
creative process). It may take a couple of seconds to compute and display the decimated
version. Of course, the full object geometry will be used for rendering.
• Show Boolean and Blob previews: if this option is selected, VUE automatically builds a
polygon approximation of the result of any Boolean or Metablobs/Hyperblobs operations

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that you create in your scene. This polygon approximation is created as a background
task (to avoid slowing you down in your creative process). It may take a couple of seconds
to compute and display the polygon approximation. Of course, the exact object geometry
will be used for rendering. This option is not available if the Background draw thread is
disabled.
• Show pixel aspect ratio deformation in views: when this option is selected, the effect
of non-square pixel aspect ratios (see here) appears in the OpenGL previews.
• Fixed camera and light sizes in views: if this option is selected, the camera and light
icons in the 3D views will remain the same size when zooming.
• Global plant display quality optimization: Checking this option will boost display qual-
ity of plants depending on the overall polygon count in the scene. This gives the highest
display quality whenever possible.
• Reset Interactive Path Tracer viewport option: The Interactive Path Tracer activation
status is stored in your default viewport configuration as well as directly in the scene files,
so that loading a scene that was last used with this viewing mode enabled automatically
activates it. If you don’t want this behavior, you can prevent it by setting this option to
on. This is indeed the default, because loading third-party scenes with the option en-
abled could use a lot more resources from your computer than expected, especially if
your graphics hardware is not powerful enough for this feature.
• Pause Interactive Path Tracer after: (delay): To prevent the constant usage of CPU and
GPU power even when VUE is sitting idle for some time, an option controls how long the
Interactive Path Tracer will keep running inside a 3D viewport before automatically enter-
ing a pause state. The default running period is 30 seconds. Note that if at some point the
preview doesn’t look good enough after this amount of time, you can extend the period
(adding for example thirty more seconds) in the options and the Interactive Path Tracer
will restart only for this additional amount of time before pausing again (then you can
reset the option to 30s if it was a one-time need).
• Preview Gamma and exposure in main view: Check this option to have your gamma
and exposure settings reflected in the OpenGL preview of the Main camera view.
• Show bounding boxes around groups: If this option is selected, a dotted bounding box
will be drawn around groups of objects.
• Show 3D axes in views: when this option is enabled, a small graph displays the axes of
the views in the lower-left corner of the 3D Views.
• Show all cameras in views: when this option is selected, all the cameras in the scene
will be displayed in the views. The active camera is the only one displayed with a viewing
frustum. When all cameras are shown in the views, you can activate another camera by
double-clicking on it.
• Secure active camera: enable this option to change the main view in perspective view

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whenever you modify the camera settings with the mouse. This will permit you to play
with the perspective camera, and once you are satisfied with the settings you can then
store them into the main camera.
• Independent zooming and panning of views: by default, all orthogonal 3D Views are
zoomed and panned simultaneously. If you would rather have a different zoom and pan
setting for each view, select this option.
• Show camera FoV in Object Properties: when this option is selected, the size of the
camera lens will be displayed as the horizontal Field of View rather than focal length.
• Show tooltips in views: when selected, tooltips indicating the object below the mouse
position will appear in the 3D views every time the mouse stops moving for a short time.
• Show Position as tooltips in views: When selected, the position inside the 3D world
over which the mouse is located will be displayed as a tooltip every time the mouse stops
moving for a short time.
• Show wireframe on selected objects: when this option is selected, a wireframe will ap-
pear on top of the selected objects, letting you locate the selected objects more easily.
The default color for this wireframe is red.
The way this wireframe is displayed is also affected by the menu option Display | Show Selec-
tion Wireframe On Top: if the menu option is selected, the wireframe will always appear on
screen, regardless of whether the object is hidden by other objects or not. This option can be
toggled on or off, because there are cases when it can get in the way (e.g. when placing an ob-
ject on top of a terrain, the wireframe can get in the way of seeing how the object is positioned
relative to the surface).
• Highlight parts using current material: this option works in conjunction with the above.
When it is selected, the objects (or parts of objects) that use the current material (as dis-
played in the Object Properties panel) will appear with a brighter wireframe. This way,
you can easily see what parts of your objects use a specific material.
• Show infinite grid on ground: when checked, a grid displays on the ground plane in the
Main camera view and in the Top view. It shows at any level of zoom or camera altitude.
There are three scales in the grid, multiples of 1, 5 and 10 internal units. 1’s will show
lightly, whereas 10’s will show brightly. During transitions between order of magnitude,
the grid lines representing those multiples will smoothly fade into their new scale multi-
ple.
• Show scale in view: when checked, a small scale bar displays in the lower left corner of
all viewports. It indicates the current magnification level. It will match the grid cells, and
allows you to know what distance represents one grid cell at all times.

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Maintain Instant Draw Frame Rate

If you select this option, VUE will attempt to maintain a minimum frame rate when refreshing
the OpenGL views (when dragging objects or moving inside the views). Whenever the scene be-
comes too complex to display at the indicated frame rate, VUE will display objects as boxes. The
number of objects displayed as boxes is adapted dynamically in order to achieve the desired
frame rate. Objects far from the camera are displayed as boxes in priority.

Note:

This setting only affects the instant draw. The background draw is always displayed according
to the quality setting indicated.
• Minimum refresh rate: use this setting to indicate the minimum frame rate that you want
the OpenGL views to be displayed at. Warning: do not set this parameter too high, or your
views will always be displayed as boxes. The default 5fps (frames per second) is usually
a good compromise.
• Redraw without boxes on mouse up: when this option is selected, the OpenGL views are
redrawn completely as soon as you release the mouse button after dragging the views/objects.
This avoids having to wait for the background draw thread to complete drawing the views
to get an idea of object placement when some objects have been drawn as boxes.
• Adaptively display objects as boxes when framerate is too low: when this option is
selected, VUE will display distant objects as boxes when resources become depleted. This
enables the application to discard display data required for the detailed OpenGL views,
thus freeing up some memory for use in other, more vital tasks. The number of objects
displayed as boxes is automatically adapted according to system resources.

Degraded Modes

When your system resources become dramatically depleted, VUE may no longer have sufficient
resources to complete its tasks. When this situation occurs, and in order to maintain core func-
tionality for as long as possible, degraded modes will kick into action.

Degraded modes are a special mode of operation whereby the application gives up some of
its “peripheral” processing in order to focus on “vital” tasks. This includes suspending some
background tasks and simplifying the 3D Views.

The following options let you fine tune the actual level of system resources that trigger the var-
ious degraded modes:
• Disable advanced previews if resources drop below: select this option to automati-
cally suspend the advanced preview threads (mesh decimation, Boolean operations and
Metablob previews) when the system resources drop below the indicated threshold. These

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threads require a comfortable amount of resources to perform their task. By suspending

them, some resources are freed for use by more vital tasks. They will be automatically
restarted as soon as resources become plentiful again. Set the resources threshold for
this event.
• Remove background draw thread geometries if resources drop below: when this op-
tion is selected, VUE will display distant objects as boxes when resources become de-
pleted. This enables the application to discard display data required for the detailed
OpenGL views, thus freeing up some memory for use in other, more vital tasks. The num-
ber of objects displayed as boxes is automatically adapted according to system resources.
Set the resources threshold for this event.
• Disable background draw thread…: select this option to automatically switch off the
background draw thread when the system resources drop below the indicated threshold.
By suspending this thread, more resources are freed for use by vital tasks. This thread is
automatically restarted when resources become plentiful again.

Units & Coordinates

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Length Units

The Options dialog – Units and Coordinates tab

• Default display unit: This drop-down list box lets you define which measurement unit
will be used to display lengths in VUE:
– Metric (automatic): all measures will appear in metric units, automatically select-
ing the unit that is most appropriate for each particular measure (i.e. millimeters
for very small objects, and kilometers for very large objects).

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– Imperial (automatic): all measures will appear in imperial units, automatically se-
lecting the unit that is most appropriate for each particular measure (i.e. inches for
very small objects, and miles for very large objects).
– Meters: all measures will appear expressed in meters.
– Centimeters: all measures will appear expressed in centimeters.
– Millimeters: all measures will appear expressed in millimeters.
– Kilometers: all measures will appear expressed in kilometers.
– Inches: all measures will appear expressed in inches.
– Feet: all measures will appear expressed in feet.
– Yards: all measures will appear expressed in yards.
– Miles: all measures will appear expressed in miles.
– VUE Unit: all measures will be displayed in VUE units.
• 1 VUE unit is: use the VUE unit setting to precisely specify how long a VUE unit will be.
When changing this value, VUE automatically adjusts the atmosphere’s aerial perspective
scaling factor so that the atmosphere renders identically independent from the current
VUE unit value.
• Apply new settings to current scene: check to apply these settings to current scene
only.

Snapping Grid Resolution

The two settings of this group let you control the resolution of the grid when moving and rotat-
ing objects.

Snapping to the grid is enabled when you press Shift at the same time as you move or rotate
an object. When snapping is enabled, the object will jump between positions or angles on the
grid.

Use Position grid resolution to set the resolution of the grid when moving objects.

Use Rotation grid resolution to set the resolution of the grid when rotating objects.

Adaptive based on zoom: If this option is checked, this grid will show at any level of zoom or
camera altitude, and at any panning position. There are three scales in the grid, multiples of 1,
5 and 10 internal units. 1’s will show lightly, whereas 10’s will show brightly. During transitions
between order of magnitude, the grid lines representing those multiples will smoothly fade
into their new scale multiple. This happens each time a viewport’s zoom approaches a round

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decimal power value (1, 10, 100...).

Order of Rotations

This drop-down list box lets you define the order in which the rotations will be applied for all
the new objects you create.

If you want to change the order of rotations for all existing objects, click the Apply to all objects
button.

World Coordinate System

This group lets you configure the axes of the world coordinate system. By default, VUE uses the
Z axis as the vertical axis, but it you are more familiar with the Y axis being vertical, this is the
place to change: click Y axis up to have the Y axis vertical, or click Z axis up to use the default
conformation.
• Left-handed and Right-handed: this lets you define whether your coordinate system is
left handed or right handed (the default).

Spherical scene

This section is for setting up scenes that make use of spherical terrains, either complete planets
or partial curved terrains. These properties should probably not be checked as a scene default.
• Spherical scene: Check this option to enable spherical scene properties in the current
scene.
• Scene radius: this sets the size of the planet you are creating.
• Use planetary terrains: this will reform all of the infinite planes currently in your scene
(and any you might add) into a spherical shape.
• Planetary mapping center: Latitude/Longitude: This mapping allows you to control
the latitude/longitude settings when using a large scale map of cloud layers. It is also
used to control the latitude/longitude parameter of the new planetary image mapping
node which is used to map a world map for a planetary terrain.

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Sea Level

• Altitude: this sets the default for the water plane in your scene. This default affects all of
the scenes you create using a water plane.
• Show sea level in 3D views: this gives you a visible plane in your views as a reference. A
sea level plane will show in the World Browser, but be invisible in renders.
• Show sea in renders: this will give you a visible water plane and it will show in the World
Browser as Sea.
If you don’t check either option, sea level is still present and its value is define by default as z=0,
or whatever value you give in on this screen.

Shortcuts

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The Options dialog – Operations tab

This tab lets you redefine keyboard shortcuts for all keyboard operations, store these settings

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in user configuration files, and define additional search paths for texture maps.

If you wish to emulate the Right Mouse Button (RMB) using Ctrl+Left/Default button for mouse
and trackpad, check the box at the top of the dialog. This is available for both Windows and
Mac computers. On the Mac, this should be very useful when using a trackpad.

On all platforms, when two different physical keys exist for a single character or action (eg. the
two Shift keys on either side of the keyboard), both keys are treated as the same key.

For Windows machines, the Windows key can now be used and assigned a shortcut. A keystroke
assigned to this key would be listed as Win+T for example. The Windows key must have another
key assigned to it as a combination. Otherwise, its function reverts back to displaying the Win-
dows start-up menu.

For Macs, the Command and Control keys can be mapped independently to shortcuts.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

This section lets you create new or alternate shortcuts for various commands. That way you
can reassign the shortcuts you are most used to in your other applications.

In the Keyboard shortcuts list appear all the menu commands with their existing shortcuts
alongside them.

To create a new or alternate keyboard shortcut, simply click on the line and type your new short-
cut. If the shortcut is already assigned to another command, a prompt will appear, asking what
you would like to do.

Click outside the list of commands to close the Type new shortcut invitation.

If you want to remove an existing shortcut, right click on the shortcut to be removed.

Note that when the combination you are trying to use is already assigned to another keyboard
shortcut or mouse trigger, a message will tell you so and you will be able to cancel the new
assignment or remove the conflicting shortcut from its original assignment to make it available.

By pressing one of the buttons at the right of the Reset to default label below the list of short-
cuts, you can reset all the shortcuts and triggers to the factory settings:
• The Legacy defaults refer to the navigation defaults in VUE up to and including version
2016 Release 4.
• The Industry standard defaults refer to a navigation preset new to VUE version 2016 Re-
lease 5, which conforms to more widely accepted industry standards for 3D navigation.
You can also use the Load interface preset command in the General Preferences tab to load typ-
ical shortcuts from other popular 3D applications. Presets for other applications not listed in

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the Load interface preset dialog can be loaded from a file:

• Click the Load button in the Shortcuts file frame
• Navigate to VUE’s installation folder and from there into the Environment / Presets - older versi
folder
• Select a preset folder, and load the Default.cfg file it contains
• If you use a two-buttons mouse, you can also find a more suitable preset in the Environment / Presets
folder, as some Legacy as well as Industry-standard triggers use the middle mouse button
on three-buttons mice
Customized mouse and keyboard shortcut presets can be saved in individual files (see below).

Triggers and Trigger Modifiers

Triggers and Trigger Modifiers in the Shortcuts list

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Triggers are shortcuts involving mouse buttons, typically used in the 3D viewports to manipu-
late the viewpoint, draw a selection rectangle or a render area, etc.

Trigger modifiers are additional keys that can be pressed during a triggered operation to mod-
ify its effect. For example, pressing W during camera rotation or panning will slow down the
movement, allowing more precise operations.

Please refer to the detailed Triggers and Modifiers article for more information on categories
and specific triggers.

Shortcuts Files

You can save and restore all your mouse and keyboard settings in a configuration file using the
extension .cfg . That way, several people working on the same computer can have different
shortcut mappings. You can also take the configuration file with you to another computer and
restore it there to keep your preferred mapping.

Click the Load button to display a Standard File Browser and load the desired configuration
file (the current settings are saved to the currrent file location before loading the new one).
Likewise, the Save As button will let you select a new file to store the current user configuration.

Import Options

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The Options dialog – Shortcuts tab

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VUE Content Folder

Edit content paths

You can easily change the location of your VUE content folders. To change to a new folder, sim-
ply click the Edit button inside the Content folders frame. This will open a dialog showing the
different content paths which you can customize:
• VUE content library is the content installed with VUE. It contains Atmospheres, Plants,
Rocks, Materials presets etc.
• PlantCatalog folder: this folder is shared with other e-on software products. It’s the di-
rectory where you would install the PlantCatalog™ collections, if applicable. Please read
the PlantCatalog section to know how to purchase or obtain those collections.
• Personal collections: root folder where your personal assets or scenes will be loaded and
saved by default.
To change one of the latter paths, just click the Edit button. A Standard Folder Browser will
appear, letting you select the content folder.

Image Viewer

Use this Edit button to browse to the program you wish to use to view your bitmaps that you
are using in the Material Editor or Plant Editor.

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Texture file tags

This options subdialog allows to customize the filename suffixes by which VUE will be able to
recognize the various channels of materials being imported.

The Options dialog – Shortcuts tab

Additional Texture Map Folders

You can define additional search folders for your texture maps (pictures) using the controls in
this group. When VUE cannot find a texture map at the expected location, it will automatically
check the Bitmaps folder to see if the texture map can be found there. If the texture map is not
in the Bitmaps folder, VUE checks the folder where the file that is being loaded is located (this
search is not recursive).

If you have defined additional texture map folders, VUE will also search in these folders to see if
the requested texture map can be located there. That way, if you have gathered all your texture

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maps in folders, you can define them as additional folders, and VUE will automatically check
there if it cannot find a given texture map elsewhere. This search can be made recursive.

To add a new folder, simply click the Add button. A Standard Folder Browser will appear, letting
you select the new folder to be added. Click the Recursive checkbox to let VUE search in the
sub-folders of this folder.

To remove a folder from the search path, highlight a folder and click Remove.

OpenGL Options

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3D View Display Quality

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The Options dialog – Display tab

• Enable background draw thread: in order to provide speedy feedback while still offer-
ing detailed previews, VUE uses two different levels of 3D view quality. The first is the
instant feedback, the second is a multi-threaded background update (background draw
thread) using a higher level of detail. If you don’t want to use the background draw thread,
uncheck this option (e.g. to avoid the views switching quality all the time). If you experi-
ence frequent random crashes on your system, this is probably due to your video board
driver not supporting the multi-threaded drawing. If you don’t want to disable OpenGL
altogether, turning this option off may help improve stability.
• Use line anti-aliasing and Use scene anti-aliasing: select these options to enable OpenGL
anti-aliasing of lines and anti-aliasing of the entire scene. Depending on your video board,
anti-aliasing can affect performance significanlty.
The Instant draw and Background draw sliders let you customize the level of detail used for
both types of previews. We generally don’t recommend increasing the quality of Instant draw,
since this has to be quick to remain responsive. You can however turn it down, if you feel that
program response is on the slow side.

Since Background draw takes place in the background, the associated 3D view quality can be
very high. Obviously, background draw quality should be higher than Instant draw.

Because plant preview is particularly demanding in terms of video processing, there is a sepa-
rate set of sliders to adjust the quality of the preview of plants in both previewing modes. Plant
instant draw and Plant background draw sliders let you customize the preview quality of
plants independently from the preview quality of other objects.
• Max usable video memory: This setting only comes into play when using full quality
near the camera. To a lesser degree, it affects the changing to another geometry repre-
sentation, such as box, wire box, flat shaded or smooth shaded.
• Limit OpenGL polygons to: Because some video boards may have issues displaying the
millions of polygons of VUE scenes, this option will automatically limit the number of
polygons that the video board has to draw in order to avoid OpenGL driver issues. When
the polygon limit is reached, additional objects will be displayed as boxes instead of their
full polygon representation. You can try increasing this value if you feel that it is not appro-
priate for your work, however, if the application starts crashing because of video board
driver errors, you should revert to the factory setting.

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OpenGL Texturing Options

This group of controls let you customize the way object texturing is previewed in the 3D Views.
Normal and UV mapping is now displayed correctly in OpenGL previews.
• Apply texture maps to…: if this option is selected, the objects will be previewed with
their texture maps. This is particularly nice for plants, but also applies to all objects that
are mapped using images. You can enable or disable texture maps independently on
Plants, Primitives, Polygon meshes and Locked objects. When this option is selected
for locked objects, these will be shown with textures applied. Otherwise, they will be
displayed gray.
• Max. resolution: Limit the maximum resolution of textures used by the real-time engine,
to avoid slowing down the display too much when the scene uses very high-quality tex-
tures. This does not affect Ray Tracer nor Path Tracer renders. If you input the special
value 0 (zero), or if you try to set a value higher than the maximum capability of your
graphics hardware, VUE will set the value to the latter. Note that the Instant draw and
Background draw qualities will also affect the resolution of textures seen in the view-
ports.
• Use auto-color whenever possible: VUE will always attempt to determine a color that
is representative of each material in the scene. If this option is selected, this color will
always be used to preview the objects, except when specifically instructed to use another
color.

OpenGL Lighting

The unique control in this group lets you adjust the number of light sources used for previewing.
OpenGL supports a maximum of 8 light sources. Each time you create a light source in VUE, an
equivalent light will be created in OpenGL, until the maximum number of lights that can be
used is reached. You can accelerate the previewing of the scene by reducing the number of
lights used by OpenGL.

If you are using the OpenGL 2.1 (shader 4) display option this options will be unavailable and
greyed out. If you wish to change these options and use them, you need to use the OpenGL
Hardware display option. If you change these settings and switch back to OpenGL 2.1 (shader4),
these settings will revert back to the default.

Accurate sun shadow previewing: Use this setting to enable real shadows projected from the
sun. The sun becomes the first directional light in the object list. This option disables Clip
objects under the first horizontal plane in main view only.

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OpenGL Atmosphere Preview

The OpenGL atmosphere preview option is only available when none of your viewports uses
the Interactive Path Tracer viewing mode. When previewing the atmosphere, the main view-
port’s background will show a preview of the sky according to the atmospheric settings in your
scene, including the cloud layers. Note that individual clouds (aka. MetaClouds, and including
VDB clouds) are not taken into account to generate this preview.

As computing this preview is quite CPU intensive, the frequency at which it is recomputed when
moving the camera is kept to a minimum, which means that the accuracy of the preview is best
when the camera is reasonably far from the cloud layers. The preview is also always rendered
behind the objects, even if the camera is inside a cloud layer, which means in that case the
OpenGL view can be far from matching a corresponding render.

When the Atmosphere preview option is selected, you can also indicate whether you want to
preview the lens flares and planets in the scene.

If you enable Preview lens flares, an OpenGL version of the lens flare will be created that looks
like the actual lens flare that will be rendered.

Enable Preview planets to represent a texture mapped preview of the planets in the 3D Views.

Enable Preview clouds to view cloud layers in the OpenGL preview.

These options can be turned on/off easily on a per scene basis from the Display | Atmosphere
Preview item on the VUE menu.

Preview Dynamic EcoSystems

• Preview Dynamic EcoSystems: Check this option to view the dynamically populated
instances that are closest to the camera.
• Min size of displayed instances in pixels: Enter a value to limit the display of EcoSystem
instances in preview mode.
• Max number of displayed instances: Enter a value to define the upper limit of EcoSys-
tem instances you want displayed in preview mode. This is valid for both dynamic and
static EcoSystems.

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OpenGL Clipping

This option lets you define the OpenGL view clipping planes:
• Near plane distance: this defines the distance to the clipping plane near the camera. Any
object that is closer to the camera than this distance will not appear in the OpenGL views.
• Far plane distance: this defines the distance to the clipping plane far from the cam-
era. Any object that is further from the camera than this distance will not appear in the
OpenGL views.
• Auto: select this option to let VUE automatically take care of these settings.

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Triggers and Modifiers

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Triggers and Trigger Modifiers in the Shortcuts list

Triggers and their Modifiers are sorted into several categories. To allow more freedom of cus-
tomization, some Triggers appear in several categories. For example, the Orbiting trigger can
be set to Alt+Left MB+Drag in the scene viewports but overridden by the simpler trigger Left
MB+Drag in the object editors’ 3D previews.

Trigger Modifiers
Under the Trigger Modifiers category, you will find triggers which apply to camera and object
interactive transformations, as well as two more generic triggers:
• The Cancel Current Operation shortcut (usually Escape) can apply to a wide range of op-
erations,
• The Ignore Preemptive Gizmos modifier can be used to prevent inlaid or overlaid interface
elements like 3D gizmos in the scene viewports from activating when hovered.
– This is because those interface elements have priority over other operations, which
in some circumstances make it difficult to effect other operations like picking an
object when looking at a dense area of your scene where many objects overlap.
Modifiers applying to transformations are pretty standard:
• Snapping snaps movement to the intersection of an implicit grid, or rounds up the angle
of a rotation (it has no effect on Scaling operations),
• Constrain To Axis limits the degrees of freedom of an action,
• Slow Camera Controls will slow down the effect of camera, viewpoint or object transfor-
mations,
• Duplicate Object allows to duplicate an object at the beginning of a translation or rotation
in order to work on a copy rather than on the originally selected object.
• Move to Pointed Location: when dragging in a 3D view to move objects in the scene, using
this trigger will move the selection at the scene position pointed at by the mouse cursor,
instead of moving it in the 3D view plane.
– Read the page about Moving_Objects (Documentation/Building_Scenes/Editing_Objects)
for more details.
Under the Trigger Modifiers (Picking) category, you will find triggers modifiers applying to the
corresponding Select Object Under Mouse operation.

Under the Trigger Modifiers (Scaling) category, you will find triggers modifiers applying to the
scaling operations available using the gizmo handles in the 3D views, as well as scaling opera-
tions on the viewport’s render areas or the Real-World Terrain dialog’s import area.

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Triggers
Under the top-most Triggers category, you will find triggers which operation applies to many
situations. Typically, Panning and Zooming can refer to translating the camera as well as drag-
ging a node in the Function Graph or moving the Time Line left or right when working on an
animation.

Zooming (a.k.a. Dollying) moves the viewpoint “inside” the scene or “away” from it along a lin-
ear path. Combined with the camera’s Altitude lock feature, this operation can be made similar
to a “walking” mode, typically when operated over a terrain. In an orthographic view, zooming
simply means shrinking or enlarging the viewed extent.

Two distinct triggers are available for the zooming operation, as it is usually mapped both to a
mouse-drag action and to the wheeling action.

The Default Trigger deserves a special note: it simply refers to the default mouse button used
to start some operations that can be activated from an interface button or with a keyboard
shortcut. For example, if you activate the Select Render Area feature using the button in the
Top Toolbar, or using the Ctrl+Alt+S keyboard shortcut, you will have to use the Default Trigger
(usually Left MB+Drag) to actually select the area’s rectangle in a 3D view.

Triggers in 3D views
The nested Triggers in 3D views category adds triggers meaningful only in 3D context (some of
the triggers apply in orthographic viewpoints as well).
• Orbit Around Selection rotates the viewpoint around the selected objects, or around the
scene’s center point. When no object is selected, be careful when orbiting as the scene
center can be far off the current frustrum of your viewpoint.
• Rotate Camera/Viewpoint rotates the camera or the viewpoint’s origin around itself.
• Frame Selected Area will let you draw a rectangle on a view and try to adjust the viewpoint
settings to focus on this area.

Editor & Previews vs. Camera Views

The nested Triggers in Editor & Previews category repeats triggers already mentioned to allow
to override them in the 3D preview of an object editor like the Terrain Editor, Plant Editor, Text
Editor, etc.

The nested Triggers in Camera Views category repeats triggers already mentioned to allow to
override them in a perspective view of the scene, and adds three triggers specific to this context:
• Camera Focal allows to shrink or broaden the camera focal.
• Roll Camera rotates the camera around its forward (look at) axis, changing the angle also
known as the camera attitude.

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• Translate Camera constrained to axis (kept for compatibility with previous versions – see
also modifier mentioned earlier in the Trigger Modifiers category) allows to translate the
camera along the X or Y axis as described in this article.

Triggers in 1D/2D Views

The nested Triggers in 1D/2D Views category repeats the generic Panning and Zooming triggers
to allow to override them in the specific context of non-3D views like the Function Graph, the
Time Line, the Function Node Preview, etc.

Triggers in Editors
The Triggers in the Terrain Editor and Triggers in the Spline Editor categories hold mouse and
keyboard shortcuts meaningful in the context of these editors only.

This allows to define shortcuts for actions like raising or shrinking the Terrain Editor Brush ra-
dius, flow or fall-off distance between two brushing actions, without having to move the mouse
to the Paint panel to operate the interface. See the section on Sculpting Terrains in the Terrain
Editor documentation.

Render Options

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The Options dialog – General Preferences tab

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Render Options

• Render small picture of objects…: when you save an object, VUE renders a thumbnail
preview of it, for use in the Objects Browser. Unchecking this will yield black previews for
all objects.
• Reset render settings…: when you create a new landscape, render settings are auto-
matically reset to default (e.g. Preview render quality). Unchecking this box will disable
this feature.
• Generate resume render info: if this option is selected, VUE will automatically generate
the information required to let you resume later a rendering session that you decided to
interrupt. Because the generation of resume information can take some time, this infor-
mation is not generated when rendering in OpenGL or Preview modes. Disabling this op-
tion will allow faster interruption of renderings by skipping the generation of the resume
information in the more advanced rendering modes – but you won’t be able to resume
rendering. Please also note that any modification of the scene will make it impossible
for you to resume rendering later. You can also control the creation of resume render
information using the Render | Generate Resume Render Info menu command. This
command is only available if an advanced render mode is selected (Final and up). The ef-
fect of the menu command is identical to that of the checkbox. This option only pertains
to renders to screen; this Resume Render is not available for network rendering.
• Abort render on click in render area: when this option is selected, clicking in the render
area will abort the rendering process. If this option is deselected, you will have to press
Escape to stop rendering.
• Flush voluminous data when render completes: during the rendering process, VUE gen-
erates a lot of data that can be preserved in order to speed up subsequent renders of the
same scene. When this option is selected, this data will be automatically discarded when
the render completes, thus freeing up memory.
• Render stacking options: This button opens the Render Stacking Options dialog where
you can specify what renders you wish to keep in the renderstack, sets the size and lo-
cation of the render stack. These settings are also available on the The Render Display
Window
• Use Substance GPU engine: check this box to enable Substance GPU engine to speed up
.sbsar texture rendering. With this option, Substance materials will be calculated by the
GPU instead of the CPU when you edit their parameters in the Material Editor.
Gains in render time when compared to CPU engine will particularly show with texture
output sizes of 1024 x 1024 and above.
Please note: this option is only available in the graphical user interface version of VUE.
Render nodes will still use the CPU engine to render Substance textures.
This box is checked by default, but if your GPU is weak or you have none, uncheck this

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box to fall back to CPU engine mode for .sbsar texture rendering even in the graphical
user interface version of VUE.

Preview Options

The controls in this group let you customize the previews of materials and functions, using the
Preview Options dialog. If you select Override saved options, when you load a material or a
function, these options will override those that were saved together with the material or func-
tion.

If you check the Disable automatic material preview updating option, material preview will
no longer be generated automatically. Whenever a material preview becomes obsolete, a small
triangle will appear on top of it. Simply click the preview to update it. Depending on your work
habits, this option can be useful if you find that your computer is having difficulties keeping all
materials up to date as you work.

Checking the Only render material previews in active editor option is useful if your system
become very slow when editing complex hierarchies of materials. When this option is selected,
only the material or function previews that are in the topmost editor are refreshed.

Scene Options

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Load/Save Options

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The Options dialog – General Preferences tab

• Create empty scene on startup: when this options is enabled, a default scene is automat-
ically created upon startup based on the default atmosphere. You can make the current
scene become the default scene by pressing the Set default scene button. If you want to
revert to the factory default scene, you will have to erase the file Environment/Default
Startup Scene.vue .
• Save configuration upon exit: unchecking this will prevent VUE from saving your con-
figuration when you exit the software. It is not recommended.
• Save scenes with small picture of last render: when you save a scene, VUE stores a
thumbnail preview of it inside the file. This is then used in the Scene Browser. Disabling
this option yields black previews for all your scenes.
• Max. backup versions when saving: unchecking this box prevents VUE from making a
backup copy of your scene when you save it. When enabled, you can control how many
versions at most will be kept for each scene. Although making a backup is good habit,
since it can avoid losing data, you may want to turn this feature off because of the extra
disk space used. Backup copies have the .bak / .fsbak extension instead of .vue / .fsvue .
Backup scenes can be restored from the menu File > Previous Versions, or directly from
the Visual Browser.
• Enable auto-saving: when this option is selected, a backup copy of your scene is made
automatically, at intervals you can set. Intervals are from every minute to once an hour.
You can also stipulate how many auto-saved versions will be kept before deleting the old-
est versions.
Autosave files are available in the menu File > Previous Versions. Autosave files are
deleted when the current scene is closed. If you wish to keep an autosave, you have to
revert your scene to that version and save the scene.
• Save scene after rendering: this feature saves the scene when rendering is finished.
• Use System Browser: when this option is selected, VUE will bypass the Visual Browsers
completely whenever you want to load a scene or a picture. You can locate content using
your operating system’s browser. Each Visual Browser can also be individually configured
to use the System Browser or not (see Browser Options). When the General Preferences’
checkbox for “Use System Browser” is neither checked nor unchecked (it shows a light
grey square instead), it means some but not all of the Visual Browsers have the option
checked.
• Scan for remote changes images and objects: When you enable synchronization of im-
ages and imported objects when you import either an object or a texture map, and check
the Synchronized option in the 4th tab of the World Browser (Links tab), VUE periodi-
cally checks if the corresponding files have been modified by an external program, and
proposes to reload the file in this case. This process can be really time consuming if you
have hundreds of maps or objects in your scene, so this checkbox can be used to disable

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this process globally without having to edit each map or object previously selected in the
Link Tab of the World Browser.

Object Options

• Select all objects using material…: when you click on a preview of a material inside
the Summary of materials dialog, all the objects that use the material in the scene are
selected. Unchecking this box will disable this feature.
• Flash views when changing…: when you select a new Preview color from the drop-
down list of the Object Properties panel, the selected objects are temporarily deselected
to show that they have taken on the new color. Uncheck the box if you don’t want this to
happen.
• Use number of copies…: when duplicating this option instructs VUE to use the number
of copies indicated in the Scatter/Replicate Objects dialog when duplicating objects (i.e.
if 10 copies is indicated and this option is selected, duplicating an object will actually
generate 10 copies of it). Please read here for details on the Scatter/Replicate Objects
dialog. This option is not set by default, and is provided for compatibility with previous
versions.
• Enable automatic primitive numbering: when you create a new object, the name of the
object automatically reflects the number of objects of the same type that have already
been created in this scene (e.g. “Sphere 2” means this is the second sphere you create
inside this scene. The first sphere may have been deleted. Copied / duplicated objects
are not counted). Unchecking this box will disable this feature.
• Display real size of objects…: when this option is selected, the size of objects as dis-
played in the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel indicate the actual size of the
object in real world units. If you deselect this option, the size will indicate an internal
value (this option is only provided for compatibility with previous versions).
• Preserve size of natural elements at creation: When this option is checked, all “natu-
ral” VUE primitives (rocks, plants, terrains, water surfaces) will be rescaled according to
current internal unit settings upon creation, thus keeping a standard physical size.
• Offset duplicated objects: when you duplicate objects, the copy of the objects are offset
by one nudge unit in each direction. You can disable this feature by unchecking the box.
As a result, duplicated objects will be the exact copies (including position) of the initial
objects. This can be useful when you are doing precise alignment.
• Center VUE objects when loading: this option will move VUE objects that you load, so
that they always appear at the center of the views. If you uncheck this option, objects will
retain their position as defined in the .vob file. It is useful to uncheck this option when
loading several files that each represents a different part of a single object.

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• Drop dragged objects at mouse location: If dragging an object from the Object Browser,
it will drop at the current mouse location.
• Drop imported objects to ground: when this option is checked, objects that you import
will be automatically dropped to the ground plane.
• Assign last used material to new objects: If checked, any objects added to the scene
will be assigned the same material as the first object added to that scene.

EcoSystem Options

• Population warning threshold: this allows you to set a threshold limit on an EcoSystem
population. If an estimated EcoSystem population is found to be greater than this num-
ber, a warning message is displayed. Note that the estimation is done with a simplified
algorithm before actually populating which means that, under some circumstances, it
can differ vastly from the actual instance count after populating.
• Max. memory for the extraction of unique instances: in some situations, the scene
setup should in theory convert a number of EcoSystem instances into unique objects in
order to render the scene as intended. This typically happens when a Fan object deforms
an EcoSystem population of grass or trees, for example, or also when an instance with a
material using Displacement (dynamic subdivision only), Normal mapping or Subsurface
Scattering (ie. requiring mesh subdivision) is very close to the camera, in case of Hyper-
Blob close-ups, etc. Unfortunately, this theoretical approach to rendering very quickly
hits physical memory limits when rendering the scene, hence this setting to limit the max-
imum memory dedicated to converted instances.
• Specimen cache max. size: when using an object, rock, plant, etc. to populate an EcoSys-
tem, some data must be generated for each such “specimen”, which is cached on disk.
Typically, several rock and plant procedural variations are generated for each individual
item, which can lead to large amount of data cached. This setting allows to limit the disk
space occupied by this cache.
• Current cache size / Clear cache: the current specimen cache size on disk is displayed
here, and clearing the cache is possible to reclaim disk space and/or force VUE to generate
new variations from scratch, recompute billboard previews, etc.

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Section 2
Building Scenes

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Creating Objects
All scenes are created from a set of predefined objects. These objects fall under 15 categories:

1. Primitive Objects 8. Rocks

2. Infinite planes 9. MetaClouds
3. Alpha planes 10. Planets
4. Terrain objects 11. Lights
5. Plants 12. Group objects
6. Polygon meshes 13. Ventilators
7. 3D Text 14. Cameras
15. Imported Objects

Primitive Objects

Primitive objects are “mathematically pure” objects. They are defined by a primitive mathemat-
ical equation that the render engine solves each time it has to consider the object. This equa-
tion defines the position and shape of the object. Although this may sound pretty complex,
primitive objects are among the easiest to use, and their mathematical complexity is hidden
away by user-friendly tools. There are 7 primitive objects available in VUE: Sphere, Cylinder,
Cube, Cone, Pyramid, Torus, Plane and Alpha Plane.

These objects are created either by clicking on the second icon from the left toolbar (if the re-
quested primitives icon is not available, you will need to unfold it ),
or by using the items from the Object | Create sub-menu. Keyboard shortcuts are also available
for advanced users (they are indicated in the menu).

Since all of these objects can be moved, resized in any direction, rotated, and twisted, they can
yield an incredible variety of shapes.

Arbitrary materials may be assigned to primitive objects using the Change object material item
from the Objects menu, or by clicking the Load material button ( ) on the Object Properties
panel.

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Infinite Planes

Infinite planes are not so different from primitive objects, in the sense that they are also defined
by a mathematical equation. However, unlike primitive objects, infinite planes are unbounded
objects. That means they extend infinitely in every direction, separating the world in two halves.
One half will be outside the object, the other inside.

There are 3 different types of infinite planes available, although they differ only by the material
assigned to them, and their initial orientation. These are: Water (or Sea), Ground, and Cloud
planes to add rain or snow.

Like primitive objects, infinite planes can be moved, rotated, twisted (except for cloud planes),
and have materials assigned to them. Resizing an infinite plane will yield no result, since it is,
after all, infinite.

These objects are found on the left toolbar, topmost icon (if the requested infinite plane icon
is not available, you will need to unfold it ). They can also be created using the
menu items of the Object | Create sub-menu.

All infinite planes are created horizontally. Water (or Sea) and Ground planes are created with
their “inside” underneath them.

Default landscapes are created with a single Ground plane, positioned at altitude 0. While there
can be multiple ground and cloud planes, there can only be one water plane, which represents
sea level.

Infinite planes are displayed by a surface and a normal vector. In order to find out which side
of the plane is “outside”, you need to look at this vector. It is situated on the outer side of the
infinite plane.

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Alpha Planes

The Alpha plane is a variation of the Plane primitive that is designed to facilitate the setup of
transparency mapped images (images with alpha information).

Like other objects, they may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted. Although it is perfectly pos-
sible to assign a material to an Alpha plane, Alpha planes are specifically designed to avoid
having to do so. It would seem more logical to create a simple Plane primitive instead.

To create an Alpha plane, either unfold the second icon from the left toolbar and select the
corresponding icon ( ), or select the menu command Object | Create | Alpha Plane.

When you create a new Alpha plane, the Alpha Plane Options dialog appears. This dialog lets
you define the aspect of the Alpha plane. Please click here for details on editing Alpha planes.

The Alpha Plane Options dialog is simply a shortcut designed to help you create the correct
material for the plane. This material can be modified using the standard Material Editor, but
you can also re-open the Alpha Plane Options dialog anytime by double-clicking on the Alpha
plane object in the 3D views, or by clicking the Edit button ( ) on the top toolbar when the
Alpha plane is selected, or by selecting Edit Object from the Objects menu.

Terrains

Terrains are constructed using complex fractal algorithms to recreate mountainous structures.
They are a special type of Polygon mesh designed to efficiently handle massive amounts of
polygons. Terrains are the basic construction block used for building landscapes. Like other
objects, they may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted, and have materials assigned to them.

Terrains come in two different types: standard and procedural. Standard terrains use a fixed
size grid to represent the terrain altitudes. They are also known as “heightfields”, and are the
most straightforward type of terrain.

Procedural terrains use a significantly more complex technology to build and refine the terrain
according to the distance at which you are observing it. This technology is able to dynamically
adjust the level of detail of the terrain, so that it appears to be infinitely detailed. The altitudes
of this type of terrain are generated using a complex mathematical procedure. Luckily, VUE is
able to hide away all this complexity by providing a selection of presets from which you can

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pick. You can always customize the look of these terrains later.

To create a terrain, right-click on the terrain icon on the left of the screen and select which type
of terrain you want from the expanded icon ( ):
• Heightfield terrain: a default 256 × 256 heightfield is created.
• Procedural terrain: a procedural terrain with a default function is created.
• Terrain from a preset: opens the Terrain preset Content browser to choose a preset from.
Includes several templates for Infinite Procedural Terrains, as well as several examples of
Heightfield terrains using the Erosion nodes.
• Terrain from Real-World altitudes: opens the Real-World Terrain import dialog.
The shape of the terrain is created randomly and will be unique. No two terrains will ever yield
the same shape.

Once a terrain is generated, it can be modified by accessing the Terrain Editor. This is done by
double-clicking on the terrain in the 3D Views or World Browser, or by clicking the Edit icon ( )
on the top toolbar when the terrain is selected, or by selecting Edit Object from the Objects
menu.

Inside the Terrain Editor, you will be offered a large variety of tools (such as erosion, manual edit-
ing, special effects…) that will let you shape the terrain as you like. There are also controls for
painting materials directly on terrains. For a complete description of the Terrain Editor, please
see here.

Alternately, you can choose to create terrains directly inside the Terrain Editor with your desired
resolution or pre-configure options (Symmetrical/Skin) by selecting the commands in the Ob-
ject | Create | Heightfield Terrain or Object | Create | Procedural Terrain sub-menus.

A VUE scene can also contain a planet or a curved terrain (part of a planet): these are called
Spherical Terrains and discussed separately.

Real­World Terrain

As its name suggests, the Real-World Terrain Import feature allows you to create a terrain object
in VUE based on real-world terrain altitudes (a.k.a. “elevation data”). Several types of texture
data obtained from remote servers can be mapped over the terrain.

You can access the import dialog either from the Object | Create | From Real-World Terrain
menu, or from the Terrain button expandable menu in the Object bar. A default keyboard short-
cut (Alt+R) also exists to access this feature.

To summarize, the dialog will allow you to:

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• Preview a geographical area by panning and zooming the world map,

• Jump to specific geographical coordinates, if need be,
• Create an import area, scaling and rotating it as you wish,
• Select a resolution for your terrain data,
• Optionally, select a data layer to use as texture to be mapped over the terrain,
• Import the altitude data into your scene, either as a Heightfield, or as a Procedural terrain.
Warning:

The terrain data layers are supplied by third-party internet servers not under control of e-on
software. This means that e-on software guarantees neither the quality and accuracy of the
data, nor the server’s quality of service (incl. transfer speeds and uptime). Please keep in mind
that the terrain data is provided free of charge and its representation in e-on software’s products
should only be considered fit for artistic purposes.

Note:

Each data provider has its own license terms and Data Attribution requirements, Make sure
to read them to know how to properly attribute the data providers in your own projects. The
attributions can also be displayed using the Legal Notice buttons at the bottom of the editor.

Note:

For more information on the origin and type of the available elevation data, as well as all tech-
nical details regarding data accuracy over the various regions of the globe, please refer to this
page

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Map View

Real-World Terrain Import dialog

The map view can be navigated with the usual mouse and keyboard triggers used for zooming,
panning or framing an area of interest. The frame area trigger (default: Alt+Shift+Right mouse
button) is especially useful to quickly zoom from the worldwide map into a small area of inter-
est. The view can not be rotated.

The import area can be moved and rotated by hovering the mouse near its border: the mouse
cursor will change, nearing the border from inside the rectangle will enable translation, while
nearing the border from outside the rectangle will enable rotation. Scaling the rectangle is
enabled by grabbing any corner point or edge mid-point.

The usual scaling modifiers can also be used:

• to rescale the area around its center instead of the grabbed handle, use the Change Scal-
ing Pivot modifier (default: Alt),
• to rescale the area by keeping its aspect ratio, use the Resize Globally modifier (default:

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Shift).
The view center is marked by a blue symbol , while the import area and its center symbol are
shown in red.

Displaying a Layer

Several layers can be visualized on the map view:

• Altitude and Bathymetry (from NextZen): elevation layer from which are queried the
terrain altitudes.
When displaying the altitude layer in the map view, you can edit the color map used to colorize
the altitude using the corresponding control in the left panel. The changes in the color map
editor are visualized interactively in the geographical view. Use Reset on the colormap control
to revert to the default altitudes color map.
• Sentinel-2 Cloudless Imagery (by EOX, v2016): this is the recommended choice for tex-
turing the imported terrain. The layer’s coverage is worldwide, and the satellite data has
been carefully processed to eliminate clouds as much as possible, homogenize the col-
orimetry and minimize the banding effect resulting of the satellite capture, etc. The re-
lief’s shadows are also much less visible than in the USGS Satellite Imagery layer.
Note:

On macOS 10.11 “El Capitan” (Apple’s operating system released in 2015), the security certifi-
cates supplied with the operating system are not recent enough to support this online data
provider. Thus, the Sentinel-2 layer is not available on this specific version of macOS only. Al-
though there are ways for expert users to install the proper certificates manually, we cannot
guide you for such modifications and recommend upgrading at least to macOS 10.12 Sierra or
higher, as far as your hardware allows.

USGS layers: note that these layers are highly detailed over the United States but, although
there may be some data over other parts of the world, it is usually very coarse.
• Topography (USGS): this layer can be useful to navigate the map as it shows country
boundaries, as well as many vector features over the US (cities, roads, etc.).
• Satellite Imagery (USGS): although much more detailed than Sentinel-2 over the US, the
data is less consistent and shadows can be very visible.

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• Satellite + Topography (USGS): this is an overlay of topographical data over the satellite
imagery layer.
• Shaded Relief (USGS): this is a greyscale shaded view of the relief also called “hillshade”.
Display Tiles Outlines: this option shows a magenta grid outlining the currently displayed tiles.
This may be useful in some cases to visualize the boundaries between tiles, for example to see
where a tile might be missing on the server.

Geographical View
These parameters allow you to determine where you are located on the map, and especially
paste values to and from third-party mapping services, in order to jump to a given position for
example.

Coordinates used in general-purpose mapping like your GPS or online mapping services are
often expressed in the WGS84 geodetic system (EPSG:4326), so this is probably the spatial ref-
erence you will want to stick with. Online mapping services often use the Web Mercator (a.k.a.
Pseudo-Mercator: EPSG:3857) spatial reference internally, because of its ease of use and suit-
ability to define a mip-mapping hierarchy of square tiles covering the whole world, so this one
is provided as well.
• The Web Mercator spatial reference is here expressed in meters: the value should not be
taken as an accurate distance as measured on the ground, only as a more user-friendly
way to display and compare geographical location coordinates.
• The Web Mercator coordinates’ origin is the same as the point of zero degrees both in lati-
tude and longitude, ie. the intersection of the equator and the Greenwich meridian. Due
to the strong deformation of the cylindrical Mercator projection when going far from the
Equator, the north and south poles have latitude coordinates of about 20,000km instead
of the normal 10,000km or so.
Instead of showing a complex user interface to allow you to select any of the 3000+ possible spa-
tial coordinate systems, we decided to only have a couple options for the moment. To convert
to and from other spatial reference systems, as well as locate a specific location on Earth based
on its name, free of charge, specialized mapping services abound online (see for example [1]).

Note that some services display the coordinates with the latitude (vertical axis) first, whereas
VUE always uses the horizontal axis as first coordinate, hence the longitude in this case. Also,
some of you are used to pass only positive coordinates, prefixed by “W” or “E” (respectively “N”
or “S”) to indicate the direction, while some are used to pass negative western coordinates and
positive eastern coordinates.

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To avoid ambiguities, the longitude field in VUE is displayed as a signed value but a hint is
shown: “W” for a western coordinate (west of the reference Greenwich meridian) and “E” for
an eastern coordinate. Likewise, latitude fields are preceded by a “N” or “S” hint depending on
the coordinate being above (positive coordinate) or below (negative coordinate) the Equator
line.

Input in these fields also accepts the letter hints, but only with positive values: entering W-2.
42° is considered ambiguous, and thus an error (same for southern values). Either type W 2.
42 or -2.42 (the degree sign is optional), both will result in -2.42° being used. Finally, these
fields also accept DMS coordinates (degrees+minutes/seconds of arc, like 2°12'42"), as well
as Degrees+Decimal Minutes (DM eg. 2° 12.42').
• Geo. Reference: choose here the type of coordinates used to enter longitude and lati-
tude values for the map view position or the center of the import area.
• Format’: these radio buttons are updated automatically when entering or pasting co-
ordinates in the Longitude or Latitude fields. You can also convert from one format to
the other by switching them manually. Note that the Center Long. and Center Lat. fields
in the Area to Import frame are also affected by these buttons.
• Longitude: Coordinate of the view center along the horizontal axis, in the spatial refer-
ence chosen above.
• Latitude: Coordinate of the view center along the vertical axis, in the spatial reference
chosen above.
• Fit View to Scene: when the current scene already contains geographically located ob-
jects, like former Real-World Terrain Imports, or geo-located altitude grids imported through
the File | Import Object menu, hit this button to frame the scene’s geographical extent
in the map view.
• Back to World Map: will move the view all the way back to the worldwide view.

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Resolution of Import

Please keep in mind that VUE ensures that the imported pixels remain square in your scene,
in order to optimize rendering performance and quality. This means fixing the resolution of
the import will also fix the aspect ratio of the imported area. The only mode below where the
aspect ratio can be changed interactively while drawing or altering the import area in the view
is thus the Automatic mode.

Of course, you can still distort the resulting terrain afterwards in the Function Graph or the Ob-
ject Aspect Panel if you want to achieve special effects.

Several methods to specify the desired resolution of an import are offered in the unfolding
menu:
• Automatic: the resolution is determined automatically depending on the current zoom
level of the map view and the extent of the area drawn in the map view, by targeting an
import resolution between 2048 and 4096 by default. You can use the Double, Halve
and Reset buttons to adjust the resolution to your needs. This mode does not enforce
any aspect ratio to your import area.
– Double, Halve: the data provider tile hierarchy halves or doubles the resolution
between each tile level, so each press on these buttons will make VUE import a finer
(respectively coarser) level at import than the one currently set.
– Reset: resets the resolution hint so that VUE will use for import the same level as
the one used for displaying the map view at the current zoom.
– Note: the Automatic mode is the only one ensuring that, when the area has a zero
Orientation, the resulting terrain will only consist of actual, non-interpolated eleva-
tion values as supplied by the online provider (unless the server’s coverage is insuf-
ficient at the requested level), and thus offer the best geographical accuracy. Other
modes, as well as rotated areas, need to interpolate the data in order to comply to

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the options specified.

• Fixed resolutions commonly used for terrains: 1K to 4K.
• Custom Square Resolution: the area will always be a square, you can specify its resolu-
tion in the first numerical field below the menu box.
• Custom Resolution: the area will have its aspect ratio enforced by the resolutions spec-
ified for both edges in the numerical fields below the menu box.
When you want the imported terrain to be texture-mapped, you need to display the desired layer
and tick the Texture with Displayed Layer frame to access this option:
• Max. Texture Resolution: the texture map’s resolution will be automatically computed
depending on the imported terrain’s extent, aspect ratio, and the data accuracy available
on the selected layer’s remote server. This setting allows to set an upper bound on the
amount of data to download and merge into the texture.

Area to Import

• Select Visible Area: select the geographical area visible in the map view as being the
area to import. Aspect ratio constraints will of course apply and restrict the actual area
selected.
• Fit View to Import Area: move and zoom the map view in order to frame the currently
selected import area.
• Center Long.: Coordinate of the import area center along the horizontal axis, in the cho-
sen Geo. Reference. This field is also affected by the Format option in the Geographical
View frame explained above.
• Center Lat.: Coordinate of the import area center along the vertical axis, in the chosen
Geo. Reference. This field is also affected by the Format option in the Geographical View
frame explained above.
• Width and Height: Dimensions of the area in linear units (kilometer, mile, etc. – never in
degrees).

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• Orientation: counter-clockwise rotation applied to the area, in degrees. Unless your

scene uses a rotated spatial reference system, this will almost always be also the orienta-
tion of the terrain once imported in your scene.
– Reset: reset the orientation to zero.

Importing a Terrain
While the import is running, the dialog stays opened: you can still pan and zoom the view while
the import is running, but all interface widgets are disabled. The tile download and import
process can be interrupted at any time by pressing the Escape key or the Cancel Import button.
You will usually see two successive progress bars:
• Preparing Import...: VUE computes geographical coordinates for each imported pixel and
queries the remove server(s) where the tiles will be fetched to determine the availability
of the data at the import resolution. If the ideal resolution is not available, you will get
a message telling you that VUE can proceed importing with a reduced resolution, and
offering to cancel.
• Fetching Missing Tiles...: missing altitude and possibly texture tiles are downloaded from
the remote server.
Because the map view uses the tile data’s spatial reference system (EPSG:3857, a.k.a. Web Mer-
cator or Pseudo-Mercator), but your scene might not, there can be a noticeable difference be-
tween the import area shown in the dialog and the actual terrain imported. This is because the
possibly rotated import extent needs to be reprojected into your scene’s spatial reference.

Note:

The spatial reference of a scene is that of the first geographical terrain imported inside it, and
cannot be modified afterwards. To force a new scene to use the worldwide Web Mercator pro-
jection (EPSG:3857), a good way is to start by importing a “Real-World Terrain”, then proceed
with importing other terrains which can use any other projection (they will be automatically
converted).

Finally, for simplicity and efficiency, VUE will only create terrains with square pixels, which can
also induce a very small difference between the import area and the resulting terrain, because
of rounding.

Tile Cache Settings

• Tiles on Disk: to avoid querying the server too frequently, a number of data tiles are

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cached on disk. You can set the maximum disk space reserved for such tiles here. The
default is 500MB.
• Clear Cache: you might want to reclaim disk space, or clear the cache for some reason
if you suspect or know that some tiles have been corrupted during download, or that
(exceptionnally) the altitude data has been updated on the server.

Data Accuracy
Indicative coverage accuracy map for the elevation data from NextZen.org:

Visit the project page for the full-sized coverage map.

Data Attribution
Elevation data
Provider: Terrain Tiles Endpoints from NextZen.org.

This provider has collated various open data sources, each with its own attribution require-
ments. At the time of writing, the required data attribution notice reads:
• ArcticDEM terrain data DEM(s) were created from DigitalGlobe, Inc., imagery and funded
under National Science Foundation awards 1043681, 1559691, and 1542736;
• Australia terrain data © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2017;
• Austria terrain data © offene Daten Österreichs – Digitales Geländemodell (DGM) Österre-
ich;

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• Canada terrain data contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence
– Canada;
• Europe terrain data produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the Eu-
ropean Union – EU-DEM layers;
• Global ETOPO1 terrain data U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Mexico terrain data source: INEGI, Continental relief, 2016;
• New Zealand terrain data Copyright 2011 Crown copyright (c) Land Information New Zealand
and the New Zealand Government (All rights reserved);
• Norway terrain data © Kartverket;
• United Kingdom terrain data © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015.
All rights reserved;
• United States 3DEP (formerly NED) and global GMTED2010 and SRTM terrain data cour-
tesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Sentinel­2/EOX texture data

The recommended texture layer for import is obtained from a dataset released under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The texture map is based on European Union
Sentinel-2 satellite data and processed in order to obtain a consistent and cloudless worldwide
coverage.

The required attribution is: Sentinel-2 cloudless – https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH
(Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017)

U.S.G.S. texture data

USGS-based imagery layers are courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey, National Geospatial Pro-
gram.

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Plants

The Visual Plant Browser

Plants are probably the most unique feature of VUE. They are generated using SolidGrowth™, a
set of incredibly complex algorithms designed to grow a whole variety of plant forms. Plants
are very complex objects using multiple materials. They are often made of an equivalent of
tens of thousands of polygons.

Like other objects, they may be moved, resized, rotated, and twisted.

They can also have wind applied to them, and they will react to any global breeze settings in
the Atmosphere Editor section.

To create a plant, either click on the sixth icon from the top in the left toolbar ( ), or select
the item Plant from the Object | Create sub-menu. If this is the first time you create a plant
in the current session, a random species is selected from the available ones. Successive plants
will all be of the same species. When a plant is created, it grows randomly inside the computer,
following rules characteristic of the species. Since the resulting plant was grown at random,
no two plants from the same species will ever look identical. If you look for a particular shape
inside a given species, try growing several plants, and retain the one you like best.

To change the active plant species, right-click on the vegetation button, or select Load Plant
Species from the Object | Create sub-menu. You will be presented with a browser of available
species. When you select one of them, a plant from the corresponding species will be grown.

Once a plant is created, it can be modified by accessing the Plant Editor. This is done by double-
clicking on the plant in the 3D Views or the World Browser, or by clicking the Edit button ( ) on
the top toolbar when the plant is selected, or by selecting Edit Object from the Objects menu.

Inside the Plant Editor, you will be offered a large selection of tools that will let you modify the

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shape of the plant as well as create entirely new plant species.

Plants From PlantFactory

Plants that are created in e-on’s PlantFactory can also be used in VUE. While the file extension
for these plants is different, .tpf, VUE still recognizes them and makes use of them in the same
way as SolidGrowth .veg files.

These plants can grow, be acted upon by wind, and be modified in the VUE Plant Editor. They
replicate like VUE SolidGrowth plants with variations.

Since these plants tend to be more complex, a quality control has been added when using these
plants in an EcoSystem to lighten the plant for processing times.

You can use the PlantFactory product to create your own plants.

Polygon Meshes

Polygon meshes (sometimes also called “3D models”) are objects designed by assembling nu-
merous flat 3D faces, called polygons (polygons are sometimes referred to as triangles, quads
or n-gons depending on the number of edges in the polygon). These objects are created in other
3D applications, and may be imported into VUE using the supported file format converters us-
ing various supported file formats.

The strong point of polygon meshes is their ability to model any shape. However, when creating
a “standard” shape, such as a sphere, using primitive objects is far more efficient, and yields
better visual results (because you don’t see any broken edges on the sides of objects, caused
by the limited number of polygons in the object).

Like other objects, polygon meshes may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted, and have materi-
als assigned to them. Some polygon meshes may actually have different materials assigned to
their different parts.

Polygon mesh objects are loaded into VUE as any other type of object: select the menu com-
mand File | Load Object, or click the Load Object icon ( ) and select the object of your choice.
Some polygon meshes are rigged meshes, meaning that their geometry will change over time.

To import a polygon mesh from another application, select the menu command File | Import
Object, or click the Load Object icon ( ) in the left toolbar, and then click File inside the

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browser. You will be presented with a Standard File Browser, letting you select the file to im-
port.

Note:

Importing external objects is a long and complex process, so it may be time consuming.

Although no control over the shape of the polygon mesh is available in VUE, the aspect of the
surface can be modified using the Polygon Mesh Options dialog. This is accessed by double-
clicking on the polygon mesh in the 3D views, or by clicking the Edit button ( ) on the Top
toolbar or in the World Browser toolbar when the polygon mesh is selected, or by selecting Edit
object from the Objects menu.

Inside the Polygon Mesh Options dialog, you can indicate if the surface of the object should be
smoothed, as well as the amount of smoothing required.

Rigged Meshes

VUE supports a special type of polygon mesh that is known as rigged meshes. These meshes
are special in the sense that they are imported together with animation information. When you
import a rigged mesh and you open the Timeline, you will notice that these objects are listed
as being animated objects. If you drag the current time slider, you will see that the geometry of
the objects is modified as you change the current time. For instance, if you load a rigged model
of a man with walk animation included, when you drag the current time slider, you will see the
man walk.

Rigged meshes are particularly useful to instantly add life to your scenes. For instance, if you
are creating an architectural rendering of a building, adding a few characters walking around
the building will make the project look much more convincing and lifelike.

With rigged meshes, you can change their animation by using pre-defined motion files. Motion
files contain a set of parameters that describe the way rigged meshes should be modified over
time. By assigning a different motion file to a rigged mesh, you could, for instance, change the
animation of a walking man into that of a running man.

The nice thing about motion files is that they apply indifferently to all sorts of rigged meshes.
For instance, you could assign the aforementioned running man motion to a model of a walking
woman; this would turn the model into a running woman.

Note:

However, because some motion files are designed for very different types of models, assigning
new motions from one type of character to another may sometimes lead to strange results.

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Not all motion files define an animation. There are some motion files that simply define a static
pose (e.g. that of a sitting character). When you assign such a “pose” to a rigged character, the
character does not appear in the list of animated objects in the the the Properties Timeline.

The Skeleton Editor can be used when adding or changing the motion of your regged meshes.

3D Text

3D Text is also a special type of polygon mesh that is created by extruding and shaping 2D text
into the third dimension.

Like other objects, text objects may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted, and have materials
assigned to them.

To create a 3D Text object, click the Text icon ( ) on the left toolbar. The Text Editor appears,
letting you enter the characters in your text, and define their shape. When you are happy with
the text, click OK and the text will appear in the 3D Views.

For greater flexibility, all the letters in a 3D text are created as separate objects (polygon meshes),
and they are grouped into a single 3D Text object.

You can access the Text Editor again after creating the text object by double-clicking on the text
object in the 3D Views, or by clicking the Edit button ( ) on the Top toolbar or in the World
Browser toolbar when the text object is selected, or by selecting Edit Object from the Objects
menu.

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Rocks

Rocks are a special type of polygon mesh created randomly using complex algorithms. In much
the same way as vegetation creation algorithms, these algorithms are designed to produce
rocks that are always different.

Like other objects, rocks may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted, and have materials assigned
to them.

To create a rock, either click on the Rock icon in the left toolbar ( ) or right-click to display the
Rock Template Browser. Use the Rock Template Browser as you would with the Plant Browser:
select a rock to add it to the scene. Now, if you click on the Rock icon again in the left toolbar,
you will create a rock that is the same rock type you selected in the browser, but the rock shape
will be slightly different, just like variations with plants. Creating a rock may take a few seconds
as all rocks are made from various fractals and noises which allows for their difference in shapes
and sizes.

If you double-click on a rock, the Polygon Mesh Options dialog displays. You can achieve some
effects by modifying the smoothness of the mesh – but the default rock settings usually work
best.

A Rock as an EcoSystem Specimen

The Rock Template Browser is also enabled in the EcoSystem Population dialog where you can
use it to drag/drop directly from the Rocks Browser to the population list. When you select to
add a rock, the Rock Template Browser displays for you to make your choice. When you add
a rock, VUE generates about 20 different variations (instances) from the template chosen, and
uses them randomly when populating.

Rock generation in EcoSystems may take some time. Once this is done, however, these same
variations will be available for future EcoSystems.

Rocks can be exported.

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Planets

Planets are the only objects in VUE to be placed beyond the atmosphere’s cloud layers. Like
other objects, they can be moved, resized and rotated. They cannot have materials assigned to
them. By default, planets have the Main View Only viewing option.

To create a Planet, either click on the Planet icon in the left toolbar ( ), or select the menu
command Object | Create | Planet. Use the Object Properties panel for planet editing.

MetaClouds

What is a MetaCloud?

MetaClouds are standalone clouds that can be moved around, rotated and resized just like any
other object. They are a good complement to cloud layers and are particularly useful when
you need large, prominent clouds such as cumulonimbuses, or if you want to place a cloud at
a precise location without having to fiddle with the intricacies of procedural cloud layers.

Note:

MetaClouds can only be created when using one of the Spectral Atmosphere models, either
Photometric or Standard Spectral.

Like plants, MetaClouds made from presets are constructed randomly from a set of rules that
define their overall aspect. So each time you create this kind of MetaCloud, it will be different
from the previous MetaCloud.

Alternatively, you can convert almost any object or group of objects to a MetaCloud in order to
create a MetaCloud of a specific shape, for example one you have sketched in the scene with
primitives other than just spheres, or to make imaginary clouds shaped like animals, buildings
or vehicles, etc. and achieve any kind of fantastic effect! You can also use this feature to have
cloud or smoke layers limited to specific volumes, like a localized fog on the surface of a lake, a
cloud tunnel, sandstorms, an ash cloud blowing down a volcano’s slopes, etc. The possibilities
are endless!

A special type of volumetric material must be used for the MetaCloud (and all its primitives) in
order to capture the way real clouds would interact with light and the atmosphere. Regular
cloud layer materials will not be compatible.

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MetaCloud Animation and Morphing

MetaClouds can be animated either globally, or by animating individual MetaCloud primitives.

You can achieve incredible “cloud morphing” effects this way: VUE can even create a Cloud
Morphing Animation for you by computing each sphere’s trajectory in the sky.

Creating MetaClouds from Presets

MetaClouds presets Visual Browser

The rules that define the overall aspect of preset MetaClouds are gathered in MetaCloud preset
files.

To create a MetaCloud from a preset, either click on the MetaCloud icon in the left toolbar ( ),
or select one of the menu commands Atmosphere | Create MetaCloud or Atmosphere | Create
MetaCloud from Preset....

When using the left toolbar button, you can change the MetaCloud preset by right-clicking on
the MetaCloud icon ( ) to display the MetaCloud preset Visual Browser. This browser displays
all the available MetaCloud models. Simply select the preset of your choice and press OK to
create a new MetaCloud of the desired preset.

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Converting Objects to MetaClouds

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“MetaCloud Conversion” dialog (top) and bunny mesh before and after conversion to MetaCloud
(bottom)

You can convert to MetaCloud by selecting an object and either right-clicking on it or using the
Object main menu then Convert to -> MetaCloud. Almost any object can be converted into a
MetaCloud. The algorithm will fill a new MetaCloud with spheres of varying sizes which will
retain its shape with more or less detail depending on the parameters used.

Conversion will operate on the currently selected objects in the scene: use the Apply button
to launch the conversion. The conversion dialog stays opened so that you can change the con-
version parameters and do Apply again until you are satisfied with the result. As long as you
do not close the scene containing it, you can open the conversion dialog on a MetaCloud con-
verted during the same VUE session and change the parameters to re-convert again from the
original object. The original object is not saved in your VUE scene or object files, so that it is not
possible to re-convert a MetaCloud reloaded from the filesystem.

Warning:

Once an object has been converted to a MetaCloud, it cannot be converted back to its original
self unless the conversion operation is still in your Undo stack.

The conversion dialog can be re-opened when available either through the same Convert to
MetaCloud menus or shortcuts, or the way you would do Edit Object on other types of objects
(menus, shortcut, or double-clicking in the world browser or in the 3D view).

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As a convenience, the menu “Load and Convert to MetaCloud” will allow to select an object to
load from the content browser or from a file and convert it immediately into a MetaCloud.

Conversion Settings
The options dialog provides several conversion parameters, giving you full control on the re-
sulting MetaCloud:
• Conversion Accuracy: this is a crucial parameter to control the amount of detail retained,
and the performance of the conversion process. The default value is 0 for a nominal ac-
curacy, which yields fast conversion times. The higher the accuracy, the smaller the gen-
erated spheres will be, and the closer the cloud will match the initial object’s shape, but
the longer (exponentially) the algorithm will take to run.
• Sphere Density: raising the density allows to more tightly pack the spheres inside the
object being converted, by setting a larger allowance for the spheres to overlap. This
allows to capture more detail of the converted object’s surface without having to use a
too high value for Conversion Accuracy. Note that a higher than default sphere density
value can generate many more spheres, which means a longer conversion time and also
a heavier MetaCloud object for your scene, which will be slower to render.
• Inflate Cloud Spheres: the overlapping spheres being removed during conversion (de-
pending on the Spheres Density parameter), the remaining spheres need to be up-scaled
to bring the MetaCloud some useful density.
• Jitter Sphere Position: introduce some randomness in the MetaCloud’s sphere posi-
tions.
• Mesh Resolution (omitted when the selection only contains mesh objects, primitives, or
previously converted metaclouds): these are the same options as those presented in the
Bake to Polygons dialog, because the objects have to be baked into polygons first before
being filled with spheres.
• Reset to Defaults: use this button to bring back all parameter sliders to their default
value.
The objects to convert do not have to be closed “water-tight” volumes, as the algorithm does
not require a strict notion of “interior”. It will even work on objects without an intuitive notion
of an “inside” and an “outside” (imagine an S-shaped ribbon), because it simply looks at the
way the faces are oriented to determine what is “inside” ( = behind the faces).

Nonetheless, extreme cases will obviously yield artifacts or unwanted results, or simply nothing.
This is typically the case of any planar or almost planar object.

Performance considerations
Handling and displaying complex MetaClouds in the real-time 3D views has been greatly opti-
mized as part of this new feature. Nevertheless, to avoid very long conversion times, unusably

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large MetaClouds, or slow 3D interactions, some limits have been put on the conversion pro-
cess:
• A generated MetaCloud will have at most 20,000 spheres.
• Extremely thin objects, where one dimension is more than about 200 times smaller than
the others, will not be converted. They would yield a MetaCloud with many thousands
of spheres, very slow to render. Such objects would better be approximated by flattened
spheres, which you can obtain by rescaling the thin object to make it much thicker, con-
vert it into a MetaCloud, then thinning back the result to the thickness that suits your
needs.
• When a MetaCloud is generated with more than 2,000 spheres, its display quality in the
views is set to Wireframe, which will always display wireframe spheres instead of the
billboards-based cloud approximation.

Fine­tuning and Previewing MetaClouds

Fine­tuning the MetaCloud shape

Note:

This section does not apply to MetaClouds created by importing a VDB file.

MetaClouds are made out of the association of many spherical cloud primitives. These cloud
primitives can be modified individually: they can be moved, rotated and resized as needed to
customize the shape of your clouds to fit your needs.

You can add new primitives to a cloud by duplicating existing cloud parts like you would with
regular objects. You can select the cloud parts in the 3D views (individually or using a rectan-
gle selection) or expand the MetaCloud in the list of objects and select one of the parts of the
MetaCloud.

When a cloud part is selected, the MetaCloud icon on the left side of the user interface will then
change to the Add MetaCloud Primitive icon ( ). Clicking this icon will add a new primitive
to the MetaCloud, that you can place or resize as needed. You can delete MetaCloud primitives
by selecting the primitives to be deleted and pressing Delete.

Fine­tuning the Cloud Density

You can also customize how the spheres inside a MetaCloud interact with the cloud density
using the Distance field options inside the material editor of your MetaCloud:

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Distance Field Options

In VUE MetaClouds the cloud density is, by default, driven by a linear function for each sphere.
For each sphere, the cloud is at maximum density on the center and have no density at the edge
of the sphere. We then add all densities from each sphere and add a power factor to create an
attenuation factor.

You can modify this default behaviour with the following settings:
• Attenuation (default: 0%): This is a way to flatten to zero the low density values, mathe-
matically it applies a power function to the cloud density. With a high attenuation, the
cloud will only materialize in volumes where the density is higher, and its boundary will
be sharper.
• Filter: Drives the way each sphere adds to the cloud density by setting a radial profile: the
filter’s value at ordinate 0 (lef-most) corresponds to the edge of the sphere, while ordinate
1 (right-most) is the center of the sphere. Everything outside of the [0; 1] horizontal range
is clamped to 0 as it corresponds to the outside of the sphere. The default value is a
straight line, meaning that the center of each sphere will contribute the most and the
contribution decreases linearly with the distance to the center of the sphere.

MetaCloud interactive preview settings

Note:

This section does not apply to MetaClouds created by importing a VDB file.

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The Wireframe and Smooth Shaded real-time display qualities of MetaClouds

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MetaClouds can be displayed in the 3D views in two different ways:

• Wireframe quality: the MetaCloud primitives are displayed as wireframe spheres. When
the MetaCloud or any of its primitive is selected, a color scheme is used to more easily
distinguish the spheres from each other.
• Any other quality mode will behave as the Smooth Shaded quality: in this mode, and
only when neither the MetaCloud nor any of its primitive is selected, the MetaCloud is
displayed with grey shaded billboards which give a better visual approximation of the
MetaCloud aspect in the scene. This quality mode is noticeably slower than the Wire-
frame mode and it is recommended to switch your biggest MetaClouds to the Wireframe
quality when the total number of MetaCloud spheres in your scene reaches a few thou-
sands (depending on your system performance).

Creating MetaClouds from VDB files

Example of VDB cloud import

OpenVDB is a volumetric data file format which can be used to store volumetric data such as

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clouds. You can nimport an OpenVDB file in VUE with the usual Import Object commands. A
new MetaCloud will be created for each float grid inside the OpenVDB file. Each MetaCloud is
assigned a default material, which can be modified later on.

New settings are available in the Material Editor to change how the grid is interpreted.

Clouds Settings for VDB MetaClouds

• Raw VDB value: the value is taken directly from the grid and used as cloud density (no
internal noise is added)
• Limited ambient: same as above, but the ambient factor of the color is clamped between
0 and 1.

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• Limited density: same as above, but the VDB density grid value is clamped between 0
and 1.
• Partial VUE Internal Noise: the VDB grid value is used as densit,y but part of the VUE
internal cloud noise is also applied (using sharpness and variations)
• Full VUE Internal Noise: the whole internal noise of VUE is applied, the VDB data is used
as an envelope function (similar to the spheres’ role in regular MetaClouds)
• Converted VDB: If the VDB cloud was created by directly converting a VUE spectral cloud
layer or VUE MetaCloud within the scene, then this mode ensures that any grid created
from any modulsation function used by the original cloud layer (density modulation,
opacity modulation, sharpness modulation, volumetric & ambient color functions) will
be linked internally to the material properties of the VDB cloud. You should avoid switch-
ing back and forth between this mode and the other modes on a converted VDB, or you
might risk breaking some of the internal links to the coverted grids, which can then not
be retrieved anymore without reconverting the original cloud to a VDB file.

Lighting & Effects Tab

There are some specific settings available on the Lighting & Effects tab of VDB clouds. These
relate to multiple scattering within clouds.

Multiple Scattering
VUE 2024 includes a feature preview of Multiple Scattering for rendering cloud volumes with the
VUE ray tracer. Compared to other applications where you usually control mutiple scattering
through bounces, scattering and sbsorption, VUE uses a unique “render passes” system instead
for the separate components which make up multiple scattering. In VUE 2024, not all of these
passes are yet available, but you can already use the ones which are to finetune the look of
VDB clouds. By changing the contribution intensity of each pass, you can achieve completely
different looks for a VDB cloud.
• Shadow Factor: This pass contains the direct lighting & the accompanying internal shad-
ows of the cloud.
• Ambient Factor: This corresponds to the Ambient Lighting setting from the Atmosphere
Editor for clouds. It adds color bleeding to indirectly lit areas in the clouds (mostly shad-
ows) and also brightens those areas.
• Isotropic Factor: While clouds scatter light mostly forward (according to the cloud anisotropy
setting in the Atmosphere Editor), there is also some amount of light which gets scattered
evenly into all directions. This is known as isotropic scattering and is one of the efects re-
sponsible for the famous “silver lining” look when the clouds are lit from behind. Essen-
tially, isotropic lighting enhances a cloud’s contours and makes them glow. The isotropic
pass requires computation time before the render starts. On small clouds, this usually
takes only a few seconds, but on clouds covering several kilometers, it can take several

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minutes. Thus, this pass is mostly useful for smaller hero clouds closer to the camera.
• Isotropic Boost: This pass controls the brightness / the amount of glow caused by the
Isotropic Factor pass. You can use this pass to artificially enhance the strength of the
isotropic effect. If the Isotropic factor is set to 0%, this pass has n effect.
• Sky Ambient Factor: In addition to the regular Ambient Factor pass, the Sky Ambient
Factor computes the ambient light contribution from the sky only. This leads to dras-
tically better colored results than using only the standard Ambient Factor, but just like
the Isotropic Factor, it requires computation before the start of the actual render. The
computation is not as intensive as the one required for Isotropic lighting, though.
• Precompute shadow maps: You can precompute the shadows cast by the VDB cloud
into the scene with this option. This will speed up the final render by a certain margin at
the cost of some accuracy of the computed shadows. If you notice noisy shadows, you
might want to disable this option and use regular raytraced shadows instead.

Converting Clouds To VDB

Cloud layers and MetaClouds can be converted / baked into OpenVDB volumes. VDBs render a
lot faster than procedural clouds, because they are no longer infinite, and also because many
computations (density, for example), are pre-baked into the VDB file as grids. Especially for
complex cloud layers such as the SmartCloud materials, baking a procedural cloud into a VDB
can drastically improve the render time.

Additionally, a VDB cloud can be rendered with multiple scattering algorithms, something which
is not possible with a regular cloud layer or MetaCloud (because multiple scattering requires a
finite volume grid resolution to be computed).

To bake an infinite cloud layer into an OpenVDB file, you need to restrict the cloud layer to a
cloud zone using the cloud zone settings Object properties tab. MetaClouds do not require any
further setting, as they are already finite objects.

Then, right click on the cloud layer or the MetaCloud in the World Browser and select “Convert
to” and then the corresponding option.

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Convert to VDB menu

There are two menu entries available: the first entry uses a fixed baking resolution of 500 steps
as default, the second entry opens the options menu where you can choose a different resolu-
tion. Once you’ve selected a custom resolution, this last used setting will then be remembered
by the first entry in the conversion options context menu.

Convert to VDB Options

To bake a cloud into a VDB, the baking algorithm steps through the cloud volume and records
the values it finds at each step (e.g. density, color etc.) into a voxel grid. To determine the grid
resolution, you can choose between the following methods:
• Fixed number of steps: along each direction (X, Y and Z), the cloud volume is divided
into a fixed number of steps.
• Fixed size of steps: along each direction (X, Y and Z), the cloud volume is divided into
steps by using a fixed distance. This results in a variable number of steps, where each
step is located at a defined distance from one another. However, this also ensures always
the same amount of resolution, independent from the size of the cloud zone.

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Lights

Seven types of light sources are available in VUE: five “basic” types of light (Point lights, Quadratic
point lights, Spot lights, Quadratic spot lights and Directional lights) as well as 3 types of “area”
lights (Light Panels, Daylight Portals and Light Emitting Objects). Each type of light source has
a different way of casting light.

Simple Light Sources

Simple light sources emit light from a single “mathematical” point. This is an approximation
of reality, where light is in fact emitted by the entire surface of the light source (usually a very
hot surface too). Simple lights are easier to compute than the more realistic “advanced” light
sources, but result in unnaturally sharp transitions between light and shadow. To circumvent
this problem, you can simulate the behavior of realistic lights by assigning a fake surface to
the light source, which will result in smoother transitions between light and shadow, known as
“soft shadows”.

Soft shadows are turned on by setting the Softness of the light to a non zero value. This control
is available in the Object Properties panel, when the light is selected. The greater the value,
the larger the “surface” of the light, and the more gradual the transition from light to shadow.
However, since soft lights are much more computationally demanding than standard lights, it
is recommended that you use such effects judiciously.

Following is a list of the different types of simple lights and the way they cast light:
• Point lights and Quadratic point lights: emit light in all directions. Light is cast from
the center, with an intensity that reduces proportionately to the distance from the center.
They function like a typical light bulb. Quadratic point lights are identical to standard
point lights, except that light intensity decays more rapidly.
• Spot lights: emit a cone of light around one direction. Light is cast from the center, with
an intensity that reduces proportionately to the square of the distance from the center.
Two settings let you adjust the angle of the cone (spread) and the speed at which light
falls off on the side of the cone.
• Directional lights: emit light in one direction. All light rays are parallel. Directional lights
are also known as Infinite lights, since they are best used to capture infinite (or near infi-
nite) light sources, such as the sun. Since the light source is far away, the intensity of the
light does not vary inside the scene. Although directional lights are displayed in the 3D
Views as little suns, their position inside the scene is not relevant. Only the direction at
which they point is important. Selecting the option that makes directional lights always

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point at the camera avoids misunderstanding this, since it links the direction of the light
to the position of the light source (it is usually good practice).
Note:
The light is not necessarily in front of the camera.
Light sources can be moved, resized, and rotated, but they cannot be twisted. Resizing a light
source only affects the power of limited range lights (point and spot lights), as opposed to global
lights such as the sun. Since directional lights are infinite, they are not affected by resizing. You
cannot assign materials to light sources, but you can define the color of the light they emit.

To create a simple light, click on the Light icon in the left toolbar. If the requested type of light
is not directly available, you will have to unfold the icon ( ). Alternatively, you
can create lights by selecting the requested item from the Object | Add Light sub-menu.

Default scenes are created with a single white directional light, usually named “Sunlight”.

The Editing Lights section gives more details on the different light settings.

Area Lights

VUE features several types of area lights:

• Light Panel: this is a rectangular panel of light. Light is emitted from the entire surface
of the rectangle. You can change the aspect-ratio of the panel by resizing it. To create a
light panel, right-click on the Light icon in the left toolbar and select the last icon to the
right ( ), or select Light Panel from the Object | Add Light sub-menu.
• Daylight Portal: a daylight portal is used in interior scenes to give you more accurate
interior lighting in relation to the exterior light of the scene. The portal is most often ap-
plied as a rectangular area light placed in the window of a room scene. The intensity and
color emitted by the daylight portal in the interior scene is obtained from the sky out-
side the window. To create a daylight portal, select the object that you want a daylight
portal applied to, and select Add Daylight Portal to Object from the menu in the World
Browser. Or, you can just select the Daylight Portal from the Light icons on the left of the
user interface and then place the panel manually in the scene.
• Light Emitting Object: light emitting objects are objects that emit light from all points
at their surface. Any object can be converted into a light emitting object by selecting the
menu command Convert to Area Light from the Object menu, or from the popup menu
in the 3D Views. When you convert an object into a light source, the materials of the object
will be automatically converted into light gels. So if your object is red in some parts and
green in others, the light emitted by the object will automatically be red in some parts
and green in others.
Warning:

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once an object has been converted to an area light, it cannot be converted back to a normal
object.

The intensity of the light emitted by area lights is proportional to the surface of the light. So the
larger the light, the more powerful it will be. You can also adjust the power of the light source
(as well as other parameters of the light) using the controls in the Object Properties panel.

Group Objects

Group objects can be of two types:

• the first type behaves as simple “bags” into which member objects are placed to organize
the scene; such objects are known as Groups, the 3D Text group being a special kind of
group that enables editing of the text using the Text Editor (read more about 3D Text here
and see here for details on the Text Editor),
• the second type of group objects operates on the member objects; depending on the type
of the actual operation, these objects are classified as Boolean objects or as Metablobs/Hyperblobs.

Boolean Operations

Boolean operations come in three flavors: Union, Intersection and Difference. Boolean ob-
jects can be made easily by combining member objects together to yield an incredible variety
of new shapes.

Metablobs and Hyperblobs

Metablob objects “blend” their different member primitives together as if they were melted
together. Metablobs are great for modeling organic shapes.

Hyperblobs are Metablobs that make use of HyperTextures and can be used to create highly
detailed and realistic rock shapes and rock formations. Jagged grottos, broken scree, and an
infinite variety of rock and stone shapes can be generated using Hyperblobs. Hyperblobs can
be baked to remove any parts of the HyperTexture that are disconnected from the main object
(an artifact of standard HyperTextures).

You can normally use only basic primitives to create Metablob and Hyperblob objects but, if
you want to use a generic (mesh) model, you can approximate it in two simple steps:

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• Convert it to a MetaCloud in order to fill its interior volume using only spheres of various
sizes, depending on the desired accuracy,
• Once you are satisfied with the resulting shape, convert the MetaCloud directly into a
Metablob or Hyperblob using the same button or menu entry used to create a blob from
primitives!
• Note though that the model’s materials are lost in the process, as there is no generic way
to map a set of materials from a model onto the corresponding approximation by a num-
ber of spheres. In some cases, you will be able to just restore the original material directly
on the resulting blob, possibly with a few adjustments in mapping modes and scaling.

Working with Group Objects

Like other objects, group objects may be moved, resized, rotated, twisted, and have materials
assigned to them. All of their member objects will be moved, resized, rotated, and twisted ac-
cordingly. If you assign a new material to a group object, all member objects will take on that
material. If all member objects of a group object don’t use the same material, the picture of
the material displayed in the Object Properties exhibits a pair of arrows to let you browse the
different materials on the Aspect Tab.

Member objects may be added, removed or modified inside a group object using the World
Browser.

To create a group object, first select all the objects you would like to be grouped together, then
click the requested icon: for simple groups, click the group icon on the left toolbar ( ). For
Boolean objects, select the requested operation from the unfoldable Boolean operation icon
( ). If the operation you want to use is not directly available, you will have to unfold the icon
( ). To create a Metablob object, select the Metablob icon ( ). Alternately, you can use
the menu commands from the Object | Group objects,Object | Make Boolean Object or Ob-
ject | Make Metablob Object menus.

You can group together any number of objects, of any type (except the camera). Boolean ob-
jects cannot include light sources. Metablobs/Hyperblobs can only include basic primitives,
but read the Metablobs section above to learn how to “blob-ify” any kind of mesh!

To ungroup objects, select the group that you which to destroy, and click the Ungroup icon ( ).
Alternately, you can use the menu item Object | Ungroup.

To “un-blob” a set of primitives grouped as a Metablob or Hyperblob, simply ungroup them as

above.

If a group is made up of the same type of objects (e.g. a group of polygon meshes, toruses...), it
can be edited as if it were a single polygon mesh or torus, etc.

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Ventilators

In VUE, ventilators are objects that are used to control the wind applied to plants in a very local
manner. They have no influence on the scene, other than affecting trees and plants.

In VUE, ventilators come in two flavors:

• Directional ventilators that blow wind in a preferred direction, and
• Omni ventilators that blow wind in all directions equally.
Like other objects, ventilators can be moved around, rotated and resized. You cannot assign
materials to ventilators. Resizing a ventilator will increase the intensity of the wind generated
by the ventilator. You can also control the intensity of the wind generated by the ventilator
using the Object Properties panel when a ventilator is selected. Ventilators can be turned into
“attractors” by giving them a negative wind intensity.

Linking ventilators to other objects can give the impression that the object is causing the wind
(for instance to simulate the effect of a helicopter landing in a field).

To create a Ventilator, either select it from the Particles Effector/Directional Ventilator icon
in the left toolbar ( ), or select the menu commands Object | Create | [Omni / Directional]
Ventilator. The Object Properties panel is used to modify the properties of ventilators.

Cameras

The last type of object is probably the most useful: it is the object that will turn your scene into
a finished, colorful picture. So without a camera, you would never see your scene! This is why
it is impossible to destroy the camera.

The camera may be moved, rotated and resized. However, it may not be twisted. Resizing it
only changes the focal length. No materials can be assigned to it.

Camera Target
When you select the camera, a small cube appears in front of the camera. This is known as
the camera target; it is a helper designed to facilitate aiming of the camera. It also shows the
distance to the focus point: objects that are at the same distance from the camera than the
target will be in focus. You can attach the target to a given object so that this object stays in
focus whatever its movement relative to the camera. You can read more about Camera and

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Camera Target options here.

Advanced Options
If you double-click on the camera in the 3D views, or if you click the Edit button ( ) on the top
toolbar or in the World Browser, or select Edit Object from the Objects menu when the camera
is selected, the Advanced Camera Options is displayed. Using this dialog, you can adjust the
aspect ratio of the picture, as well as apply post-processing effects to your renders.

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Editing Objects
This section details how objects can be modified inside VUE.

Objects may be moved, rotated and resized interactively inside the orthogonal 3D Views. Alter-
natively, these operations can be done in a more precise manner using the Numerics tab of the
Object Properties panel.

Selecting Objects

Object manipulation handles

Before you make any modification to an object, this object has to be selected.

Selected objects are displayed in red, and are framed by black dots inside the active 3D View.
They are also highlighted in the World Browser.

To select an object, you can either click on it once in the active 3D View, or click on the name
of the object in the World Browser. Clicking while in an inactive 3D View will activate it first, so
you’ll have to click again on the object to select it.

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Inside the 3D Views

You can also select objects in the 3D Views by clicking outside all of the objects, and dragging the
mouse: a rectangle is drawn showing the Selection area, and all objects that have their center
inside the rectangle will be selected. The selection updates interactively as you grow or shrink
the rectangle, unless the scene is too complex in which case the selection will be updated only
when you release the mouse button.

You can use any or both of the trigger modifiers Select Group Components and Toggle Selection
State during the rectangle selection process. This allows to easily select components of large
groups like MetaClouds, MetaBlobs, etc. The selection action can be cancelled by pressing Es-
cape (the Cancel Current Operation trigger) before releasing the mouse button. This restores
the initial selection. Picking a single element with a mouse click can similarly be cancelled by
pressing the trigger before releasing the mouse button.

If the object that you want to select is inside a group, clicking on it in the 3D Views will select the
whole group, unless you press Control (the Select Group Components trigger modifier) while
selecting.

You can extend the selection to other objects by clicking on them while the Shift key (the Toggle
Selection State trigger modifier) is down. Re-selecting an object that is already selected will
deselect it.

Pressing U (the Select All Under Mouse trigger modifier) when you click to select an object will
cause all objects under the mouse cursor to be selected at the same time (read Walking through
a Selection of Objects below so see how useful this can be!).

Inside the World Browser

Selecting objects using the World Browser will reposition the 3D Views so that the selected ob-
jects appear centered. This feature can be turned off using the Options dialog.

You may select group members independently, provided the group is expanded on the list. You
can extend the selection with the standard Windows™ method, using Shift and Control keys.

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By Category

Selecting all objects that have either the same type, Preview color, or material as the selected
object is achieved through menu commands or icons in the top toolbar ( ). The menu
commands are found in the Edit | Select by sub-menu.

Also, clicking on a material inside the Summary of Materials or in the Material tab of the World
Browser will select all the objects that use this material. This feature can be turned off using
the General Preferences tab of the Options dialog.

Walking through a Selection of Objects

When you have selected several objects, it becomes possible to select each of these objects, in
turn. This operation is called “walking the selection”, and is achieved by the menu item Edit |
Walk Selection or by pressing the Tab key. So, repeatedly pressing Tab will cycle you through
all of the objects that you have selected, letting you pick out any one of them easily. For in-
stance, you could select all objects under the cursor (pressing U as you click), and then walk
through those objects pressing Tab until you reach the one you want.

Deselecting Everything

To deselect everything, either click on an empty part of the World Browser, click outside the
icons on the toolbars, press Escape, or select Deselect All from the Edit menu.

Moving Objects

Selected objects can be moved in several ways:

• By dragging them using the mouse or the Position Gizmo inside the 3D Views
• By entering new values for Position in the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel
• By using the nudge keys. The nudge directions are relative to the active 3D view. One
nudge is equal to 5 units of distance. Pressing Shift as you nudge divides the nudge dis-
tance by ten.
If you select one of the axis arrows, movement will only be possible along that axis. If you
select the square between two axis arrows, movement will be constrained to the corresponding
plane.

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Other features related to positioning objects:

• It is possible to drop objects onto the objects below them, or on top of the objects above
them, using the Drop and Drop on Top entries in menu Edit | Drop:
– The regular Drop (Shift + D) or Drop on Top (Alt + Shift + D) tools will move the object
vertically and look for a reasonable contact point between its bottom and the top
of the objects being dropped onto.
– The Smart Drop and Smart Drop on Top features will also tumble the object to find
two more contact points, placing the object in a more realistic posture with respect
to the objects it is dropped onto.
– Note that plants are a special case, because their pivot position is placed specifically
so that what is below should be below ground: this is usually the plant’s roots. The
Drop tools account for this specificity by computing the vertical position based on
the pivot position, not on the lowest parts of the plants.
– Note that there is a specific shortcut (D) to drop the current perspective view’s or
the main view’s camera on top of all objects above it, without having to select it
first. This is useful to get the viewpoint on top of the scene or typically outside of an
object, after having inadvertently moved inside or below scene objects.
• You can also position objects with respect to each other using the tools in the Edit | Align
menu which allow you to align a selection of objects by enforcing the alignment of the
centers horizontally or vertically, or the alignment of a given side of their bounding boxes.
– When a single object is selected, clicking Alignment Tool will move the object so that
it is centered in the orthogonal viewports visible.
• Dragging objects over the scene with the Move to Pointed Location trigger modifier (Z):
when dragging in a 3D view to move objects in the scene, using this trigger will move the
selection at the scene position pointed at by the mouse cursor, instead of moving it in the
3D view plane.
– Similarly to the Drop tools, the pivot point of plants is used to ensure the plant’s
roots stay “underground” when computing the vertical position, while the center
of the bounding box’ bottom is used for other types of objects.
– Note that, for performance reasons, this trigger does not drop the objects as pre-
cisely as the Drop tools do, which explains minor differences between the results of
these two tools. The new trigger is a very good way to quickly place the objects in-
tuitively in the scene though, and their exact position will only have to be tweaked
afterwards, judging from the render results.

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Rotating Objects

Selected objects can be rotated in two ways:

• By using the rotation handles or the Rotation Gizmo inside the 3D Views
• By entering new values for Rotation in the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel.

Inside the 3D Views

Selected objects are framed by 4 rotation handles in the corners. Selecting any of the handles
and move them around will rotate selected objects around the axis that is perpendicular to the
view.

The angle of rotation, together with the number of revolutions of the object are displayed in
the Status Bar.

Resizing Objects

Selected objects can be resized in two ways:

• By using the resize handles or the Size Gizmo inside the 3D Views
• By entering new values for Size in the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel.

Inside the 3D Views

Selected objects are framed by 8 square dots, 4 in the corners, and 4 in the middle. These dots
are either black (one object selected) or white (multiple objects selected).

The corner dots are called the ’Resize globally handles’. Clicking on one of these, and dragging
the mouse away will resize the selected objects. If you press Shift while dragging, the objects
will be resized equally in all directions, thus keeping the proportions. If you press Control while
you drag the mouse, the selected objects will be resized equally only along the two directions
of the view, leaving the third direction unchanged.

The middle dots are called ’Resize in this direction handles’. Clicking on one of these, and

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dragging the mouse away will resize the selected objects in the direction indicated by the shape
of the mouse cursor. The top and bottom handles resize the objects vertically (inside the view);
the left and right handles resize horizontally (inside the view). This sizing is linked to the views,
and not to the object itself, which means that rotated objects may be twisted when resized.
However, since size values in the Numerics tab are relative to the object, using Numerics is a
good way of avoiding this problem. In addition, pressing Control as you drag these handles
will resize the objects along their own axes.

If you select the Resize around opposite corner option, the object will be resized relative to
the corner that is opposite to the resize handle you are currently using.

Note:

By default, resizing is proportional along all 3 axes, but if you hold the Shift key down while
resizing, the resizing will be free. If you hold the Control key down, resizing will be proportional
only along the two axes of the view. If you hold the Alt key down, resizing will be symmetrical
around the center point.

Twisting Objects

Selected objects can be twisted in two ways:

• By resizing rotated objects inside the 3D views
• By entering new values for Twist in the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel.

Inside the 3D Views

Twisting objects occurs whenever you try to resize objects that have already been rotated.

Here is a method to twist objects interactively: select the object you would like to twist and
rotate it 45°. Then resize it horizontally, and rotate it back to the initial position. The object is
twisted.

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Using the Numerics Tab

Numerical values for twisting are a bit complex. Basically, they will twist one axis of the object
towards another axis. This is rather difficult to visualize, so the best is to try it out. However,
please understand that, due to complex matrix operations, twisting and untwisting objects in
several directions may not restore the initial object conformation.

Hint: twisting objects can be a powerful method for achieving impressive terrain overhangs.

Gizmo Manipulators

The gizmo manipulator tools let you move, rotate and resize objects accurately. Gizmos were
first introduced in Maya, and have now become an industry standard for manipulating objects.

Because gizmo manipulators may not be as intuitive as VUE’s original way of manipulating ob-
jects, you will have to disable gizmos to use the old method. To disable gizmos, simply select
the menu command Display | Gizmos | Show Gizmos. You can revert back to the default ma-
nipulation system using the same command.

Selecting the Appropriate Gizmo

There are three different types of gizmos, each being designed for one type of operation (mov-
ing, rotating or resizing). The gizmos let you either move/rotate/resize along one, two or all
axes simultaneously. The X, Y and Z axes are identified by different colors (the X axis is red, the
Y axis is green and the Z axis is blue).

Whenever an object is selected, a gizmo will appear at its center, in all 3D Views. You can change
the current gizmo tool either by:

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• Clicking on the gizmo tool swatches alongside the gizmo (see opposite – you can hide
these swatches; see further down),
• Selecting the menu command Display | Gizmos | [Position/Rotation/Size] Gizmo, or
• Using the corresponding menu shortcuts.

The Position Gizmo

The position gizmo is used to move the selected objects. It features two or three arrows indi-
cating the view axes. When you drag the mouse over one of these arrows, it will change color to
yellow. If you click and drag the arrow, the selected object(s) will move accordingly along the
corresponding axis.

Close to the point where the arrows meet, you will notice that the arrows are joined by a square
area. If you move the mouse over that area, it will turn yellow; click and drag that area to move
the selected object(s) accordingly along the two axes joined by the square.

You can also move objects by clicking and dragging inside the selection box, outside the gizmo
(see below). This behavior can be disabled using the Display | Gizmos | Allow Moving Outside
Gizmo.

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The Rotation Gizmo

The rotation gizmo is used to rotate the selected objects. It features 3 concentric circles in 3D,
each representing one axis of rotation. In the orthogonal views when in Global coordinates
mode, you will only see one circle, as the circles for the two other axes are seen from their side
and hence appear as lines.

If you move the mouse over one of these circles/lines, it will turn yellow. Click and drag to rotate
the selected objects accordingly around the corresponding axis.

If you move the mouse away from the circles, but close to the center of the gizmo tool, a gray
disk will appear. If you click and drag that disk, the selected objects will be rotated around the
two axes of the view.

When the position gizmo is selected, you can also rotate the selected objects around the axis
perpendicular to the view by moving the mouse to the outside of the selection box. The mouse
cursor will change to a rotation cursor. This feature can be disabled using the Display | Gizmos
| Show Rotation Handles.

The Size Gizmo

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The size gizmo is used to change the size of the selected objects. Like the position gizmo, the
size gizmo displays two or three arrows (terminated by a round dot instead of a cone).

When you drag the mouse over one of these arrows, it will change color to yellow. If you click
and drag the arrow, the selected object(s) will be resized accordingly along the corresponding
axis.

Close to the point where the arrows meet, you will notice that the arrows are joined by a trian-
gular area. This is the proportional resize area. If you move the mouse over that area, it will
turn yellow; click and drag that area to resize the selected object(s) globally (the resizing will
be proportional along all three axes).

If you move the mouse away from the proportional area, you will notice a strip joining the axes
two by two. This strip turns yellow when you move the mouse over it; if you click and drag this
area, the selected object(s) will be resized proportionally along the two axes joined by the strip
(and only those two).

You can also resize objects by clicking and dragging the corner dots of the selection box, outside
the gizmo (see below). This behavior can be disabled using the Display | Gizmos | Show Resize
Handles.

Gizmo Coordinates

Gizmos can operate in any one of four different coordinate systems:

• Local coordinates: the coordinates are that of the selected object, allowing you to ma-
nipulate the object according to its current orientation. For instance, in this mode, the
position gizmo along Z will always move the pyramid in the direction in which it is point-
ing.
• Global coordinates: in this mode, the gizmos operate along the view axes, whatever the
orientation of the object.
• Parent coordinates: in this mode, the gizmos operate in the coordinate system of the
first object that was selected. This mode is only useful if you have selected several objects
(if not, it is identical to the local coordinate gizmo).
• View coordinates: in this mode, the gizmos operate in the coordinates system of the view.
This is useful when working in the camera view, because objects will always be moved,
rotated or resized in a plane facing the camera.
You can switch from one coordinate mode to the other using either:
• The gizmo coordinate swatches alongside the gizmo (you can hide these swatches; see
further down),
• Selecting the menu command Display | Gizmos | [Local/Global/Parent/View] Coordi-

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nates, or
• Using the corresponding menu shortcuts.

Customizing Gizmo Behavior

By default, the VUE gizmos let you move, rotate and resize objects whichever the current gizmo
is:
• To move objects, click and drag the mouse outside the gizmo but inside the selection
box.
• To rotate objects, click and drag the mouse on the outer side of the selection box, near
the border of the selection box (the cursor changes to rotation handles).
• To resize objects, click and drag on the corner dots of the selection box. By default, resiz-
ing is proportional along all axes. If you hold down the Shift key, resizing will be free, and
will only take place along the two axes of the view. Press Ctrl on top of Shift to make the
resizing proportional along the two view axes. Pressing Alt will toggle the resize center
from the opposite corner to the object’s center.
In order to offer identical behavior to other 3D software packages, you can disable each one of
these options individually:
• Use the menu command Display | Gizmos | Allow Moving Outside Gizmo to forbid mov-
ing objects other than using the Position Gizmo.
• Use the menu command Display | Gizmos | Show Rotation Handles to forbid rotating
objects other than using the Rotation Gizmo.
• Use the menu command Display | Gizmos | Show Resize Handles to forbid resizing ob-
jects other than using the Size Gizmo.
You can change the size of the Gizmo tools using the menu commands Display | Gizmos | [Re-
duce/Increase] Gizmo Size. This has no effect on the way gizmos operate.

You can hide the gizmo swatches that appear alongside the gizmo tool by using the menu com-
mand Display | Gizmos | Show Gizmo Helpers.

If you are used to the original VUE way of manipulating objects, you can disable gizmos alto-
gether using the menu command Display | Gizmos | Show Gizmos.

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Changing Object Material

This is achieved through any of the following:

• Clicking the Load material button ( ) in the Aspect tab of the Object Properties panel;
this opens the Material Browser. Select the new material to replace the existing material
and press OK. If the material is animated, the material is entirely replaced, and not just
the current frame. You can leave the Material Browser open without blocking the rest of
the interface.
• Double-clicking the material picture; this will open the Material Editor for the selected
objects.
• Using menu command Object | Change Object Material; this opens the Material Browser.
• Dragging and dropping the material from another object onto the object (inside the 3D
Views or the World Browser).
• Using the Summary of Materials to load ( ) or edit the material used by the object. All
objects using this material throughout the scene will be affected.
If several objects that use different materials are selected, the picture of the material in the
Object Properties panel will display the first material in the list. A pair of arrows will appear at
the bottom of the material to let you browse through the different materials.

You can edit all these materials simultaneously by selecting the Edit All Materials command
from the popup menu that appears when you right-click on the material preview. The Material
Editor will appear, displaying the settings for the current material. Any changes you make to
that material will be applied to all the materials (provided that the materials are compatible
with such changes). This is particularly useful for instance, when, after importing an object,
you want to change the shininess of all its materials.

If you load an EcoSystem material, VUE will ask you if you want to populate the selected object
with EcoSystem elements according to the EcoSystem material’s population rules.

Underneath the material picture is a Scale control that lets you adjust the scale of the material
when it is rendered inside your scene.

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Changing Object Preview Color

The color used to draw the selected objects in the 3D Views can be modified by picking a new
one from the drop-down list. You may choose any color out of the 8 available. The preview
color does not affect the color of the object when it is rendered. When a color is selected, the
views are flashed to show the new color.

Editing Lights

Light properties panel

Once selected, lights are edited through the Aspect tab of the Object Properties panel. To the
left of this panel, you will notice 4 icons that let you modify the behavior of your lights:

• Lens Flare: click on this icon to activate lens flares on the selected light. Right-click
to display the Lens Flare options menu. Double-click on the icon to display the Lens Flare
tab in the Light Editor. With the Light Editor displayed, you have the option to modify all
settings of this light.

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• Gel: click on this icon to add a light gel to the selected light. Right click on the icon
to display the Gel options menu.

• Volumetric light: click on this icon to activate volumetric light effects on the se-
lected light. Right click on the icon to display the Volumetric light options menu.

• Shadow and Lighting: click on this icon to enable or disable shadows for the se-
lected light. Right click on the icon to display the Shadow and Lighting options menu.
Double-click on the icon to display the Shadows tab in the Light Editor.
Unlike other objects that have a black default color, lights have a yellow default color.

Depending on the type of light that is selected, other controls will appear in the Object Proper-
ties panel.

Point Light and Quadratic Point Light

Point light properties

If the selected light object is a point light or a quadratic point light, the Object Properties panel
displays as opposite.

At the top of the Aspect tab is the Light color control. Double-clicking this will open the Color
Editor, letting you select a new color for the light.

Underneath this control is the Power control. This governs the intensity of light emitted by the

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light source. The more powerful the light, the greater the range in which it can light up objects.
This control also visually affects the length of the rays cast from the light source in the 3D views.
Resizing a light source yields the same result. You can enter Negative values, in which case the
light will “cast darkness” instead of casting light.

The next control is the Softness control. Turning this up to a non-zero value unleashes a power-
ful feature of VUE: soft, natural looking shadows. This truly realistic effect is possible because
VUE can handle surface lights. The greater the value, the larger the surface of the light, and the
more progressive the transition from light to shadow. A value of 5° usually yields nice results.
However, since surface lights are much more computationally demanding than standard lights,
it is recommended that you use such lights judiciously.
• Switch On/Off: this option turns the light on or off without loosing the light settings.
Clicking on the light’s icon in the World Browser will also turn on or off the light.
• Influence Spectral Clouds: this option allows the light to influence spectral clouds.

• Exclude from radiosity: this option is only available when the “Global Radiosity”
lighting model has been enabled on the Light tab in the Atmosphere Editor. Select this
option if you don’t want the influence of this light to be taken into account when process-
ing the radiosity solution. The time it takes to compute the radiosity solution is directly
connected to the number of lights in the scene, but not so much to the power of these
lights. By excluding lights that do not contribute significantly to the illumination of the
scene, you can speed up the rendering of Global Radiosity significantly.

Directional Light

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Directional light properties

If the selected object is a directional light, the Object Properties panel displays as opposite.

This is identical to the previous panel apart from the missing Power parameter (the power of
directional lights is controlled solely via the color of the light) and the extra Point at camera
checkbox. When selected, the position and direction of light are linked in such a way that it
always points at the camera.

Note:

This doesn’t mean the light is necessarily in front of the camera. Having this option selected is
good practice, since it avoids misunderstanding the fact that only the orientation of directional
lights is important.

Spot Light and Quadratic Spot Light

Spot light properties

If the selected object is a spot light or a quadratic spot light, the Object Properties panel displays
as opposite. This is identical to the point light properties panel, apart from three extra controls:
Spread, Falloff and View through.
• Spread: adjusts the spread of the light cone. The greater the value, the larger the angle
of the cone of light. The maximum is 90°, which will spread light everywhere in front of
the light source.
• Falloff: governs the speed of transition between light and dark on the edges of the cone.

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The greater the value, the more gradual the transition.

• View through: this option displays the scene in the Main View as if it were seen through
the spotlight.
The area that is lit by the light is displayed as two concentric circles representing respectively
the beginning and the end of the light falloff area. This is a very accurate and efficient way of
adjusting the lighting from a spotlight.

The field of view of the Main View is automatically adjusted to match the spread angle of the
light. Although the preview render displayed in the Camera Control Center still represents the
view from the camera, the controls will act upon the currently selected spotlight instead of
acting upon the camera. As soon as you deselect the spotlight, the Main View will flip back to
the view as it was before selecting the spotlight.

Lens Flare

The Lens Flare icon ( ) is a toggle icon. If it is orange or highlighted, it means that this light
has a lens flare.

If no lens flare is defined, clicking on the icon will assign the default lens flare to the light (and
the icon will turn orange). If a lens flare is assigned to the light, clicking on the icon will open the
Light Editor on the Lens Flare tab (please read here for full details). If several lights are selected,
any modifications will be applied to all the selected lights.

The Lens Flare icon is a double action icon. If you activate the icon’s second action, a popup
menu will appear. The options in this menu are:
• Edit Lens Flare: select this command to open the Light Editor on the Lens Flare tab.
• No Lens Flare: if this option is checked, the light has no lens flare; if not, select it to re-
move the lens flare from the light.
• Default Lens Flare: if this option is checked, the light has the scene’s default lens flare
for that type of light; if not, select it to assign the scene’s default lens flare to the light.
If the default lens flare is disabled, the word ‘(off)’ will be appended to the menu label.
Default lens flares are automatically assigned to the new lights you create. If you modify
the default lens flares, you will be modifying the lens flares of all lights that have a lens
flare that isn’t custom.
• Custom Lens Flare: if this option is checked, the light has a custom lens flare. This means
that the light has a lens flare effect that is different from the scene’s default lens flare.
This is generally the case if you have modified the lens flare of a light. If this option isn’t
checked, selecting it will open the Lens Flare Editor.
• Copy Lens Flare: copies the lens flare settings of the light to the clipboard, so it can be

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pasted onto another light.

• Paste Lens Flare: pastes the lens flare settings in the clipboard to the current light. Use
the Copy/Paste commands to transfer settings form one light to another.

Light Gel

In the real world, gels are colorful pieces of transparent plastic placed in front of light sources
to give them colors or patterns. The Gel icon ( ) lets you define an electronic counterpart for
your lights.

The Gel icon is a toggle icon. If it is orange or down, it means that this light has a gel.

If no gel has been assigned to this light, clicking the icon will open the Material Browser, asking
you to select a gel material for the light. You can load any Simple material to use as a gel, but
only the material’s color will be taken into account. Mixed, Layered and Volumetric materials
cannot be used as gels. Once you have assigned a gel to the light, the icon turns orange.

If a gel is assigned to the light, clicking on the icon will open the Light Editor on the Gel Tab,
letting you modify the colors of the gel as required.

The Gel icon is a double action icon. If you activate the icon’s second action, a popup menu will
appear. The options in this menu are:
• Light Has a Gel: if the light already has a gel, selecting this option will remove the gel. If
no gel has been assigned to the light, selecting this option will open the Material Browser
letting you select which gel you wish to use for the light.
• Edit Gel: this command is available only when the light has a gel. Click on this button to
open the Light Editor on the Gel tab.
• Flat Gel Type: this option, together with the following, indicates what projection method
will be used for the gel. If the Flat Gel Type option is selected, the gel is considered
mapped to a plane placed in front of Spot lights, or mapped to a box placed around Point
lights. Gel projection types are not available for Directional lights.
• Spherical Gel Type: when this option is selected, the gel is mapped to a sphere placed
around the light source. Gel projection types are not available for Directional lights.
• Copy Gel: select this command to copy the gel to the clipboard. The gel is copied as a
standard material.
• Paste Gel: select this command to paste the material currently in the clipboard into the
light’s gel. Use Copy/Paste to transfer gels from one light to another.
• Load Gel: selecting this command opens the Material Browser letting you select a mate-
rial to be used as a gel. Keep in mind that only the color information is used for gels.

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• Save Gel: select this command to save the current gel. The gel will be saved as a standard
material.
If several lights are selected, the modifications will be applied to all the selected lights.

Volumetric Light

The third icon to the left of the Object Properties ( ) is the Volumetric Light icon. This is a
toggle icon. If it is orange or down, it means that the light is volumetric.

If the light is not volumetric, clicking on the icon will make the light volumetric. If the light is
volumetric, clicking on the icon will open the Light Editor on the Volumetric tab. This dialog
lets you customize the volumetric behavior of the light (e.g. the intensity of the beam, whether
smoke is visible in the beams, etc.).

Volumetric lighting applies to directional lights (e.g. the sun) only when the volumetric or spec-
tral atmosphere model is used. If the current atmosphere model is the standard one, this icon
will be disabled. Select a volumetric or spectral atmosphere to be able to create volumetric
rays for the sun.

The Volumetric Light icon is a double action icon. If you activate the icon’s second action, a
popup menu will appear. The options in this menu are:
• Volumetric Light: this command has the same effect as clicking on the icon. If the light
is volumetric, selecting this command will make it non-volumetric. If it isn’t volumetric,
it will become volumetric.
• Edit Volumetric Settings: select this command to open the Volumetric Light Options di-
alog.
• Copy Volumetric Settings: select this command to copy the light’s volumetric settings
to the clipboard.
• Paste Volumetric Settings: select this command to paste the volumetric settings from
the clipboard to the light. Use Copy/Paste to transfer volumetric options from one light
to another.
If several lights are selected, the modifications will be applied to all the selected lights. Keep in
mind that volumetric lights are far more complex to render than standard lights.

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Shadow and Lighting

The last icon to the left of the Object Properties panel ( ) is the Shadow and Lighting icon. If
it is orange or down, it indicates that the light casts some amount of shadow.

If the light doesn’t cast any shadows, clicking the icon will enable shadow casting for that light.
If the light casts some amount of shadow, clicking on the icon will open the Light Editor on the
Shadow tab. This dialog lets you edit shadow and lighting options.

The Shadow and Lighting icon is a double action icon. If you activate the icon’s second action,
a popup menu will appear. The options in this menu are:
• Casts Shadows (xx%): the xx value is the shadow density percentage of the light, where
0% means no shadows, and 100% means full shadows. Select this command to set full
shadows for the light. If the light already has full shadows, selecting this option will have
no effect.
• No Shadows: select this option to remove all shadows from the light. If the light already
is non-shadowing, this option will have no effect.
• Edit Shadows: select this command to open the Shadow tab of the Light Editor, letting
you select intermediate shadow densities and modify the lighting properties of the light.
• Edit Lighting: select this command to open the Lighting tab of the Light Editor, letting
you modify the lighting properties of the light.
• Edit Influence: select this command to open the Influence tab of the Light Editor, letting
you select which objects are influenced by the light.
If several lights are selected, the modifications will be applied to all the selected lights. Keep in
mind that non-shadowing lights render much more rapidly than shadowing lights – even when
the shadow density setting is low.

Light Panel
With the Light Panel, at the top of the Aspect tab is the Color control. Double-clicking this will
open the Color Editor, letting you select a new color for the light.

Underneath this control is the Power control. This governs the intensity of light emitted by the
light source. The more powerful the light, the greater the range in which it can light up objects.
This control also visually affects the length of the rays cast from the light source in the 3D views.
Resizing a light source yields the same result. You can enter Negative values, in which case the
light will “cast darkness” instead of casting light.

For the Daylight Portal, there are no settings on the Aspect tab as its settings are controlled by
the exterior light settings. There is a Daylight Portal Editor to increase quality of lighting if
desired and to invert its direction easily.

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’Daylight Portal Editor’

Editing Terrains

Terrains may be edited using the Terrain Editor. This is accessed by either:
• Double-clicking on the terrain in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the terrain is selected.
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object.
In the section under the VUE Editors, you will find detailed information for the Terrain Editor.

Editing Bodies of Water

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The Water Editor: a complete set of tools to model water

The Water Surface Options dialog provides a set of powerful tools designed to let you easily

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create and animate realistic water surfaces. It automatically distributes foam at the surface of
the water in a realistic manner, taking into account any surrounding terrains.

To access the Water Surface Editor, either:

• Double-click on the infinite water plane in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,
• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the infinite water plane is
selected,
• Use the menu command Object | Edit object.

Geometry
The SurfaceAltitude slider lets you easily adjust the altitude of the water plane.

By default, water planes are just a perfectly flat surface, with bump mapping added to fake the
waves. If you want a more realistic water surface, where the waves are created out of real ge-
ometry, check the Displaced water surface box. This will automatically convert the flat water
plane into a pseudo-infinite procedural terrain. During the conversion process, the bump map-
ping settings are ported to the procedural altitude production function, thus yielding similar
visual results (with the added realism of true wave geometry).

The way the Water Editor works is that it implements and controls a complex graph in the Func-
tion Graph. You can use the settings in this dialog to change the look of the water surface, but
you can also further customize this look even further by editing the water material directly.

If the water surface is converted into a procedural terrain by ticking the Displaced water sur-
face option, you can access the altitude production function of the underlying procedural ter-
rain by clicking the Edit Function button. Obviously, this button is only available when the
Displaced water surface option is checked and Global wave control is deactivated.

Use Global Wave Control

The Use global wave control box is selected by default. When this box is selected, you can
adjust the overall aspect of the water surface by setting the Overall agitation slider to make
the water calm or stormy. Wind direction can also be changed.

If this box is unchecked, the rest of the controls on this dialog become available. This is only if a
metawater material is selected. If you are using another type of water material, these controls
will not be available.

Waves
Wind direction: this parameter controls the direction in which the wind is blowing, as seen
from above (the azimuth). A value of zero will make the wind blow from left to right in Top view.
A value of 90° will make the wind blow from top to bottom in Top view. There is no relationship

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between this wind setting and the wind or breeze effects applied to plants.

Uncheck the Use global wave control box to gain access the other controls in this section:
• Wave amount: this parameter lets you adjust the overall amount of the waves created.
Values greater than 1 will make more waves, while values less than 1 will make less waves.
• Height: this parameter controls the typical height of the waves. It is only available when
the Displaced water surface option is checked.
• Wind Intensity: this parameter controls the intensity of the wind. Higher values will re-
alistically lead to higher waves and rougher water surfaces.
• Agitation: this parameter lets you adjust the overall velocity of the waves created. Its
effects are only visible in animations. Values greater than 1 will make the waves move
faster at the surface of the water, while values less than 1 will slow down the waves.
• Choppiness: this parameter controls the shape of the waves. Small values will yield soft
round waves, whereas high values will produce choppy waves that are sharp at their top.

Foam Along Coasts

If the water plane intersects a terrain, these controls will add foam near the shore.
• Amount: this parameter lets you adjust the overall amount of foam created.
• Typical depth: this parameter lets you adjust the overall depth that the water must have,
in order to begin creating foam.

Foam Over Waves

• Amount: this parameter lets you adjust the overall amount of foam created on the wave.
• Coverage: this parameter lets you adjust the overall coverage of foam created on the
wave.

Underwater Caustics
• Intensity: this parameter lets you adjust the intensity or brightness of the caustics. Higher
values will produce brighter lighting over focusing regions and darker lighting elsewhere.
• Sharpness: this parameter lets you adjust the sharpness of the caustics. A lower setting
blurs and softens the caustic effect.
• Scale: this parameter lets you adjust the scale, or size, of the caustic pattern.
Caustics will automatically appear at their maximum sharpness at some focus depth which
depends on the caustics scale, while slowly going out of focus as depth increases or decreases.

Depending on the water material model, caustics will not only be generated over underwater
surfaces, but also through the water medium, producing realistic beams of light through the
water.

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To enable this volumetric effect, the water material transparency should be set to use Absorp-
tion and Scattering, in either Direct volumetric light or Indirect volumetric light mode.

For more information about the Absorption and Scattering, refer here.

Changing the MetaWater Material

The Water Surface Editor is designed to present an easy-to-use front-end to a special type of
water material, known as a MetaWater material. The MetaWater material is built using a special
type of MetaNode in each material layer.

You can easily change the MetaWater material by loading any material from the MetaWater
material collection and assigning it to the water plane.

Note:

if you wish to change the MetaWater material after having selected the Displaced water surface
option, you will first have to deselect this option, and then re-select it after loading the new
MetaWater material. If you don’t do this, the water displacement won’t correspond to the new
material.

You can create your own MetaWater materials, but you need to ensure that the new materials
are based on the same MetaNodes as other MetaWater materials, if not, it may not be possible
to control the material using the Water Surface Editor.

You can also edit the MetaNodes that are used to construct the MetaWater material, but again,
great care must be taken not to change the interface of the MetaNode (do not remove or rename
any published parameters).

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Editing Plants

Applying Wind

Wind control, available in the Top view

When you select a plant, you will notice in the Top View a blue triangle inside a small circle.
This is the Wind control. Simply click on the triangle and drag it to set the amount of wind
that is applied to the plant at the current time. The longer the arrow, the stronger the wind;
the direction of the arrow indicates the direction in which the wind is blowing. Wind can be
animated like other Object Properties (e.g. size, orientation...).

Note:

Wind starts to be applied to the plant only when the wind arrow is dragged outside the blue
circle. If you place the wind arrow back inside the circle, wind will be removed from the plant.
This is designed for easier removal of the wind. You can monitor the intensity and direction of
the wind in the Status Bar.

If several plants are selected, the new wind setting will apply to all selected plants. That way,
you can apply the same wind effects to several objects.

The length of the wind arrow represents the intensity of the wind. The length of the arrow is
not affected by the zooming in the views. Just like in the real world, the effect of the wind on

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the plant depends on the type of plant. For instance, long and thin plants such as reeds will be
strongly affected, while more solid plants such as trees will be less affected.

Note:

If the Wind arrow doesn’t appear in the Top View, make sure wind is enabled in the Wind tab of
the Atmosphere Editor.

Ventilators
If you bring a ventilator close to a plant, the plant will be influenced by the amount of wind
produced by the ventilator.

Editing Plant Geometry

You can edit the shape of the plant using the Plant Editor. This is accessed by either:
• Double-clicking on the plant in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the plant is selected.
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object.
Use the Plant Editor for editing plants. All of the basic parts of the plant can be modified. .

Editing Polygon Meshes

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Polygon Mesh Options

Polygon Mesh Options Dialog

Although the actual geometry of polygon meshes cannot be modified inside VUE, you do have
access to some render options. These options are selected in the Polygon Mesh Options dialog,
which is accessed by either:
• Double-clicking on the polygon mesh in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,

• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top application toolbar, or in the World
Browser toolbar when the polygon mesh is selected,
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object when the polygon mesh is selected.
Aside from displaying information relative to the complexity of the selected polygon meshes,
this dialog lets you adjust rendering characteristics of the meshes.

The Double sided checkbox indicates that the polygons making up the mesh should be traced
from both sides. This is generally the case, and keeping this option selected is recommended.
However, if you are sure that your mesh will support tracing with one sided polygons, uncheck-
ing it can slightly improve render speed. If it is not the case, you will notice holes in the rendered
object.

When Smooth mesh is selected, the surface of the polygon mesh object is smoothed by aver-

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aging the normal vectors of all polygon faces, giving a less rough, “polygonal” aspect to the
object. Sharp angles will be rubbed from the surface. You can adjust the maximum angle be-
tween polygons where smoothing should take place by using the Max smoothing angle box.
For instance, a value less than 90° (e.g. 80°) would preserve right angles inside a cube, while
still smoothing other, less angular features.

Mesh Information
This group displays information about the currently selected mesh(es), such as the total num-
ber of vertices, of polygons, as well as the number of materials used throughout the object(s).

This group also provides a set of buttons to modify the architecture of the selected object(s):
• Decimate: press this button to display the Mesh Decimation Options dialog. Decimation
is a powerful feature that attempts to reduce the number of polygons in an object while
maintaining as much as possible the original object geometry. The resulting object will
be lighter than the original, and will render more rapidly. On this dialog, use the slider to
indicate the level of decimation.
• Weld: this button only appears when several meshes are selected. If you click on this but-
ton, VUE will generate a single polygon mesh from all the currently selected meshes. This
is useful when you have an object made up of lots of different parts. Welding them all to-
gether ensures two things: faster processing and certainty that relative positions/orientations
of the parts won’t be modified accidentally.
• Split: Use this button to split the mesh into a group of meshes according to the material
assigned to each polygon (resulting in one mesh per material).

Modifiers
• Forbid Export: press this button to forbid exporting to other 3D applications the selected
object(s). Be advised that once you have pressed this button, you cannot allow exporting
again. This is useful when transferring data to other parties and you don’t want this other
party to be able to use your objects in other applications.
• Invert Normals: press this button to invert all the surface normals of the selected ob-
ject(s). Pressing it again will revert to the initial situation.

Turbo Smooth
This option allows you to smooth a mesh. You have three options for turbo smoothing: Catmull-
Clark (for quads), Loop (for triangles) and Dynamic (for stretched polygons only). This option
can also be used for animated mesh in order to improve the rendering quality.
• Type: select Catmull-Clark when smoothing quads; select Loop when smoothing trian-
gles. Dynamic only subdivides stretched polygons.
• Iterations: Since Catmull-Clark and the Loop algorithm subdivide all of the polygons,

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this setting is used to limit the level of subdivisions applied.

If you select Dynamic, a Quality Boost slider displays for you to set the smoothing quality.
• Low poly in OpenGL and in the preview: check this option to display the non-subdivided
mesh in OpenGL display and in the preview renders which will speed up these rendering
operations.

Illumination Baking
Illumination baking is only available when you have activated one of the lighting models that
takes indirect lighting into account. Illumination baking is a complex process that involves the
evaluation of indirect lighting over the entire surface of the object, and the creation of a sepa-
rate texture channel to hold that illumination information. Only indirect lighting is taken into
account in the baking process. Direct lighting (light received directly from light sources, or shad-
ows cast by other objects) is computed separately at render time. For full details on illumination
baking, please turn here.

The controls in this frame let you customize the illumination baking process for that particular
object.
• Allow automatic baking for animations: when this option is selected (the default), this
object will be candidate for automatic illumination baking when rendering an animation.
Uncheck this option to prevent the object’s illumination from being baked when render-
ing an animation (e.g. for objects that move a lot).
• Animated mesh imports: If you imported a mesh with an accompanying MDD animation
file, this will show up here. You have the option of not refreshing meshes while moving
the timeline.
• Force double sided baking: when baking the illumination of an object, VUE will analyze
the geometry of the object in order to determine if the illumination needs to be computed
only on one side, or on both sides of an object. For instance, if the object is a single poly-
gon, VUE will bake the illumination on the two sides of this polygon, as the polygon may
be seen from one side or the other. Selecting the “Force double sided baking” option
forces VUE to bake the illumination on the two sides of the object, even if it determines
that illumination is only really needed on one side. This is typically useful when you need
to travel “inside” a closed mesh.
The “Current baking information” group displays information about the current baking status
of the object: the overall “quality” and “map accuracy” used at the time of last baking, as well
as the total size occupied in memory by the illumination map.

Note:

Saving an object with illumination baking will save the illumination information together with
the object.
• Quality boost: use this setting to adjust the rendering quality of the indirect lighting dur-
ing baking. This setting is relative to the current Advanced Effects Quality render setting

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and the quality boost setting of the Atmosphere Editor’s lighting model controls.
• Map accuracy: use this setting to vary the size of the illumination map. Larger values
will mean more detailed illumination, but at the expense of longer baking times and
higher memory requirements. You should adjust the accuracy of the map according to
the largest size on screen of the object during the entire animation.
Hint:

If you are baking the illumination on a mesh that has a complex geometry, the maximum setting
for map accuracy may not be enough to achieve perfect results. In such cases, you should not
hesitate to go beyond the maximum value by entering values larger than 100%.
• Estimated size in memory: this displays an estimate of the amount of memory that will
be occupied by the illumination map after baking is completed. More memory may be
required during the actual baking process.
• Remove baking: click this button to remove all baking information for this/these ob-
ject(s).
• Bake now: press this button to begin the illumination baking process for the selected
object(s). The baking of the illumination requires takes place in two steps: first the con-
struction of the illumination map, and then the actual processing of the indirect lighting.
The total time required to bake the object depends on the object’s complexity as well
as the desired quality. This process can last several hours (but it’s an investment for the
rendering of the animation). A progress bar will appear in the status bar to let you know
the progress of the baking process. When an object has an illumination baking map, it
appears yellow in the World Browser.
• Save scene after baking: select this option if you want VUE to automatically save the cur-
rent scene after completing a bake operation. Because quality baking of objects can take
a lot of time, this option is useful to ensure that you don’t lose the result of the baking.
Note:

Although baking the illumination of an object can take a considerable amount of time (several
times the actual rendering time of a single frame in the animation), subsequent rendering of
the animation frames can be accelerated in such a considerable manner that this “investment”
in baking time will be recouped significantly. In some tests we ran (involving a flythrough of the
Sponza atrium model), baking of the Sponza mesh took one day (at a very high quality setting),
but subsequent rendering of the animation only took 2 additional days whereas the rendering
of the “unbaked” animation would have required over one month!

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Published Parameters

The Published Parameters feature copies specific settings from the Object Graph that you
may need to change often and places them in a more convenient location for easier manipula-
tion. With objects, these parameters display with the Polygon Mesh Options dialog.

Parameters available for publishing show as underlined when the cursor is moved over the field
name. Click the underlined field name to select. A parameter name is supplied and a group
name is asked to improve the display of the published parameter.

Decimating Imported Objects

From left to right: 29120, 13570, and 1895 polygons frogs!

Polygon mesh decimation, also known as polygon reduction, is a very powerful feature that will
attempt to reduce the number of polygons in an object while maintaining as much as possible
the original object geometry. The resulting geometry will be lighter than the original, and will
render more rapidly. This feature is useful for example when you want to render a large object
that is seen from a long distance – in such a case, you may not need to maintain all the details
in the object geometry, and a decimated version may suffice. Another situation where mesh
decimation is useful is when you want to do some quick test renders of very large objects (e.g.
buildings). You can do the test with a decimated version, and then restore the full geometry for
the final rendering.

Mesh decimation is controlled using the Mesh Decimation Options dialog. There are two ways
of accessing this dialog:
• Once the object is imported, click the Decimate button in the Polygon Mesh Options dia-
log (see above), or
• At the time of importing the object, select the Decimate on import option in the Import
Options dialog. The Mesh Decimation Options dialog will appear once the import is com-
plete.
There is a single parameter in the Mesh Decimation Options dialog. This parameter, called Level
of decimation is used to control the number of polygons in the resulting, decimated version of
the object. If you choose no decimation, the object will be unaffected. The stronger the level

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of decimation, the less polygons in the resulting object, but also the stronger the distortion of
the geometry. This parameter is somewhat similar in its behavior to say, the quality setting of
JPEG compression.

Note:

Mesh decimation is a complex process that can take a long time to complete. A progress bar
displays the progress of the decimation process in the Status Bar.

An estimate of the number of polygons and vertices in the mesh version of the object is dis-
played below the Level of decimation slider.

Once you have decimated a polygon mesh, you cannot regenerate the polygons that have been
removed. The only way to restore the full object geometry is to re-import the object without
decimation. See here for details about re-importing polygon meshes.

Baking Objects to Polygons

This is also a powerful feature that will convert any object in a VUE scene into a polygon mesh
approximation. The word “approximation” is important here, as some objects used in VUE sim-
ply don’t have a polygonal equivalent (for instance, this is the case with spheres, plants...).

There are various reasons why you might want to convert an object into a polygon mesh. For
instance, if you have a very complex Boolean object, converting it into polygons may speed up
rendering considerably.

Note:

materials are not directly affected by the conversion. However, the slight modifications in the
object’s geometry may cause some differences in the rendering of the material.

If the object uses displacement mapping, you can choose whether the displacement informa-
tion should be baked into the polygon geometry or not, using the bake displacement mapping
checkbox.

Note:

Lights and cameras cannot be converted to polygons.

Baking to polygons is controlled via the Mesh Baking Options dialog. This dialog can be ac-
cessed by selecting the menu command Object | Bake To Polygons.

Warning:

Once you have converted (baked) an object to polygons, you cannot revert later to the initial,

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“unbaked” version of the object.

The Mesh Baking Options dialog has a unique parameter called Bake quality. This parameter
controls the accuracy of the conversion process. The higher the quality, the more precisely the
polygon version of the object will match the initial object. But also the higher the number of
polygons used in the object, and thus the longer it will take to render and the higher the mem-
ory requirements to handle this object. The default value for this quality setting corresponds
to the Background draw thread’s preview quality setting (see here for details on adjusting this
preview quality). Please note that baking to polygons is a complex process that can take a long
time to complete. A progress bar displays the progress of the baking process in the Status Bar.

An estimate of the number of polygons and vertices in the mesh version of the object is dis-
played below the Bake quality slider.

Note:

You can optimize the conversion of objects to polygon meshes by baking at a higher quality
setting, and then applying some amount of decimation to the resulting mesh.

Mesh Baking for Internal Purposes

Some algorithms (Displacement Mapping, conversion to Light Panels, 360° EcoSystem popu-
lation...) require a polygonal representation of the objects. VUE does it automatically, with a
predefined quality, but you can change this quality on a per-object basis, from the menu com-
mand Object | Mesh Baking Options, with the same user interface as for manual baking to
polygons. This will not replace the object, but just change the mesh quality for the algorithms
listed above.

Direct Re­Posing of Rigged Meshes

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Skeleton Editor

Rigged mesh objects (objects containing skeletons) can be re-posed directly inside VUE. You
can create custom poses and movements with meshes that have been converted to the VUE
Rigged Mesh format. Currently, VUE rigged meshes and Collada imports are supported.

Rigged meshes created in 3DS Max can be brought into VUE by converting them into .vob format
in Max using the Max to VUE exporter. If the 3DS Max rigged mesh being imported does not have
a skeleton, it will be imported as a standard mesh.

The Max to VUE exporter is available in the archive from which you installed your product: along-
side the Setup (Win).exe folder, you will find an Export Plugins folder, with a Windows subfolder.
Read the Max to VUE Exporter.pdf document contained for instructions on how to install and
use the plugin for your 3DSMax version.

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Just load a rigged mesh into VUE – you can use Dave which comes with the VUE Extra Contents
and can be found in the Objects Browser under Characters. Click on the figure and the Skele-
ton Editor displays. The bones should also be displayed in wireframe if you have that option
checked (from the VUE menu, Display | Rigged Meshes).

To select a bone, click on it. If the parent object containing the geometry is already selected,
press the CTRL key while clicking on the bone. The +/- icons beside each bone are for expand-
ing/contracting the list of bones. To avoid expanding the hierarchy manually, you can double-
click on a bone in the view and it will automatically expand the hierarchy until the selected
bone.

Inverse Kinematics (IK) are applied to rigged meshes in VUE. IK does affect a chain of bones
(for example two bones in an arm, two in a leg, or several in the neck or tail of a dinosaur). The
bones that belong to an IK chain are specified in 3ds Max, when creating the rigged mesh. When
the model is exported to VUE, a helper is visible at the end of the chain, allowing to control it.

The MaxToVUE exporter also supports the “swivel angle” and “swivel target” features from 3ds
Max. The swivel angle is defined relatively to the parent bone of an IK chain, and define a plane
in which the chain will be contained. The swivel target is an helper, exported with the skeleton,
that also define a plane (with 2 other points: the origin and the end of the chain) in which the
bones of the IK chain will be contained (for example, if you have an IK chain for an arm, with the
end of the chain located on the wrist, using a swivel target allows to control the elbow position).

The Enable IK box can only be checked when a helper representing the goal of an IK chain is
selected. When this checkbox is unchecked, the bones belonging to the IK chain are not con-
strained so they can be transformed separately.

Click to change some options like Double-sided and, in VUE Pro versions, to modify Turbo
Smooth settings which can be applied to all meshes rigged to the skeleton. The other options
on this dialog are disabled as they do not apply to rigged meshes.

Bones can be modified two ways:

• Manual method: Bones can be modified like any other object using the Gizmos. Chang-
ing the position of a bone leads to the rotation of its parent (except if it’s a helper).
• Numeric method: Numeric values can be entered into the Skeleton Editor, in the Bone
parameters fields. Just select the bone in the editor or by clicking on the bone in the
viewport and change the values as needed. Unlike moving the bones manually, using
the numeric method will not affect its parent’s rotation. Morphers can also be accessed in
the Skeleton Editor. After selecting a morpher in the Skeleton hierarchy, its list of target
geometries appears on the right and an up/down button with a numeric field allows you
to change the weight of each target.
Keep also in mind that the coordinates are always defined in the local space of the selected
bone, and that the rotation is the composition of 3 separate rotations (around XYZ axes). De-
pending on the angles composition, changing one value around a specific axis may rotate the

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bone in an “unexpected” way, which is normal.

Poser imports cannot be modified using these techniques. You need to use the reposing tech-
niques described in the previous section.

Animation Creation
In Auto-Keyframing mode, animation is created after modifying a bone at a non-zero time.
Keyframes are then automatically added each time a bone is modified. If the Auto-Keyframing
mode is not activated, bones’ keyframes are added by clicking on Add Keyframe in the Timeline
menu. The whole skeleton animation can be deleted by right-clicking on the character in the
Timeline and selecting Destroy Object Animation.

You can add animation to your character from pre-saved motion files. On the Skeleton Editor
window, select the Open icon to display the Motion Browser and select any motions you may
have saved there. Back on the Skeleton Editor window, use the Duration field to set the duration
of the motion and click on the Apply button.

From the Skeleton Editor you can:

• Load: a new animation (which must match the existing bones hierarchy).
• Save: the current skeleton’s animation in a .vom file.
• Clear: the animation.
• Scale: the duration of the animation like in the Timeline except that it affects only the
selected skeleton and not the whole scene. This would have to be changed using the
animation toolbox.
• Repeat: changes the animation play mode (repeat or not).

Editing the Torus

Torus Options dialog

Aside from the standard rotate and squash fun, you can also modify the thickness of the torus
rim (also known as the outer diameter). This is done using the Torus Options dialog. To display

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the Torus Options dialog, you can either:

• Double-click on the torus in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,
• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the torus is selected,
• Use the menu command Object | Edit Object when the torus is selected.

Torus Options Dialog

This very simple dialog displays a single slider that lets you interactively adjust the outer diam-
eter of the torus. Just slide the notch to the right or to the left, and watch as the torus swells or
shrinks in the 3D Views.

Editing 3D Text

Aside from the standard rotation, sizing and movement, you can also edit the shape and con-
tent of a 3D Text object using the Text Editor. This is accessed by either:
• Double-clicking on the text object in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the 3D Text is selected.
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object.
Note:

When you create a 3D Text, the text is placed in a special kind of group. If you ungroup the text
object and then weld all the characters together, the rendering speed of the text may be slightly
increased. However, after doing this, you can no longer edit the text.

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Editing Alpha Planes

Alpha Planes may be edited using the Alpha Plane Editor. This is accessed by either:
• Double-clicking on the alpha plane in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the alpha plane is se-
lected.
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object.

Alpha Plane Editor

Alpha Plane Options dialog

This dialog prompts you to select the pictures that will be used to map the object. The first pic-
ture (Color picture) will be used to produce the colors of the object, while the second (Alpha
picture) will be used to generate transparency. Using this transparency picture, you can create
objects with custom profiles. If the picture that you select for the colors has embedded trans-
parency information, this information will automatically be loaded into the Alpha picture.

Click the Load icon ( ) below the picture previews, or double-click on the picture previews to
open the Picture Browser and load a picture. You can rotate the pictures by using the and
arrows. You can also invert the pictures using the button. This is particularly useful when

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the Alpha information is not encoded as expected. To remove a picture, click the Remove icon
( ) below the picture preview.

The Preview displays a preview of what the Alpha plane will look like in your scene.

Check the Adjust plane proportions to automatically match the proportions of the Alpha plane
to those of the pictures you loaded. Unchecking this option may result in unwanted stretching
of the pictures.

Billboards
Billboards are automatically oriented to always face the camera (or whatever is looking at them).
Billboards are particularly useful to easily add real-world photos to your scenes (e.g. to add peo-
ple to an architectural rendering). They can also be used to create simple smoke or fog effects.

Billboard: simply check this option to turn the Alpha plane into a billboard. Now, the alpha
plane will automatically be oriented to always face the camera. If the billboard is seen through
a reflection, it will be seen as though it were facing the reflecting object. This is useful to avoid
betraying the fact that the object is only a plane (the fact that the object is flat could show up
in reflections).

Keep vertical: if this option is selected, the billboard will be oriented in such a way that it al-
ways faces the camera while remaining vertical. This is particularly useful when adding tree or
character billboards to architectural projects – as you really want them to stay vertical under
all conditions.

Editing Planets

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Planet properties panel

To modify the aspect of planets, select the planet and use the Aspect tab of the Object Properties
panel.

If the selected object is a planet, the Object Properties panel displays as opposite:

At the top of the panel is a preview of the planet. This preview is useful when adjusting the
phase.

If you check the icon bar to the left of the panel, you will notice an extra icon ( ). This is the
Select planet icon. Clicking this icon displays a list of planets that you can pick from to change
planet. Selecting Saturn will appropriately create a planet with rings around it. If you select the
Custom option, the Picture Browser will appear, letting you select the picture of your choice to
map the planet. If you want to create a planet with a ring from a picture, first select Saturn, and
then change the type of planet to Custom. Just below the planet preview, you will find three
sliders that you can use to customize the look of the planet:
• Phase: use this slider to modify the direction of the side of the planet that is lit by the
sun.
Note:
There is absolutely no relationship with the actual position of the sun in your scene. So if
realism is your goal, you should be careful to manually match the phase of your planets
to the position of the sun in the scene.
• Brightness: this controls the brightness of the planet. Typically, if the sky is bright, the
planet brightness should be low, and if the sky is very dark (e.g. by night), the planet

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should be bright. Planets, as opposed to all other types of objects, are placed behind
the clouds. So they will be masked by clouds (which is quite realistic, after all, but can
become a problem if your scene contains layers of clouds used to simulate stars – in which
case the stars will appear in front of the planet).
• Softness: controls how gradual is the transition from lit up areas of the planet, to parts
in the dark.
Planets are processed in the order in which they appear in the World Browser (that is the last
ones are placed behind the first ones). You can change the order of the planets by moving them
around in the World Browser.

As with other objects, you can use the resize and rotation tools in the 3D views to modify the
size and orientation of the planet.

Boolean Objects

On the left a Boolean object, on the right the polygon version (OpenGL preview)

Boolean objects, also known as “Constructive Solid Geometry” objects, let you combine simple
primitives (spheres, cubes…) into incredibly complex objects, using Boolean operations. For
a nice example of a Boolean object, please take a look at the Fortress sample object. You can
find this by selecting Load Object from the File menu.

Boolean objects behave like groups: they act as a “bundle” into which you can put objects. You
can put as many member objects as you want inside a Boolean object. The difference between

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groups and Boolean objects, is that Boolean objects can combine their members using various
Boolean operations.

Because VUE Booleans are computed at runtime, they retain all the accuracy of the primitives
used in the Boolean operation (e.g. you won’t see polygons appear in a “Booleaned” sphere).
The drawback to this computation at render time is that Boolean operations are slow to render.

If you need faster rendering Booleans but don’t require the accuracy, you can convert them to a
polygon mesh using the Object | Bake To Polygons menu command (see here). This way, VUE
will generate a polygon mesh representation of the Boolean operation.

Three types of Boolean objects are available, depending on the operation used to combine their
member objects:
• Boolean union
• Boolean intersection
• Boolean difference

Boolean Union

Group of overlapping glass spheres

Boolean Union of glass spheres

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Member objects of a Boolean union are “welded” together to form one unique object. The re-
sult is noticeable mainly with transparent materials (like glass), where a Boolean union will pro-
duce a continuous object with no internal edges (if you group two overlapping glass spheres,
you will still notice an area where both spheres overlap).

Making a Boolean union from opaque objects yields exactly the same result as simply grouping
the objects. Since Boolean unions require more computation, it is recommended that you use
groups instead of Boolean unions where applicable.

All member objects of a Boolean union have the same role, so the order in which you place
members inside the Boolean union is of no importance.

Boolean Intersection

Boolean Intersection of a cube and a cone

The result of a Boolean intersection is the object created where members overlap; Boolean
intersections always yield smaller objects than any of their members.

The result of a Boolean intersection between a flattened cube and a cone will be a truncated
cone (see opposite illustration).

All member objects of a Boolean intersection have the same role, so the order in which you
place members inside the Boolean intersection is of no importance.

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Boolean Difference

Boolean Difference: sphere minus cylinder

Combining materials in Boolean objects: Boolean Difference of a glass sphere and a checker-
board cube

A Boolean difference takes the first of its members and “subtracts” all subsequent members
from it. This means that, unlike Boolean unions or intersections, Boolean differences give a
different role to each of the member objects. The first member will be the base object from
which subsequent members are “dug out”.

For instance, making a Boolean difference between a sphere and a stretched cylinder will give
a sphere with a hole in it, where the cylinder used to be. If you inverse the order and place the
cylinder first inside the Boolean difference, the result will be different: it will yield a cylinder,
with the sphere missing.

This powerful tool lets you dig out of an object any number of other objects. For instance, mak-
ing a tower with dozens of windows can be handled by one single Boolean difference!

When you make a Boolean difference, you have to pay attention to the order in which you select

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member objects before creating the Boolean difference: the first object you select will be the
“solid” one; all others will be dug out. If you get it wrong, you can change the order of the
members using the World Browser.

In VUE, Boolean objects are implemented in an extremely powerful way, letting you combine
as many objects as you like inside one single Boolean object.

To have some noticeable effect, a Boolean object must contain at least two member objects. If
you create a Boolean object with only one member, you will generate unnecessary computa-
tion.

If member objects in the Boolean objects don’t all have the same material, the material of each
object will be retained on the parts of the Boolean Object that pertain to this object (see oppo-
site screenshot).

You may add, remove, or change the order of member objects inside a Boolean object by using
the World Browser. Simply unfold the Boolean object, and drag objects into, or out of it. You
may, of course, make Boolean objects that use other Boolean objects!

VUE will compute a polygonal preview of the result of the Boolean operation. This preview will
be displayed shortly after creating or modifying the Boolean operation.

Metablobs

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Blending the shapes of two spheres and a torus. Notice how the torus material is blended with
the sphere material.

Metablobs “blend” together the shapes of the different primitives that are part of the group. You
don’t need to have several primitives in the Metablob object in order to see the effects of the
Metablob operation: Metablobs will remove all angular shapes and replace them with round,
organic looking shapes (e.g. a cube will have all its edges rounded). Because there are no sharp
edges in a sphere, there is no point in creating a Metablob from a single sphere (as this would
simply create another sphere – only more complex to render).

Metablobs work with all the following primitives: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, pyramid and
torus. Read also how to “blob-ify” any mesh in the Metablobs Creation section.

If you resize or rotate the primitives inside the Metablob, the shape of the resulting Metablob
will be modified.

If member objects in the Metablob do not share the same material, the material of the different
primitives will be blended together according to the contributions of each primitive.

You may add, remove, or change the order of member objects inside a Metablob by using the
World Browser. Simply unfold the Metablob and drag objects into, or out of it. The order of the
primitives inside the Metablob is not relevant. You can only drag basic primitives into Metablobs.
If you create a Metablob from other Metablobs, all the primitives of the various Metablobs will
be assembled together into a unique new Metablob.

VUE will compute a polygonal preview of the result of the Metablob. This preview will be dis-
played shortly after creating or modifying the Metablob.

Metablob Options

The Metablob Options dialog

On top of editing and adjusting the elements inside the Metablob object, you can also cus-
tomize the way the Metablob blends its member objects using the Metablob Options dialog.

The Metablob options can be edited either globally, or on a per object basis. To edit the Metablob

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options globally, either:

• Double-click on the Metablob in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the Metablob is selected.
• Use the menu command Object | Edit Object.
To edit the Metablob options of only one or several member objects, either:
• Double-click on the Metablob object member(s) in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the Metablob object mem-
ber(s) is(are) selected.
• Use the menu command Object | Edit Object.
There are three settings that you can act upon to modify the look of the Metablob:

Envelope distance: this setting is global to the entire Metablob. It controls the overall distance
between the center of all the member objects and the envelope of the actual Metablob.

Object contribution: this setting can be adjusted on a per object basis. It controls the influence
of the selected object(s) on the look of the final Metablob. This feature is very useful to fine tune
the geometry of the Metablob. If not all member objects have the same contribution, the entry
field will remain empty. If you enter a value or drag the slider, the new value will be assigned to
all the member objects of the Metablob.

Effect: by default, all member objects contribute to the overall shape of the Metablob by adding
their geometry to that of the other members. This is known as the Additive effect. However, if
you turn one of the member objects Subtractive, the geometry of that object will be “removed”
from that of the other member objects, resulting in a smoothly blended hole.

If you are editing a torus, the Metablob options will be displayed below the standard Torus Op-
tions setting Torus thickness.

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Hyperblobs

A Hyperblob is a hypertextured Metablob that is baked at render time, removing any parts of
the Hypertexture that are disconnected from the main object (an artifact of standard Hyper-
textures). Baking occurs at a resolution depending on distance to camera, to avoid building
unnecessary details.

To create a Hyperblob:
• Use primitives to create a shape as you would for a Metablob.
• Assign a Hypertexture to one of the primitives.
• Right-click on the Metablob icon to create the Hyperblob. You will be prompted if you
wish to continue and assign the Hypertexture to all primitives. If there is no Hypertexture,
a default Hypertexture material will be assigned.

Hyperblob Options

The Hyperblob Options dialog

On top of editing and adjusting the elements inside the Hyperblob object, you can also cus-
tomize the way the Hyperblob blends its member objects using the Hyperblob Options dialog.

The Hyperblob options can be edited either globally, or on a per object basis. To edit the Hy-
perblob options globally, either:
• Double-click on the Hyperblob in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.
• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the Hyperblob is selected.
• Use the menu command Object | Edit Object.

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There are three settings that you can use to modify the look of the Hyperblob:

Global Blob Options – Envelope distance: this setting is global to the entire Hyperblob. It
controls the overall distance between the center of all the member objects and the envelope of
the actual Hyperblob.

Mixed Object(s) contribution – Intensity: this setting can be adjusted on a per object basis
or on the entire Hyperblob. It controls the influence of the selected object(s) on the look of
the final Hyperblob. This feature is very useful to fine tune the geometry of the Hyperblob. If
not all member objects have the same contribution, the entry field will remain empty. If you
enter a value or drag the slider, the new value will be assigned to all the member objects of the
Hyperblob, or the selected object(s) if all aren’t selected.

Effect: by default, all member objects contribute to the overall shape of the Hyperblob by
adding their geometry to that of the other members. This is known as the Additive effect. How-
ever, if you change one of the member objects to Subtractive, the geometry of that object will
be “removed” from that of the other member objects, resulting in a smoothly blended hole.
The Subtractive option is not available if the entire object is being edited.

Hypertexture baking – Maximum resolution: A maximum resolution can be set between 20

and 250 to avoid baking excessive times and memory consumption. After baking, two post-
processes apply:

Smooth mesh – Max smoothing angle: Mesh normals are smoothed according to a specified
maximum angle.

Keep only largest single chunk: “Disconnected” components are removed. Only the largest
compact subset of the mesh is kept.

Cache baked mesh between renders: Check this option to eliminate the baking of the Hy-
perblob each time you render. The Hyperblob will be baked the first time you render and the
information saved with the Hyperblob. It should be noted that this can take up a lot of memory
and increase the time it takes to save a scene. The baked mesh is updated when needed, like
when a Hypertexture is modified.

Using Hyperblobs in EcoSystems

When using Hyperblobs in EcoSystems, you should be aware that the position, rotation and
scale of each Hyperblob instance is not accounted for when baking the Hypertextures as this
would be incredibly resource intensive. The instances themselves are still rotated, however.

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Ventilators

Ventilators

Ventilator properties panel

If the selected object is a Ventilator, the Object Properties panel displays as opposite. This is
very similar to the light properties panels (see above).

Ventilator type: this lets you select the type of ventilator. There are two different types of
ventilators in VUE: Omni and Directional ventilators. Omni ventilators will blow wind in all
directions with equal intensity, whereas directional ventilators will blow wind in a specific di-
rection only. Depending on the type of ventilator you selected, some of the controls below will
become active.

Intensity: this setting controls the intensity of the wind generated by the ventilator.

Cut-off: this is the distance at which the ventilator ceases to affect plants.

Profile: this is a filter that lets you define how the intensity of the wind evolves with distance
from the ventilator. By default, the intensity drops down linearly with distance. Double-click
on the filter preview to load a preset filter, or edit the filter to create a custom intensity profile.

Influence EcoSystems ( ): when this option is selected, the ventilator will also affect plants

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that are inside EcoSystems. Because the number of plants affected this way is potentially enor-
mous, ventilators will affect in priority those plants that are closest to the ventilators.

Influence particles ( ): when this option is selected, the ventilator will also affect EcoParti-
cles.

Directional Ventilators
On top of the above settings, directional ventilators also define the following parameters:

Spread: this setting adjusts the spread of the cone in which wind is blown. The greater the
value, the larger the angle of the cone. The maximum is 90°, which will blow wind everywhere
in front of the ventilator.

Falloff: this setting controls how suddenly the wind intensity drops near the edges of the cone.
The greater the value, the more gradual the transition.

Replacing Objects

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Work with simple objects, render with hi-res models

VUE lets you replace any object by another one. For instance, if you want to replace a pyramid
with a cone, a light by another one of a different type, a primitive by a more complex object
such as a plant or an imported mesh, etc…

To replace an object with another one, select the object to be replaced, and then select one
of the Edit | Replace By commands from the main menu, or from the popup menus in the 3D
Views or in the World Browser.

The Replace command comes with four options, available in Replace by -> Scaling options sub-
menu :
• Resize Replacement Keeping its Proportions: this option replaces the object without
deforming the new object. The selected object will be replaced by the new one by fitting
the largest dimension of the new object to the corresponding dimension of the source ob-
ject. Other dimensions are modified proportionally. This means that the original propor-
tions of the new object are not altered. This is important if you want to preserve the new
object’s general shape. However, scaling factors applied to the source object will also be

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applied to the new object. This provides you with a flexible way of replacing objects (if
you want to replace an animated deformation object, for instance). It’s ideal when you
want to replace an object by a plant or a mesh, and you don’t want the proportions of the
object to be modified. You are also able to select more than one object for replacement.
All objects selected will be replaced by the same object with the scaling of each replaced
object maintained.
• Resize Replacement to Fit Replaced Object: this option modifies the dimensions of the
replacing object so that it matches the replaced object exactly. This means that the new
object will be scaled in such a way that its bounding box fits exactly the bounding box of
the replaced object. You are also able to select more than one object for replacement. All
objects selected will be replaced by the same object with the exact dimensions of each
replaced object maintained.
• Copy Replaced Object Scaling: the object used as replacement will be scaled by the
same factor as the replaced object was with respect to its initial size. For example, re-
placing a cube (initial dimensions (6, 6, 6)) scaled to dimensions (1, 3, 2) by a sphere will
scale the sphere (same initial dimensions) to dimensions (1, 3, 2) and thus deform it to
an ovoid. Replacing by a torus, which initial dimensions are (7.2, 1.2, 7.2), will yield a
deformed torus of dimensions (1.2, 0.6, 2.4). In other words, it means that replacing a
pebble by a tree will not yield a pebble-sized tree.
• Do Not Scale Replacement Object: the replacement object simply keeps its default ini-
tial size.
A maximum of information regarding the replaced object is transferred to the replacing object
(as applicable). For instance, if you replace a terrain with a symmetrical terrain, the terrain
geometry will be preserved. If you replace one type of light with another, color, power, etc. will
be preserved. This is also true of animation and linking properties. This is very important as
it means that you can setup complex animations with basic objects (such as cubes) and then
replace these basic objects with elaborate meshes just before performing the final rendering.

If you choose to replace an object with a plant, the Visual Plant Browser will appear, letting you
select the plant species to be used in the replacement. If you replace an object using the Load
Object... or Import Object... commands, a Standard File Browser will also appear letting you
select the object to be imported.

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Saving Objects

You can save objects for future use in other scenes by activating the alternate action of the Load
object icon ( ), or by selecting the menu command File | Save Object. You will be prompted
for a filename; the VUE object file type is .vob. VUE will then render a preview of your object.
By default, the new object is added to the Personal collection. The VOB file format cannot be
used with other 3D applications. If you would like to export VUE objects to use them in other
3D applications, please read the next topic.

Working with Pixologic ZBrush

VUE and Zbrush can work together with the GoZBrush system. This Link adds this export option
to the File menu. It opens ZBrush with current selected object loaded and changes made to this
object in Zbrush should update the VUE copy.

Note:

Note that PlantFactory plants cannot be exported from VUE to Zbrush. GOZ support for Plant-
Factory plants is only available in PlantFactory.

Installing GoZBrush for VUE

Once you’ve installed VUE and ZBrush (Zbrush should be installed first) on your computer, you’ll
have to run an install script. This is found inside Zbrush, in the menu Preferences, in the sub-
menu GoZ, click on path to VUE. The script will try to automatically find VUE’s installation folder
on your computer. If it fails, indicate the location of VUE.exe and select Install. If VUE is installed
first, you’ll have to install VUE again in order to use the GoZbrush link with VUE.

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From VUE to ZBrush

To edit VUE’s objects in Zbrush, select your object in VUE and go to the menu entry File, Edit
object in Pixologic ZBrush. ZBrushs opens itself and allows you to edit your object there. Any
press to the GoZ button in the ZBrush interface now updates the VUE’s object consequently.

Scatter ­­ Replicate Objects

The Scatter/Replicate Objects dialog lets you create multiple copies of objects in one go.

The Scatter/Replicate Objects dialog lets you create multiple copies of the selected objects,
while automatically moving, resizing, rotating and twisting the copies. This dialog is accessible
through the Edit | Scatter/Replicate Objects menu command, or by long-clicking the Dupli-
cate icon.

Check the Generate copies box if you want to generate copies of the objects that are currently
selected. If you don’t check this box, the selected objects will only be scattered. If Generate
copies is checked, you can indicate the number of copies you request (e.g., if you have 3 spheres
selected, asking for 4 copies will generate 4 × 3 = 12 spheres).

If at least one of the selected objects is either a plant, a terrain, a symmetrical terrain or a rock,
the With variations checkbox will enabled. If you check this option, VUE will generate varia-
tions of the selected objects (e.g. if you selected one Tropic plant and ask for 4 copies with
variations, VUE will generate 4 new plants of the tropic species that are different from the origi-
nal tropic). This is great for instance when you want to create a group of trees or rocks that are
all different.

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If you are trying various settings and wish to go back to the last setting you used, check the Use
last settings box to undo the current settings.

Aside from these controls, this dialog features two tabs, one for scattering objects randomly,
and one for replicating them regularly.

Scatter Objects Tab

The objects and their copies can be moved, rotated, resized or twisted randomly depending on
what boxes are checked.

For instance, if you want the copies to be moved about, check the Move copies between…
box. The limits that are indicated are those of the selected objects. Copies of the objects will
be moved inside these limits.

Replicate Objects Tab

Scatter/Replicate Objects dialog – Replicate tab

This tab lets you organize the copies regularly, by applying a constant translation, rotation, siz-
ing or twisting between each copy. This is great for automatically building complex shapes
from simple primitives.

Simply enter the different offsets before pressing OK.

If the Generate copies option is not selected, existing objects will be modified by the indicated
values.

Note:

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If you copy-paste, duplicate or Alt-copy objects, you can repeat that operation by using the
Repeat Operation Subdivide and Repeat Operation Extrapolate commands in the Edit menu
(shortcut * and /) to get a regular array of objects.

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Camera Options and Framing

One of VUE’s strengths is its camera. It works as a handheld camera would work, with aperture
settings, focal lengths, and exposure to name just a few of its settings. When you create an
image, you can “walk” around in your image, trying different camera angles, to come up with
the perfect image.

You can also save a camera as a VUE object file (.vob) and reused in other scenes. Cameras
cannot be saved in the same .vob file with other objects or lights. If a camera is linked to another
object and you load it in a different scene, the link will be broken.

You can add cameras as you need them and switch between them for different views, render-
ing from each camera view as you wish. Each camera can have different settings. Adding and
saving cameras can be done using the Camera Manager.

Framing is a tool to aid you in finding the right camera angle and fine-tuning your image.

Framing

Framing strips due to a stretched picture format

As with any other object, the camera may be moved, rotated and resized directly inside the
orthogonal 3D Views. Although this is particularly welcome under certain circumstances, it is
not necessarily the most intuitive way of framing a scene...

This is why framing can also be achieved directly inside the Main camera view. As you now
know, orthogonal views can be moved around by clicking and dragging them with the right
mouse button; you can also zoom into or out of them by pressing Control while you drag. In
much the same way, the camera can be rotated up-down and right-left by dragging the main

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view with the right/Ctrl mouse button. Pressing Shift while you drag the view will cause the
camera to move up-down and right-left, and pressing Control/Cmd while dragging will adjust
the focal length of the camera lens.

If no objects are selected, and the active view is the Main camera view, pressing the arrow keys
will nudge the camera up, down, right or left. Pressing the Page Up and Page Down keys
will nudge the camera forwards and backwards. One nudge equals 5 units of distance. Shift-
nudging nudges by 0.5 units.

You may have noticed two gray strips on the top and bottom, or right and left, of your main 3D
View (see above illustration for an example). They indicate the limits of the picture, according to
the picture format you have selected in the Render Options or Advanced Camera Options dialogs.
These stripes are here to help you get your framing just right. These strips will vary in shape
depending on the Aspect ratio you have set on your Render Options screen.

Frame Guides

Frame Guides dialog

The Frame Guides dialog lets you setup the visual guides that appear in the Main camera view
to assist you in the framing of your scene.

To access this dialog, select the Frame Guides… command from the Main camera view’s View
Display Options menu.

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Display Framing Strips

Because the aspect ratio of the final picture is not necessarily the same as that of the Main
camera view, you can display in the camera view a visual clue of the size of the final picture, in
the form of two semi-transparent gray rectangles that partially mask parts of the view that will
not be featured in the final render. This clue is known as the framing strips. Deselect this option
to hide these framing strips from the view.

Safe Frames
Safe frames appear as a set of rectangles in the main view, to help you keep the feature of an-
imations in an appropriate position on screen. You can have up to two safe frames on screen
(respectively known as “Action safe” and “Title safe” frames).

You can enable each one of these frames independently. For each one of these frames, you can
define the size of the frame as well as the color used to display the frame in the Main camera
view.

Enter the desired size in the Size fields. This is a percentage of the total width and height of the
final picture. If the Lock icon ( ) is selected, the vertical ratio is locked to the same value as
the horizontal ratio.

You can change the color used to display the frame by double-clicking on the Color field.

Field Grids
Field grids appear as a set of vertical and horizontal lines in the main view that can be of help for
framing. You can setup an arbitrary number of rows and columns, both horizontally, vertically
and diagonally.

Double-click on the Color field of each line type to change the line’s color.

Golden Ratio
You can overlay a golden ratio grid and spiral for enhanced scene compositing. The spiral is
computed based on the underlying golden ratio. Both can be enabled at the same time.
• Color: Sets the color for the ratio grid and the and the spiral.
• Rotate 90°: This rotates the ratio grid and spiral by 90 degrees. You can set the direction
to be clockwise and anticlockwise.
• Flip: This setting allows you to flip the ratio grid and the spiral horizontally or vertically.
• Fit to render: The settings restrict the ratio grid and the spiral’s apsect ratio to fit into the
render. You can enforce the fit to completely stay inside the render area with “Inscribe”
or let it extend beyond the render area with “Circumscribe”.
• Size: This will scale the ratio grid and the spiral up or down.

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• Horizontal and vertical align: These settings allow you to alin the placement of the ratio
grid and the spiral to a specific place in the viewport.
• Rotation: This setting rotates the ratio grid and the spiral by the indicated angle.
• Offset (Pixels): With this setting, you can manually move the ratio grid and the spiral to
a specific coordinate in the viewport by pixels.
• Extend to viewport when smaller: If you resized the spiral to a lower value than 100%
size, you can make the spiral lines “continue” to the edge of the viewport when this option
is enabled.

Using the Camera

Managing Cameras

Camera properties panel

You can also use the Camera Control Center or the Object Properties panel (when the camera is
selected) to set the position, orientation and framing of the camera.

If the selected object is the camera, the Aspect tab of the Object Properties panel displays as
opposite.

Whenever you think you have come up with an interesting view of your scene, you can create
a new camera based on the current camera by pressing the Manage Cameras icon in the left

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icon bar ( ). This opens the Camera Manager. Use this dialog to store the current settings,
or replace/remove existing ones.

To add a camera, you can also just click the Add Camera option in the Object menu. That cre-
ates a camera in the World Browser with an identifying number.

A new camera object with the same settings as the perspective camera can be created as well.
This allows you to move a camera and when it is placed properly, you can create a new per-
spective camera object by selecting Create from perspective camera from the Display menu
item.

Perspective views can be loaded into the current camera being used by using the icons on the
Title Bar of the Main Camera View. The first icon after the Quick Render icon, Store Camera
Settings in Perspective View/Store Camera Settings in a new camera is a dual action icon. A
left click stores the current camera settings in the Perspective View and switches the Main Cam-
era View to that view; a right-click stores the current camera settings in a new camera without
switching to the other view.

The next icon is a Toggle to Perspective View. Now, if you’ve stored another camera setting in
the Perspective View, that is what you will get when you click this icon.

Once you have created the camera, you can explore new framing options, knowing that you
can instantly revert to the previously saved camera. By default, new scenes are created with 2
cameras. The first (Ctrl + Num 0) is the Main camera, and points North. The second (Ctrl + Num
1), called Top camera, looks down at the scene from above. You can create as many cameras
as you like, but only the first ten are available through the Display | Activate Camera menu.
Others should be activated using the Activate camera drop-down list of this panel.
• Activate Camera: this drop-down list shows all existing cameras. Select one from the
list to activate the corresponding settings. You can also use the Camera Control Center
to change the active camera. Cameras saved as .vob files are also included in this list and
can be managed using the Camera Control Center.
Note:
You can change the current active cameras by unfolding the camera group in the World
Browser, and selecting the new camera from the list of cameras, or by double-clicking on
a camera in the 3D Views.
Note:
If you switch cameras in an animation at a non zero time, a camera switch keyframe will
be created in the Timeline.
• Focal: use this to adjust the focal length of the camera’s lens numerically. The bigger the
value, the greater the magnifying power of the lens. For landscape photography, values
ranging from 24 to 35mm are often best suited. This focal parameter can be animated.
If you are more familiar with camera Field of View rather than focal length, VUE can dis-

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play the camera’s horizontal FoV instead of its focal length in the Object Properties panel
(disable the Show camera FoV as Focal length checkbox in the Options dialog.
• Blur: turn up this setting to activate depth of field. When depth of field is activated, only
objects that are close to the Focus distance from the camera will appear sharp. Other ob-
jects will be out of focus and render blurred. The bigger the blur value, the more rapidly
objects get blurred as they move away from the focus distance. The limits of the “in fo-
cus” area are displayed in the camera’s field of view by two parallel planes. This blur
parameter can be animated.
• Focus: when depth of field is active, this control lets you indicate the distance at which
objects are in focus and rendered sharp. As objects gradually move away from the fo-
cus distance, they will get more and more blurry. The focus distance is displayed in the
camera’s field of view by a cross. The focus parameter can be animated.
• Exposure: use this setting to vary the exposure of the scene. Positive values will make the
scene brighter, while negative values will make it darker. The exposure parameter can be
animated. The correction is expressed in diaphragms (a standard photographic unit of
measure for the aperture of the lens). +1 diaphragm means the scene is twice as bright.
Unlike a real camera, modifying the exposure has no influence on the depth of field. If
the Auto-exposure Film Settings option in the Camera Options dialog has been enabled,
this value indicates the correction of exposure that is to be applied to the exposure that
was automatically computed for the scene. You can adjust exposure after the rendering
completes in the Post Render Options dialog.
Note:
Varying the exposure is not the same as changing brightness in a post-processing pass
using settings on the Advanced Camera Options dialog. Unlike the exposure setting found
in the Light tab of Atmosphere Editor, this setting acts on the global exposure of the scene,
and not only on the intensity of the lights.

• Height: use this to set the height of the camera. Clicking the Lock icon ( ) will lock
the height of the camera above ground. If the camera is dragged over a terrain, the cam-
era will keep a fixed height above ground. Unlocking the camera will no longer keep the
camera at the locked height. Whether the camera is either locked or unlocked, you can
always move it manually in the 3D Views. The Height setting will be automatically up-
dated accordingly. Right-clicking on the Height icon, displays a menu with the options
to ignore terrains, plants, and objects. You can select any, none or all to modify how the
camera remains locked into position as it moves over the terrain. For example, if you
select to ignore all three (object, plants, and terrains), the camera will be locked to the
ground or any other infinite plane).
• Orthogonal projection: select this to switch between perspective and orthogonal pro-
jection. In orthogonal projection, several camera parameters are greyed out because
they are ignored: Focal length, FoV. Instead, the size of the objects are dependent of

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the orthogonal zoom, which can be modified using the mouse scroll-wheel. Orthogonal
zoom is equal to the inverse of the projection plane width.
Note:

Move camera back/forth ( ) does not affect scaling as in perspective projection. How-
ever, it moves the clipping plane at which the render begins, allowing render of interior
scenes with orthogonal projection.
• Always keep level: if toggled, this option instructs VUE to make sure that the camera
is always horizontal, resulting in a horizontal horizon. If (and only if) you deselect this
option, you can add roll to the camera. This can energize pictures on occasion. However,
for general purposes, we recommend that you leave this option on.
• Lock camera attributes: This lock prevents you from selecting the camera in the
World Browser and changing any of the camera’s settings or Object Properties. All set-
tings for this camera are then protected from accidental change including animation
keyframes. This lock can be toggled off. The Advanced Camera Options window is still
available if you need to make changes.
• Backdrop: click this icon to load a backdrop image or animation into the background
of the camera. Backdrop images or animations will appear behind all objects and will re-
place the sky. When you click this icon, the Camera Backdrop Options dialog will appear,
letting you load the desired backdrop image or animation.
• Switch to target: click this icon to switch selection to the camera’s target – see below.

Camera Target

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Properties of Camera Target

The camera target is a little box attached to the front of each camera and to which the camera
is connected in view ports by a dotted line. This dotted line joining the camera and its target
always represents the direction the camera is pointing at. If you move the target, the camera
orientation will be adjusted accordingly. This is a very useful and intuitive way to adjust camera
orientation without having to tackle rotation angles. The length of the dotted line represents
the focus distance of the camera. By moving the target away from the camera, you can adjust
the focus distance graphically without having to enter numeric values.

Selection and Visibility

To select a camera’s target, select the camera and click on its target object in the 3D Views or click
the Switch to target icon ( ) in the Aspect tab of the Object Properties panel. Once selected,
you can switch back to its owner camera by clicking the Switch to camera icon button in the
attributes tab of the Object Properties panel.

You might have noticed that the target object becomes visible only when you select its camera
owner. There is an option to make the target always visible, even when the camera isn’t se-
lected. To do this, select the camera target, and check the Always visible option in the Aspect
tab of the Object Properties panel. When you deselect the camera, its target will remain visible.

Focusing on Objects
An interesting aspect of camera targets is that you can use them to Focus on any given object
in your scene. Select the camera target and pick an object in the Focus on drop-down list box.
From now on, the camera will always be focusing on this object.

You can also select the object in focus by using the Pick object icon ( ) and then clicking on
the desired object (or on an empty space to remove the connection). Focusing on an object
does not affect the orientation of the camera, just its focus distance.

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Camera Backdrop Options

Camera Backdrop Options

This little dialog lets you load a picture or an animation into the background of the camera, to
be shown as backdrop where no other object is visible. This dialog is accessed by clicking the
Backdrop icon ( ) in the Object Properties panel, when the camera is selected.

To setup a backdrop for your camera, simply check the Use backdrop option. The other con-
trols in the dialog become accessible:

Click the Load icon ( ) to open the Picture Browser and load the image to be used as a back-
drop. You can use any image, sequence of images or animation. You can even use different
backdrops for different cameras. If you want to use a sequence of images, click the Browse
File icon ( ) in the Picture Browser to display a Standard File Browser and select all the im-
ages in the sequence.

If you load a sequence of images, or an animation, the Animated backdrop options icon ( )
will appear under the picture preview. Click this icon to access the backdrop animation settings.

If you need to rotate the picture, use the and buttons (90° increments). To invert the
colors in the picture, click the Invert button ( ). Click on the Remove button ( ) to delete
the picture or animation.

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Override atmosphere: If this option is unchecked, the backdrop will render, ignoring the atmo-
sphere completely. However, if checked, the atmosphere renders on top of the camera back-
drop. VUE first renders the backdrop as an “outer space” value, and then applies atmospherics
over it, making the backdrop less visible where atmosphere gets thicker (like objects fading
out in the distance through the atmosphere, or like stars fading out beyond the atmosphere).
As the atmosphere thins, the backdrop becomes more visible. Note that if you are in Environ-
ment Mapping atmosphere mode, unchecking the Override atmosphere option completely
replaces the backdrop with the environment map, since the environment map has no trans-
parency.
• Zoom factor at render: this setting lets you control the size of the image viewed in the
background of the camera. The default setting of 1 will stretch the image appropriately
so that it maps exactly to the background of the camera. Values smaller than 1 will result
in the image not filling up the entire camera background. Values greater than 1 mean
that the image will not be entirely visible in the camera background (the edges will be
cropped).
• OpenGL preview distance: when you load a camera backdrop, it will appear in the OpenGL
views. For your convenience, this control lets you adjust the distance from the camera at
which the backdrop is displayed.
• Animated OpenGL preview: if you are using an image sequence or an animation as cam-
era backdrop, this option lets you decide whether the OpenGL preview should reflect
the animation when you change current time, or if it should always use the first frame
(updating the animation can be a slow process, especially for large images or complex
animation codecs).

Advanced Camera Options

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Advanced Camera Options

Advanced Camera Options dialog

This dialog lets you adjust the post-processing options for a given camera – including adjust-
ing the exposure. Many settings in this dialog are also available and work the same as their
equivalent in the Post-Render Options dialog. Any changes made on this dialog will apply on all
renders made with this camera, whereas the settings in the Post-Render Options dialog apply
only to a given rendered picture.

Camera Preview
This picture displays a preview of the render from this camera, with the post processing effects
applied to it.

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Aspect Ratio
If you have several cameras in your scene, you can have a different aspect ratio for each camera.
You can choose the format of your picture by picking a pre-defined Aspect-ratio from the drop-
down list. Notice how the preview of the scene is updated when you change the picture’s aspect
ratio.

You can also adjust the picture’s aspect ratio using the Render Options dialog.

Picture formats drop-down list

• Pixel aspect: this setting controls the aspect ratio of individual pixels. The default value
of 1 means that the pixels are square. For systems that display images stretched, it is
necessary to use non-square pixel ratios in order to avoid any deformation in the final
image. Pixel aspect ratios smaller than 1 will result in an image that is squashed vertically
(for projection using devices that stretch images vertically when displaying them).
• Focal length: this setting controls the focal length of the camera. It is identical to the
value displayed in the Object Properties panel (see here).
• Horizontal FoV (Field of View): this setting controls the horizontal viewing angle of the
camera. It is connected to the focal length. Larger focal lengths result in smaller viewing
angles. If you are more familiar with camera FoV rather than focal length, VUE can display
the camera’s horizontal FoV instead of its focal length in the Object Properties panel (dis-
able the Show camera FoV as Focal length checkbox in the Options dialog. If you modify
the value of the Horizontal FoV, the camera’s focal length will be adjusted accordingly, as
well as the Vertical FoV.

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• Vertical FoV (Field of View): this setting controls the vertical viewing angle of the camera.
It is connected to the focal length parameter, as well as the pixel aspect ratio (see above).
Larger focal lengths result in smaller viewing angles. If you modify the value of the Verti-
cal FoV, the camera’s focal length will be adjusted accordingly, as well as the Horizontal
FoV. If you modify the pixel aspect ratio, the Vertical FoV will be changed accordingly.
• Lens aberrations: this setting controls the percentage of lens aberration in the camera.
In an ideal optical system, all rays of light from a point in the object plane would con-
verge to the same point in the image plane, forming a clear image. The influences which
cause different rays to converge to different points are called aberrations. Negative val-
ues translate into pin cushion distortion, whereas positive values translate into barrel
distortions.

Barrel distortion (+80%)

no aberration (0%)

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pin cushion distortion (-80%)

Lens aberrations
• Horizontal and Vertical Film offset: These settings controls the Film offset of the cam-
era. Use the sliders to set the film offsets vertically and horizontally. Vertical file offset
positive shifts the image down. Horizontal film offset positive shifts the image left. This
movement can be animated.

Panoramic View
Real panoramic cameras are fixed to a handle that you have to hold when you take the shot. As
it takes the shot, the camera rotates around the handle, thus embracing any required angle of
view. Panoramic views can yield beautiful results.

This option is a numerical equivalent to the real panoramic camera. Here also, the camera is
rotated as the render engine makes progress. All-around panoramas can be achieved this way,
but beware: if the camera is not perfectly horizontal when you take the shot, the horizon will
undulate. This is not a numerical artifact: it happens also in the real world!

Undulating horizon due to an unlevel panoramic camera

When you select this option, the panoramic H Angle slider becomes available, letting you de-
cide on the horizontal angle swept by the camera as it rotates.

The Spherical render option also becomes available when you activate Panoramic rendering.
When you select this option, the scene will be rendered on a sphere (instead of being rendered
on a cylinder). You can adjust the vertical angle swept by the camera using the V Angle setting.
Spherical renders can be used, for example, for the rendering of an environment map. When
this option is activated, the picture’s aspect ratio is determined by the ratio of horizontal vs.

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vertical angles.

Because this option is only available when rendering to screen or to disk (see Render Options
dialog – Panoramic View), activating panoramic rendering will automatically activate rendering
to screen if it isn’t already the case. You can also adjust the picture’s panoramic settings using
the Render Options dialog.

Non photo­Realistic rendering

VUE contains settings to create Non-Photorealistic Renders with effects like “Toon”, “Drawing”,
“Sketch”, etc. These settings are also available on the Post Render Options dialog as well as
from the top tool bar on VUE’s main window.

This option must be checked here to be functional on the Post Render Options panel.

Film Settings
See the corresponding documentation in the Post Render Options: Film Settings section.

Lens Glare
See the corresponding documentation in the Post Render Options: Lens Glare section.

Motion Blur Length

This simple control lets you adjust the amount of motion blur displayed in your render. Of
course, the actual amount of motion blur depends on the speed of the moving objects, but this
setting lets you adjust the overall amount of motion blur. It is somewhat similar to the shutter
speed (because the length of the motion blur depends on the distance traveled by the moving
objects over the duration of the exposure).

Post Processing
See the corresponding documentation in the Post Render Options: Post Processing section.

The Post processing applies to all cameras option is checked by default, meaning that all
cameras in the scene will use the same post-processing settings. If you deselect this option,
you can assign different post processing settings to all your cameras. This can yield particularly
interesting results when used in conjunction with the Camera Switcher.

This parameter can be animated.

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Camera Manager

Camera Manager panel

The Camera Manager is a very simple dialog that lets you name, select and delete cameras. To
access this dialog, do one of the following:
• select the camera and click the Manage cameras... icon ( ) from the Aspect tab of the
Object Properties panel, or
• select the Manage Cameras menu command from the popup menu that appears when
you long-click the Store camera icon ( ) in the Camera Control Center.
When this dialog appears, it displays all of the cameras currently available in the scene:
• Double-click on a camera in the list to rename it.
• Click the Add camera icon to add a new camera. You can then rename it to whatever you
wish.
• Click the Load camera icon to load a camera that has been previously saved as a .vob.
• Click the Save camera icon to save the highlighted camera as a .vob file.
• Click the Delete camera icon to delete the camera from the list and the scene.
You can also do a copy/paste of a camera in the World Browser to quickly create a new camera.
You can switch between the two by double-clicking the camera name you want to use. These
cameras will then also show up in the Camera Manager list as well.

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Rendering
Once you are satisfied with the framing of your scene, click on the Render icon ( ) on the top
toolbar to start rendering the picture.

Rendering is an extremely complex (and time-consuming) process by which the computer con-
verts the 3D geometrical description of the scene into a 2D picture you can look at.

With VUE, the Render settings have been slightly adjusted to increase the anti-aliasing thresh-
old and to add a bit of texture filtering which will improve overall render quality. This is avail-
able from Broadcast quality on up. It may increase render times slightly, however.

The Render icon is a double action icon. If you activate the icon’s alternate action, the Render
Options dialog will pop-up.

Bucket Rendering

Bucket rendering is a new way of organizing the rendering process that maximizes spacial cor-
relation of scene geometry. The size of the buckets is automatically adapted to the overall
render size (smaller buckets for small renders). This provides significant improvements when
handling billion-polygon scenes, and results in a better optimization of memory resources as
well as improved rendering speed.

Render Options

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The Render Options dialog customizes the render engine

Because this dialog gives you full control over the render engine, it might look daunting at first
sight. Don’t worry though, you’ll rapidly grow to understand the meaning of each setting. Be-
sides, all the controls are not activated at the same time.

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Preset Render Settings

On the top left corner of the dialog is a list of Preset render settings. These are predefined
settings, useful because they let you quickly switch between whole groups of features. As you
change render settings, notice how the render quality checkboxes are modified. These are dis-
abled when you use a predefined setting. They become active if you select User settings, letting
you pick your own options.

The available render settings are:

• OpenGL: this produces a very quick render of your scene using OpenGL, with no reflec-
tion, transparency nor cast shadows. It is useful when you want to quickly check position-
ing or motion of objects in your scene. In order to generate OpenGL renders as quickly
as possible, EcoSystem instances that are sufficiently far from the camera are rendered
as billboards instead of at full geometry (initial tests for rendering EcoSystems in OpenGL
would take up to 2 hours per frame – much slower than the full-blown ray-tracing image!).
You can adjust the quality of the OpenGL render by clicking the Edit button and changing
the Quality boost. Due to issues with MacOS video drivers, mip-mapping is not available
on the Mac platform for OpenGL rendering.
• Preview: this is the default setting whenever you create a new scene. It is a good work-
ing balance between picture quality and render speed. It traces reflections, transparency
and cast shadows correctly, although it only mocks-up advanced features like soft shad-
ows, blurred reflections / transparency and depth of field. The last render pass is opti-
mized for speed, and the picture is not anti-aliased. We recommend you stick to this
mode while you work on the picture, and only switch to Final settings when you have
finished brushing up your scene.
• Final: as indicated by the name, this setting produces the final picture. It handles all
features correctly, including advanced features such as soft shadows, and applies a rea-
sonable quality anti-aliasing pass. Render times, however, are several times longer than
in Preview setting. We recommend rendering pictures in this setting only when they are
finished. If time is a critical aspect, you can use the User settings instead, and fine tune
the render settings to achieve the best balance between quality and render time.
• Broadcast: this render setting was introduced for animation purposes. Basically, it adds
motion blurring to the Final preset quality. However, it also features improved anti-aliasing
quality, representing the optimal settings (in terms of render quality vs. render time) for
rendering animations. Whenever the scene exhibits depth of field or motion blur, one
single pass Hybrid 2.5D technology is done.
• Superior: this render setting is similar to Broadcast, with adjustments made to improve
quality. Rendering with this setting is done in 5 Hybrid 2.5D technology passes and is
significantly slower than in Broadcast.
• Ultra: this is the best render quality available. It is also not very useful, since it takes

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several times longer to render than other settings, while not necessarily producing out-
standingly better results. Use it only when you want to render very high quality pictures,
at a not too high resolution. High DPI pictures for publishing usually render just as well
in Final quality setting. Ultra setting adds superior anti-aliasing and improved advanced
effects rendering.
• Path Tracer: a fast CPU+GPU render. Since it naturally simulates many effects that have
to be specifically set with other methods, such as soft shadows, depth of field, motion
blur, caustics, ambient occlusion, and indirect lighting, fewer settings are needed.
• User Settings: this not a preset. It grants you full access to customize the render engine
as you like, by selecting the options you want from the render option checkboxes and anti-
aliasing settings. These options will be detailed further down. The default User settings
correspond to a faster version of Final render (with less super-sampling involved).
• Load, Save: When you select the User render quality setting, two small buttons ( ) on
the right hand side of this option become available. These buttons allow you to load or
save your user settings. Pressing one of these buttons will display a Standard File Browser
letting you load or save the selected file. The User Render Settings configuration files are
stored in the Environment folder, and use the .urs extension. Files are supplied for all
default preset render settings (Preview, Broadcast...). That way you can base your own
user settings on an existing preset. You should avoid modifying any of these files.

Renderer

This option lets you select the renderer to be used for rendering the image or animation:
• Internal: select this option to use VUE’s internal renderer. This is the best for quick ren-
ders that require interactive feedback (if you render to the active camera view or the
screen, you will see the picture gradually appear on screen as it renders).
• External: when this option is selected, VUE will invoke an external rendering application
that is installed together with VUE. This application will take care of the rendering. Be-
cause it is a separate application that is entirely dedicated to rendering, it doesn’t have
to deal with all the overhead of a graphical interface, and can consequently dedicate
more memory to the actual rendering process. The caveat is that the scene has to be
sent over to the external renderer so the time it takes to actually start rendering is longer
than when using the internal renderer, and also, because rendering is done by a separate
application, you do not see the picture appear gradually on screen as it renders.
• Batch rendering: The batch rendering feature lets you schedule a number of rendering
jobs that will be processed one after the other. Batch rendering occurs when you select
the External renderer but do not select to use the network. You can also select this option
from the menu using Render | Batch render. Batch rendering is handled through the
Batch Rendering dialog.

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• Use network ( ): this option is selected when you want to use HyperVUE and a network
of RenderCows.
To configure HyperVUE, click the Edit button. Also, select this icon to make use of your net-
work RenderCows when rendering to screen or in the Main camera view. When using this mode,
rendering in VUE starts normally, without any delay. Then, while VUE is rendering, the Interac-
tive Network Rendering controller silently contacts all the render nodes on your network and
puts them to work on your scene. This happens in the background while your main computer
continues rendering. As the other computers on your network start pitching in, the rendering
accelerates. The RenderCow on the host machine is not used in this render as the program on
the host machine is being used. You need to have your RenderCows added in HyperVUE before
using this render method.

When you configure your external renderer to use network rendering, the picture will automat-
ically be divided up into sections. The HyperVUE™ Network Rendering Manager will then assign
each section to a RenderCow™. The network manager collects the resulting picture fragments
and reassembles them into the final picture. When you press OK to begin rendering, the scene
is added to the list of queued jobs.
• RenderNode Network: select this option to use a separate renderfarm administration
tool and split the render load across a network of RenderNodes. Click the Edit button to
access the Rendernode Network Options.
Note:

avoid using network rendering for quick renders, because the overhead of managing the render
nodes and communicating over the network may actually result in longer render times. Use the
internal renderer instead.

Please refer to here for details on the difference between RenderCows and RenderNodes and
the Rendernode Network Options dialog.

Render Destination

This lets you decide whether you want the picture to be rendered inside the Main camera view
(the picture resolution will be that of the 3D view), if the picture should be rendered into a stand
alone window, or if the picture should be rendered to disk.
• Render in active camera view: the picture will be rendered in the Main camera view, and
the size of the picture will be that of the view.
• Render to screen: rendering will be done in a separate window that will appear when you
start rendering (you will have to indicate the resolution of the picture). You can also save
both the depth channel and the alpha channel renders when the render has finished. Pre-
vious renders are also displayed with the Render to Screen option. Renders are stacked;
this means that they are saved and can be used for comparison or further editing (with

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Post Render Options). These are displayed on the Render Display window along with
the current render.
• Render off screen: selecting this option instructs the render engine to save the picture
as it renders, and not to display it. Saving pictures as they render is useful if you want to
render pictures much larger than your screen. Selecting this option activates the Options
button. Pressing it displays the Render to Disk Options dialog, letting you indicate which
channels of information should be saved and the name of the file that they will be saved
in. If the file already exists, VUE will ask for confirmation before starting the render.
• Save render to disk: This option is automatically checked if you select the Render off-
screen option. But it can also be checked if you are rendering to screen or the active
camera view. This automatically saves your render to disk as well as allows you to save
after your screen render has finished. Press the Options button to indicate which chan-
nels of information should be saved and the name of the file and format to save it to.
Additionally, you have the option of an Auto save your render at a preset interval. You can set
the interval in minutes for the auto save. You might want to do this so that you don’t lose the
entire render if your computer loses power (for example). You should be aware that auto saving
does slow the render process down a bit, so it’s probably not something you would want to do
frequently.

If you then want to save it, you will have to select the Save Displayed Picture icon on the Render
Display (farthest right icon under the rendered image). Using this method, you can also save
the other channels of information in the picture.

Render What?

Click the drop box to display the following selections:

• Everything: will render everything in your scene. This is the default.
• Only selected objects: will only render the objects that were selected at the time you
pressed render.
• Only active layers: will only render objects that are placed inside active layers.
• Only visible layers: will only render objects that are placed inside active or locked layers.
Selecting Always render lights will use all the lights defined in your scene, even if they are in
layers that shouldn’t be rendered. This guarantees the same lighting conditions for the ren-
dered objects as that of the complete scene.
• Use automatic scene hierarchy: when this option is selected, VUE will optimize your
scene so that it can be rendered faster. There are some cases, however, where optimizing
the scene manually can yield even better results than the automatic optimization – and
will save the preparation time. By unchecking this option, you will save the preparation
time while retaining your optimizations.

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• Hide infinite planes from alpha: this option will prevent infinite planes from appearing
in the alpha channel of the picture. This is useful, for instance, if you want to treat the
ground as part of the background.

G­Buffer / Multi­Pass Options

In Final or better preset render quality, select the Enable G-Buffer / Multi-Pass option to acti-
vate the collection of G-Buffer and Multi-Pass information.

Click the Edit button to open the Multi-Pass Options (G-Buffer ) dialog and select the channels
of information / rendering components / masks that you need.

If you enable G-Buffer rendering, you will have the option to save your render as a RLA or RPF
File (these file formats preserve the G-Buffer channel information).

Note:

Generating the G-Buffer or Multi-Pass/Mask information increases memory requirements when

rendering, and slows rendering down (especially if some objects have the Render occluded
field set, see here. Also, if the Force rendering of occluded objects option is selected in the
G-Buffer / Multi-Pass Options dialog), this will slow rendering down further, so you should only
select this option when you actually require the extra information.

It is not possible to generate the G-Buffer or Multi-Pass/Mask information if the Optimize last
render pass option is selected (see below). As a result, this button will be disabled in Preview
and OpenGL render presets.

Enable Diagnosis Buffer

Select this option to activate the Diagnosis Render Passes information. This generates statis-
tical information about the last render, giving access to normalized render time, anti-aliasing
amount and global illumination samples placement for each rendered pixel. This can help you
locate potential rendering bottlenecks across the image. For instance, parts that exhibit much
longer render time compared with others might indicate the need for some optimizations on
the local geometry and/or corresponding textures. Although not always possible, it is gener-
ally better to get a uniform rendering complexity over the image, especially when rendering
on multi-core computers, so the rendering change may be ideally spread among all available
processors.

The Diagnosis channels are available from the same icon on the bar above the Main camera
view (or the render to screen window) that the other buffers are. These diagnosis channels
display at the top of the menu.

These Diagnosis channels are coded in grayscale. A dark color corresponds to a low value (low
render time, low anti-aliasing amount, or no global illumination sample), while a bright color
corresponds to a high value (high render time, high anti-aliasing amount, or recorded global

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illumination sample). Pure white color indicates the maximum value across the image, thus all
channels are normalized, giving relative information.

Isolated bright values may sporadically appear across the render time channel. This can cor-
respond to internal precision errors from the involved high resolution timers used to evaluate
each pixel render time, especially on multi-core computers. These isolated bright pixels should
be ignored when considering render time issues.

The color-coded rule as well as the range of values can be hidden by using the little arrows that
are usually used to navigate through the layers of additional channels. It may be useful in case
relevant diagnosis information gets overlapped by the rule and values.
• Enable Alpha: this option activates the generation of the alpha buffer.
• Enable depth: this option activates the generation of the depth buffer.

Enable Relighting
Relighting is a rendering feature that allows for the interactive modification of individual lights
or groups of lights after render. It is possible to completely change lighting by modulating lights
intensity or applying color filters to them without the need to re-render the scene.

To enable relighting, just check this option. This option is available for render quality Final and
above. After render, the Post Render Options dialog will display with individual light or groups
of lights controls, allowing you to tweak their intensity and to apply color filters to them.

By default, the relighting result will be displayed interactively in the little render preview of the
dialog, but you can also enable the Full interactive display option on the Post Render Options
dialog and see the full render display be updated during your changes. This option is also com-
patible with all other post render options like natural film response, automatic and manual
camera exposure, and camera post processing effects. Furthermore, automatic exposure will
be automatically adjusted according to your relighting settings, to consistently compensate for
potential brightening or darkening of the render.

Relighting capabilities are compatible with almost all lighting features of the renderer: direct
lighting, global illumination, atmospherics, physical caustics, volumetric lights, volumetric ma-
terials, subsurface scattering, reflections, refractions, lens flares and automatic exposure. The
Ambient lighting contribution is also calculated and can be adjusted separately in the Post Ren-
der Options dialog. The only components that aren’t affected by relighting are glow effects.

Just like the GBuffer and Multipass features, relighting isn’t compatible with the Optimize last
render pass render option, so this option must be disabled to be able to use relighting.

Relighting is also incompatible with Hybrid 2.5D effects; only distributed raytracing can be
used.

For large renders with a lot of lights, or if lens glare is enabled, full interactive display can be-

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come too slow to be practical. In that case, it is recommended to just disable that feature and
work with the little render preview in the Post Render Options dialog.

Any light that is switched off before render (using the Hide from render option) won’t be ac-
cessible for relighting. Thus, all lights you plan to use for relighting must be enabled before
rendering, and with a non black color so VUE can extract the proper lighting information dur-
ing render.

VUE automatically defines relighting groups of lights depending on the first level of the scene
hierarchy. All lights having a common parent group object will be gathered into the same re-
lighting entry. Therefore, group your lights according to your needs for relighting, to avoid the
need of tweaking each light independently, which can be a long task if the scene contains many
lights. Consequently, any light that isn’t part of any group will correspond to a separate relight-
ing entry.

Render Quality

The checkboxes in this group let you decide in detail what the render engine should trace, or
not trace:
• Apply materials: deselecting this will replace object materials with uniform colors.
• Enable sub-rays: deselecting this disables tracing of any secondary rays (reflection, trans-
parency or cast shadows).
• Trace cast shadows: selecting this is necessary, together with Enable sub-rays if you
want cast shadows in your picture.
• Trace reflections: selecting this is necessary, together with Enable sub-rays, if you want
reflections in your picture.
• Trace transparency: selecting this is necessary, together with Enable sub-rays, if you
want transparency in your picture. Alongside the Trace reflections and Trace transparency
options is a button labeled Edit. This button (only enabled when in “User” preset render
quality) opens the Sub-Ray Options dialog to let you customize the ray recursion levels.
• Enable super-sampling: deselecting this disables any advanced features, such as soft
shadows, blurred transparencies and reflections, or depth of field.
• Soft shadows: selecting this, together with Enable sub-rays, Trace cast shadows and En-
able super-sampling will render soft shadows where applicable.
• Blurred reflections: selecting this, together with Enable sub-rays, Trace reflections and
Enable super-sampling will render blurred reflections where applicable.
• Blurred transparencies: selecting this, together with Enable sub-rays, Trace transparency
and Enable super-sampling will render blurred transparencies where applicable.

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• Depth of field: selecting this, together with Enable super-sampling will render depth of
field if some has been given to the camera.
• Enable motion blurring: selecting this option turns motion blurring on.
Note:
Memory requirements to render the scene increase considerably.
Alongside the Depth of field and Motion blurring options is a button labeled Edit. This
button (only enabled when in User preset render quality) opens the Blur Rendering Op-
tions dialog to let you customize the blur rendering process.
• Optimize last render pass: selecting this will optimize the last render pass, making ren-
der up to 3 times faster, but leaving out minuscule details on occasion. You cannot gen-
erate G-Buffer information in this mode.
• Apply motion blur to object deformation: check this option if you would like the defor-
mation of objects to appear with motion blur. For instance, when a plant is deformed by
wind, the movement of the plant won’t be blurred unless you select this option. While
activating this option increases the quality of animations, be advised that it will dramati-
cally increase the memory requirements when rendering objects with deformation. This
setting is only applicable to objects that can be deformed (plants, terrains and animated
meshes), and is of course only available when motion blurring is enabled. It increases
significantly the amount of RAM required to render the scene.
• Compute physically accurate caustics: when this option is selected, realistic caustics
are computed for the scene, including spectrum dispersion.
Note:
Computing realistic caustics adds a significant overhead to the rendering of the scene.
If you don’t select this option, caustics will be approximated using the much faster Fake
caustics. Fake caustics, however, do not capture the effects caused by light bouncing off
of reflective surfaces.
• Force use of reflection map: select this option to force all reflective materials to use
reflection maps, regardless of their respective reflection map settings. If no reflection
map was used for a material, it will use the default reflection map.
Note:
This option doesn’t modify the original materials; material settings will still indicate the
use of true ray-traced reflections. It is only at the time of rendering that reflection maps
will be used instead.
• Ignore indirect lighting on plants: because of the inherent complexity of plant geome-
try, rendering of indirect lighting on plants is extremely time consuming while not neces-
sarily producing noticeably better results. This option lets you disable the computation
of indirect lighting on plants altogether (however, the plant will still participate in the
indirect lighting solution, e.g. by casting a dark shadow area beneath it).

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• Progressive refinement (was called tile rendering before): This option is available in
the User mode when Object anti-aliasing is disabled. Select this option to force the ren-
dering engine to render the picture in tiles that get smaller and smaller as the render pro-
gresses. When this option is not selected, the rendering is done by the bucket renderer.
This is the most efficient method of rendering.
The advantage of Progressive refinement is that you get a better overall impression of the pic-
ture right from the early stages of rendering. However, Progressive refinement may render the
picture slower and requires large amounts of memory.

Advanced Effects Quality

• Advanced effects quality: this setting controls the overall quality of all the advanced
rendering effects in the scene (e.g. volumetric lights, global illumination, procedural ter-
rain, soft shadows, displacement mapping, etc.). The * Edit: button is accessible for all
preset render modes, in order to get access to the Optimize indirect lighting on plants
option. Of course, when not in User mode, only this option will be available, all the oth-
ers (custom GI & photon map settings) will be grayed out.If you find that all the advanced
rendering effects are rendered with artifacts (noise, splotches…), you can reduce these
artifacts either by boosting the quality of each effect independently, or by increasing the
quality globally using this slider.
Click the Edit button to open the Advanced Effects Options and gain advanced control over the
rendering process.

Anti­Aliasing

Anti-aliasing options are automatically adjusted in the various preset render settings (see above).
In the User render setting, however, you can control anti-aliasing options manually.

In addition to the standard Object anti-aliasing, VUE offers the possibility to use Texture anti-
aliasing, for both bitmap and procedural textures.
• Object anti-aliasing: takes care of anti-aliasing in the geometry.
• Texture anti-aliasing: takes care of anti-aliasing in the textures.
The object and texture anti-aliasing are adjusted using the Anti-Aliasing Options dialog. This
dialog is accessed by clicking the Edit button.
• Energy Conservative: This preserves bright details while limiting the amount of anti-
aliasing needed to get a smooth rendered picture. Enabling this option is recommended
whenever the rendered picture contains very small bright details like narrow specular
highlights or sun reflections over a perturbed water surface, especially in photometric
lighting mode, which produces very high intensity variations between shadowed and lit
areas.

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• Anti-alias Z-Depth: Check this option to enable this form of anti-aliasing. Object anti-
aliasing also needs to be enabled to access this feature, since depth anti-aliasing is per-
formed in the same way as for color and alpha channels for consistency.
Note:
Depth anti-aliasing can produce undesirable effects depending on how z-depth informa-
tion is used. When this option is disabled, VUE records the closest hit element distance
within each rendered pixel. When enabled, all hit distances are averaged. This can lead to
a resulting distance that doesn’t correspond to any actually hit geometry. For example,
when averaging a distance to a background mountain with a distance to a foreground
object, resulting distance is between them effectively corresponding to none of them.
Despite this incorrect result, depth anti-aliasing can be useful when using z-depth infor-
mation in third-party post effect plugins (for depth of field simulation, for example), to
avoid aliasing artifacts around objects.
• Use GPU anti-aliasing: Since this can, in some instances, increase render times, it is
now an option you can change on a per-render basis. GPU anti-aliasing is not compat-
ible with Standalone rendering since this type of rendering doesn’t directly interact with
any OpenGL processing. This is a technology that only work on meshes, and it allows
to have a better anti aliasing on meshes with thin details such as cables or wires. Using
this feature may slow down rendering in certain situations where, for example, you have
a large mesh hidden behind another mesh. Both meshes would be sent to the graphics
card. Regular raytracing would stop the rays at the mesh in front.
Background draw also has to be enabled for this feature to work.

Indirect Lighting Solution

Re­use indirect lighting

When the Re-use indirect lighting box is selected, the radiosity calculation will not be per-
formed again at the time of rendering. Instead, the last calculation will be re-used, and any
subsequent lighting information gathered from further renderings will be added, appending
new indirect lighting data to it at each new render, whenever needed.

This great improvement is especially useful for walk-through animations, where the camera
progressively discovers new parts of a scene while moving throught it. Indeed, illumination
caching will just compute any missing information at each frame, while reusing previous cal-
culations wherever possible, significantly reducing render times while also reducing flickering
artifacts.

Obviously, if the lighting conditions have changed, or if significant changes have been made
to the scene, the radiosity calculation may no longer be accurate. To update the calculation,
press the Update Indirect Lighting Next Time icon ( ), or select the menu command Render

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| Update Indirect Lighting Next Time. This will update the indirect lighting the next time you
render so that it matches any changes made to the scene.

Deterministic indirect lighting

When the Deterministic indirect lighting box is selected, the radiosity solution will be guaran-
teed to be identical each time the scene is rendered, as long as it remains unchanged. Without
this option, the renderer can produce slight localized radiosity changes from one render to the
other, as soon as multi-threaded rendering is performed, due to concurrent accesses to the
radiosity solution, which is shared between all rendering threads.

Note:

Activating this option can slow the rendering down, depending on scene content. The perfor-
mance loss is mainly due to convex specular objects, that can indirectly reveal large areas of
the scene through reflections. When Deterministic indirect lighting is enabled, these indi-
rectly seen areas will have their radiosity solution re-computed by all rendering threads inde-
pendently, while being concurrently updated by all rendering threads if disabled. It is thus
recommended to activate this option only when radiosity solution determinism is mandatory.

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Picture Size and Resolution

Picture formats drop-down list

You can choose the format of your picture by picking a pre-defined Aspect-ratio from the drop-
down list. If no pre-defined aspect-ratio is suitable, select Free (user defined) and then type
the size of your picture in the two Other boxes. You can also adjust the picture’s aspect ratio
using the Advanced Camera Options dialog.

A set of 6 boxes below the aspect-ratio list lets you select standard picture resolutions.

Alternately, you can enter any other resolution using the two boxes in the group called Other.
If you have selected a pre-defined aspect-ratio, the vertical and horizontal resolutions of your
picture will be linked together. These boxes are only available if you are rendering the picture
to screen, since, if you render inside the main 3D View, the resolution of the picture is defined
by that of the view. Selecting Full screen guarantees the biggest possible resolution that fits
inside your current display.

Once you change the aspect ratio, you may notice two gray stripes in the active camera view.
They are here to show you the limits of the picture in the selected format, and help you optimize

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framing.

The Units drop-down list lets you select the units you want to work with. If you are planning
to print the picture, you probably will want to switch to inches or centimeters. In this case,
the DPI (Dots Per Inch) box becomes active, and you can enter the required DPI setting for the
generated picture.

DPI (Dots Per Inch) indicate the number of pixels per inch in the picture once it is printed on
paper (i.e. the definition of the picture). What you need to understand is that the only way
to increase the number of DPI of a picture without reducing its size on paper, is to increase its
resolution. It is of general acceptance that, for professional work, 300 DPI is a good compromise
between definition of the printed picture, and size of the render. 240 DPI is probably enough
for standard use. Select the required number of DPI for your picture (usual values are in the
drop-down list but you can enter any value). The default is 72 DPI, which is the definition for
screen viewing.

Note:

Changing DPI without changing the resolution of the image has no effect on the screen display
size or quality of the finished image. The DPI setting is only made available as a convenience
for those wishing to print.

Locking User Defined Aspect Ratio

If you select Free (user defined) as an aspect ratio, and enter a picture size in the Other (size)
field, you have the option of locking this ratio. If you later change the width, the height will
change automatically preserving that aspect ratio.

Add Information Strip

Render Information Strip dialog

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This is an information strip that displays at the bottom of an image rendered to screen or in any
of the viewports. It can display a combination of the scene name, frame number, render time,
image resolution and poly count. Select which items to display by clicking on the Edit button
on the right.

When rendering to screen, the information strip can be toggled on or off.

If you wish to save this information, you have two options when saving the render. On the
Save As dialog, you have the option of adding this strip to the image itself, or you can save it
into a log file. This log file can be found in your render destination directory with the name
imagename.log .

Panoramic View

Panoramic render menu

This option is available only when Render to screen or Render to disk is selected.

Panoramic rendering contains both real panoramic and mapping such as cube mapping. The
maps type were before only available in atmosphere export and ca now be used for any render.

Different layout of cube map have been added,VUE Legacy being the old VUE setting.

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Layout of Cube Maps

To handle the Panoramic rendering, two presets called 180 and 360 degrees Virtual Reality
panorama are available. Custom preset can be used to tweak settings individually. Panorama
static images exported as JPEG are now automatically recognized by Facebook as Panorama.
When rendering a 360° animation and exporting it as .mp4 or .mov, VUE will automatically add
a piece of metadata in the video file to make video-reading software (e.g. youtube) recognize
the video as a 360° video, and display it as such.

Panoramic render custom settings

When setting a camera to the Panoramic View mode and the camera is not perfectly horizontal,
VUE will ask whether the user wants to level the camera. This is because panoramic renders are
highly distorted when the camera is not horizontal and this is not a common use case.

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Stereoscopic rendering

Stereoscopic render settings

Stereoscopic rendering allows the production of two images simultaneously, one as seen through
the viewer’s left eye and one seen through the right eye. The distance between the eyes (called
Interpupillary Distance, is set to a value of 6.4 cm by default) can be reset as required by the
individual user. The layout of where each of the renders appear in the final image can also be
set: either one on top of the other (Top-Bottom) or one adjacent to the other (Side by side). If
you export a 360° panoramic stereo animation as mp4 or mov, the metadata embedded in the
file should also help a player, such as YouTube, to interpret it as stereoscopic video. YouTube
needs the Top-Bottom layout.

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Convergence modes

Stereoscopic convergence modes

Note:

In the case of Panoramic rendering, only the Parallel convergence mode is available.

There are three convergence modes available and the “Stereoscopic convergence modes” im-
age helps to understand the difference between the three. These modes mainly differ on how
the Parallax Effect is handled. Parallax effect helps the human brain understand how far objects
are away from the viewer. Objects located at parallax depth will end up in the same position
on both eye image. Objects in front will usually be offset on the left on the right eye image (and
vice-versa) and thus be interpreted as closer by the brain and would usually give the feeling
of being in front of the displaying device. In VUE, parallax depth can be set either to the same
distance as the focus plane (this is the default behavior because our vision usually focuses and
converges at the point of interest) or any value.
• Parallel convergence mode simply places the two cameras offset by the interpupillary
distance but aligned. This mode behaves the same as the two others with infinite Parallax

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Depth, this means that every object is subject to the 3D effect to a greater or lesser degree.
• Convergered mode rotates the camera toward the convergence point. In this mode, the
zero parallax plane does not exist, instead there is a zero parallax vertical line where the
two parallax depth planes intersect. Essentially this equates to the focal distance/point.
• Off-axis off axis convergence mode uses a film offset to keep a zero parallax plane and
to make sure there is no horizontal offset (in the objects in the frame) at the zero parallax
depth. Since this mode is the most natural one, this is the default behavior.

Render Area

This option lets you select a rectangular area in the picture outside of which the picture won’t
be rendered. You can also select a render area using the main menu command Render | Select
Render Area and then drawing the render area with the mouse.

The render area can be moved by hovering the mouse near its border. Scaling the rectangle is
enabled by grabbing any corner point or edge mid-point.

The usual scaling modifiers can also be used:

• to rescale the area around its center instead of the grabbed handle, use the Change Scal-
ing Pivot modifier (default: Alt),
• to rescale the area by keeping its aspect ratio, use the Resize Globally modifier (default:
Shift).
When you select this option, the render area controls become available:
• Position: these two settings let you define the top-left corner of the area to be rendered
(in pixels).
• Size: these two settings indicate the width and height of the render area (in pixels).
• Render blow-up: this option is only available when rendering to screen or to disk. When
it is selected, the render area will be rendered at the size of the picture indicated in the
Picture size and resolution group. If it is not selected, the picture will be rendered at the
exact size indicated. This option is useful when you want to render a close-up of a detail
in your picture.
This render area can be locked by using the Lock Render Area option on the contextual menu.
This will protect the selected area from mouse movements, allowing you to keep the setting
while still working on the scene.

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Rendering the Selected Render Area

When rendering, either in the viewports or to screen, you have the option of rendering just a
selected area of the image. This is useful if you are working on a small area and you want to
concentrate on just that area. Using the Render blow-up setting on the Render Options panel,
you can enlarge this selected render area when rendering to screen. The Select render area
does not work for animations and does not work with rendernodes. This feature is for stills
only.

You can also opt to save a render of the full size image, with just the selected area rendered.
For example, you have selected to render the lower right quarter of the image. After the render
finishes, click to save, and on the Save As screen, there is an option to Save full size image. The
image that is saved will be the rendered lower quarter of the image; the rest of the image will
be black. This option is useful if you are planning to render a picture in sections, then overlay
for the finished image.

Memory Optimization

• Clear OpenGL before rendering: when this option is selected, VUE will clear all OpenGL
data and buffers in order to free up as much memory as possible for rendering. Depend-
ing on the complexity of the scene, this may free up a significant amount of memory for
rendering. The drawback of enabling this option is that VUE will have to regenerate all
OpenGL data after rendering, which can delay the refreshing of the views.

Closing the Dialog

Click OK to accept the changes and close the dialog. Click Cancel to cancel the changes.

To accept the changes and render the picture with the new settings, click the Render button.

If you have interrupted a render in progress, the Resume render button will be active. Click on
this button to resume rendering the picture.

Note:

Any changes to the render quality will make resuming a render impossible.

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G­Buffer Multi­Pass Options

G-Buffer and Multi-Pass Options dialog

To access this dialog, open the Render Options dialog and press the Edit button alongside the
G-Buffer and Multi-Pass options or go to the Animation Render Options dialog and press the
G-Buffer / Multi-Pass Options button.

This dialog is separated in two frames. The first frame controls the G-Buffer rendering options,
while the second deals with Multi-Pass rendering.

G­Buffer

Check the Generate G-Buffer option to enable the creation of G-Buffer information. When this
option is selected, the controls in the G-Buffer frame become active.

There are two groups of controls in this frame, Rendering and Channels.

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Rendering
You can activate two G-Buffer rendering features:

Force render occluded objects: if checked, every region occluded by objects will be rendered
in the G-Buffer. This allows for the possibility to remove objects from rendering during a post-
processing phase or, for instance, to perform accurate motion blur effects without any missing
information issues.

Note:

you can activate rendering of occluded regions on a per object basis using the Object Properties
panel, Aspect tab. This is recommended, as rendering occluded regions slows rendering down
significantly.

Generate all anti-aliasing layers: if checked, anti-aliasing information will be segregated from
rendering information and place onto separate layers. This can be useful in addition to the
previous feature for extremely accurate object removals in the post-processing phase.

Channels
The G-Buffer is organized in a potentially unlimited number of layers. Each layer contains a
number of channels of information.

All G-Buffer channels are supported in VUE. Here is the list of the different channels available:
• Z Depth: a floating point value representing the distance to the fragment.
• Material ID: an integer value that uniquely identifies the material assigned to the object
hit in this fragment.
• Layer ID: an integer value that identifies the VUE layer that the object belongs to (see the
description of Layers in the World Browser for details).
• Normals: an integer value representing the compressed normal vector to the surface of
the fragment. This vector is stored in camera view space.
• Render ID: an integer value that uniquely identifies the object hit in this fragment.
• Color: 3 bytes representing the RGB color values of the fragment (after it is clamped to
the visible spectrum).
• Velocity: two floating point values representing the velocity vector of the fragment in
screen coordinates.
• UV coordinates: a pair of floating point values in the range of 0 through 1 representing
the U and V coordinates of the textures mapped on the fragment.
• Non clamped colors: 4 bytes representing a Ward’s Shared Exponent Format encoded
color. This is the color that was actually rendered before it was clamped to the visible

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spectrum.
• Sub-pixel coverage: a byte representing the percentage of the pixel covered by this frag-
ment (255 meaning 100% coverage).
• Transparency: 3 bytes representing the RGB color values of the filtering applied to all
fragments behind this fragment.
• Sub-pixel weight: 3 bytes representing the actual contribution of this fragment to the
final pixel color (it takes transparency of all preceding fragments and this fragment’s cov-
erage into account). The final pixel color is the sum of all fragment colors multiplied by
their respective sub-pixel weights.
• Sub-pixel mask: a 16 bit integer representing a 4 × 4 grid that indicates the portions of
the pixel that are covered by the fragment.
You can specify which channels should be generated in the G-Buffer. If you don’t want to gen-
erate them all, simply check the ones that are to be generated. Click the Save to Disk box to
save the GBuffer.

Saving Pictures as RLA or RPF Files

If you have already rendered a picture (with G-Buffer information enabled) and would like to
save the contents of the G-Buffer in a RPF multi-channel file, use any of the methods listed
in the Exporting Pictures section below. You can also save the information using the RLA file
format, but not all channels of information will be available.

If you want to save the G-Buffer information to file at the time of rendering, choose Render to
disk in the Render destination field of the Render Options dialog, and click the Options but-
ton. Next to color picture name, click the Browse button and choose the Run-Length Encoded
(*.rla) or Rich Pixel Format (*.rpf) picture formats. G-Buffer generation will automatically be
checked for you if it wasn’t already done, so all you have to do is edit the G-Buffer Options if
needed. Then launch rendering and the result will be saved in the RLA or RPF file that you spec-
ified.

Note:

you won’t be able to save in RLA or RPF file format if you didn’t generate G-Buffer information
during the last render. If so, then you will have to re-render your scene after activating G-Buffer
information generation. You cannot save in RLA or RPF file format a picture rendered with the
Optimize last render pass option set because it isn’t possible to generate G-Buffer information
in this case.

Saving Animations as RLA or RPF Files

In order to save an animation as a series of RLA or RPF files (one for each frame), choose the
Run-Length Encoded (*.rla) or Rich Pixel Format (*.rpf) animation formats in the Advanced
Animation Options (click Browse button of color channel) and launch the rendering of the ani-

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mation.

Note:

the limitation on optimizing the last render pass (detailed above) also applies to the generation
of G-Buffer information for animations.

Multi­Pass

Check the Generate Multi-Pass Buffer option to enable the creation of the Multi-Pass informa-
tion. When this option is selected, the controls in the Multi-Pass frame become active. Simply
add a check along each one of the layers/masks you would like VUE to generate. If you select a
category, all the layers/masks of this category will be generated. To rename individual render
passes click on the object pass that you want to rename and enter in the new name.

Note:

The more layers/masks you generate, the more system resources will be necessary to perform
the rendering.

The Apply exposure to multi-pass layers option allows you to apply the render exposure
(which combines the camera exposure and the automatic exposure) to relevant multi-pass lay-
ers, that is to the render components. This is allowed because exposure is a linear operation,
thus still allowing a proper compositing of individually exposed layers without biasing the fi-
nal result. When enabled, render exposure will be dynamically applied to multi-pass render
components upon display and saving to disk. This is useful with HDR pictures, especially in
photometric lighting mode.

Rendering Components
VUE’s multi-pass rendering engine is capable of separating the following render information:
• Diffuse: this component contains the colors caused by light diffused by the surface of
the object in all directions; it is saved as a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop docu-
ments.
• Specular: this component contains the light reflected by the surface of objects; it is saved
as a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
• Shadows: this component contains the shadows cast by objects; it is saved as a product
layer in Photoshop documents. This corresponds to shadow applied onto geometry visi-
ble in the Diffuse pass, which doesn’t include clouds. If cloud shadows were included in
this layer, a proper reconstruction of the full render wouldn’t be possible, because mul-
tiplying diffuse pass by shadow pass would add wrong shadows onto geometry visible
through those clouds.

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• Ambient: this component contains the light created by the ambient lighting term; it is
saved as a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
• Refractions: this component contains the colors refracted through objects; it is saved as
a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
• Reflections: this component contains the colors reflected by objects; it is saved as a nor-
mal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
• Background: this component contains the background colors; it is saved as a normal (i.e.
additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
• Indirect lighting: this component contains the lighting caused by other objects in the
scene (when rendering with Global Radiosity); it is saved as a normal (i.e. additive) layer
in Photoshop documents.
• Atmosphere filter: this component, together with the Atmosphere gain component con-
tains the effects of the atmosphere on the rendering. It is necessary to hold this infor-
mation on two layers, because of a limitation in the Photoshop layer handling (no true
additive mode); this component is saved as a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop
documents.
• Atmosphere gain: this is the second half of the atmosphere effect; it is saved as a product
layer in Photoshop documents.
• Post process: this component contains the colors added in post-process (e.g. lens flares,
glow) ; it is saved as a normal (i.e. additive) layer in Photoshop documents.
Additionally, if you render an animation with the Show timecode on frames option enabled, a
Timecode layer will be added at the top of the list of layers in the Photoshop document (normal
layer).

Extra Components
On top of the above rendering components, VUE can also produce the following additional
rendering information (not part of the actual picture per se, but potentially useful when post-
processing) grouped in the Extra components category:
• Z Depth: indicates the distance to the object at this point,
• XY Normal: indicates the direction of the normal vector to the surface of the object at this
point, the X component of the vector being stored in the Red byte and the Y component
being stored in the Green byte,
• XYZ Normal: indicates the direction of the normal vector to the surface of the object at
this point in world coordinates, the X component of the vector being stored in the Red
byte, the Y component being stored in the Green byte, and the Z component being stored
in the Blue byte,
• UVW coordinates: indicates the value of the UVW texturing coordinates at this point in

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world coordinates, the U coordinate being stored in the Red byte, the V coordinate being
stored in the Green byte, and the W coordinate being stored in the Blue byte,
• Diffuse lighting: indicates the amount of diffuse lighting arriving at the surface of objects
at this point, unaffected by object colors,
• Specular lighting: indicates the amount of specular lighting hitting the surface of objects
at this point, unaffected by object colors,
• Material color: indicates the color of the object that was hit at this point, unaffected by
light,
• Object ID: produces a color coded picture that indicates the ID of the objects at each
point in the final image (this information is not anti-aliased),
• Material ID: produces a color coded picture that indicates the ID of the material at each
point in the final image (this information is not anti-aliased).
• Global alpha mask: produces a picture that is black where no object was found, white if
an object was hit at this point.
• Distance to camera plane: renders the distance from the camera to the main intersec-
tion point, but as if the intersection point is a plane perpendicular to the camera direc-
tion.
• Screen space velocity:
• World Point Position: represents the position ( in the world ) of the point seen under
each pixel. This is used by compositors in multiple ways, from scene re-lighting directly
in a compositing package (such as Nuke or After Effect), to creating quick atmosphere
effects such as ground fog. You will want to save this layer with High resolution format to
have more precision.
• Ambient Occlusion: due to technical reasons, VUE renders each frame twice (the sepa-
rate pass for ambient occlusion will be faster than the main pass). When the render is
done, you can see the separate ambient pass from the render stack/render display and
save it to disk with other multi-pass layers.

Layer Masks
The layer masks category lets you create a mask for all objects that are placed in a given layer. If
you unfold the layer mask category, you will see one line for each one of the layers in the scene.

Layer masks create color and an alpha image that are designed to work together. The alpha im-
age appears white where objects from the selected layer are directly visible in the final picture,
black elsewhere. Layer masks are fully anti-aliased.

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Object Masks
Object masks are similar to layer masks, except that they can be created for each object inde-
pendently. If you unfold the object masks category, you will see a list of all the objects in your
scene. Place a check alongside the objects for which you want VUE to generate a mask.

Object masks create color and an alpha image that are designed to work together. The alpha
image appears white where the object is directly visible in the final picture, black elsewhere.
Object masks are fully anti-aliased.

You can unfold group objects in order to access sub-parts of objects and generate masks only
for some sub-parts and not others.

Objects that have an EcoSystem material assigned to them will also appear as groups. If you
unfold the group, you will notice that you have the option to generate one mask for the actual
object and another mask for the EcoSystem population placed on that object.

Material Masks
Material masks are similar to object masks, except that they are created based on material
rather than object. If you unfold the material masks category, you will see a list of all the mate-
rials in your scene. Place a check alongside the materials for which you want VUE to generate
a mask.

Material masks create color and an alpha image that are designed to work together. The alpha
image appears white where the selected material is directly visible in the final picture, black
elsewhere. Material masks are fully anti-aliased.

You cannot generate masks for sub-materials of mixed materials.

EcoSystem Material Masks

EcoSystem material masks are similar to material masks, except that they are created based on
materials used in EcoSystem populations rather than materials used on objects in the scene. If
you unfold the EcoSystem material masks category, you will see a list of all the materials used
in the different EcoSystem populations in your scene. Place a check alongside the materials for
which you want VUE to generate a mask.

EcoSystem material masks create color and an alpha image that are designed to work together.
The alpha image appears white where the population of the selected EcoSystem material is
directly visible in the final picture, black elsewhere. EcoSystem material masks are fully anti-
aliased.

You cannot generate masks for sub-materials of mixed materials.

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Cloud Masks
You can now create masks based on the Spectral clouds in the scene.

Saving as Multi­Layer Files

Sample Multi-Layer PSD Export

If you want to save the Multi-Pass Buffer information to file at the time of rendering, select the
Save to disk option.

When this option is selected, you can either save the Multi-Pass information as separate files,
or in a convenient multi-layer image.

Multi-layer Image (pre-combined): select this option to save the Multi-Pass information as a
single PSD document.

The .exr format is also available. All components will be included as layers with the layer com-
bination mode set so that the combination of all layers produces the most similar result as the
final picture (the final picture is included on a separate layer for reference).

It is not possible to achieve a composite picture that is identical to the final render in Photoshop,
because Photoshop does not support the “Additive” layer combination mode.

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Masks are saved in the Photoshop document as both a separate layer for the mask color and a
separate channel for the mask’s alpha. The number of layers and channels in the final Photo-
shop document will be displayed alongside the “Multi-layer PSD” option.

Note:

Photoshop only supports a limited number of channels per picture (24 or 56 depending on ver-
sions). You should check how many channels are supported by your copy of Photoshop before
saving a picture with a lot of masks in it.

These files can also be saved as multi-layer .exr files. All passes are available in either 32-bit
(floating point or unsigned integer) or 16 bit (half format).

Separate files: each component/mask will be saved as a separate file. Masks will be saved as
grayscale pictures.

Select the target file, format and location for the picture(s). If you select the “Multi-layer PSD”
option, the file extension is automatically changed to .PSD. If you select the “Separate files”
option, the actual file name for each layer/mask will be built from the name you entered plus a
layer/mask identification.

High Dynamic Range: VUE generates all multi-pass renders in High Dynamic Range, including
all object, cloud and layer masks, rendering components, shadows, reflections, atmospheric
contributions, etc.

Multi-pass renders can be exported as single .exr 32 bit files or .hdr format containing all passes
stored in high dynamic range format.

Sub­Ray Options

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Sub-Ray Options dialog

You can access this dialog by pressing the Edit button alongside the Trace reflections and
Trace transparency checkboxes in the Render Options dialog (see here). At least one of these
options should be selected for the Edit button to be active.

This dialog lets you control the ray recursion level of VUE’s ray-tracing engine. In order to avoid
the ray-tracer becoming trapped in infinite inter-reflections (imagine two mirrors reflecting
themselves to infinity) we need to instruct the ray-tracing engine to stop tracing reflections
or transparencies after a certain number of recursions.

Max ray recursion depth: this setting controls the number of inter-reflections or refractions
traced by VUE. When this number is reached, VUE stops tracing reflection and refraction rays.

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The effect of ray recursion depth on the rendering of two mirrors reflecting each other: from left
to right, 2, 5, 10 and 32 ray recursion depths

Max total internal reflections: total internal reflections occur when light is trapped inside a
refractive object: a ray of light originating from inside the object hits the surface of the object
and is reflected inwards. This is typically what causes the glitter of diamonds: because of the
high index of refraction of the diamond, light gets trapped inside and only manages to escape
under very specific directions. This setting lets you control the ray recursion depth for total
internal reflections.

Blur Rendering Options

Blur Rendering Options dialog

You can access this dialog by pressing the Edit button alongside the Depth of field and Enable
motion blurring checkboxes in the Render Options dialog. At least one of these options should
be selected for the Edit button to be active.

You have several blur rendering options.

If you would like to use the Distributed ray-tracing blurring method, select the corresponding
checkbox.

For Hybrid 2.5D rendering, you have two options:

• Hybrid 2.5D

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• Fast Hybrid 2.5D

The Fast Hybrid 2.5D uses a new algorithm for depth of field generation. It is based on im-
age blur like Hybrid 2.5D but uses a faster color spreading algorithm and works in conjunction
with distributed ray tracing. Usually several passes are required to get all of the distributed
ray-tracing noise smoothed out.

Systematic object anti-aliasing is incorporated inside Fast Hybrid 2.5D. Therefore anti-aliasing
settings become linked to the depth of field settings. This means that only systematic anti-
aliasing becomes available, and the minimum number of rays per pixel becomes equal to the
number of depth of field passes (changing either of them changes both values).

Note:

Hybrid 2.5D is not compatible with network rendering, due to the way this algorithm works. The
distributed ray-tracing blurring method will be enforced when you enable network rendering.

Number of Passes

When you select either of the Hybrid 2.5 blurring method, the Number of passes setting be-
comes available. This is used to indicate the number of rendering passes used by the hybrid
2.5D blurring method. The higher the number of passes, the more accurate the result, but also
the longer the render time.

The number of passes indicates to the render engine in how many “slices” the exposure time
should be cut. The Hybrid blurring approach will then interpolate motion between each pass.
For instance, if only one pass is specified, the rendering will take place at the middle of exposure
time and the blurring will represent the entire motion covered during exposure time. If five
passes are specified, the scene will be rendered five times and blurring between each pass will
be computed progressively.

Rendering Motion blur usually requires less passes than Depth of field. Try to keep the number
of passes as small as possible, as rendering time is directly proportional to the number of passes
(10 passes will require 5 times more time than 2 passes). Suggested number of passes is 3-5 for
an average scene and 10-15 for a scene with a very shallow DOF.

As you will see, the way the render in progress is displayed is different than for distributed ray-
tracing. It is a good way of detecting the use of Hybrid 2.5D blurring effects.

If your scene does not contain any animation or any depth of field, the distributed ray-tracing
method will be used regardless of whether you selected Hybrid 2.5D. This is because the results
will be identical, but the distributed approach will render faster.

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Advanced Effects Options

Advanced Effects Options dialog

You can access this dialog by clicking the Edit button alongside the Advanced effects quality
setting in the Render Options dialog (see here). This button is only enabled if the User preset
render setting has been selected.

This dialog offers you in-depth control over the rendering of advanced effects, such as the com-
putation of indirect lighting as well as the processing of volumetric lights.

There are two tabs in this dialog:

• General: this tab takes care of general global illumination settings as well as the render-
ing of volumetric effects.
• Photon Maps: this tab grants you in-depth control over the way photon maps are gener-
ated and used.

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General Tab

• Optimize indirect lighting on plants: because of the intricate complexity of the geome-
try of typical plants, evaluation of indirect lighting on plants can be very slow. If you se-
lect this option, the processing of indirect lighting on the plants will be greatly simplified.
As a result, the evaluation will be slightly less accurate, but also a lot faster. The results
produced by the optimized evaluation are usually sufficient for rendering indirect light-
ing on plants. However, if you want perfectly accurate indirect lighting on your plants,
you will need to deselect this option.
The controls in the Custom Indirect Lighting settings let you fine tune the way indirect lighting
is evaluated in your scene. If you enable the Custom settings checkbox, the settings in this
frame will override the EasyGI™ “Advanced Effects Quality” setting of the Render Options dialog
(see here).
• Samples: this setting controls the typical number of illumination samples that are pro-
cessed to evaluate indirect lighting at each point in the scene.
• Adaptive sampling: when this option is checked, VUE will use a number of complex cri-
teria to evaluate the frequency and accuracy at which the indirect lighting must be eval-
uated. If this option is disabled, the indirect lighting will be recomputed entirely at each
sample. This will result in incredibly long render times and it is strongly advised that you
do not disable adaptive sampling.
• Harmonic distance quality: this setting controls the way VUE evaluates the distance to
the objects in the vicinity of a point in the image, and the way this distance influences the
evaluation of the indirect lighting.
• Alignment quality: this setting controls the way VUE evaluates the alignment of the dif-
ferent lighting samples in space, and the way this alignment influences the evaluation of
the indirect lighting.
• Continuity quality: this setting controls the way VUE evaluates the orientation of the
different lighting samples in space, and the way this orientation influences the evaluation
of the indirect lighting.
• Contrast quality: this setting controls the way VUE evaluates the contrast between the
different sources of lighting and materials, and the way this contrast influences the eval-
uation of the indirect lighting.
• Jittering: this drop-down list controls the way the lighting samples are distributed in
space. There are two options in the list:
Reduced pulsation: when this option is selected (the default), the samples are distributed
in such a way as to reduce the low frequency pulsation that is typical of animation using
adaptively sampled indirect lighting. This option is particularly useful when creating an-
imations. If you are creating stills, the second option may be of interest.
Standard: this option ensures a better statistical distribution of lighting samples through-

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out the scene. This can result in slightly improved indirect lighting, but should be used
only when rendering still frames. If you use this method when rendering an animation,
you will notice a very unpleasant low-frequency pulsation in the indirect lighting.
• Bucket size: this drop-down list controls the base grid for the evaluation of the indirect
lighting. You will have at least one sample for each bucket. Reducing the bucket size will
increase the accuracy of the indirect lighting evaluation, but will also slow down renders
quite significantly. This option can be useful if indirect lighting is consistently evaluated
wrongly on small parts of your scenes.
• Show samples: if you check this option, the points at which the indirect lighting is evalu-
ated will be displayed in the final picture as pixels of the indicated color. This is useful if
you want to fine tune the evaluation of the indirect lighting solution and see the effects
of the different settings above on this evaluation.
• Volumetric settings: this control lets you adjust the overall quality boost of the process-
ing of volumetric effects (materials, lights, clouds).

Photon Maps Tab

The Custom radiosity photon map options frame lets you control the photon map that is used
for the evaluation and rendering of radiosity.
• Radiosity photons: this setting controls the total number of photons that are sent into
the scene in order to evaluate the radiosity illumination.
• Maximum photon tracing level: this setting controls how many times the light is bounced
inside the scene. Higher values will result in a more accurate evaluation of the radiosity
illumination, but also a longer processing time.
• Custom photon gathering options: when this option is checked, VUE will use custom
options for the photon gathering.
• Number of gathering photons: this setting controls the number of photons that are used
to evaluate the illumination at each point.
• Maximum gathering radius: this setting controls the maximum distance to a photon be-
yond which the influence of the photon will be ignored in the computation of the radiosity
illumination.
• Custom caustic photon map options: the settings in this frame are identical to the ones
in the radiosity photon map frame, except they apply to the caustic photon map instead
of the radiosity photon map.

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Anti­Aliasing Options

Anti­Aliasing Options

Hi-res render

Low-res render, no anti-aliasing

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Low-res render, anti-aliasing

You can access the dialog here by pressing the Edit button in the Anti-aliasing group in the
Render Options dialog. At least one of the anti-aliasing options must be selected for the Edit
button to be active.

Anti-aliasing is a method used to reduce stair step effects (pixelization) on the edges of objects
or textures. The method, called super-sampling, consists of tracing several sub-pixels for every
pixel of the picture in order to improve transitions; the result being the creation of half tone
pixels alongside the borders of objects/textures.

Anti-aliased pictures give the impression of having been rendered at much higher resolutions
than that at which they were really rendered. The small drawback is that sometimes the picture
appears slightly blurred. To achieve good results, many sub-pixels must be computed for each
pixel, resulting in a considerable increase in render time. To optimize the method, more effort
is concentrated on areas of transition.

Aliasing appears along the border of objects, as well as alongside sharp color transitions in
texture maps. Object anti-aliasing improves the smoothness of the picture by re-sampling each
pixel several times.

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Object Anti­Aliasing

Object Anti-Aliasing Options

To enable Object anti-aliasing, check the corresponding box. Object anti-aliasing takes place
at the end of the standard rendering pass.

VUE provides two ways of super-sampling object geometry:

• Optimized: method consists in super-sampling only the parts of the picture where tran-
sitions are found after the last render pass,
• Systematic: method will super-sample every single pixel in the picture during each ren-
der pass.

Anti­Aliasing Strategy

No anti-aliasing

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Crisp

Sharp

Soft

Blurred

This drop-down list lets you control how the different anti-aliasing samples are weighed into
the final pixel:
• Automatic: when this option is selected, the renderer will use the most adapted strategy
for each scenario, namely the Sharp method for rendering stills, and the Soft method for

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rendering animations.
• Crisp: this method generates images with the sharpest details, but it may require to man-
ually increase the number of sub-rays in order to eliminate noise in the renders.
• Sharp: this method is ideal for still renders. It produces relatively sharp results while
efficiently eliminating noise.
• Soft: this is a slightly more blurry (and consequently less noisy) method of filtering, usu-
ally most suitable for rendering animations.
• Blurred: produces blurry results that could be suitable for certain types of animations.
Note:

The selected method is only applied at the end of the pixel rendering, to compute the final
contribution (or average) of all sub-rays. It does not affect how sub-rays are traced in the scene
and their number. Only the Quality threshold and the Subrays per pixel parameters affect
sub-rays (as explained in the next section).

Subrays
Super-sampling is handled in the following way: the render engine launches a first batch of rays
and then, according to the results of this batch, decides if more sub-rays are required. When no
more rays are required, it computes the average color and displays it. Systematic anti-aliasing
yields slightly better results than optimized anti-aliasing, but at the expense of render times
several times lengthier. It is usually not useful to use systematic anti-aliasing.

In the Subrays per pixel group you will find two controls that let you determine the minimum
and maximum number of sub-rays computed for each pixel.

The Min. setting controls the number of rays initially sent inside a super-sampled pixel.

If the render engine decides that more anti-aliasing rays are required, it will keep sending new
batches of rays until the total number of rays sent for that pixel reaches the Max. setting. For
ultra-smooth results, you can bump this value up to 1024 (although such high values will rarely
yield better results than lower settings).

Regular sub-pixel sampling: when this option is selected, the rays in the first batch of sub-rays
are placed exactly the same for all the pixels in the image. When it is not selected, sub-rays are
cast randomly in each pixel. Although checking this option will usually produce better results,
under certain conditions (regular patterns stretching to infinity), it may produce some visual
interference.

The Quality threshold settings controls how the render engine decides whether more rays are
required or not, after having computed the first batch. The higher the setting, the more often
sub-rays will be sent into pixels.

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Contrast: this is a color-based anti-aliasing: if the color difference between the current pixel
and its neighboring pixels is smaller than the threshold (Contrast setting), then anti-aliasing
is applied. In other words: increasing this value makes the renderer more sensitive to color
differences around pixels to determine if new sub-rays must be computed. It is applied to all
pixels in the scene.

Geometry: this is an edge-based anti-aliasing. It checks object IDs and depth. It makes the
renderer more sensitive only to geometry differences around each pixel. So for example if you
set it to 100%, and the Contrast to 0%, then only the edges of objects will receive more rays.
Clouds and smooth parts of 3D objects won’t get any anti-aliasing (even wavy water surfaces).
Conversely, if you set the Contrast to 100%, then the Geometry setting won’t increase the visual
quality of the render. The Geometry setting is a way of doing manual optimization, to avoid
recomputing sub-rays where it’s not needed.

Obviously, the higher these three settings, the better the quality, but the longer the render
time...

Texture Filtering

Texture Filtering Options

Texture filtering controls the amount of automatic blurring that is applied to materials in the
scene. This setting lets you control the overall “sharpness” of the render. For optimal results,
this setting should be used together with the Anti-aliasing strategy setting (see above). Texture
filtering is available from the Broadcast render setting on up through Ultra.

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In the case of texture maps, the software automatically generates lower resolution versions of
the images and uses them instead of the full-blown texture maps when they are seen from a
distance.

While the results produced using some amount of filtering are generally smoother, you may
occasionally find that your images are not as crisp as you would like them to be.

When rendering animations, it is recommended that you use some amount of filtering.

Note:

You can disable texture filtering on a per-image basis using texture map nodes and mip-mapping.

Texture Anti­Aliasing
Although Object anti-aliasing will take care of sharp color transitions as well, this comes at a
high cost in terms of processing time. This is why VUE also offers a solution optimized for tex-
tures, known as “Texture anti-aliasing”.

This is a special form of anti-aliasing designed to reduce efficiently aliasing for both bitmap and
procedural textures. Object anti-aliasing is good at cleaning up object and shadow boundaries,
but some textures might still display some moiré patterns or other unpleasant artifacts (for
instance, in the distance because of a high frequency texture patterns, like when you render a
ground plane with a checkerboard texture). In such cases, object anti-aliasing is not sufficiently
efficient to clean-up rendering and eliminate these conspicuous artifacts in a reasonable time.

Texture anti-aliasing super-samples bitmap or procedural textures in order to properly inte-

grate high frequency pattern repetitions. This very specific task is done much faster than object
anti-aliasing, because it concentrates on the local properties of the texture rather than the en-
tire scene. It is done by recomputing several texels (texture elements) for each pixel.

There is also the option of applying anti-aliasing on a per-texture basis in the Advanced Material
Editor by clicking on the Advanced Render Options button.

To enable Texture anti-aliasing, select the corresponding option. This option must be turned
on for anti-aliasing on a per-texture basis (in the Advanced Material Editor) to work. Remember
that you can boost or reduce the quality of Texture Anti-Aliasing on a per material basis using
the Advanced Render Options settings.

If the Recompute subrays option is checked, reflected and refracted rays will be traced for each
texel. This can considerably improve anti-aliasing of reflection or refraction patterns, but will
slow the anti-aliasing process down significantly. Except for specific cases (e.g. a reflective sur-
face with strong bump mapping), this option is not recommended. If this option is unchecked,
reflected and refracted rays will be computed without texture anti-aliasing.

The settings in the Texels per ray group are identical in their behavior to the Subrays per pixel

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settings described in Object anti-aliasing above.

Batch Rendering

Batch Rendering dialog

The Batch Rendering dialog features a list of all the jobs that are scheduled for rendering. You
can add new jobs to the List of jobs by:
• Clicking the Add button and selecting a .vue scene file for rendering,
• Drag-dropping scenes onto the list,
• Clicking the Add current button to add the current scene to the list of render jobs, or
• Starting a new render with the External Renderer selected as the renderer.
Jobs are processed in the order they appear on the list. They are processed using the exact
render settings stored in each individual scene, and saving the resulting images or animations
to the location specified in the scene. If the scene is animated, the renderer will render the
animation.

The order of jobs in the queue can be changed by highlighting the specific job and clicking on
Move job up or Move job down.

You can remove scheduled jobs by highlighting them on the list and clicking Remove.

When a job completes, it stays in the List of jobs, so you can see which jobs were rendered
last, and review the rendering statistics for these jobs. To remove the finished jobs from the
list, press the Clean finished button.

When you schedule a scene for batch rendering, it is copied to the external renderer’s scene
folder. The scene will remain there until you clean the list of finished jobs or you remove the
job from the list.

You can configure the external renderer to perform renders on your workstation, or, if you have
access to a network of computers, the rendering can be distributed over your network of com-
puters. Press Edit to display the External Renderer Configuration dialog and select the type of

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rendering.

The external renderer runs in the background. You can close the Batch Rendering dialog when
you no longer need it. This will not stop render jobs from being processed. Render jobs run
in parallel to VUE, so you can add jobs to the batch list, close the dialog and keep on working
on the scene while the rendering takes place. You could even start other renders using VUE’s
internal renderer. VUE jobs will always run at a higher priority than the external renderer, so
the latter will basically stop working while VUE is rendering.

Rendering To Screen ­­ The Render Dis­

play Window

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Render Display Window

The Render Display window is made up of two sections. The top section is where the render
takes place and the current render displays; the bottom section contains an area where previ-
ous renders can be stacked and options are available for manipulating them. If the stack option
has been activated, a copy of the current render automatically moves to this Stack area when
the render completes.

If you haven’t just rendered, but wish to display previous renders, you can access this window
from the Render | Browse Previous Render option on the VUE menu.

Current Render Display

This portion of the screen displays the current render. When the image does not fit the frame,
you can drag the image with a left-mouse-button drag. You can also zoom the image.

To the left, under the render screen are a row of buttons:

• Compare: this toggles the comparison mode.
• Swap: if you have two images selected in the Stack below, clicking this button swaps
the two images between the Stack area and the Render Display area.
• Difference: this toggles an HDR difference view of the two selected renders for fine
tuning differences. The slider adjusts the level of difference.
In the center under the render screen are five buttons:
• Load: you can also load an existing image, previously rendered, into the stacked ren-
der for reference or comparison.
• Merge: Rendered areas can be merged into full renders. This is useful if you render a
large scene, make a small change and re-render only the area where that change is visi-
ble. By merging this area inside VUE, you can then readjust the post-processing settings
(exposure„ contrasts, colors) directly, without the need of an external tool. The merged
render can be saved.
To merge renders, first select the render that will be the “receiver” (surrounded by an orange
frame), then click on the Merge icon and select the render that will be merged into the receiver
(surrounded by a blue frame). You need to click on the Merge button again for the changes to
take effect. The result is added to the stack.

Renders that were made in earlier versions of VUE are not mergeable. A render can be merged
in another render only if its area is included in it and if the original full resolutions are the same.
• Mirror display: This option flips the current render horizontally, giving you a differ-
ent perspective of your render. This is helpful when evaluating composition and other
aspects of the render. The flipped image cannot be saved, however.

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• Clear: this clears the stack. There is also a similar icon under each render to delete
individual renders.
• Options: this is where you turn the stacking feature on or off. You can also select if you
want to stack the Gbuffer, multi-pass buffers and diagnosis buffers. Relighting buffers are
also available. You also have the options to disable stacking Render Area and Preview
quality renders if you wish. If checked, these are displayed in the Stacked Renders area
below.
When the stack limit is reached a dialog will ask you if you want to stack the current render
anyway. This deletes the first render in the stack and replaces it with the current one. You can
always increase or decrease the stack size limit.

The option to use stacked renders can be turned on or off on the Options panel, General Pref-
erences tab.

To the right, under the render screen, are a row of icons that become available when the render
completes.
• Zoom In / Zoom Out: use these to zoom in or out on the rendered image. Scroll
bars become available if the image becomes bigger than the screen display.

• Resize window to fit render: Left-Click to remove any black space around the dis-
played render.

• Zoom render to fit window: Right-Click to zoom in/out as necessary to fit the ren-
dered picture in the window.
• Full screen: select this icon to display the render full screen. Press Esc to return to the
Render Display window.
• Show Denoised Color Picture: displays the last denoised color render.
• Show Color Picture: displays the last color render.
• Show Alpha Channel: displays the alpha channel of the last render.
• Show Depth Channel: displays the depth channel of the last render.

• Show Non-Photorealistic Rendering: displays the NPR version of the last render.

• Display Multi-Pass, Masks and G-Buffer: if these options were checked for the ren-
der, they can be displayed in the render area. Right-click on the icon to display the op-
tions that are available for viewing.
• Current G-Buffer Layer: Click to page through the G-buffer layers rendered.
• Post Render Options: click to display the Post Render Options dialog.

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• Save Displayed Picture: click to open the Save As dialog and save the render to disk.

The Render Stack

The Render Stack is the series of rendered images located under the current render. These are
previous renders that have been saved. You can scroll through the renders and click a thumb-
nail to select it.

When you select a previous render, you can add a title on the thumbnail by right-clicking on
it and selecting the command “Add/Remove editable thumbnail title”. It adds a gray area on
top of the thumbnail. Click on that area to add a title or note to the render if you wish. This
title can be removed with the same command, or simply by deleting all the characters with the
keyboard which hides the gray area.

Right-click on the thumbnail to display a menu with the following options. Only options appli-
cable to the render are available; other options are grayed out:
• Clone
• Delete clone
• Delete render
• Delete additional buffers
• Delete gbuffers
• Delete multipass buffers
• Delete relighting buffers
• Delete diagnosis buffers
• Reapply camera settings to current camera
• Add/Remove editable thumbnail title
Icons under the thumbnail tell you what was rendered with the image (relighting, G-buffer,
multi-pass). Click on the far right icon to display image information and any comments saved
with the image. There is also a Delete icon available for this particular render.

In the Render stacking options dialog you find the following options:
• Auto-stacking of renders
• Disable stacking for render areas
• Disable stacking for preview renders
• Disable stacking for aborted renders
• Save a scene snapshot for each render

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• Stack Gbuffer
• Stack multi-pass buffers
• Stack relighting buffers
• Stack diagnosis buffers
• Stack size limit: you can control how much can be stacked by limiting the size of the
storage.
• Stack folder: The default folder for storing these stacked renders is c:\user\username\
appdata\Roaming\e-on software\VUE version\config\renderstack on a Windows
computer and on the Mac, it is users/username/library/application support/e-on software/
VUE version/config/renderstack. On both types of computers, these are hidden di-
rectories. In Windows, this feature can be turned on in Window folders options. This
location can be changed to another location if you wish by entering the pathname here.
There are three options for stacking your renders:
• Use the same stack for all scenes: the renders of all scenes are stacked in the same folder.
This option is saved in the user preferences and reapplied for each new scene. You can
use the default file location or change the location using the Edit button.
• Use a dedicated stack for this scene: the renders of the current scene are saved in a
separate folder that you can choose by clicking the Edit button below the current Stack
folder on disk. This option is only applied to the current scene and not saved in the user
preferences.
• Create a new stack for each new scene: a new folder is automatically created for each
new scene. You can choose the root folder where all separate stack folders will be cre-
ated by clicking the Edit button or use the default one. This option is saved in the user
preferences.

Comparison

You can compare the current render with a previous render by first selecting the Compare but-
ton. This displays the renders available for comparison. Those not available will be marked.

Now move your cursor over the current render. You will see both renders with the cursor func-
tioning as a horizontal separator (white line).

With the Compare button still on, if you activate the Difference toggle and use the slider to set
a non-zero difference value, you can also see a difference display of the two renders. This is
done in HDR so it’s more powerful than your generic picture editor.

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Reloading useful data from stacked renders

Stacked renders store additional information that can be reloaded by right clicking on their
thumbnails, which shows a menu with these commands:
• Reapply Camera Settings to Current Camera: This reapplies the camera settings as they
were defined at the time of the render to the current camera. These settings are: the point
of view of the camera (position, orientation), its aspect ratio, the exposure filter and the
post processing options (see Advanced Camera Options).
• Reapply Render Quality Settings to Current Scene: This reapplies the render quality
settings as they were defined at the time of the render to the current scene. These set-
tings are exposed in the “Render Quality” frame of the Render Options. This command
can help when doing render tests and comparisons to find the best compromise between
quality and speed.

Hiding the Stack

If you aren’t using the Stack feature, you can hide that part of the Render Display by clicking on
the Minimize button in the upper-right corner, next to the Close icon.

If you wish to redisplay the Stack area, click on the now inverted Minimize button in the upper-
right corner.

Post Render Options

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Post Render Options (without Relighting)

The Post Render Options dialog appears automatically when rendering completes. You can also
display this dialog by clicking the Post Render Options icon ( ) in the title bar of the Render
Display.

This dialog lets you adjust post-processing options after the rendering completes – including
adjusting the exposure. Many settings in this dialog are also available and work the same as
their equivalent in the Advanced Camera Options dialog. Any changes made on this dialog are
specific only to this render and do not affect the global settings in the Advanced Camera Options
dialog.
• Copy settings to scene: When this option is selected, clicking OK to validate the changes
will copy these changes to the scene.
Note:
If you are using Non Photo-Realistic Rendering and you use this setting, any changes that

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you make will be copied back to the Non Photo-Realistic Rendering in the Advanced Cam-
era Options.
• Don’t show when this render completes: When this option is selected, this dialog will
not automatically appear when a render completes.
• Fully interactive display: Check this box to see any changes you make on this dialog in
the Main camera preview window as well as the Last render preview window on this
dialog.
• Preview: Click this button to preview the effect on the full size image.

Last render preview

This picture displays the last render, with a preview of the post processing effects applied to it.

Relighting
This feature allows you to fine tune the lighting in your scene without re-rendering. You can
instantly adjust the intensity and color of your different light sources in your scene in real time.
This option has to be turned on in the Render Options dialog for the fields to appear here and is
only available for a render quality of Final or above. You also have to enable Stack relighting
buffers in the Render stacking options dialog.

Slide the bars to adjust the light (of the sun or any other lights you may have added to the scene)
and you’ll instantly see the results in the Last render preview window and your render, be it to
screen or in the Main camera view. The Full interactive display option must also be checked for
changes to be seen in your render. Be careful to not brighten the scene too much as this might
produce unwanted artifacts. It’s better to tone down light settings here rather than brighten.

There are separate adjustment sliders for Sun Light and Ambient Light control.

Non Photo­Realistic rendering

VUE contains settings to create Non-Photorealistic Renders with effects like “Toon”, “Drawing”,
“Sketch”, etc. These settings are also available on the Advanced Camera Options dialog as well
as from the top tool bar on VUE’s main window.

This option must be checked in the Advanced Camera Options dialog to be functional here.

Film Settings
Photochemical films are made of tiny crystals of silver salt that react to light. When light reaches
the surface of the film, it hits these crystals and triggers a chemical reaction that switches the
state of the crystal (it becomes dark – this process is then inverted to result in a bright point).
Once switched, a crystal will not be switched any further by more light hitting it (it can’t be
more black than black). It is the proportion of switched crystals that increases as light keeps

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on flooding in, making the point appear darker and darker. But, as more and more crystals
have been switched by the incoming light, the chances of hitting an “unswitched” crystal go
down. As a result, while points on the film will initially get dark very quickly, it will take more
and more light to get them that much darker, resulting in a non-linear reaction to light. This
non-linear reaction means that bright areas in the image will appear less bright, and dark areas
less dark, resulting in a broader dynamic of light being visible in the final image.

Auto­exposure
The difference in luminosity between noon and dusk is enormous, but we are not necessarily
aware of this fact, because the human eye automatically adjusts to the amount of ambient light.
Auto-exposure simulates this behavior by automatically adapting the exposure of the camera to
the amount of light in the scene. If this option is enabled, your images will be correctly exposed,
even if you drag the sun from noon down to dusk.

When the auto-exposure option is enabled, the camera re-evaluates its exposure continuously
during the rendering process. This is why, when tile rendering mode is enabled, the overall
exposure of the image may be adjusted as rendering progresses.

Exposure
This setting controls the overall exposure of the camera. Positive values will result in brighter
images, whereas negative values will result in darker images. The value is expressed in di-
aphragms. If the auto-exposure option is enabled, this setting is relative to the automatic ex-
posure value (think of it as a way of “touching up” the auto-exposure).

When using the OpenGL shader engine (set on the Options panel, Display tab), you can pre-
view the results of the camera auto exposure factor and the scene exposure factor. The auto-
exposure is automatically updated at each refinements pass of the mini scene preview. The
Exposure is only active in the camera view, and is altered by the camera exposure factor. This
feature is not available for OpenGL (fixed hardware pipeline or software engine).

Exposure filters
VUE has several filters you can use to change the effect of your images.

No exposure filter
This filter performs no change to the image values. The highlights are clipped to the maximum
value.

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Natural film response (with added contrast for non pho­

tometric)
This is the current default filter, the effect depends on the atmosphere type:
• For a photometric atmosphere: it keeps the low values, and perform a soft clamping of
the high values. The light intensities are progressively reduced to fit in the visible range.
• For a non photometric atmosphere: in addition to the previous effect, is also enhances
the overall contrast of the image.
For non atmosphere dependent setting, use either “Natural film response” or “Natural film re-
sponse with added contrast”.

Natural film response

Keeps the low values, and perform a soft clamping of the high values. The light intensities are
progressively reduced to fit in the visible range.

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Natural film response with added contrast

Enhances the overall contrast of the image, and perform a soft clamping of the high values. The
light intensities are progressively reduced to fit in the visible range.

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Legacy VUE exposure filter

This is the filter used in all previous VUE versions.
• Exposure: slider controls the general exposure for the filter.
• Natural film response: select this option to enable the non-linear reaction to light typical
of photochemical films.

Photographic exposure filter

Provides several settings to tweak the response curve.
• Exposure: slider controls the general exposure for the filter.
• Shadows: will control how dark areas are mapped (lower value will produce lighter shad-
owed areas, higher values will produce stronger shadows)
• Mid-tones: will control how intermediate intensities will be mapped (lower values will
tend to flatten the response curve, effectively producing darker and less contrasted col-
ors, higher values will make the curve steeper, increasing intermediate colors contrast
and overall brightness)
• Highlights: controls how bright intensities are mapped (lower values will flatten them to
avoid saturation, while higher values will produce saturated bright areas).

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Linear exposure filter

This is the simplest of all of the filters.
• Exposure: exposure can be manually adjusted by this slider. If no contrast transforma-
tion is performed, the tone curve is flat, and the user can control how steep the line is.
• Map entire range: if selected, the brightest rendered color will be mapped to full white,
scaling all other colors accordingly or a custom linear coefficient can be specified to con-
trol the scaling of colors (1 meaning no scaling at all: raw colors are preserved).
With Map entire range:

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With manual setting:

Reinhard tone filter

Simplified version of “Reinhard 2”, that gives only control over contrast enhancement.

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Reinhard 2 tone filter

It lets you control:
• Brightness: an overall scaling factor for the output
• Chromatic adaptation: controls color contrast
• Light adaptation: controls whether the tone operator acts rather locally (higher values)
or globally (lower values) across the output picture.
Both types of Reinhard filter allow you to manually adjust exposure.

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False colors
This can be used to visualize HDR range of the rendered picture more easily.

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Lens Glare
Lens glare is caused by imperfections in the lenses of real-world cameras. Instead of being per-
fectly refracted by the lenses of the camera, part of the light becomes diffused by little defects
in the glass. This results in halos of light appearing around very bright points of the image.

Lens glare gives a soft, realistic look to the final images. The effect, sometimes also referred
to as “specular bloom”, is particularly strong when the camera lenses are a little dirty (because
light becomes diffused by the layer of dirt at the surface of the lens).

Lens glare is controlled via the following settings:

• Radius: this controls the average size of the halos of light that appear around bright
points in the image.
• Amount: this controls the intensity of the glare effect.
• Warning: the larger the radius, the slower it becomes to compute the effect of the glare.
When previewing glare on the full size image, a much faster approximation of the glare
effect is used. This approximation can sometimes result is slight visual artifacts. These
artifacts will disappear when the full-blown glare algorithms are applied to the image
before saving.

Post Processing
Post processing is a special processing pass that takes place once the picture is completely ren-
dered. Using this feature, you can adjust the colors and brightness of the final picture without
having to use another specialized application. By post processing pictures inside VUE rather

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than using an external application, you ensure that the resulting colors retain all of their sub-
tlety (when you save a picture, the colors in the picture are limited to 8 bits per pixel; artifacts
and color banding can appear rapidly as soon as you affect anything but minor post-processing).
In VUE, colors are computed and processed with a resolution that is literally several million
times more refined than in an exported picture.

To enable post processing of your picture, check the option. The post processing controls be-
come available:

Color correction
Select this option to apply color correction to your picture.
• Hue: shifts the color tones according to the angle indicated.
• Brightness: will increase or reduce the overall brightness of the picture,
• Gamma tweak: applies an arbitrary gamma correction. A value of 1 in the slider is a 2.2
gamma correction.
• Saturation: modifies the overall saturation of the picture.
• Gain: setting applies a smooth contrast to the picture.
• Density: adds uniform density to all colors in the picture.

Color filtering
this option lets you apply a color filter to the picture, as if it were seen through a colored gel.
When you check this option, you can adjust the corresponding color by double-clicking on the
color control.

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Color perspective
If you select this option, dark colors will be replaced by the indicated color. Black will be re-
placed with this exact color, while brighter colors will be blended according to the brightness
of the color. When you check this option, you can adjust the corresponding color by double-
clicking on the color control.

Input/Output Function
This allows a very accurate tuning of contrasts and luminosity of each color channel (directly
on the 32-bit float RGB components). Check the function to enable it.

Right-click on the small function preview next to it and select Edit Filter in the pop-up menu.
The Color Input/Output Function Filter Editor appears for settings the color curves:

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See the Editing Filters section for more information about working with filters.

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Non­Photorealistic Rendering

The NPR feature (Non-Photorealistic Rendering) transforms regular VUE renders into drawings,
paintings, cartoons or stylized images.

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Activating NPR and selecting style presets

NPR must be enabled before launching a render, not after it, because VUE needs to compute ad-
ditional data to generate the different effects. At the first activation of NPR, a window displays

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some effects. Click on Advanced options to display the various tabs and settings.

The selection of existing presets is done with a style selector, a control containing a small ren-
dering of the style and displaying a list of style names when clicking on it. When hovering the
mouse cursor on names, their preview is displayed. A style can be selected by clicking on it.

From the main toolbar

The first and quickest way to enable NPR is to click on the button located in the main toolbar at
the top of the VUE interface.

A right click simply enables or disables NPR depending on the current state. A left click enables
it and opens the NPR Options dialog. On top of this dialog is the three styles selector, one for
the outline style (top left), one for the shader style (bottom left) and one combining the two
previous styles (right side). The advanced options of this dialog are described in the section
“Editing NPR styles”.

From the Avanced Camera Options

The second way to activate NPR is to open the Camera Options (by double clicking on a Camera
in the world browser), and to ckeck the option “Non-Photorealistic Rendering” in the bottom
right corner. Under this option is a style selector listing the NPR presets.

Note:

NPR styles are in fact attached to cameras, like the exposure and post processing settings. When
using the NPR button in the toolbar, it’s the settings of the active camera that are edited.

From the Post Render Options in the render stack

The third way to enable or disable NPR is to do it from the render stack (provided that it was
first enabled before the render as said above), by clicking on this icon, which opens the Post
Render Options dialog, in which “Non-Photorealistic Rendering” can be checked. The same
style selector that you can find in the Advanced Camera Options.

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Outline Tab

Outines are drawn on the edges of objects, materials, and where normals have sharp variations.
You can control where they appear with the dropdown list on top of this tab. When selecting
an a type of edge, the checkbox beside it enables the drawing. Below are the options for the
currently selected type of edge.

• Base values :
In this frame, the 3 base values of the stroke are defined: color, thickness and opacity. They can
be altered in various ways using the modifiers (see section below).

Stroke type
• Round Marker Stroke: The default stroke, simple and regular. It has a constant width
and opacity.

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• Neon Stroke: This stroke has a decreasing opacity, across its width. Several parameters
control how the opacity varies.

• Watercolor Stroke: This stroke imitates watercolors, with a slighlty varying thickness
and opacity.

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• Noisy Stroke: This one imitates various types of strokes: chalk, charcoal, ink, gouache...
It has a varying thickness and constant opacity.

• Multifiber Stroke: This stroke imitates oil or gouache paintings. It is composed of several
small lines, like the fibers of paintbrushes.

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Modifiers
Modifiers control 3 aspects of the stroke: color, thickness and opacity. It modifies them de-
pending on various parameters, which are either data from the original render (like the objects’
normal, depth or light...) or a local information (like the distance to the stroke’s origin or me-
dian).

Color modifiers
Most color modifiers include a color map used to compute the output color.
• Along stroke: The color map is applied along the stroke. The picture below shows an
example with a simple color map varying from green to blue.

• Across stroke: The color map is applied across the stroke. The picture below shows an
example with a simple color map varying from green to blue.

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• Texture: This modifier applies a texture file along the stroke. In the picture below, a im-
age representing a star is loaded in the modifier’s options.

• Light: In this modifier, the final color is taken in the color map, from its beginning (right)
when the underlying pixel has low luminosity, to its end (left) when the underlying pixel
has a great luminosity.
• Normal: This modifier applies a color map depending on the underlying pixel normal.
• Depth: In this modifier, the final color is taken in the color map, from its beginning (right)
when the underlying pixel has a small depth, to its end (left) when the underlying pixel has
a great depth. In the picture below, the terrain in the foreground and the sphere are blue
because they are close to the camera. The pyramid and the horizon are green because
they are distant.

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• Material color: This modifier applies the color of the underlying material to the stroke.
It is the brut material color, without any atmosphere effect, radiosity, reflection, etc...
• Noise: This modifier applies a noise to the stroke’s color. It can have one or two dimen-
sions, and one to eight octaves. It can be applied either to the hue, luminosity or sat-
uration component of the base color. The picture below shows an example of a noise
applied to the hue of the stroke (the base color is blue).

Thickness modifiers
Most thickness modifiers include a filter used to compute the output thickness.
• Along Stroke: The filter is applied along the stroke. The picture below shows an example
with a simple filter varying from zero to one.

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• Light: This modifier applies a filter depending on the underlying pixel lightness.
• Normal: This modifier applies a filter depending on the underlying pixel normal.
• Depth: In this modifier, the final thickness is taken in the filter, from its beginning (right)
when the underlying pixel has a small depth, to its end (left) when the underlying pixel
has a great depth. In the picture below, the terrain in the foreground and the sphere have
thick outlines because they are close to the camera. The pyramid and the horizon have
thin outlines because they are distant.

• Noise: This modifier applies a noise to the stroke’s thickness. It can have one or two
dimensions, and one to eight octaves. The picture below shows an example of this mod-
ifier.

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Opacity modifiers
Most Opacity modifiers include a filter used to compute the output opacity.
• Along Stroke: The filter is applied along the stroke. The picture below shows an example
with a simple filter varying from zero to one.

• Across Stroke: The filter is applied across the stroke. The picture below shows an exam-
ple with a simple filter varying from zero to one.

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• Texture:

• Light: This modifier applies a filter depending on the underlying pixel lightness.
• Normal: This modifier applies a filter depending on the underlying pixel normal.
• Depth: In this modifier, the final opacity is taken in the filter, from its beginning (right)
when the underlying pixel has a small depth, to its end (left) when the underlying pixel
has a great depth. In the picture below, the terrain in the foreground and the sphere have
opaque outlines because they are close to the camera. The pyramid and the horizon have
almost transparent outlines because they are distant.

• Noise: This modifier applies a noise to the stroke’s opacity. It can have one or two dimen-
sions, and one to eight octaves. The picture below shows an example of this modifier.

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• Pattern: This modifier applies a pattern to the stroke’s opacity. The pattern is defined by
a row of black and white squares. The black ones are for parts with full opacity, and the
white ones are for parts with a null opacity (transparent). The picture below shows an
example of this modifier.

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Line Style Tab

The Line Style Tab creates a style for your exterior lines, the way the lines are drawn.

Tracing Configuration: This defines how the line follows the chosen path.

Precision: Using the slider, set the line precision using a range from Abstract to Normal. The
picture below shows the effect of this parameter, from left to right: Abstract, Drunken, Relaxed,
Normal

Vector Smoothing: Check the box to use vector smoothing.

Breaking angle: Using the slider, set the breaking angle from 0 to 180 degrees.

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Normal threshold: Set the threshold. Value is from 1 to 100.

Trimming: If using trimming, set the start and end limits.

Thickness scaling: Indicate the multiplier you are using.

Length Thresholds: Set the Min and Max of the Length thresholds.

Overstrokes:

Check to extend the lines at either side. The length of overstrokes depends on the parameters
Start and End, which are a percentage of the original length of the stroke. This length can be
limited by using the Max length parameter. To avoid drawing overstrokes on small details, use
the Threshold parameter (Ignore strokes shorter than + length in pixels).

Paper texturing:

This is used to imitate a line drawn on paper. The line’s color is tweaked by a bitmap. The
bitmap is in fact used as an elevation map, to define the relief of the paper (black is low, white
is high). When drawing the line on the relief, low areas will receive less color, whereas high areas
will receive more color. The picture below shows the effect disabled on the left, and enabled
on the right (with a Strengh of 50%).

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Line Distortion Tab

• Point Displacement
As the lines are built from several segments, it is possible to tweak each segment indepen-
dently.

Subdivision quality: Use the slider to increase the quality of subdivision.

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From line displacement: Use the graph to indicate deformation. Just click on the graph to
select a filter for deformation. The Filters browser displays the existing filters available.

Wave length = Stroke length: Check to use this setting. Set values for Wave length, Intensity,
Noise, and Noise frequency.

Screen space noise You can set the values for X and Y as well as the frequency.
• Geometry Morphing
Screen space rotation Defines the rotation without displacement of each segment. You can
add some noise to have more random rotation. Angle:Set the rotation angle using the slider.
Noise: Set the noise level using the slider.

Screen space displacement is a joined vertical or horizontal, or both, displacement of each

segment. The noise to have a non joined displacement. Set an X and Y value for both Value
and Noise.

From line displacement The From line displacement lets you scale each segment away from
its initial position.

Set an X and Y value for both Value and Noise.

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Line Cloning Tab

Use the Line Cloning Tab to multiply the lines, select their quantity, thickness, opacity and
randomness in colour. You can also tweak their position spatially by applying a displacement
or a rotation to them.

Quantity: Set the amount of cloned lines. The picture below shows and example with 5 clones.

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Thickness: The Value parameter sets the base thickness of the cloned lines. It is a percentage
of the thickness of the original line. The Attenuation parameter defines how much the clones’
thickness will be reduced. It is applied symmetrically on both side of the main line. The Noise
parameter adds irregularities in the attenuation, so that it looks more natural. The picture be-
low shows an example with an attenuation set to 30% (and without noise).

Opacity: The Value parameter sets the base opacity of the cloned lines. It is a percentage of the
opacity of the original line. The Attenuation parameter defines how much the clones’ opacity
will be reduced. It is applied symmetrically on both side of the main line. The Noise parameter
adds irregularities in the attenuation, so that it looks more natural. The picture below shows
an example with an attenuation set to 30% (and without noise).

Color noise: These change the value of the color noise.

Displacement: The Value parameter defines how much space the cloned lines can take. The
space between each cloned line is equal to this value divided by the number of clones. The
picture below shows an example of 5 clones with a displacement set to 20 and a noise set to 10.

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Other Noises: These set the value for other noise.

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Shader Tab

The Shader Tab is where you can select the type of shader you wish to use. The shader options
help you with the colours and materials of the scene. You can either keep the original ones
(Shader: Null, Use original render), or replace them by:
• a unique color for the whole scene (Shader: Null, Fill with color)
• textures that you can load from a browser
• a color maps

Null Shader
The null shader gives you two options – to use the original render or to fill the space with color.
You can select the color by clicking on the color square to open the Color Selector dialog.

Texture Shader
The texture shader allows you to load up to nine textures. Click the Load button to open the
bitmap browser for texture selection.

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Toon Shader
If you are creating a cartoon effect, this tab sets the coloring up for the shader.

Toon shader options:

Levels: Select the color map you wish to use. To change, click on the color map to open the
color map browser and select a new map.

Count: Select the count

Smoothness: Adjust the color smoothness. Values go from 0 to 100%.

Dot Shader
The dot shader options consist of:
• Pen color: Indicate the color of the dots. Click on the color square to select the color.
• Background: Set the color of the background. Click on the color square to select the
color.
• Dot size: Set the size of the dot.

Halftone Shader
This is used to add a pattern on top of the image. Halftone shader options are:
• Pattern size: Set the size or scale of the pattern.
• Pattern angle: Set the angle of the pattern from 0 to 360 degrees.
• Pattern type: Select the pattern type. Available types are stripes and dots.
Material color: You can select the Pattern Color and Background color for the pattern by uncheck-
ing the Material color. When Material color is selected, the pattern uses the underlying material
color.

Hatch Shader
Hatch applies line strokes to the image. These are placed according to the parameters. These
smaller lines have the same parameters as the Lines Options settings.

Stroke Distribution
• Lock to object: Check to lock the strokes to an object.
• Sky and ground: Check to include marks on sky and ground.
• Step: Indicate the step.
• Edge preference: Indicate the edge preference.
Main strokes

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• Distribution: indicate whether stroke distribution is uniform, by lightness or by normal.

With the lightness or normal options, the Hatch Shader Options dialog displays with
fields to enter the Input range, Output range, and Curve exponent.
• Quantity multiplier: Indicate the quality modifier.
• Length range: Indicate the length of the stroke.
Cross strokes Distribution: Choices are: Uniform, By lightness, or By normal. With the light-
ness or normal options, the Hatch Shader Options dialog displays with fields to enter the Input
range, Output range, and Curve exponent.
• Quantity multiplier: Indicate the quality modifier.
• Length range: Indicate the length of the stroke.
• Thickness from main stroke: Set the thickness.
• Angle: Set the angle. Range is 0 to 360 degrees.
Hatch mode:Values are Simple line, Long line, and Procedural line. If you choose Procedu-
ral line, click the Edit button to display the Line Options dialog to further define the line if
needed. Background: Select the color of the background. To change, click the color box. Con-
trast: Enter the contrast setting. Thickness: Either enter a thickness value or select Custom.
Then you can set the value for In dark and In light.

Color Check either Mono or Custom lightness. With the Mono setting you can change the
color by clicking on the color box. With the Custom lightness setting, you can set the value for
In dark and In light. You can also opt for Original render and Material color.

Deviation
• Lightness: Set the lightness value.
• Shape: Set the shape.
• Speed: Can be set for both Lightness and Shape.
Opacity modifiers For opacity modifiers, there are single strokes and cross strokes. Indicate
the Start and End values for both types of strokes.

Saving styles
There are three kind of styles: Line Styles and Shader Styles, and Combined Styles (ie. Line +
Shader). NPR styles are saved in .sty files.
• Line Style: The “Save Line Style” button lets you save the settings from these tabs (all
together): Outline, Line Style, Line Distortion, Line Cloning. When choosing a destination
file, you can put it either in the folder “NPR Styles/Listed/Outline” if you want to access it
quickly from the Line Style selector (top left image), or in the folder “NPR Styles/Personal”
to access it from the browser.
• Shader Style: The “Save Shader” button lets you save the settings from the Shader tab

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only. When choosing a destination file, you can put it either in the folder “NPR Styles/Listed/Shader”
if you want to access it quickly from the Shader Style selector (bottom left image), or in
the folder “NPR Styles/Personal” to access it from the browser.
• Combined Style: The main “Save” button lets you save all the settings in one .sty file. It
is the combination of a Line Style and a Shader Style. When choosing a destination file,
you can put it either in the folder “NPR Styles/Listed/Combined” if you want to access it
quickly from the Combined Style selector (large image on the right), or in the folder “NPR
Styles/Personal” to access it from the browser.

Path Tracer

The Path Tracer, a hybrid CPU / GPU renderer, naturally simulates many effects that have to be
specifically set with other methods, such as soft shadows, depth of field, caustics, and indirect
lighting. GPU acceleration allows for interactive rendering updates while editing your scene.
The Path Tracer doesn’t need additional computation for features like various soft effects (e.g.
soft shadows, blurry reflections and refractions, depth of field), nor any kind of pre-pass calcu-
lations for indirect lighting. The only artifact that can be generated by the Path Tracer is high-
frequency noise, which is guaranteed to disappear with a sufficiently high amount of samples
per pixel, as this renderer is unbiased. This high-frequency noise can be removed by using a
Denoiser.

Path tracing is available as an interactive rendering quality in the perspective viewports (non-
orthographic views, ie. main view, perspective view, or any additional camera view that you
have defined), or as an offline rendering engine.

Several VUE features are not supported when rendering with the path tracer:

Miscellaneous Lighting features Rendering features EcoSystem

features features

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• Procedural • Volumetric • G-Buffer • Dynamic

materials lighting EcoSystem
• Diagnosis
population
• Network • non- Buffer
rendering Photometric • Ecosystem
• Motion blur
lighting phasing
• Automatic
• GPU
exposure • Light gel
AntiAliasing
effect
• Shadow maps (*)
• Lens flares
• • Deterministic
Spherical/planetary • Daylight indirect
terrains portals lighting (*)
• Planets • Light
dispersion
• Rain and
Snow

(*) Path Tracer renders are inherently anti-aliased and indirect lighting is deterministic by de-
sign.

How to Use It
You can change the render quality of a viewport to Interactive path tracing from the View
Display Options icon in the viewport header. The activation status can be stored in your de-
fault viewport configuration but may be superseded by the Reset Interactive Path Tracer option
when loading a scene.

To prevent the constant usage of CPU and GPU power even when VUE is sitting idle for some
time, an option controls how long the Interactive Path Tracer will keep running inside a 3D view-
port before automatically entering a pause state: see the Pause Interactive Path Tracer after
option.

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Render Options dialog (Path Tracer section highlighted in red)

The parameters of the engine can be changed from the Render Options dialog: the Path Tracer
options dialog can be accessed from the Preset render quality section, called Path Tracer.
Beside it, a button labeled Edit displays a popup.

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Path Tracer Options

This popup lets you set the path tracer specific render options, detailed below:

Main render options

• The maximum number of samples per pixel. This must be a power of 2.
• The maximum rendering time, in minutes.
• The minimum quality threshold.
• All the parameters above define a different kind of limit to the end of the path tracing for
a given frame.
• Compute physically accurate caustics when this option is selected, realistic caustics
are computed for the scene, including spectrum dispersion.
Note:
Computing realistic caustics can add a significant amount of noise, depending on lighting
conditions. Consequently, a higher amount of samples per pixel will generally be needed
when this option is turned on.
• Render VUE Spectral cloud layers when this option is selected, the dynamic clear sky
model will be replaced with a progressive sky environment map, filled on demand by the
path tracer, that will include VUE spectral cloud layers.
Note:

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For performance reasons, this sky environment map will always be rendered from a low
altitude point of view (regardless of the actual camera placement), making it suitable for
most architectural scenes. For in or above clouds points of view, it is recommended to
rather use the standard VUE renderer.

OpenCL device selection

The OpenCL device selection section lets you choose for each OpenCL-compliant device (CPU
or GPU) on the system, which one(s) should actually be used by the Path Tracer.

Path Tracer Denoiser settings

The Path Tracer Denoiser settings section lets you choose whether Path Tracer renders should
use an external Denoiser, and which one. Denoisers are applied during rendering in the Inter-
active Path Tracer or during offline rendering.

When loading a scene saved before denoising was introduced, or when creating a new one,
denoising is enabled and the best available option will be chosen

The following denoisers are available:

• Intel® Open Source Image Denoiser (official website: https://openimagedenoise.
github.io/)
• NVIDIA® OptiX™ Denoiser (official website: https://developer.nvidia.com/optix-denoiser)
Note:
NVIDIA® OptiX™ Denoiser requires a NVidia graphics card of architecture “Maxwell” or
higher with a driver version 435.80 or higher.
• AMD® Radeon™ Image filter Denoiser
Note:
On macOS, the AMD® Radeon™ Image filter Denoiser will only run under macOS 10.14 “Mo-
jave” or later versions. The older macOS 10.11, 10.12 and 10.13 do not supply the necessary
features to make it function.
Denoising results are way better when the denoiser can use additional passes (such as Albedo,
Normal and Depth). When the corresponding tick is checked, these passes will automatically
be computed by the render engine.

Denoising Strength setting allows you to modulate the final output between the raw image and
the fully denoised image. This is useful when the denoiser blurs the final render too much.

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Tips
Specular materials
In order to get high quality images from path tracing, a large number of rays must generally be
traced to avoid visible noisy artifacts, especially when the scene contains specular materials
(glass, metals, mirrors, etc...).

For scenes containing a lot of specular materials, if caustics are of little interest, turning off the
Compute physically accurate caustics option can significantly reduce noise, thus potentially
needing less samples per pixel.

Alpha and Transparency

Because variable alpha would be very costly in the Path Tracer, currently alpha channels are
converted to “binary alpha”, ie. opaque or transparent, with a 0.5 threshold. This way, trans-
parent impacts can be filtered out early-on during the intersection testing on the GPU, skipping
material evaluation entirely!

There is a technique to workaround this limitation to some degree: you can get variable trans-
parency in the Path Tracer by mapping a picture in the Transparency channel of your material
(not the Alpha channel). You need to set the “Global transparency” setting of the Transparency
tab to something less than 99%. Note that because the Global transparency is not 100%, fully
transparent pixels of the Transparency map will not be fully transparent in the Path Tracer’s
render.

Spectral clouds
For scenes not using any Spectral VUE cloud layers, or if their rendering is not needed, turning
off the Render VUE Spectral cloud layers option can significantly speed up the rendering.

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Cycles

Rendering with Cycles ­­ Overview

VUE 2024 introduces a technology preview of rendering VUE scenes with Cycles. Cycles is the
Blender foundation’s acclaimed render engine. It is an unbiased path tracer which can be run
on both the CPU and the GPU. The Cycles version implemented in VUE 2024 is Cycles 3.6 from
Blender 3.6.

In this first implementation, the following features are not yet supported when rendering with
Cycles:
• Volumetric atmospheric effects (fog & haze)
• Translucency / Subsurface Scattering
• Spherical scenes & planetary terrains
• Hypertextures and Hyperblobs
• Dynamic EcoSystems
• Multipass rendering, G-Buffer, Z-depth pass & alpha masks
• Object and material flags (Don’t cast shadows, Only shadows, Matte / Shadow / Reflection
etc.)
• Relighting
• Area lights, light emitting objects and daylight portals
• Diagnosis buffers
• Native rendering of procedural materials without baking
• Rendering of animations
• NPR (it can work in some cases, but might lead to unexpected results in others)
• Native Cycles nodes and materials (VUE will automatically convert its own materials into
Cycles materials on the fly in the background)
Everything else is supported by varying degrees, and any properties you edit in VUE will be
mapped to a corresponding Cycles object. For example, when you add a VUE light source, a
corresponding Cycles light is added during rendering with the same properties as the VUE light.

Cycles can be used for rendering the final picture to the render stack and for running an inter-
active render in a viewport with the perspective view or a camera view. In VUE 2024, both the

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interactive Cycles render and the final offline render use the same render settings.

How the integration between VUE and Cy­

cles works

To send the scene to Cycles for rendering, the entire scene is exported in the background to a
USD stage in the RAM which is directly used by the Cycles Hydra render delegate. Any procedural
materials or meshes are baked, EcoSystems are exported using USD Point Instances, the sky
is rendered as an HDRI, and material properties are mapped to Cycles’ native Principled BSDF
shader properties. Spectral cloud layers and MetaClouds can be rendered when they have been
baked to OpenVDB objects, in which case they will be rendered with a Cycles Principled Volume
shader. Clouds which have not yet been baked to VDB can also be baked on the fly, but this is
not recommended, as it can take quite a while. Alternatively, you can also render all clouds into
the HDRI (you can choose between these cloud rendering options in the Cycles render settings
and you can also use both at the same time).

Note:

Once you’ve rendered the scene with Cycles, either with the interactive renderer or the offline
renderer, and you then save the scene, you will be asked during saving if you would like to
embed the pre-baked export information into the scene file. If you choose “yes”, the generated
scene file will be larger, but you will be able to start any subsequent Cycles renders much faster
the next time you open the scene, because you won’t have to wait for another rebaking process
of those objects.

For exporting and baking the scene, Cycles uses each object’s export settings which you can
configure in the Export Options dialog. If you want to change the baking quality of a mesh or
the baking resolution of a procedural material, just edit the mesh and texture baking options
in the object’s export settings and they will be taken into account when sending the scene to
Cycles. The sky HDRI is rendered using internal render settings optimized for rendering HDRIs.
These render settings cannot be edited at this time.

To export infinite objects such as ground planes, infinite terrains or infinite sea planes, an Ex-
port Zone must be created. If you try to render a scene with infinite objects and you do not
have set up an Export Zone just yet, VUE will offer to create one automatically for you with a
default size of 1km x 1km (which you can resize afterwards, of course).

Hint:

Once an Export Zone has been created, only objects within this Export Zone will be exported
to and rendered by Cycles. If you encounter any objects which are partially cut off or missing
from the render, make sure they are located within the Export Zone. If an object is only partially
located in the Export Zone, baking it can even produce weird artefacts and incorrectly scaled

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results.

Running Cycles as an interactive render en­

gine in the viewport

You can use Cycles in any perspective or camera viewport for rendering the scene and navigat-
ing in it. Just like with a final render, an export of the scene with baking processes will be trig-
gered before the render starts. To start the interactive render, enable it in the viewport menu.

Running Cycles in the viewport

We recommend disabling the Main Camera Preview with a right click while Cycles is running in
the viewport. Having both the camera preview and Cycles running at the same time can cause
slowdowns and glitches in the Main Camera Preview.

Note:

While you can edit objects and materials in the scene while Cycles is running, keep in mind
that every single action will trigger a rebaking process. If you execute particularly CPU inten-
sive tasks such as painting an EcoSystem with the EcoPainter, increasing terrain resolutions or
working in a material node graph, you risk freezing the interactive Cycles render eventually if
it cannot catch up in time with your changes, or crashing VUE if your hardware cannot handle

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running the Cycles render in parallel in the background. For this reason, we recommend us-
ing the interactive preview mainly for navigating around the scene, moving, rotating and
resizing objects or editing lights.

Cycles render settings

VUE includes all of Cycles’ native render settings, in addition to some VUE specific settings for
exporting the scene to Cycles. If you are familiar with Cycles in Blender, you will feel right at
home with Cycles in VUE too.

To access the Cycles render settings, switch the preset render quality in the Render Options to
“Cycles” and click the “Edit” button.

Sampling
Cycles shoots a number of rays (samples) from the camera per pixel into the scene. These rays
bounce around the scene until they eventually find a light source. Then, this light source deter-
mines the final color of the ray, and in consequence, eventually the final color of the rendered
pixel. By shooting more and more samples into the scene, the information from more samples
is averaged to determine the final pixel’s color, and noise will gradually start to disappear.

The controls in the sampling group define rules for Adaptive Sampling. Adaptive sampling
means that Cycles will continue to shoot new rays into the scene until one of the sampling cri-
teria below has been fully met. Essentially, these settings tell the render engine when to stop
rendering.

Max. samples per pixel: Cycles will stop shooting more samples for a single pixel once this
maximum number has been reached.

Max. rendering time: Cycles will stop rendering the picture after the specified number of sec-
onds. The render will always stop after this amount of time, independent of how clean or noisy
it will look.

Noise Threshold: Cycles will analyze how much noise is present per pixel in the rendered im-
age. If it determines that the noise level remaining is less than the noise threshold, it will stop
sending rays for that pixel and will only continue sending rays for other pixels (until the “Max.
samples per pixel” threshold is reached) whose noise level is still higher. The lower this value,
the less noise you will accept in your final image and the cleaner it will be, but the longer the
render time. If you disable the noise threshold, all pixels will receive the exact same number of
rays, which will potentially cause much longer render times.

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Denoise
No matter how many samples you use for rendering the scene, chances are that some noise
will still remain which can be best eliminated with a denoising pass. You can denoise the final
render with the settings in this group. Please keep in mind that a denoiser needs enough in-
formation to work with. If the render is exceptionally noisy and was rendered with just a few
samples, the denoised result will also be splotchy and exhibit artefacts.

Denoiser: You can choose to denoise the render with one of two available denoisers: Intel’s
Open Image Denoise library and NVIDIA’s OptiX Denoiser. Both denoisers use different AI
techniques to remove noise from the final image. The OptiX denoiser can be faster than In-
tel’s Open Image denoiser, because it runs on the GPU and uses hardware ray tracing if your
GPU model supports it, but it is limited to NVIDIA graphic cards only and requires GPUs with a
compute capability 5.0 and higher.

Passes: The more information a denoiser has about the structure of the scene and rendered im-
age, the better the result will be. Thus, you can instruct Cycles to compute additional passes in
the background which will be used by the denoiser. The more passes you compute, the longer
the render will take and the more memory it will use, but these bumps in performance usually
have very little impact. You can choose between None, so that denoising will only be based on
the final render pass, Albedo which will compute an Albedo pass (raw object and material color
with no lighting influence) for better denoising, and Albedo and Normal which will compute
an additional normal pass for further improving the denoised result.

Prefilter: This option only has an effect when using the Open Image Denoise option. It de-
fines if the additionally rendered passes are pre-filtered before being handed to the denoiser.
Prefiltering means that the passes themselves will be denoised before the denoised passes will
then be re-used for denoising the main render. For the most accurate final rendering output,
use None to only apply denoising to the main render. This mode requires that the scene is ren-
dered with enough samples to already be quite noise free before the denoiser kicks in. Fast
will denoise the Albedo and Normal passes with a low precision, leading to a less detailed, but
fast result. This mode is best for preview renders or for using Cycles as an interactive render
engine in the viewport. Finally, Accurate is a balanced setting which will denoise the Albedo
and Normal passes with a higher precision and a slower speed, but which will overall require
less samples for an acceptable denoising quality than “None”.

Path Guiding
Path guiding is a feature which helps reducing Global Illumination noise significantly by direct-
ing more samples towards light sources. It is based on Intel’s Open Source path guiding library.

How Path Guiding works

As explained at the beginning of this section, a path tracer shoots a number of rays (samples)
per pixel into the scene. Once they hit an object, they bounce off that object in random direc-

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tions, based on that object’s material properties. By shooting more and more samples with
each pass, the image slowly cleans up and any noise starts dissolving, but only if enough sam-
ples are shot and randomly bouncing around in the correct directions for the noise to disappear.
Noise is mostly caused by light sources in the scene, especially indirect light, so it takes quite a
while to clear up without any additional guidance of where to focus sending more samples.

Now, let’s assume a surface is lit indirectly by a light source. If the render engine knew some-
how that the surface was illuminated by a light source, it could make sure that in addition to
bouncing samples off the surface into random directions, more samples would also bounce off
into the direction of the light source illuminating the object. Thus, the render engine needs to
learn about the light source’s position and intensity to make this happen.

To learn where the light sources are located in the scene, Cycles will use the information it gath-
ered from the first few sampling passes of rendering the scene to approximate the position
of light sources and their influence in the render. This information is fed back into the sam-
pling process for the next sampling pass, and when the next iteration of samples per pixel is
shot into the scene, the render engine will guide more of these samples towards possible light
sources. By learning from each new pass, the sampling shooting and bouncing process will be-
come more precise and the render will eventually become cleaner and more noise free in less
time.

This technique does not introduce any bias. It simply means that less samples are bounced
off in random directions where they would be wasted, and more samples are bounced into
directions where they contribute to the final image quality, so that noise will clean up faster.

Note:

Path guiding mainly improves scenes with lots of indirect light. It can also produce much bet-
ter light distribution in scenes with transparent surfaces (think about the sun shining through
a glass window which in turn illuminates a room) and help with rendering better caustics in
less time. Path guiding works only on the CPU as of Cycles 3.6 and is mostly noticeable in inte-
rior scenes or within volumes with sub-surface scattering (think about underwater scenes, for
example). It is not going to have much of an impact in outdoor scenes.

Path Guiding render settings

Once path guiding has been enabled, the following settings become available:

Training samples: This defines how many iterations / sample passes Cycles will analyze to
learn about the light sources present in the scene. Usually, values between 128 and 256 passes
are enough. Higher values might have a negative impact on performance, as Cycles contin-
ues to spend energy on learning more about the light sources, even though it already knows
enough about them to output a clean render. A value of 0 means that all passes are used for
training Cycles. Ideally, the number of training samples should be lower than the total num-
ber of samples per pixel, so that later passes can benefit from the learning result of the initial

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passes.

Surface / Volume: You can enable path guiding separately for surfaces (e.g. non-volume ob-
jects) and volumes (clouds, objects with SSS materials) to improve memory management and
rendering performance. Disabling path guiding for any of the two areas might make sense when
your scene does not benefit from any visual improvements after you enabled path guiding. In
this case, performance might even take a hit, and you might want to disable path guiding for
this area only. Also, path guiding only improves diffuse surfaces. Specular and glossy reflec-
tions are not affected and still require regular sampling methods to cleanup noise.

Lights
The setting in this group relates to all direct light sources in the scene and is relevant when
you have more than one light. Some light sources might be far away from the camera and
thus not contribute a lot of lighting to the final image. Cycles offers two methods of using this
information to redirect samples to more important lights in the scene, thus resolving noise from
direct light sources faster.

Light Tree: With this option, Cycles automatically decides based on the light’s distance to the
camera and its intensity how many samples should be allocated to rendering this light. While
each sample will overall take a bit longer to render, noise will clean up faster, which will in the
end produce a cleaner final render in less time. This feature currently does not work on AMD
GPUs on macOS.

Light Threshold: This option can speed up rendering of many light sources at the cost of intro-
ducing more noise. Once Cycles estimates any additional samples to contribute less light to the
final render than this threshold, it stops allocating more samples to cleanup this light. This is
useful for decreasing the render time in scenes with many lights where some lights might only
contribute a small amount of light to the final image. A value of zero disables this feature and
will never ignore any lights or stop sampling them.

Light Paths
The rays (samples) Cycles shoots into the scene bounce around for a certain number of times
before they stop. In reality, light bounces around hundreds or even thousands of times, but this
would also mean incredibly long render times when replicated by a render engine. For this rea-
son, Cycles needs to decide when to stop tracing further bounces which might only contribute
very little to the final image quality.

Max. Bounces
When a ray is shot from the camera into the scene, it is considered a “Camera ray”. Once it hits
an object, it changes into a different ray type. For each ray type, you can determine for how
many more bounces Cycles will continue to trace the ray with the following settings:

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Total: A ray can turn into many different ray types along its path. For example, a camera ray
might first bounce off an object (diffuse ray), then be reflected from a reflective material (glossy
ray), then enter e.g. a water volume (transmission ray) before finally going into the sky into a
cloud (volume ray). In total, the ray has now bounced four times. For this reason, there is is a
total number of bounces that Cycles will trace. This value should thus be higher than all the
other ray type values, or those bounces will eventually not be rendered any more by Cycles.
Lowering the total number of bounces can speed up the rendering for preview renders without
having to touch the individual ray type settings.

Diffuse: The ray simply bounces off the surface of an object. This eventually determines the
object’s color and also the quality and amount of Global Illumination in the scene. A value of 0
disables any Global illumination effect and the scene will only be lit by direct lights.

Glossy: The ray bounces off the surface based on the material’s glossy specular reflection set-
tings. This determines the quality of reflections and highlights on an object.

Transmission: The ray enters an object and then exits it. This determines the quality of Sub-
surface Scattering effects and of transparent materials with an index of refaction other than
1.

Volume: The ray enters a volumetric object such as a cloud and bounces inside of the volume.
Raising volume bounces will greatly influence the brightness and realism of a volume. A high
number of volume bounces corresponds to multiple scattering within volumes.

Transparent: Transparent bounces relate to rays which enter a transparent object with no re-
fraction or refraction (a material with an IOR of 1). This applies to alpha channels, for example.
Transparent rays are not limited by the “Total max bounces” setting and are instead controlled
separately. Transparent bounces are especially important for rendering plants. If you have
many layers of overlapping foliage such as leaves in a scene, you need to raise the number of
transparent bounces considerably to avoid artefacts. If the number is too low, alpha channels
of leaf textures further away will not be rendered and you will get black pixels in the final render.

Clamping
Clamping refers to reducing the light intensity of the overall light present in the scene. It allows
the effective removal of fireflies (very bright single pixels which are caused by light sources of
high intensity). However, clamping the light intensity is not physically accurate and it can lead
to a dimmer rendering overall. Thus, you need to balance out the removal of fireflies with the
overall scene brightness.

Direct Light: This parameter clamps the intensity of direct light coming from light sources in
the scene. It can remove fireflies from glossy specular reflections. Higher values mean stronger
reduction of light intensity and an overall dimmer render. A value of 0 disables any clamping.

Indirect Light: This parameter clamps the intensity of indirect light caused by Global Illumina-

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tion. Most fireflies are caused by GI, and as such, clamping the indirect light intensity is often
the better option with a less noticable visual impact. Higher values mean stronger reduction of
Global Illumination brightness and overall darker shadows and less color bleeding. A value of
0 disables any clamping.

Caustics
Caustics are another source of fireflies and need a high number of samples for a clean result.
To remove fireflies from caustics, an easy solution is to slightly blur the rendered caustics at the
cost of loss of detail and physical accuracy.

Filter glossy: This parameter will blur caustics caused by glossy reflections. A value of 1.0 is a
good starting point without sacrificing too much detail. A value of 0 disables any blurring.

Reflective: You can enable or disable caustics caused by reflective materials (metal, for ex-
ample) with this checkbox, but still keep caustics from refractive materials (water or glass, for
example).

Refractive: This is the opposite to the refractive checkbox. It allows you to enable or disable
caustics caused by refractive materials while keeping caustics caused by reflective materials
untouched.

Sky
This group includes specific settings for exporting and baking VUE skies and clouds for Cycles.

Skybox
Enable this group to bake the atmosphere into an HDRI. If you disable atmosphere baking, the
scene will be lit only by direct light sources. The HDRI is rendered with render settings specifi-
cally optimized for HDRI rendering. These settings cannot be edited at this time.

Once the skybox export is enabled, the following settings become available:

Resolution: This defines the resolution of the rendered HDRI in pixels. The HDRI will be ren-
dered in a panoramic aspect ratio, and the resolution here relates to the horizontal size of the
HDRI.

Separate sun: Enabling this setting adds an additional sun light source to the Cycles render.
You can light a Cycles scene properly using just the baked HDRI, but an additional sun light can
produce more detailed shadows and more subtle light coloring at the cost of physical correct-
ness (because the scene is then lit by two light sources at the same time). Without a separate
sun, the softness of shadows will be determined by the baked HDRI light source, which will not
necessarily match the shadow softness of the original VUE sunlight. Hence, we recommend
leaving this option on.

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Enable clouds: This checkbox allows to globally enable or disable the rendering of VUE Spec-
tral cloud layers, MetaClouds and OpenVDBs into the HDRI. Rendering clouds into the sky can
take a long time with procedural cloud layers, so it’s useful to disable this setting until the final
render. You can also use this together with the Volumetric effects setting (see below).

Camera movement tolerance: This setting is a threshold for deciding when to re-render the
HDRI for each new Cycles render. VUE always renders the sky based on the current camera
position. Usually, you would not want to trigger a new sky rendering process for every single
test render you do. Thus, VUE will only render a new version of the HDRI if you moved the
camera a lot around the scene. This threshold defines how far you need to move the camera
before a new sky render will be triggered the next time. Of course, if you make changes to
the atmosphere in the Atmosphere Editor, a re-baking of the VUE sky will always be triggered,
regardless of the camera movement.

Volumetric effects
The settings in this group control the rendering of volumetric fog and of any volumetric clouds
baked to OpenVDB.

Enable clouds: You can enable or disable the rendering of any OpenVDB files in the scene with
this checkbox. You can also use this together with “Enable clouds” in the Skybox group to ren-
der OpenVDB clouds both into the HDRI and as true volumetric objects at the same time.

Enable aerial perspective: This setting will add a cube with a low-density blueish volumetric
material around the camera, thus simulating fog or haze. The density of the material is con-
trolled by the Aerial perspective setting in the Atmosphere Editor.

Tips and best practices for building and prepar­

ing scenes for Cycles

Because Cycles can currently not read native procedural VUE materials and objects without
baking, you will need to adjust your scene building and preparation habits. Mainly, you need to
ensure that you build materials and meshes with baking already in mind. While you might read
the next section at first as a list of limitations, it is actually rather a best practice guide which
we also recommend for seamless pipeline integration with other programs.

Here are a few tips and tricks for recommended workflows for various scene elements.

General tips for improving baking speed

• Remember that Cycles uses the baking quality setup from the Export options for each
object. In the Export options, you can explicitly define the resolution for every mesh and
texture map for each individual object in the scene by overriding global scene-wide ex-

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port defaults for the selected object. Make use of this powerful feature to optimize the
baking of distant or secondary elements. Disable the baking of any texture channel that
you won’t need and consider just baking the color channel. Reduce mesh and texture
baking resolution for distant objects. Consider setting the scene-wide default baking op-
tions quite low for faster preview renders and later only raise them for select objects.
• Hide any objects from rendering in the World Browser you do not need for the next test
render. Any object that is hidden will not be baked during the export process to Cycles.
• When exploring the scene to find a good camera angle for the final render, set a large
camera movement tolerance in the Cycles render settings for the sky to avoid useless
rebaking if you just want to move the camera around for the time being. You can lower the
tolerance later to rebake the sky for the final render and then also increase the skymap’s
baking resolution.
• Consider hiding OpenVDB clouds and / or cloud layers from the scene for preview renders.
Rendering volumetric clouds in any render engine is a slow process, with Cycles being no
different, and rendering infinite cloud layers which have not been baked as OpenVDB files
into an HDRI skymap can take a while.

Materials
• PBR vs. Simple Materials: VUE’s simple materials are non-physical materials. Upon ex-
port to Cycles, many of the material properties are internally mapped to physically accu-
rate Cycles Principled BSDF material properties. Mapping a non-physical material system
to a physical one will inevitably cause visual differences. For example, simple materials
in VUE can exhibit “fake” highlights from reflected light sources without the material it-
self needing to be reflective. In the real world, this is not possible, and in Cycles, any VUE
simple material using the highlight channel will inevitably become reflective. In this case,
the highlight intensity will be mapped to the specular level in Cycles’ Principled BSDF ma-
terial, and the global size (dull vs. shiny) will control the material reflection roughness.
For this reason, consider using PBR materials whenever possible. PBR materials are phys-
ically accurate and can be transferred almost 1:1 to Cycles’ material system with as good
as no visual difference.
• Prefer Bitmap-based materials where possible: Use as many objects with bitmap-based
materials as possible. Bitmap-based materials do not need to be baked to texture maps
(unless you’ve explicitly set the object’s material export options to always enforce bak-
ing). A material is considered to be bitmap-based when it
1. consists only of a single material layer,
2. is not a mixed material,
3. no material channel uses the “procedural” mode, but all of them use either “Mapped
picture” or “Constant”, or...
4. ...a material is a Substance Material. In this case, the output of the Substance Material is
also a bitmap texture.

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• Layered and mixed material considerations: If you create procedural materials for bak-
ing, avoid layering or mixing transparent materials / material layers with a refraction
index and non-transparent materials or layers with a different refraction index (see the
section on water below for an example to avoid). Because everything will eventually be
baked down into a single texture and material layer, mixing these properties will likely
result in an unpleasant looking material.
• Enable the baking of relevant channels in procedural materials: Remember that every
procedural channel in a material needs to be baked into a texture map. If you do not see
the effect of a material channel, make sure you enabled baking for this particular channel
in the global export options or in the object’s export options.
• Displacement considerations: To use displacement on an object, switch the Subdivi-
sion strategy either to “No subdivision” if you think the object’s resolution is already suf-
ficient, or to “Uniform” if you need to subdivide the object upon render time. The default
setting of “Dynamic” subdivision based on camera distance is not supported, and you will
not see any displacement happen. You can alternatively also pre-bake an object with dis-
placement to polygons and bake the displacement effect into the mesh this way, which
in some cases can be faster than displacement at render times.
Hint:

When baking an object with displacement into polygons, try keeping the mesh baking resolu-
tion low at first to avoid baking tiny polygons that would hardly be noticeable. Once you’ve
baked the object, you can double click on it in the World Browser to open the Polygon Mesh
Options panel and then smooth and subdivide it further with the Turbo Smooth mesh subdivi-
sion. This will usually lead to better results with also less memory consumption than baking a
high-polygon object in the first place.
• Translucency / Subsurface Scattering & Backlight: The translucency tab with Subsur-
face Scattering settings is not yet supported by Cycles in VUE 2024. Backlight for simulat-
ing translucency on thin objects such as planes and leaves does work, however.

Lights
• Volumetric lights: All lights in Cycles are inherently volumetric. Toggling the volumetric
option in VUE thus has no effect.
• Photometric light temperature and IES profiles: Photometric light temperatures are
not supported by Cycles and cannot be mapped to Cycles lights for this reason. IES pro-
files will be supported in a future version.
• Softness parameter for soft shadows: Softness in VUE lights is different to the radius
value of lights in Cycles for producing soft shadows. For this reason, VUE softness can-
not be mapped to Cycles point and spot lights and will be ignored by Cycles. The only
difference is the directional VUE light. Here, softness is supported, because it behaves
the same in both Cycles and VUE. When editing the softness of a VUE sun light which is
connected to the atmosphere, ensure you’ve enabled Separate sun in the Cycles render

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settings. Else, the softness will be determined by the baked HDRI light source.
• Shadow density: Cycles has no equal parameter for shadow density, so this setting is
not supported.
• Light color: Light colors are mapped to the light colors of Cycles lights. Please note that
variable colors (e.g. gradients) are a non-bakeable volumetric effect and are not sup-
ported.
• Power: Power is mapped to the corresponding light power of Cycles lights.
• Falloff: The falloff setting of spot lights is mapped to the blend value of Cycles spot lights.
• Regular and quadratic lights: Next to the physically correct quadratic light intensity
falloff, VUE also includes non-physical regular falloff lights. Cycles only has physically
correct lights with quadratic falloff, hence both VUE light types produce the same result
in Cycles. Custom light attenuation is also not supported, since it does not exist in Cycles.
• Volumetric smoke & dust and light gels: These are 3D volumetric effects which cannot
be baked into textures and which are thus not supported by Cycles.
• Lens flares: Lens flares are a post-render effect in the VUE ray tracer and do not exist in
Cycles. Hence, they are not supported.
• Area lights, light emitting objects and daylight portals: Area lights, daylight portals
and light emitting objects (objects which have been converted into light sources) are not
yet supported in this technology preview. Luminous (emissive) materials are supported.

EcoSystems and plants

• Avoid SolidGrowth plants: SolidGrowth plants are a legacy technology that is only still
supplied with VUE for backwards compatibility reasons when loading scenes created in
older versions. SolidGrowth has been superceeded by PlantFactory for over a decade by
now. The plants are outdated, and while they can theoretically be baked and exported
to Cycles, the original technology was never optimized for export and will have subopti-
mal UVs and low-resolution geometry. Use PlantCatalog plants or any other plant from
PlantFactory instead of SolidGrowth plants.
• Make sure plants use texture maps: Baking procedural materials on plants can be a
slow process, especially if a plant uses many different materials. If you create your own
models from scratch in PlantFactory, only use texture maps in your plant’s materials. All
e-on supplied plants, both sample plants from PlantFactory and all PlantCatalog plants,
only use texture maps.
• Don’t use dynamic EcoSystems: Dynamic EcoSystems populate an EcoSystem at render
time within the camera frustrum. Because the VUE scene needs to be exported to Cycles
before the rendering can start, this feature is not supported. Dynamic EcoSystems will
simply be missing from your render. You can manually limit EcoSystems to the camera

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frustrum by using a regular EcoSystem instead of a dynamic one, placing “blocker” ob-
jects such as primitives just outside of the camera frustrum and then using the “Decay
near foreign objects” settings in the EcoSystem population rules.
• Manually create color variations: Color variations from the Color tab in an EcoSystem
are not supported, because this would require material baking for each individual in-
stance in the entire EcoSystem. To create color variations, just load different copies of
the same object with different materials into the EcoSystem item list and populate.
• Save resources by using static PlantFactory & PlantCatalog meshes: When you load
a PlantCatalog or PlantFactory plant into an EcoSystem, you can define if you want to
load the plant as a static mesh, a procedural mesh or a (pre-)animated mesh. Since Cy-
cles in VUE 2024 does not support rendering of animations, the best option in terms of
resources is to go with “Static”, as “Procedural” mainly relates to interactive wind anima-
tions and procedural material effects only supported by the VUE ray tracer. “Animated
Mesh” is not supported by Cycles due to a technical limitation in the USD library.
Setting EcoSystem items to animated can cause material and geometry glitches.

Terrains
• Verify the terrain’s location when using an Export Zone: The most important thing to
check is that the terrain is located fully within an Export Zone (if one is present in the
scene) or it will be either missing from the render when it’s located outside of the zone or
only partially rendered if only some parts are located within the zone. The default Export
Zone has a size of 1km x 1km, so you might need to considerably resize the Export Zone
to fully encompass larger terrains.
• Use heightfield terrains: While you can use procedural terrains for rendering scenes
with Cycles, they do not bring so many additional benefits compared to heightfield ter-
rains, because they need to be baked to meshes just like heightfield terrains. Dynamic res-
olution and infinite detail at render time are only supported by the VUE ray tracer engine.
For rendering with Cycles, procedural terrains will be converted internally to heightfield
terrains first (using the terrain resolution you set in the Terrain Editor) before being baked
to polygons. To mimic some of the infinite procedural detail, additional normal maps
and normal tweaks are applied internally by VUE to give the terrain a more detailed look.
Also remember that using zones within a procedural terrain, as described in the chapter
on the Export Options, will only export the zone, not the whole terrain itself. In the case of
nested zones, only the deepest nested zone will be exported. All in all, heightfield terrains
are easier to use than procedural terrains and are recommended for Cycles.
• Consider exporting a 2D heightmap first: When you use VUE to build your terrain shapes,
exporting the finished terrain to a 2D heightmap and then creating a new terrain using the
heightmap will result in faster baking times, because the terrain graph does not need to
be computed by VUE during the baking process. Especially for terrains which use Erosion
nodes, this can provide a substantial speedup. The best practice is to create a copy of the

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original terrain, then to hide this copy from both the viewport and the render, and then to
load the 2D heightmap in the original terrain to replace the previous terrain graph. This
way, you still keep a copy of the original editable terrain object in the scene to which you
can make changes to at a later point and then re-export a new 2D heightmap for the other
terrain.

Water
You can render water in Cycles either with a default infinite water plane (which will be restricted
to the area of the export zone upon rendering) or by applying a water material to another object
with a volume, for example a cube. Depending on your needs, both methods can produce good
looking water renderings in Cycles.

Infinite water plane: When adding an infinite plane to a scene, it comes pre-loaded with a
MetaWater material consisting of a water layer and a foam layer. We recommend deleting the
foam layer, because it would be baked into one texture with the underlying transparent water
material. This can look strange and will not work well in Cycles. Infinite water planes are the
best solution when the camera is supposed to be above the water and the water is not meant
to be too transparent. They also render fast, because they have no volume.

A closed volume object (e.g. a cube): When you want to render water with volumetric light
shafts, caustics or with the camera being placed underwater, an infinite plane no longer works.
In this case, you will need an object with an actual volume such as a cube where you can place
the camera inside. You can apply a MetaWater material from the material library to the object
and then delete the foam layer (if present) in the Material Editor.

Adjusting the water material:

For water materials, ensure you enable the baking of Bump and Displacement maps. As long
as you use a constant color for coloring the water (recommended), you will not need to bake a
color texture map.

The following VUE simple material properties are the only ones Cycles will use to determine the
water material’s look. You can safely ignore any other property in a water material, including
any SSS / translucency properties, highlights, reflectivity amount or scattering direction.
• Refraction index: When rendering water, Cycles takes the material’s refraction index into
account and computes physically accurate reflections based on the viewing angle of the
water surface. The reflectivity is handled automatically by the refraction index in the na-
tive Cycles Principled BSDF shader and cannot be changed.
• Material color: This determines the water’s color. If you want to have a clear water ma-
terial, use a bright color. For dark and muddy water, use a dark color.
• Bump map: Any procedural bump function on the bump tab will be baked into a texture.
This means that you can use the Water Surface Editor for adjusting MetaWater materials to
change the water’s look, add more or less waves and adjust the roughness or smoothness

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of the water surface. If you feel your water surface is lacking detail, try increasing the
bump strength. If the surface looks blocky or has artefacts, increase the texture baking
resolution in the object’s material export settings.
• Displacement map: When using any other object for water than an infinite plane, baking
a displacement map can occasionally provide that finishing touch of detail to the water
surface. Keep in mind, however, that a primitive such as a cube has very few polygons
and will not displace properly unless it is subdivided. Make sure to use a sufficient sub-
division in “Uniform” mode to see the effect of the displacement channel as described
in the previous section on materials. If bump and displacement channels use different
functions, it might be advisable to disable bump mapping on a water surface with dis-
placement, as it can potentially cause artefacts if the bump and displacement patterns
don’t match. If you are using an infinite water plane, you can enable the “Displaced Sur-
face” in the Water Surface Editor which will turn the plane into a procedural terrain mesh
internally. This will then be rendered like any other terrain object by Cycles.
• Material scale: The scale of the material will greatly influence the look of the water sur-
face, just like with the VUE ray tracer engine. By changing the scale, you can easily adjust
the wave size of the pattern generated by bump mapping and displacement mapping.

Clouds & Atmospheres

• Use a cube with a volumetric material for fog or haze: VUE’s infinite fog and haze set-
tings from the Atmosphere Editor are not compatible with Cycles. The “Aerial perspec-
tive” setting in the Cycles render options is a quick fog and haze approximation where
VUE will generate a cube with a blueish volumetric material which will encompass the
scene based on the current camera position. The material’s density is controlled by the
Aerial Perspective setting in the Atmosphere Editor. If you want more control, you can
disable the Aerial perspective in the render settings, create your own cube encompass-
ing the scene and apply a VUE volumetric material with a custom color to it. Depending
on the cube’s size, try very low values between 0.01 and 0.1 for density. Please be aware
that there is currently no way to control the scattering anisotropy of fog and haze using
this method.
• Use SmartClouds for volumetric clouds: When you want to add volumetric clouds to
your scene, we recommend using SmartClouds. Changing density and absorption (opac-
ity) for baked VDB clouds is currently not supported in this first version of Cycles in VUE.
Hence, you need to ensure that the right density amount is already setup in the Cloud
Material Function Graph, so that the density will be baked into a grid when you bake the
cloud layer into an OpenVDB volume. With SmartClouds, you do not have to worry about
this, as they are specifically designed with proper density settings in mind.
• Consider using HDRIs or pre-baking the VUE atmosphere: If you replace the VUE at-
mosphere with an HDRI, the HDRI will be read by Cycles and will not have to be rebaked.
Once you’re satisfied with your VUE atmosphere, consider exporting a panoramic HDRI
from it, then loading the HDRI into the scene and rendering the scene with Cycles. This
will avoid having to rebake the sky for each new Cycles render.

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• Enable “Separate sun”: Even though VUE exports physically accurate HDRIs, having a
separate sun light source in the scene offers more flexibility, more defined shadows and
overall nicer light distribution. It is also much easier to create volumetric light rays from
an actual light source than from an HDRI only. In addition, VUE will automatically add
a reddish decay to the sun light based on its pitch – an effect that gets lost when just
using a baked HDRI. When using Cycles as an interactive render engine in the viewport, a
separate sun is always enforced and created for interactive preview purposes, even if the
setting is unchecked in the render settings.

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Saving (Exporting) Images

Once rendering is complete, you can export the picture to other 2D applications (e.g. Photo-
shop™) using any of the following:
• Click the Save displayed picture icon ( ) to the left of the channel buttons, in the Main
view’s title bar. This will save the currently displayed channel.
• Click the Save color picture icon ( ). This will save the color channel, regardless of
which channel is currently displayed.
• Select the menu command File | Export Picture and select the channel you want to save.
• When rendering to screen, in the Render Display dialog, press the Save picture button
( ). The channel that will be saved is the one that is currently displayed (use the ,
and buttons to change channel).
Supported picture file formats are: BMP, JPG, GIF, HDR, PNG, TGA, TIFF, EXR, EPX, IFF, PCX,
PSD, RLA and RPF.

If you save using the Piranesi EPX format, distance and material information will be included
inside the file (you need to render the Material ID component, either as a G-Buffer channel or
as a Multi-Pass component).

If you have enabled rendering of G-Buffer information, you can save this information as Run-
Length Encoded (RLA) or Rich Picture Format (RPF) files using the above method and saving
the Color channel.

When rendering in Multi-Pass, you have also the option to save the picture in a multi-layer, multi-
channel Photoshop PSD document. However, you need to decide this before beginning the
render. It is not possible to save as a multi-layer, multi-channel Photoshop PSD document after
the rendering completes.

Saving Animations

Animation file formats must be selected before the rendering of the animation begins. You
cannot change the animation file format once the animation has been rendered. You should
use an external application to do this.

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Section 3
Importing and Ex­
porting

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Importing Objects
VUE provides a comprehensive set of import filters that can be used to import objects from
other major 3D applications.

To import an object from another application, select the menu command File | Import Object,
or press File in the Objects Browser (you display this by pressing the icon). A Standard File
Browser appears that lets you select the file you want to convert. The conversion itself can be
quite long (up to several minutes), especially when converting DXF or OBJ objects.

Supported file formats are:

Sample import from 3DS. Note how mappings are converted (including transparency maps!).
• VOB: VUE object file,
• DXF: Standard AutoCAD (raw geometry with groups, no textures),
• OBJ: Standard Wavefront (raw geometry with groups, texture UV mapping information),
• 3DS: 3D Studio (raw geometry with groups, texture conversion). Both the 3D Studio and
LightWave import filters go incredibly far in the conversion of existing materials, convert-
ing such complex effects as color, bump, transparency and reflection maps, and even
some procedural settings! The picture opposite illustrates the power of these filters; it
displays a very nice 3DS fighter model from the Science Fiction Modeling Alliance, ren-
dered in VUE, untouched from conversion.
• LWO: LightWave 5 (raw geometry with groups, texture conversion),
• COB: TrueSpace 5 (raw geometry with groups, texture conversion),
• RAW: RAW format
• FBX:
Note:
It is possible to import scenes with textured geometries and cameras, but other objects

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(like lights, characters with skin and bones, morphers, etc...) are not supported. Some
materials may not be well imported (it can be caused when the exporter writes data spe-
cific to its application only).
• 3DMF: 3D Meta File (raw geometry with groups, basic texturing information),
• WRL: VRML file format (raw geometry with groups, basic texturing information),
• PZ3, PZZ: Poser 4 through 11 animated and static model import filter (raw geometry with
groups, texture conversion). Importing Poser content requires that a valid license of Poser
4 and above (5 and above required for dynamic effects) or newer be installed on your com-
puter. When importing native Poser content, the Poser Import Options dialog will appear,
letting you configure the import/conversion process (see below for details). If you im-
port content from Poser 6 and above, you will have the possibility to re-pose the models
directly inside VUE and render the Poser materials using the Poser shader tree.
• DAE Collada File Import: Collada is rapidly becoming the standard for 3D file exchanges.
Collada support includes the ability to import fully textured and animated objects. Vertex-
based morph targets for animation (e.g. expressions, skin and muscle movement) are
supported in VUE. If you are importing Collada animation files from DAZ Studio, you will
need the “Animate Plus” plugin for DAZ Studio.
• ABC: Alembic format.
Note:
Any file created with any Alembic library < 1.7.3 is compatible with this module(ie, both
v1.7.3 Ogawa and v1.0 HDF5 Alembic formats). VUE only imports Polymesh, XForm, and
Camera Alembic Data structures. It ignores all others: Nurbs, points, lights, materials,
and all specific data types (curvers, subD, faceSet).
When importing a single object, the first object in an alembic file is selected. If you select
to import an entire alembic scene file, it imports all objects in the file and they would
import as separate files.
• GoZ: Pixologic Zbrush Object format
Note:
Working with ZBrush can be easier with the Link with ZBrush, see Working with Pixologic
ZBrush.
• Height maps: Geo-located elevation data (.dem, .ddf, .dted/.dt0/.dt1/.dt2, .tif, .img, .bil)
but also any picture file can be imported as a heightmap-based terrain. When import-
ing one the geo-located terrain types, a dialog will show up to relocate the terrain to a
different center, instead of the physical world location.

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Geo-located Terrain dialog

Files used as heightmaps are fully imported into VUE to be used on a terrain (either Height-
field or Procedural): be careful not to import files too big for your computer memory. For
geo-located datasets, which can be huge, any one of the freely or commercially available
G.I.S. (Geographical Information System) can easily be used to clip and/or resample huge
terrain files before importing them into VUE. Each terrain file is imported as a new VUE
terrain. Adjacent geo-located terrain tiles will yield adjacent terrain objects in your VUE
scene.
Note that it is now possible to import real-world elevation elevation and satellite or to-
pographic data from internet sources directly as a texture-mapped terrain in your scene,
which will often be a anywaybetter option than searching and tailoring your own geo-
graphical data to suit your needs.
• VDB: It is now possible to import vdb grid that represent clouds. For VUE to interpret
correctly the vdb, it needs to be a volume grid with uniform transformation.
If there are more than one grid in the vdb file, the same number of clouds will be created.
The clouds are created with a default meta cloud material and works similarly to meta
clouds except there is no control sphere.
The Import options will not open as the format is not customizable yet.

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Import Options

Mesh Import Options dialog

When you import an object from another application (File | Import Object from the menu),
the Import Options dialog displays if you click the Import Options button on the object select
dialog. If you do not pop this dialog with the button, it will automatically show after selecting
an object, unless you unchecked the checkbox at the bottom saying that you do not want this
dialog to appear.

This simple dialog lets you configure the way the object will be imported:

Merge duplicated vertices: Merge duplicated vertices

Smooth geometry: Smooth geometry, ie sharp angles will be rubbed from the surface (the
threshold defining “sharp” is adjustable with the Max Smoothing angle box)

Weld mesh groups: Weld multiple meshes into one single one, to speed up rendering.

Decimate object on import: when this option is selected, the object will be automatically dec-

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imated in order to reduce its polygon count while preserving as much of its original geometry
as possible.

You can find more information about these options in the Mesh Information section.

Center object: when this option is selected, the imported object will appear at the center of
the 3D Views, regardless of the object position stored in the imported file.

Resize object: when this option is selected, the imported object will be resized according to
the following options:
• Automatic and Preserve dimension if the object was made with a certain unit, it will try
to find it in order to convert the object to the VUE unit actually set,
• Manual: the object is resized according to the indicated resize factor or max dimension :
– Resize by: the object will be scaled by this factor
– Largest dimension: the object will be scaled so its maximum dimension does not
exceed the one entered

Downsize texture maps: Check this option to automatically downsize all texture maps asso-
ciated with the object you are importing. Overly large texture maps use a lot of computer re-
sources and this is a good way to ensure that all texture maps are a reasonable size. You can
select a size in megapixels for all of the texture maps using the dropbox options.

Poser Import Options

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Poser Import Options dialog

Whenever you import content in Poser’s native file format, the Poser Import Options dialog will
appear, letting you configure the way the content is to be handled by VUE. If you are having
problems with Poser imports, remember that there are two choices of SDK’s when setting up
your Poser on the Options panel.
• Group figures as single meshes: when this option is selected, the numerous parts in
the Poser figures will be assembled into a single, multi-material mesh. This is both more
efficient in terms of rendering speed and processing. It will also avoid cluttering the in-
terface. However, if accessing the different parts of the mesh is something you need to
do, you may elect not to group the figures.
• Do not refresh meshes while moving timeline slider: this option is only available if you
are importing an animated Poser mesh. When you select this option, the animated mesh
geometry won’t be updated as you drag the Timeline. This will speed up refreshing of the
scene as it avoids VUE having to communicate with Poser to update the mesh.
• Do not refresh dynamic hair preview: this option is only available when importing an
animated Poser mesh that involves dynamic hair. When you select this option, the an-
imated hair geometry won’t be updated as you drag the Timeline. This will speed up
refreshing of the scene as it avoids VUE having to communicate with Poser to update the
hair geometry.
• Allow re-posing inside VUE: when this option is selected, VUE maintains an open com-
munication socket with Poser in order to support re-posing of the Poser meshes inside
VUE. However, maintaining this open communication socket increases the memory re-
quirements for handling the mesh. If you don’t need this feature and want to avoid this
overhead, uncheck the option.
• Render materials using Poser shader tree: when this option is enabled, the Poser shader
tree will be used for the rendering of all the materials of the imported object. Like re-
posing, this requires an open communication socket with Poser that increases the mem-
ory requirements for handling the mesh. If you don’t need this feature and want to avoid
this overhead, uncheck the option.
• Use quaternion interpolation: if you notice animation artifacts in your imported Poser
meshes, check this option. However, depending on how the character was animated in-
side Poser, there may be some cases where checking this option affects the character’s
pose – in which case you should uncheck this option.
• Bump conversion ratio: this setting lets you control the default bump map gain that is
applied when converting Poser materials to VUE materials. Because of the immense dif-
ference in between the render engines of these two applications, there is unfortunately
no single setting that will work for all cases. The default value is the one that has been
found to provide the best overall conversion – however, certain models may require dif-
ferent conversions ratios, and this setting will avoid having to modify the amplitude of

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the bump mapping of all the imported Poser materials.

Animation Import

These controls are only available when importing an animated Poser mesh.
• Import entire animation: if you select this option, the Poser mesh will be hosted by VUE
as an animated mesh.
• Import single frame from Poser animation: if you select this option, the Poser mesh
will be converted to a static VUE mesh. It will not be animated.
• Frame to import: when converting the animated Poser mesh to a static VUE mesh, you
can use this setting to select which frame of the animation will be converted into a VUE
mesh.
• Warning: the Allow re-posing inside VUE, Render materials using Poser shader tree
or Import entire animation features require handling of the imported mesh by Poser
“inside” VUE. The memory requirements are at least twice as large as for simple imports
(could be a lot more, depending on the existence of morph targets and other Poser-specific
features). Unless you absolutely need these advanced features, and especially if your
scene is already complex or if the imported Poser mesh is heavy, you should consider dis-
abling them. Because Poser will be running “inside” VUE to handle this mesh, consider
as a rule of thumb that any scene that is “heavy” in Poser will possibly choke VUE (this
limitation does not apply to 64 bit systems). As a reminder of the massive overhead re-
quired by these features, a warning message will be displayed each time running Poser
inside VUE is required.
These features are not available when using VUE Integration Plugin in integrated mode.

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Re­Posing

Re-Posing Poser meshes inside VUE

Thanks to the Re-Poser dialog, you can change the pose of your Poser characters directly inside
VUE (this requires a valid license of Poser 6 or better). You open the Re-Poser dialog by either:
• Double-clicking on the Poser mesh in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,
• Clicking on the Edit object button ( ) on the top application toolbar, or in the World
Browser toolbar when the Poser mesh is selected,
• Using the menu command Object | Edit Object when the Poser mesh is selected.
Note:

if you unchecked the Allow re-posing inside VUE option in the Poser Import Options dialog,
your Poser mesh will be converted to a standard mesh and re-posing will not be possible.

The Re-Poser dialog displays a hierarchy of all the body parts found in the Poser mesh, together
with the Poser dials that correspond to the selected part.
• Body part hierarchy: this list displays a hierarchy of all the body parts in the Poser mesh.
Unfold the hierarchy and select a body part to reveal the re-posing dials of that specific
body part. If you double-clicked on the Poser mesh inside the 3D Views to open this editor,
the selected body part will be the one you clicked on.

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• ‘XXX’ dials: when a body part is selected in the hierarchy, the dials corresponding to that
body part are displayed in this frame. If you modify one of the dials, the body part will
be affected accordingly. To view the results of the change, click on the Apply button. For
full details on the effects of the dials, please refer to the Poser documentation.
• Apply: click this button to update the Poser mesh inside the VUE scene.
• Edit mesh: click this button to open the standard Polygon Mesh Options dialog to adjust
the underlying mesh options.
• Save changes in Poser scene: when this option is checked, the changes you make will be
saved in the original Poser scene, so that if you re-open that scene in Poser, the changes
you made in VUE will be visible there. If this option is not checked, the Poser scene will
not be modified. The changes made to the Poser scene will be stored inside the VUE scene
instead.
• Show morph dials: when this option is checked, you can access all the morph targets
defined for the Poser character directly from within VUE. However, because some char-
acters define a great number of morphs, and you don’t necessarily want to change the
morphs of your characters inside VUE (this is possibly something you’d rather do in Poser),
unchecking this option will reduce the number of accessible dials as well as the memory
overhead required for processing the object.

Rendering Using the Poser Shader Tree

Poser Shader Tree material

In order to ensure that Poser characters imported into VUE look as much as possible the same
inside VUE as they did inside Poser, e-on software and e-frontier have developed an advanced
bridging technology that enables VUE to use Poser’s internal shader tree when rendering Poser
materials. This way, Poser materials no longer need to be converted into VUE materials (with
the inevitable losses that result from any conversion process).

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Such materials that are rendered by VUE using the Poser shader tree are identified by a Poser
logo. Note that this feature requires a valid license of Poser 6 or better.

You cannot edit materials that are rendered using the Poser shader tree. You can however easily
convert them to an equivalent VUE material: open the Material Editor, and select the Simple
material type. When a Poser material is converted to a VUE material, it becomes fully editable
(you may however observe some discrepancies between the way the materials renders in VUE
and in Poser). You cannot convert a material back to the Poser shader tree material.

Note:

If you unchecked the Render materials using Poser shader tree option in the Poser Import
Options dialog, the materials of the imported Poser mesh will be converted to equivalent VUE
materials, instead of using the Poser shader tree.

Poser shader tree materials are compatible with VUE’s displacement mapping. You can adjust
the amplitude and the quality of the displacement mapping using the controls in the lower part
of the Material Editor when a Poser shader tree material is selected.

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Exporting Content
In addition to exporting pictures, VUE lets you export 3 different types of content: objects, at-
mospheres and entire scenes.

Export Options dialog

The Export Options dialog lets you configure the details of the export. This dialog appears,
with varying foldable sections, as soon as you want to export one of these elements.
• Exporting Objects
• Exporting Skies
• Exporting Entire Scenes
• VUE allows you to Export EcoSystems in Alembic, USD, C4D or FBX formats.
• The Export Preview mode can preview export directly in the real-time views to let you
see what the objects will look like once imported in your target application. In this mode,
export is also previewed in renders (render scene preview or main renderer).

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Export Options

Export Options

This dialog is for configuring export options for objects, skies and entire scenes. This dialog
appears, with varying foldable sections, as soon as you want to export one of these elements.

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Left Column

’Export Options – Left Part’

On the left of the dialog, you will find a list of the main asset and options categories. These
categories are:
• Geometry settings and output format: Main section where you define the output for-
mat, filenames and folders, as well as the geometry baking quality.
• Materials: Section dedicated to material export. The checkbox lets you enable or disable
material export at a glance.
• Animation: Only useful when your scene contains animated elements (grayed out when
nothing is animated).
• Asset types: Lists all asset types (vegetation, rocks, terrains, clouds etc.) currently used
in your scene, and lets you override the global settings from the other categories settings
for a given type or even an individual item.
All export options are explained below.

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Geometry settings and output format

General options

’General options’
• Export for: Select your target 3D software/renderer from the dropdown list to define best
export options. Available presets are:
– 3DS Max
– Blender
– Cinema 4D
– Clarisse
– DAZ Studio
– Lightwave
– Maya
– Modo
– Omniverse
– Poser
– SoftImage
– Unity
– Unreal Engine
– ZBrush
To manually set all the fields, select Custom settings.
• Export what?: You have 2 options:
– All objects: all objects of the scene will be exported
– Only selected objects: only the objects currently selected will be exported
Note:

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This option has an influence on the list of available asset types: if Only selected ob-
jects is selected, only the asset types corresponding to the selection will be available
on the left – the other ones are grayed out.
Note:
If you select an object and open the Export panel from the Export Object... menu
command (or the Export Object... icon of the World Browser), the option is auto-
matically set to Only selected objects, but you can change your mind and export
everything without having to close the Export panel...
• Scale: when you do not select any preset, you have the possibility to apply a global scal-
ing factor to the geometry. It can be useful for formats such as .OBJ, which do not embed
any unit.
• Axis system: change the axis system for your mesh. Again, it is only available if you have
not selected any preset (presets define the correct axis system for the targeted applica-
tion automatically)

Output options

’Output options’
• Export folder: Select the output folder for your export. In case of multiple files (geometry,

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terrain heightmaps, VDB clouds), all files will be saved there. You can browse to find the
destination directory by clicking the Browse icon on the right.
• Geometry: This section lets you define the output file and format for the main geometry
– File format:
* .3ds: 3D Studio
* .c4d: Cinema 4D v5 export
* .dae: Collada export
* .lwo: LightWave export
* .obj: Wavefront OBJ export
* .abc: Alembic export. VUE supports both v1.7 Ogawa export and v1.0 HDF5
export. With VUE, you can export static (non deformable) meshes with ani-
mated transformation (pos, rot, scale) in Alembic. You can also export cam-
eras with animated transformation AND animated properties (focal length, fo-
cus distance, aperture and aspect ratio).

* .goz: Pixologic ZBrush GoZ export

Note:
Working with ZBrush can be easier with the Link with ZBrush, see Working with
Pixologic ZBrush.

* .fbx: Autodesk FBX export

* .usd: Pixar Universal Scene description
– File name: Enter the name of the exported file.
– Format options: some formats (Alembic, FBX, USD ) have specific format options
(FBX exports may be written in binary or ASCII format, typically).
– USD use PointInstancer for EcoSystems: option specific to USD, when exporting
ecosystem, you can choose to use native instances or a Point Instancer (An object
that generate instance dynamically)
Note:
Many USD importers do not support Point instancers with ecosystem exported with
bones.
– Export individual objects in separate files: option specific to USD, you can choose
to export objects as individual USD files and the main export file is just an aggregate
of these object files ( with their position, without the geometry). That allows you to
edit the individual object files.
– Split mesh by material: option specific to USD, you can choose to export objects
with one mesh by material ( instead of one mesh with many materials). It can work

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better with skeleton animation but is heavier.

– Normal/Render/Multi Instances: option specific to C4D, when exporting ecosys-
tem, you can choose the type of instance to use.
• 2D heightmaps: If the current list of exported objects contains one or several terrains,
you can export them as 2D heightmaps, by checking the corresponding option in the Ter-
rains section (click Terrains in the list of Asset types to access that section). In such case,
you can choose the output format of these grayscale pictures here (format and options).
Format supporting 16-bit are recommended (TIF 16-bit will be the default). You can edit
the format options with the icon. More details about this topic can be found here.
• Skymap: If you export the sky as a skymap, define the filename and format here. All
supported picture file formats can be used for exporting the sky.
• Volumetric clouds: If you export volumetric clouds, define the format here. You have 2
possibilities
– .vdb: OpenVDB
– .nvdb: NanoVDB
Note:
When exporting VDB clouds, the naming of the output files will be automatic (using the
name of the cloud and a suffix for the frame in case of animation.)
If you are exporting an entire scene or several objects at once, the geometry file will either con-
tain the description of the entire scene (most of formats) or a list of all the other object files
used in the description of the scene (LightWave LWS scene file referencing LWO object files, USD
depending on the format options...). With Alembic format, all files required for the converted
scene will automatically be placed in a separate folder.

Export geometry
If enabled, the object will be exported as a 3D mesh file. You can control here how this mesh
will be defined.

This group contains a unique setting, called Resolution. This setting controls the overall reso-
lution of the objects when they are converted to polygons before being exported. The higher
the setting, the more precise the conversion, but the larger the file and the longer the resulting
processing times.

An estimate of the resulting number of polygons is displayed below this setting. Actual values
may vary quite significantly.

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Export UVs

’UVs’

UVs are required to export materials correctly. Different types of UVs are available:
• Specific UVs (when available): This method uses the existing UVs of the object if they
are available. It is only recommended for VUE primitives, plants and terrains. It is not rec-
ommended for meshes using several materials (which includes static meshes of PlantFac-
tory plants in ecosystems) or meshes using a single procedural material. This method is
faster than the “Generic UVs” since there is not parameterization of the mesh. If the result
shows incorrect materials on some part of the object, it is probably due to overlapping
of the original UVs, so you should try with “Generic UVs”
• Generic UVs: With this method, UVs are recomputed using a mesh parameterization (au-
tomatic unwrapping). It is particularly suited for meshes with several materials, whose
subparts have UVs coordinates referring to their own material (meaning they can over-
lap). It generates a map containing all materials without overlapping. It can take a long
time to generate.
If you choose not to export materials, you can disable UVs completely. But you can prefer to
generate UV-mapped meshes in all cases (in order to be able to edit your own materials in your
target 3D application), and that is the reason why this option has been separated from the Ma-
terials section.

Export levels of details

If enabled, several versions of the geometry will be exported, each one corresponding to a spe-
cific LOD.
• LOD count: Select the number of versions you want to export.
• Generate 1 texture per LOD: check this if you want to export all corresponding resized
textures.

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Export billboard

A banana plant (original version and billboard)

If enabled, a 3-plane billboard of the scene will be baked and exported. Resolution parameter
control the resolution of the baked texture. Note that using a high resolution may take a while to
compute. Normal maps are generated for each plane, as well as PBR maps if those are available.

When using different width and height, the front and right view will use width and height, but
the top view will stay square at width x width size, so that the dimensions of the top view match
the width of front and right views.

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Materials
Export materials

’Material Export Options’

If enabled, materials will be written and set up in the exported object.

• Export Mode:
– Automatic: VUE will choose the best of the 2 options below, depending on the ob-
jects being exported.
– Dump existing texture maps: This will write textures extracted from the object ma-
terials, setting up those in the output object. Define here how to write maps.
– Bake to texture maps: VUE will bake textures to represent the materials. This mode
can be used to export procedural materials. Beware it can take a long time to gen-
erate those maps.
2 types of map are available:
* UVs: This is the default type. VUE will generated UVs following the options de-
scribed here

* Per polygon maps (Ptex): Exports the material as a Ptex texture: draw a small
texture for each polygon.
· Resolution: The slider sets the number of pixel per unit. A higher pixel per
unit gives an export with a better resolution.

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• Resolution: Use the slider to set the quality of the material maps.
• Automatic aspect ratio: Check to enforce automatic aspect ratio for the maps.
• Map dimensions: Choose between
– Actual Dimensions: Select to use the actual dimensions. All texture maps will be
generated at the exact resolution indicated.
– Effective resolution: Select to use effective resolution. This is particularly useful
when exporting entire scenes: in order to generate the texture maps, the 3D geom-
etry of the objects has to be “unwrapped” onto a flat plane. But, because the geom-
etry of the converted objects can be arbitrarily complex, some parts of the texture
map may be unused; so the resolution of the parts of the texture map that are actu-
ally used may be less than the selected resolution. This can result in inconsistencies
in the texturing resolution on different objects. Effective resolution attempts to gen-
erate texture maps where the resolution of the texture once it has been mapped
on the supporting geometry is roughly the one indicated in the Resolution setting,
and is more or less constant over all objects. Although this mode results in texture
maps of varying resolutions, it is the one that will result in the most consistent tex-
ture mapping.
• Grayscale as 16 bits: channels containing only gray values (alpha, bump, displacement,
metallic, roughness, ambient occlusion) will be exported as 16 bits pictures.
• Texture anti-aliasing: may be used to improve the quality of generated textures, exactly
as explained in the Anti-Aliasing section.

’Texture anti-aliasing options’

• Occlusion treatment: changes the behaviour of the occlusion baking :
– Geometric: will compute ambient occlusion from the geometry
– Textured: will bake the ambient occlusion channel contained in the material
– Both: will export a blend of the two

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’UDIM option’
• Use UDIM: Only available when exporting .tpf plants, check to enforce multi texture bak-
ing : will produce UV across several textures using UDIM technique.
• Pixel Resolution: Only for UDIM generation, will control the pixel resolution of each UDIM
texture. The greater the value, the more texture will be generated.
• Generated channels: Select any of the following to generate.
– Color
– Bump
– Alpha
– Normal
– Displacement
– Metallic
– Roughness
– Ambient Occlusion
– Highlight
– Clearcoat Normal
– Include baked illumination, if available

Texture map output options

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’Texture Map Output Options’

You can tune here some options to make sure exported maps will work out of the box in your
preferred 3D software.
• Place textures in sub-folder: places exported texture maps in sub-folder “Maps” of ex-
port folder.
• Relative paths: check to use relative paths for texture maps.
• Invert alpha: check to invert alpha.
• Invert normal maps green: check to invert green on normal maps (useful to switch be-
tween conventions).
• Alpha treatment: Select here how to export alpha :
– Unchanged: this will export maps as you have defined them in the material editor.
– Extract: this will export a separate alpha map.
– Merge: this will export alpha as embed alpha channel of color map (thus merging
into an RGBA map), this will try to export the texture in the same format the color
map was originally.
• Fallback merge format: If merge alpha option is checked, chose here fallback format
for the merged texture, in case original format does not support transparency. There are
several options here : EXR, PNG, PSD, TGA, or TIF.
• Apply gamma: check to apply gamma settings used in PlantFactory to exported map.
• File format (converted maps): There are several options for the texture map: unchanged,
BMP, EXR, GIF, HDR, IFF, JPG, PCX, PNG, PSD, TGA, or TIF. Unchanged option will keep tex-
ture maps original format.

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Animation

’Animation export options’

This section is only available when exporting an object or an entire scene that contains keyframed
animation on the VUE timeline, and when the export format supports it. Check the box to in-
clude the animation in your export. You can then choose the Start, End and Framerate.

This option also applies when exporting a sky, if the latter is animated (either through the Atmo-
sphere Editor, or through cloud proxies). However, as it is something very specific, the export
of PlantFactory’s animated wind (as bones or point-level animation) is now to be configured in
the PlantFactory vegetation asset section.

Note: Exporting a keyframed animation from a VUE scene refers to basic exportable animation
properties such as keyframed position, rotation and scale. Procedural animation with mor-
phing meshes (e.g. procedural terrains changing over time) is not supported out of the box.
You can, however, extend this functionality with VUE’s Python API and develop custom export
scripts for file sequences of morphing animations.

Asset types
Export what assets?
By checking/unchecking each asset type line individually, you can easily include or exclude all
objects of a given type to the current export.

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Override settings for an asset type

You can now override some export settings on a per-asset type basis, which can be very helpful
in many cases. Typically, you will usually prefer to export all PlantFactory items with Dump
existing texture maps for materials, and export all rocks with baked texture maps, with a low
resolution.

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’Asset type overrides’

Here is an example on how to change the resolution of baked textures for all rocks in the scene:
select the Rocks asset type on the left (provided there are some rocks in the scene, and you have
not restricted the export to a selection non containing any of those rocks)

Make sure the export is activated for rocks (the checkbox on the right of the Rocks line must be
checked – or you can do it by checking the Export Rocks which appears on the top of the right
part. In the right part, check the Material override checkbox, and change the Resolution: this
will apply to all rocks in your export.

Override settings for an individual asset

Now suppose that you have a beautiful rock in the foreground, for which you would prefer a
higher resolution. You can do it by selecting the corresponding item (Canyon Rock in this exam-
ple) in the dropdown beside Show settings for:

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’Individual asset overrides’

Then you can check the Geometry override checkbox and set a higher resolution ; then also
check Material override, and set a higher resolution as well (In the example, we also choose to
export a Normal map instead of a Bump map, and to export Roughness).

Note:

When you open the Export Options panel from the Object > Object Export Options... menu (after
selecting an object in the scene), VUE automatically selects the object in the Show settings for:
dropdown, to let you directly override the export options for that individual object.

Override settings for an EcoSystem specimen

EcoSystem specimens are treated exactly like the other objects: it means that for instance,
EcoSystem rock specimens will use the overrides defined for Rocks, if any. And each Rock
EcoSystem specimen used by your scene will appear in the Show settings for: dropdown of the
Rocks section, with a ECO_ prefix to make the distinction easier. So you can override export
settings of a given EcoSystem population from there.

Asset types with specific options

Some asset types such as clouds or PlantFactory items have specific options detailed below.

PlantFactory vegetation
PlantFactory items offer more control on some geometric and animation aspects.

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’PlantFactory vegetation options’

• Double-sided primitives: Select here how to support double sided primitives :
– Double sided mesh: All faces are considered as double sided (no back face culling)
– Duplicated double-sided polygons: Double sided faces will be duplicated, one face
per side (for engines that support only back face culling)
– Duplicated two-sided material polygons: Double sided faces with a two-sided ma-
terial will be duplicated (such as leaves), one face per side (for export formats or
engines that do not support two sided materials). NB: Only C4D format supports
two sided materials. You should activate back face culling on these faces or use
“Distance between vertices” option to avoid Z-fighting.
• Distance between vertices: If double-sided faces are duplicated, these faces need to be
rendered using back face culling. If the format/engine does not support back face culling,
this slider allows to add an infinitesimal interstice between such faces so that there is no
Z-fighting in the final render.
• Apply wind: Bake first frame wind deformation on the geometry.
• Dynamic billboard baking: Define how to bake billboards dynamically facing camera for
export. The possible choices are :
– Fixed, user-defined: the billboard orientation depends only on the orientation pa-
rameters defined in its parent primitive instance (more information in the PlantFac-
tory documentation).
– Fixed, facing current camera: the position of the current camera is used to bake

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the orientation of the billboard.

– Fixed, outwards: the billboard is always parallel to the plant vertical axis.
– Fixed, facing X axis: the billboard is facing the X axis.
Export wind animation

C4D, FBX, LWO and USD formats give you the option of exporting rigging and animation. Ani-
mation refers to wind animation only. These options do not display for other format exports.
• Plant Animation: there are three options:
– Static Bones: bones but no animation
– Animated Bones: bones and animation
– Animated Points: points and animation
• Duration: length of the animation in seconds
• Framerate: frames per second
• Cyclic animation: Check to force the baked animation to be cyclic
Note: Using the timeline in VUE, you can keyframe any published plant parameters as well as
health, maturity and season, and create timelapse animations. To export a keyframed plant
animation from VUE, you can use the supplied Python script in the VUE program folder under
Program Files\e-on software\VUE 2024\Python\Scripts\. By customizing the script in a text edi-
tor, you can change the output directory and output format.

Note:

When the plant is an EcoSystem specimen baked as static mesh, all wind animation are dis-
abled.

Note:

When the plant is an EcoSystem specimen baked as animated mesh, wind animation can be
exported, but the options are enforced by the options chosen when you created the EcoSystem
(they can be changed by editing the EcoSystem Material the specimen is used in: go to the
General Tab of the EcoSystem Material Editor, and click the Item settings icon – for a global
EcoSystem, the same icon exists in the EcoSystem Painter).

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Terrains

’Terrain export options’

• Export 2D heightmap: Activate this to export the altitudes as a 2D grayscale picture
• Resolution: For a procedural terrain, you can choose the resolution of the heightmap (for
a heightfield terrain, VUE will always export the full resolution the terrain was defined
with).
• Bake Spline Terrain Effects into the heightmap: If some Spline Effects are influencing
the altitudes of your terrain, you can choose to bake their contribution in the exported
heightmap or not.
• Meshing type: You have two options here:
– Triangles
– Quads
Note:

When exporting a procedural terrain which has zones, only the zone or the deepest nested zone
inside other zones will be exported. If you want to export the whole procedural terrain, delete
any existing zones prior to export.

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Skymap

’Export Skymap’

VUE can generate a HDRI backdrop of the sky in the scene for mapping on a variety of primitives.
The result will be a stand-alone render of the sky. To mimic VUE skies in other applications, you
can also use the exported HDRI without the supporting geometry in an appropriate object or
light source, which is usually a dome light object or a world object in most render engines.

Note:

A baked HDRI is just an approximation of VUE skies, as VUE skies are the result of complex vol-
umetric interactions between objects and the surrounding atmosphere.
• Export Skymap: Be sure this option is selected when exporting the sky.
• Preserve full sky lighting range: This is only available when using 32 bit HDR formats as
the file format. Enabling this option will maintain the full light intensity of the exported
HDRI. This will most likely produce a completely overblown white HDRI at first glance. But
this is actually physically correct, because the sun light intensity is so bright that without
proper exposure, the HDRI will appear white. In your target application, you can then

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lower the HDRI’s intensity or exposure to a much lower value to get a correctly exposed
sky. It is highly recommended to keep this option turned on. If you disable it, the HDRI
will not appear white after export, but light intensities will be clamped and the overall
dynamic range of the HDRI will be severely limited. Additionally, the Visibility of the sun
setting on the Sun tab in the Atmosphere Editor also influences the light intensity in the
atmosphere and thus in the exported HDRI. It must be set to 100% for an unclamped full
32-bit dynamic HDRI export.
• Supporting geometry: Select the output geometry to use for the exported sky object.
The choices are: Cube, Octahedron, UV Sphere, Octasphere. See the images below.
• X, Y: This defines the rendering resolution.
• Render alpha: This checkbox allows to render a cloud alpha mask as a separate image
file which contains all volumetric clouds in the scene, including MetaClouds, cloud lay-
ers and OpenVDB clouds. You can use this alpha mask to mask out objects that should
appear “behind” rendered clouds in other applications or in compositing, or you can use
this to fake cloud shadows in the scene (since clouds from a HDRI cannot cast shadows)
by applying the mask to a large sphere encompassing the scene. The dropdown menu
lets you select the format for saving the alpha pass.
Note:

: VUE ships with a specific rendering preset optimized for rendering HDRIs. You can load it from
the render options dialog as a custom preset from Program Files\e-on software\VUE 2024\En-
vironment.

Here are the different types of output geometry available:

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Cube: this is the simplest supporting geometry which will create a standard sky box for use e.g. in
games. It presents important texture distortions in the corners.For cube Map, several layout were
added:

Layout of Cube Maps

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Octahedron: this is a simplified version of a sphere which represents an interesting compromise

between supporting geometry complexity and texture map distortions.

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UV Sphere: this is a standard UV-mapped sphere. Because of the way the texture is mapped,
some points on the sphere (near the top and bottom) will have a higher resolution than in the
middle.

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Octasphere: this is also a sphere, but this time it is mapped in such a way that the surface mapped
by each pixel in the texture is more or less constant over the entire sphere. This is the best solution,
although the resulting texture map may be hard to understand at first glance.
• Cloud Export Destination: Since there are two ways of exporting clouds from VUE, either
through the skymap or as VDB (volumetric) files (see below), you can select in this list
which cloud goes where at a glance. You can choose to export a given cloud both as a VDB
file and in the skymap, or exclude it from both. And you can use the Select all checkboxes
on top of the list to apply your choice to all clouds in the list.

Clouds
MetaClouds and spectral cloud layers can be exported as vdb files. This does not work for flat
cloud layers in the atmosphere (standard (2D and “volumetric (2.5D)” clouds) (as they are not
volumetric).

Export Settings for VDB

For cloud layers, an Export Zone will be needed, similar to the Export Zone for infinite terrains.

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It can be created from the File Menu (Export Zone) or when you try to export a Cloud Layer, a
popup will ask you if you want to create it. Alternatively, you can just restrict the cloud layer
with a regular cloud zone in the object properties panel.

If you select Export Animation, a file sequence of animated vdb clouds will be exported in the
form of one vdb file per frame of the animation.

In order for the animation option to be available, the cloud layer object needs to either have a
position, rotation or scale keyframe, so that it is marked for VUE as being an animated object.
Just animating the cloud material used by the cloud layer or making changes to the cloud set-
tings in the Atmosphere Editor will not work, because VUE will not recognize the cloud layer
itself as an animated object.

Also, keyframes for the cloud layer object can only be added if Forbid Atmosphere Animation in
the Atmosphere Editor is disabled. Else, this setting will prevent you from adding keyframes
to the cloud layer object.

If you try to export more than one cloud layer or MetaCloud at the same time, each cloud will
be exported on a separate file, the files will be suffixed by the name of the cloud.

There are a few options to specify what kind VDB file you want to export:
• Grid Options: This option specifies how the grid is created
– Fixed number of steps: on each direction (X, Y and Z), the space is divided iton a
fixed number of steps.
– Fixed size of step: on each direction (X, Y and Z), the space is divided into a variable
number of steps, where each step is at a defined distance from each other
• Multiple grids: You can choose which grid you want to export. Density holds the main
cloud shapes and always needs to be exported. You can add other grids for use with
custom materials in external 3d softwares.
• Grid transformation: This option specifies the transformation associated to the grid
– non uniform grid: In simple terms, the cloud will be localized in space. However,
if you selected the Fixed number of steps settings, it means the distance between
each step may be different from one direction to another. Some renderers do not
support this.
– uniform grid: Same as non uniform grid, but this time, the samples will be equally
distant in each direction. This means, in the case of Fixed number of steps that
only the largest dimension will have the expected number of steps. VUE requires
uniform grids to work correctly when importing clouds.
– not localized: For specific use cases only; the cloud will have no transformation (it
will not be placed not placed at its correct position) and the samples will be stored
by their index (the first being at 0,0,0). It can be easier for automated processes.

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• Center on origin: The position will be modified so that the center of the cloud is located
at the origin of the world (0,0,0)
• Export as Float: Some renderers (Arnold, for instance) do not support double precision
values. Therefore, you can export the grid as a grid of floating point values instead (which
might be better supported in various 3rd party renderers).
Moreover, the import of vdb clouds in other software has usually not many options, so we added
one more axis system (X -Z Y). It corresponds to the correct axis system expected by C4D for
example.

The Cloud Export Destination widget is repeated in the cloud section, as it affects VDB export as
well as skymap, as explained before.

Load/Save Export Settings

Use the Load and Save buttons (bottom of the panel) in order to store and reuse your export
choices in different projects. This can be useful typically if you have spent some time to adjust
the overrides you want for some of the VUE asset types.

Exporting Objects

A PlantFactory tree in Cinema 4D

When you decide to export an object from VUE, it will first be converted into data that can be
processed by other 3D applications.

The geometry of the object will be converted to a polygon mesh, and materials will be converted

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to texture maps. Conversion of the geometry is very similar to Baking to polygons, except that
the exported object in the VUE scene is not directly affected.

Also, on top of converting the object to polygons, VUE can also generate UV mapping informa-
tion and converts materials into texture maps. You can learn more about material export here

To export an object, first select the object to be exported, and then select the menu command
File | Export Object,

You can also do it from the Export icon, on the bottom of the World Browser.

The Export Options dialog will appear, letting you configure the export options for the selected
object.

Note:

some objects may not be exportable, because the creator of the object does not want you to
export them. You can, yourself, prevent other users from exporting your own models by clicking
Forbid export in the Polygon Mesh Options dialog.

Exporting Entire Scenes

On top of exporting independent objects and skies, VUE can also export an entire scene. Ex-
porting scenes is a complex process that involves converting all objects in the scene into poly-
gons (like when exporting independent objects), generating all corresponding texture maps as
well as a sky preview, converting camera and lighting information and then saving all these
elements to disk.

To export a scene, select the menu command File | Export Entire Scene.

The Export Options dialog will appear, letting you configure the export options for the scene
(only relevant options will be enabled).

Note:

Some objects may not be exportable, because the creator of the object does not want you to
export them. You can prevent other users from exporting your own models by clicking Forbid
export in the Polygon Mesh Options dialog.

Supported file formats for exporting scenes are:

• 3DS: 3D Studio

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• LWS: LightWave
• DAE: Collada
• FBX:
Note:
Cameras will also be exported into the FBX file. EcoSystems will be exported as FBX native
instances.
• ABC: Alembic
Note:
All files required for the converted scene will automatically be placed in a separate folder.
Cameras will also be exported into the Alembic file. EcoSystems will be exported as Alem-
bic native instances. As Alembic doesn’t support sky map internally, you won’t be able
to export sky maps while exporting the entire scene in Alembic.
• USD: Universal scene Description from Pixar
Note:
Cameras and lights will also be exported into the USD file. EcoSystems will be exported
as USD native instances or point instancers.
When exporting in USD on omniverse servers, you can activate USD_Synchronization
(Documentation/Importing_and_Exporting/Exporting_Content/Exporting_Entire_Scenes)
• C4d: Cinema 4D native format
In VUE, scenes containing EcoSystems can be exported. You can configure how EcoSystem spec-
imens are exported by right-clicking on the EcoSystem in the World Browser.

USD Synchronization

On top of exporting entire scenes, VUE can also synchronize the current scene with Omniverse.
For that to work, you need to export the whole scene with Omniverse preset on an Omniverse
server (either by using a omniverse:// path or by browsing on a filesystem mounted with Omni-
verse drive ( usually on o:) ).

You can then activate the menu item File|Synchronize USD Scene.

Once this is done, every modification on your scene will be automatically exported and your
USD file modified. You can interactively see the changes happening in Omniverse Create if you
activate the Live sync after loading the USD file.

Note:

This is a technological preview, not all the complex objects are supported : such as the materials

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that change according to their position

You can look at the full compatibility in this link.

Note:

The speed at which the changes are reflected in Omniverse depends of the complexity of the
change you are making: The moving/scaling of object cameras will be quite fast. Changing the
ecosystem of a massive terrain with thousands of instances will be quite longer

EcoSystem Export

’Exporting EcoSystems’

You can export EcoSystems in Alembic , USD , C4D and FBX format.

If the object(s) selected for export has Ecosystem instances, the instances will be exported along
with the object(s) provided you export. The materials will not be exported in the case of .abc
export, but will in other formats.

By default, EcoSystem instances are exported with global export options, but you can configure
how EcoSystem instances are exported by right-clicking on them in the World Browser, Classes
tab.

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Limitations
For EcoSystem instances, export can only be previewed at render time (in Main Camera view or
render scene preview) and not in real-time views.

For USD, Ecosystem can be exported as Point Instancer or native instances. If you export plant
as bones (animated or static), native instances have a better chance to be supported by your
final importer. Point instancers with animated point usually work fine.

Export Preview

In Export Preview mode, export is previewed directly in the real-time views to let you see what
the objects will look like once imported in your target application. In this mode, export is also
previewed in Integration Plugin renders (render scene preview or main renderer).

To activate Export Preview mode, there are 2 different paths:

Export Preview Icon

• From main menu: Display > Preview Export. This can be linked to a shortcut like all menu
commands.
• Using the icon in the top toolbar: If you have not set custom export options for any
object of the scene, VUE will offer to apply default settings to all exportable objects.
In Export Preview mode, you cannot edit objects nor materials in their regular editor. You
can only move/rotate/scale objects. You must switch VUE to normal mode again before editing
objects/materials.

If you modify objects / materials and activate “Export Preview” again, VUE will offer to update
the pre-baked export data for preview.

You can optionally save pre-baked export data with your scene.

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Export Objects on a Per­Object Basis

’Export Preview – Options’

You can change the export settings on a per-object basis. This is useful, for example, if only one
object uses transparency in your scene, and therefore you don’t need to generate alpha maps
for all other objects. It also lets you boost the export quality (geometry or maps) for a specific
object.

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Select the object for which you want to change export options and right-click the export icon
(bottom of the World Browser). Or, you can access this from the VUE menu.

In Export Preview mode, when you double-click on an object, the Export Options dialog will
appear, letting you adjust the object’s specific options.
• Use custom options: you can toggle from specific to global options without losing the
specific options you have defined for the object.
• Copy from global options: you can also choose to override the specific options with the
global (per-scene) options.
If you are currently in Export Preview mode, you can click the Refresh preview button to see
the result of your changes in the 3D views.

PTex Export Preview

Unlike the other material export modes, which can be previewed in both the OpenGL real-time
views and the renders (including Path Tracer and scene preview), PTex can only be previewed
in ray-traced renders (including scene preview).

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Section 4
The Editors

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Terrain Editor

The Terrain Editor: a complete set of tools to model terrains

Terrains are the primary building blocks of landscape imagery. Together with plants, they give
VUE incredible modeling power for natural phenomena.

When you create a new terrain, a mountain is automatically generated using random fractal
algorithms. These algorithms guarantee that no two mountains will ever have exactly the same
shape (unless they use the same seed).

However, terrains can be made to capture other shapes than this basic shape. This is done by
using the Terrain Editor. The Terrain Editor provides a set of powerful tools designed to let you
easily model realistic terrains.

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Terrain Types

Terrains come in three main flavors:

• Heightfield terrains,
• Procedural terrains,
• Infinite Procedural terrains.
All are based on an altitude function graph, and can later augmented using several tools like 2D
and 3D brushing, applying a global filter and scale, global landscape-inspired 2D effects, etc.

The altitude function can be edited by loading one of the many preset altitude functions, or by
editing the function yourself using the Function Graph. All terrains types allow you to define
custom dependencies in the graph, which are additional outputs computed together with the
terrain. They can then be called back from outside the terrain editor, typically to drive a material
function using an External Dependency input.

Both Heightfield and Procedural terrains can be made Symmetrical and/or Skin only. Sym-
metrical terrains are replicated negatively below their lower clipping altitude. Skin only terrains
don’t have any edges or flat bottom. This is useful to create thin elaborate surfaces beyond ter-
rains, such as a flag or other piece of cloth.

Heightfield Terrains

Heightfield terrains use a fixed resolution grid to define the geometry of the terrain. They are
the most basic and easy to use type of terrain, as well as the fastest to render. They also offer
a specific subset of nodes that are not available on Procedural terrains, because of the global
nature of the algorithm they employ, like erosion, blurring, computing slope or convexity, etc.

Each Heightfield terrain is driven by a graph which is evaluated over the terrain extent to build
the final terrain. Each modification on the graph triggers a re-computation of the terrain. All
other modifications (painting, old-style terrain effects, etc.) are still possible and appear inside
a User Touch-Up graph node. This is the last node connected before the output. If such a node
doesn’t exist at this location, one is created. This node can be manipulated by the user in the
graph to apply graph effects on user painting. However, additional painting can only modify
the User Touch-up node; no additional nodes are added.

In order to speed up previewing, two lower resolution versions of the Heightfield terrain are
computed while working on the Terrain Editor : a 256 × 256 (or the terrain’s resolution if the
final terrain has a smaller resolution) and 512 × 512 (if the terrain is larger that 256 × 256);
matches the terrain’s resolution if it is 512 × 512 or less.

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Procedural Terrains

As opposed to Heightfield terrains, procedural terrains are able to adapt their level of detail
dynamically, so as to always ensure the same amount of detail in the geometry of the terrain,
whatever the viewing conditions. You can zoom in onto Procedural terrains indefinitely, you
will always see new levels of detail – smaller and smaller details as you keep zooming in.

Note that the processing of a Procedural terrain is much more complex than that of a Heightfield
terrain, which will affect memory usage and rendering performance in several ways:
• Procedural terrains can be long to prepare before a render, especially if the camera view-
point is very close to the terrain, requiring very fine subdivision for tiny terrain details.
• Shading the terrain will evaluate the altitude function graph, so that details not showing
in the geometry because of a necessary limit in resolution will still be visible at render,
leading to much better visual quality, but also more costly render calculations.

Infinite Procedural Terrains

Such a Procedural terrain is truly modeled as an infinite object: as you move your camera, the
terrain will change but it will also move with the camera so you will not reach the edge of the
terrain.

When you create an infinite terrain, VUE will ask if you want to replace the ground plane, as
the infinite terrain will typically become the new ground. Likewise, VUE will ask if you wish to
replace any pre-existing infinite terrain in the scene.

Terrain Presets

VUE ships with a library of both Heightfield and Procedural terrain presets, with their associated
materials.

To load a terrain preset, click on the Load Terrain Preset icon ( ). This opens a Visual Browser,
letting you select the preset you want to use.

Terrain presets come under three categories: Heightfield terrains, Procedural terrains and In-
finite terrains. The Heightfield and Procedural terrain presets will create a terrain of typically
the same size as terrains.

Select the style of terrain you want to create, and VUE will generate an each-time-different ter-
rain of the corresponding style, complete with all associated materials.

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Hint: if you don’t like the terrain that was created from a preset, select that preset again to
replace the terrain with a new variation. Or you can use the Randomize button in the terrain
editor, in the Graph panel.

You can create your own terrain presets by clicking the Save icon ( ) in the Terrain Editor. This
will save the terrain altitude function definition, together with any assigned materials, and add
the required elements to allow randomization of the terrain each time you create a new one.

Touching Up Terrains

Besides the altitude function graph, which can be tricky to master, there are several tools in the
terrain editor to more easily alter the shape of the terrain. VUE blends these manual modifica-
tions with the output of the altitude function in such a way that you can later modify either the
altitude function without losing the manual changes.

Thus, you get the benefits of the virtually infinite terrain subdivision of procedural terrains, with
the ease of modification of Heightfield terrains. From your standpoint, there is almost no differ-
ence between editing a Heightfield terrain and editing a Procedural terrain. If you modify the
altitude function later, the modifications will be applied to the new function. This is particularly
useful when you want to add surface detail to the terrain without losing the overall shape.

The terrain resolution that is displayed below the top toolbar refers to the resolution either
of the Heightfield, or of the touch-up data only (in the case of a Procedural terrain). Because
of the altitude blending done by VUE, it is usually not necessary to use large resolutions with
Procedural terrains. When sculpting with 3D brushes, you are not limited to vertically altering
the altitudes, which allows for caves and overhangs. In this case, a polygon count will also
appear next to the Heightfield or touch-up data resolution, so that you are able to keep track
of the amount of detail that your terrain has to store, which can quickly use up a lot of memory
if you are editing very small details.

Hint: For optimal results when touching up a Procedural terrain, you should avoid painting
small details and sharp/steep edges, but instead add gradual changes.

Mapping Modes

The behavior of a terrain depends on the mapping mode (refer here for details on the differ-
ent mapping modes available in VUE) used for the terrain. By default, the Object-Parametric
mapping mode is used. In this mode, the geometry of the terrain is not affected by resizing or
moving.

However, if the terrain is mapped in World-Standard coordinates, the geometry of the terrain

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will change as you move the terrain about. In this mapping mode, the terrain should be un-
derstood as a window observing a particular area of the altitude function. If you move that
window, you see other parts of the function. But if you return to the initial location, the same
part of the function will be observed and hence the geometry of the terrain will still be the same.
If you enlarge the terrain in the 3D Views, you will be observing a larger area of the function: the
features in the terrain won’t be any larger, you’ll just see more features. You can enlarge the
terrain until it stretches up to the horizon, thus recreating the surface of an entire planet.

The other mapping modes represent different combinations of these two behaviors. For in-
stance, with the Object-Standard mapping mode, moving/rotating the terrain won’t change
the terrain geometry (as in Object-Parametric), but resizing it will show more of the terrain (as
in World-Standard).

Changing Mapping Mode

You change the terrain mapping mode using the drop-down list in the Altitude production sec-
tion of the Graph tab. When you change the mapping mode, the coordinate system of the alti-
tude function is changed, resulting in a modification of the terrain geometry.

To avoid changing the geometry of the terrain when changing the mapping mode, VUE will offer
to add some nodes to the altitude function in order to preserve the shape of the terrain. You
can examine these nodes in the Function Graph. From then on, however, moving or resizing
the terrain will be subject to the standard behavior of the new mapping mode.

Note:

You should avoid repeatedly changing the mapping mode of a terrain, as new nodes will be
added to the altitude function each time, and the resulting function graph may end up being
uselessly complex and slow.

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Spherical Terrains

VUE can create scenes in which all infinite planes and all infinite parametric terrains are spher-
ical. Once you define a scene as being spherical, the existing and added infinite planes and
terrains automatically assume that shape.

There are two kinds of spherical scenes:

• The basic spherical scene.
• The planet spherical scene.
In a basic spherical scene, the scene is limited to a piece of a sphere. With this type of scene,
terrains have the same look as a flat terrain with the same altitude function when viewed closer
to ground level. In addition, you also have a mid-range view of a planet, as from a lower altitude
orbit. This mode is more limited but allows you to have a spherical terrain with the same look
as the flat associated terrain.

In a planet spherical scene, you have a whole planet drifting in space. However, the spherical
terrains are a bit different from flat infinite terrains in that the altitude function is evaluated in
three dimensional space to maintain continuity on the whole planet.

In both modes, the center of the world is set at the position (0,0,-radius). This means that the
zero of the scene is at the “north pole” of the planet.

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Creating and Manipulating a Spherical Ter­

rain

Options dialog – Creating a Spherical Terrain

To create a spherical terrain, enable the spherical scene option on the Units & Coordinates tab
in the Options dialog. If you are creating a planet, you also have the option of setting the scene
radius, which is really the size of the planet.

Basic Spherical Scene

In the basic spherical scene you are working with a curved portion of a planet. Atmospheres
and object placement follow the same rules as for infinite procedural terrains.

The easiest way to create a basic spherical scene is to open a new scene and add an infinite
terrain. Then, on the Options panel, Units & Coordinates tab, select to create a spherical scene
and enter the size.

Now, you can landscape your terrain just as you would an infinite terrain. Keep in mind that
you will probably be viewing this terrain from a greater height than you normally would view a

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terrain.

Planet Spherical Scenes

Planet Spherical Scene

The planet spherical scene takes all of your infinite planes and creates an entire sphere, or a
planet. This includes water planes and cloud layers, so you are truly simulating a planet. If you
have an empty scene with just an atmosphere and a ground plane, the ground plane becomes
the sphere. If you would then add an infinite procedural terrain to the scene, this infinite terrain
replaces the ground plane and becomes the sphere. Of course, the terrain geometry will appear
differently than it would as a flat infinite terrain. To increase the height of the terrain for a planet
spherical terrain, use the numeric Z position field in the Object Properties panel.

Spherical terrains have the same properties as an infinite procedural terrain. However, when
a spherical terrain is moved on Z-axis, its radius is also increased to keep the terrain attributes
consistent.

In planet mode, the global translation gizmo has two modes. When you work on the whole
planet, it can be easier to move the objects along the latitude and longitude axes of the planet.
Therefore, a button has been added near the gizmo to switch to latitude-longitude mode in-
stead of X-Y mode. This option is also available in the display menu (Display | Gizmos | Spher-
ical Coordinates).

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Planetary Mapping Mode

The planetary projected texture node allows you to use a planetary projected picture (Mercator
projection) on a planetary terrain.

When added in a Function Graph, this node returns the value of the picture according to the
position of the point on the planet. The projection of the map on the planet can be offset using
the Latitude and Longitude parameters. These parameters give the position on the map of the
point (0,0,0) in the scene.

The Planetary mapping center option can be found in the Options panel, Units & Coordinates
tab.

Objects in Spherical Scenes

To make it easier to texture and manipulate objects, you can change the display mode from the
Display menu, Spherical Display option. With this option unchecked, you can display your
spherical terrain as if it was flat in the OpenGL views. This helps with object placement. The
rendering remains spherical. When Spherical Display is checked, you will see the spherical
terrain in all OpenGL views.

When you switch a scene from flat to spherical, the positions of all objects currently in the scene
are moved to keep the same altitude and orientation from the ground. If using a group of ob-
jects, all the objects inside the group keep their relative position to the group. Only the position
of the group is changed. However, if the group is ungrouped, the objects will move to follow
the curve of the ground.

If you create a group in a spherical scene, the position of an object within the group will be the
same as before being grouped. And, the object will keep its position if ungrouped.

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Atmospheres in Spherical Scenes

Options dialog – Atmosphere preview

The atmosphere for spherical scenes includes the atmosphere over the planet (or part of the
planet or curved terrain) and includes the dark areas of space.

The atmosphere can be previewed with or without clouds. This option is set on the Options
panel, Display tab, under the OpenGL atmosphere preview.

Selecting and previewing cloud options is very resources intensive. This can cause some lags
and unresponsiveness when editing your scene. Some atmospheres can need more than two
minutes to reach their final resolution.

At any time, you can force the refresh of the atmosphere preview using the “refresh sky” option
in the main view drop down menu. Be aware that moving the camera position doesn’t refresh
the preview. When moving the camera too far away from the last refresh, the atmosphere will
fade to the background to signal that the preview is invalid.

Note:

If you go higher in altitude than the radius of the planet, the preview of the sky will be deep
black.

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Editing Terrains

’Terrain Editor – Heightfield Terrain’

To access the Terrain Editor, either:

• Double-click on the terrain you want to edit in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,

• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the terrain is selected,
• Use the menu command Object | Edit object.
The Terrain Editor documentation will cover these topics in separate articles:

Top Toolbar

Predefined Terrain Styles

Importing Terrain Data

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Sculpting Terrains

Brush Editor

Painting Materials

Procedural Altitudes

Zones

Effects

Exporting Terrain Geometry

Handling the 3D Terrain View

The terrain you are working on is displayed as a 3D map in the middle of the editor. This map
is generated using e-on’s unique Solid3D™ real-time technology. It shows terrain altitudes by
coloring the map with a gradation that depends on altitude. The colors of the map can be
modified by double-clicking on the Altitudes below the map.

If you move the mouse over the terrain, you will see a pointer surrounded by a sphere that
follows the mouse. This is the brush, and it is used to apply local modifications to the terrain.

You can move, rotate and zoom the view using the Pan, Orbit Around Selection and Zoom triggers
defined in the shortcuts list of the Operations panel.

Panning moves the view to the left or right as well as up or down (vertical panning). By pressing
the Space bar, moving the mouse up/down will instead move the terrain forward/backward in

the view (horizontal panning). Moving the view also moves the rotation center , around
which the view is rotated when using the Orbit Around Selection trigger. You can also relocate
the rotation center to a specific position by Shift + double-clicking directly on the terrain.

You can also zoom in and out of the terrain using the Zoom icons ( and ). Note that
zooming does not change the terrain resolution.

The triggers used are the ones defined in the Triggers in Editor views category. If one of the Pan
or Zoom triggers are not defined in this category, the corresponding triggers from the top-most
category are used.

For an improved precision in navigation, you can use the trigger modifier Slow Camera Controls
during the navigation operations described above.

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If you moved or zoomed the view too much or simply want to frame the terrain again in the

view, use the Reset view button in the top toolbar.

If you are more familiar with sculpting on a uniformly colored mesh or find the colors used on
the terrain distracting, you can easily change the gradation color map by double-clicking on
the Altitudes bar (below the terrain) and selecting a different color map to use.

Terrain Editor Top Toolbar

• New terrain: creates a new terrain in the Editor window.

• Save terrain: saves the terrain in .prt (VUE terrain) format.

• Export terrain: exports the terrain in various object formats.

• Terrain options: allows you to convert the current terrain to a different type of terrain:
– Symmetrical: When rendered, the terrain surface will look duplicated with the copy
flipped along the Z axis (upside down)
– Skin Only: When rendered, only the terrain surface will be visible, not the terrain
sides that are normally visible
– Infinite: for Procedural terrain only
– Procedural: for Heightfield terrain only
– Heightfield: for Procedural terrain only

• Reset View: resets your view to what you were using previously.

• Top view: changes the view from a perspective view to a view from the top (i.e. as
if your terrain were seen from an airplane or satellite). Dragging the view with the right
mouse button will rotate the map.

• Show entire scene: displays the terrain with the current camera position as well as
all objects and plants placed in the scene. It toggles back to the original view.

• Show wireframe: shows the terrain as wireframe and toggles back to original view.
This works best when zoomed in on a terrain.

• Show specular: gives you a shiny surface to enhance your 3D perception of the terrain
when in sculpting mode.

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• Show Texture Maps: displays a bitmap applied as a texture to a terrain in OpenGL

render quality. The feature is particularly useful if you want to use a bitmap as a reference
when sculpting.

• Show clipping plane: displays the entire terrain area including what has been clipped.

• Copy and Paste: exchange your terrain data with standard bitmap applications.
You can Copy your terrain to the clipboard, then paste it into your favorite 2D app, modify
it as you like, then copy it back to the clipboard, and Paste it into VUE.
Note:
The data copied to the clipboard is limited to 8 bit resolution, which is far less than the
resolution of VUE terrains. This function copies only a heightmap, so no 3D displacement
information can be included using this method.

• Zoom: allow you to enlarge or reduce the terrain view in the editor. This does not
change the actual size of the terrain; it just allows you more control when working on the
terrain.
The Terrain Resolution is handled using the following icons:
• Halve terrain resolution: to halve the resolution of the terrain.

• Double terrain resolution: to double the resolution of the terrain.

A resolution of 512 × 512 will yield a very detailed terrain surface. 1024 × 1024 is a massive
resolution that should only be used when an extremely detailed terrain surface is to be seen
from close up. Please understand that such a terrain involves over 2 million polygons. Few 3D
packages would even survive this. Making even larger terrains is possible but is usually unnec-
essary.

Resample Terrain dialog

• Resample Terrain: is used to resample the terrain directly to any resolution. The Re-
sample Terrain dialog pops-up, letting you select the new terrain resolution. This changes
terrain resolution without actually changing terrain size in the scene.
Note:
The current terrain resolution is indicated just below that group of icons. The default
terrain resolution is 256 × 256.

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• Invert: inverts all the altitudes of the terrain, making lower altitudes high, and vice-
versa. In the case of procedural terrains, this function inverts the altitude filter.
The Retopologize icon ( ) works on heightfield terrains only, smoothing the entire terrain.
A dialog opens to set the amount of smoothing done. If selected for a procedural terrain, you
have the option of converting the procedural terrain to a heightfield terrain.

The Extend terrain canvas icon ( ) extends the function of a procedural terrain, effectively
enlarging it.

The Force 2D button ( ) is an override for the entire Terrain Editor. The 3D brushes are dis-
abled which avoids 3D displacements involving mesh creation and heavier computations. This
also removes any 3D effects on the current terrain.

When the Procedural material preview button ( ) is active, it plays as a mask. If you disable
it, you will be able to paint anywhere and it will render as it appears in the Terrain Editor.

Terrain Editor ­­ Predefined Terrain Styles

On the left side of the Terrain Editor is a vertical set of icons representing predefined terrain
styles. Clicking on any of these will generate a terrain of the requested style, based on the data
from the current terrain (in the case of heightfield terrains only).

These terrain styles are:

• Reset all: resets all terrain modifications or a selected type.

• Reset 3D: resets all 3D terrain modifications.

• Reset 2D: resets all 2D terrain modifications.

• Reset Material: resets material modifications.

• Zero edges: lowers terrain altitudes near the edges, ensuring that they gradually
reach altitude zero on the edges. For procedural terrains, this is a toggle button.

• Mountain: creates a terrain with higher altitudes near the center. The terrain is
generated using a fractal terrain generation algorithm that captures the shape of natu-
ral mountains. This is the default style used to create terrains. In the case of procedural
terrains, pressing this button replaces the altitude function with the default fractal. Ran-

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domness in the shape is achieved by randomizing the origin of the fractal each time you
press the button.

• Peak: creates a terrain with higher altitudes near the center. The terrain is gener-
ated using a ridged fractal terrain generation algorithm that captures the shape of young
mountain ranges. In the case of procedural terrains, pressing this button replaces the
altitude function with a ridged fractal noise that produces similar results. Randomness
in the shape is achieved by randomizing the origin of the fractal each time you press the
button.

• Eroded: with Heightfield terrains, uses a powerful erosion algorithm to generate a

natural looking, eroded terrain from your existing terrain data. Several erosion presets
are available, to achieve a wide range of terrain aspects!

In the case of procedural terrains, this button replaces the altitude function with a sim-
ple noise that looks like eroded mountains. Randomness in the shape is achieved by
randomizing the origin of the function each time you press the button.

• Canyon: applies a filter to the altitudes of the terrain, generating ridges in the ter-
rain profile. In the case of procedural terrains, pressing this button replaces the altitude
filter in the Procedural Altitudes tab.

• Mounds: basically the same as the Mountain style, at higher frequency, thus gener-
ating several lower mounds that are added to existing terrain data (in the case of height-
field terrains only).

• Dunes: uses a function to add dunes to existing terrain data / replaces the altitude
function by a dunes function in the case of procedural terrains.

• Iceberg: transforms existing terrain data into an iceberg, with a gently sloping, flat
top surface. In the case of procedural terrains, the surface is flat instead of sloping, and

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the profile is achieved by replacing the altitude filter in the Procedural Altitudes tab.

• Lunar: uses erosion and crater effects to create a moonlike, crater-pitted surface
from existing terrain data. This option is not available for procedural terrains.

• Picture (for heightfield terrains only): lets you import a picture to be converted
into a terrain (see Importing Terrain Data below). The brighter the picture, the higher the
corresponding terrain altitude. These altitudes are blended with existing terrain data.
The picture is re-sampled so that it fits exactly onto the terrain.

• Bake to heightfield/Bake to selected layers: is available only when a spline for

terrain effect has been applied to the terrain. To bake to selected layers, materials need
to have been applied to the terrain and one (or more) selected for the baking process.

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Terrain Editor ­­ Sculpting Terrains

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Paint Tab – Terrain Editor

Sculpting tools are available from the Paint tab to the right of the terrain preview. These tools,
known as “brushes”, let you manually modify the shape of your terrain by adding to or digging
from it, and selectively applying one or several effects, including material layer painting.

Each brush from the Brush Presets list (see below) applies a specific effect. The brush can be
fully configured by editing it using the Brush Editor.

Brush Presets
Terrain altitude edition can be effected using either 3D or 2D brushes. The 3D brushes are for
terrain sculpting (including caves and overhangs); the 2D brushes are for building and lowering
the terrain using vertical effects only (ie. heightmap-based). You can immediately see which are
2D-only brushes by clicking the Force 2D button in the upper right of the editor.

The special Paint Material brush is used to paint several types of masks (Alpha masks and
Freeze masks) that are used to spatially combine the various layers of the terrain’s material.
Material painting can also be applied at the same time as sculpting/brushing, by toggling both
mode icons. See section Brushing mode below. Material painting is also covered in greater
detail in the Painting Materials chapter.

See below the detailed description of the 2D brushes in section Altitude brushes, and the 3D
brushes in section Sculpting with 3D effects.

Brushing mode
The first two icons in this section, Sculpt and Material, define what you are doing with the
brush. If you are sculpting your terrain with either 3D or 2D brushes, you should have the Sculpt
icon toggled on. If you are painting the terrain with a material, you need to have the Material
icon selected. You can also combine terrain and material brushing by toggling both icons at the
same time.

The Freeze mode allow to brush a global freeze mask to disable any further brush effects on
that part of the terrain. The Clear Freeze option resets the mask to enable edition again over
the whole terrain. Inverse Freeze unlocks the currently frozen area and freezes the part of the
terrain that was previously editable.

Global Settings
You can set your brush using the settings in the Global section. These settings will be applied
to the brush for any brush you might choose. These settings may be overwritten for a particular
brush in the dialog for that specific brush. See here for more information.
• Airbrush: This controls whether the brush operates like a pen or like an airbrush. If the
brush operates like a pen, passing over the same point several times in the same stroke
has no additional effect, unlike the airbrush style. The airbrush style brush keeps adding

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effect as long as the mouse button is down. Non-airbrush mode for 3D painting works
like 2D effects.
• Invert: Select this icon to subtract from the terrain, lowering altitude.
• Radius: Drag the slider to the right to increase the size of the brush. The size of the brush
is reflected by the size of the pointer on the terrain map. If you increase terrain resolution
the brush resolution will increase accordingly.
• Flow: This controls the amount of material added/removed by the brush per unit of time.
The higher the flow setting, the more rapidly the terrain will be modified when you press
the mouse button.
• Falloff: This controls the tapering off of the effect being painted from the center of the
brush. You can change the filter to change the brush effect.
• Constrain to clipping range: When checked, the brush cannot leave the clipping zone
defined by the two clipping planes.
• Altitude: Target altitude of the brush: only for brushes using the Altitude effect.
The Invert, Radius, Flow and Falloff parameters can be assigned triggers, for a smoother work-
flow while brushing: see the Triggers in Editors section of the Triggers documentation.

Basic brushes
• Raise: The terrain altitude is raised where it is brushed. Tick Invert to lower altitudes
instead of raising them.
• Plateaus: The vertices in the brush are pulled towards a horizontal plane. This plane is
recomputed when you move the brush so that its altitude is that of the brush center.
• Flatten: The vertices in the brush are pulled towards an oriented plane. This plane is
recomputed when you move the brush so that its altitude is that of the brush center, and
its orientation is the terrain’s normal at the brush center.
• UniSlope: This option works like Flatten, except that the plane is computed at the first
mouse click.
• Altitude: The brush pulls the terrain surface towards the constant altitude parameter
specified (see Global Settings above).
• Smooth: The terrain geometry is smoothed by adding 3D displacements. The smooth
brush relaxes the underlying polygon geometry in order to remove any distortions in the
polygon mesh that might have occurred following painting and automatic subdivision.
You can easily observe the effect of the Smooth brush by switching to wireframe mode.

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Sculpting with 3D effects

• Sculpt: This option keeps the normal that is currently loaded in the brush and expands
(or removes) terrain accordingly, perpendicular to the current surface. The extrusion will
follow the direction that the brush is pointing. This direction doesn’t change while you
are brushing. Use the Sculpt brush to move the terrain in a precise direction.
• Freeform: This option picks the Normal during the mouse movement and so the extru-
sion direction changes while the mouse moves. The extrusion will follow the direction
that the bush is pointing – this direction may change while you are painting.
• Pinch: This option pulls the vertices together.
• Inflate: With this option, the vertices are pushed along their normal, so the shape in the
brush inflates. The polygons in the brush move away from each other creating a balloon
effect.
• Smear: This option captures the geometry inside the influence sphere of the brush and
moves it along the brush stroke.
Note:

With these 3D options, you cannot paint a material on just a portion of the extrusion, for ex-
ample, a dot on the end of an extrusion. Extrusions can be painted as part of the terrain as a
whole.

Using a Pressure­Sensitive Tablet

If you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, the pressure can be used to control the parameters
of each stroke. This makes for a much more natural and precise way of carving terrains.

Just press the Pressure Sensitive icon at the right of the Radius, Flow or Fall-off parameters
to link it to the exerted pressure.

Terrain Editor ­­ Brush Editor

Brush Editor General

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• Sculpt: this option is checked for all sculpting brushes. It is optional for a Material brush.
• Function: if you wish to change the default setting for this brush, select the type of func-
tion you wish to use with this brush from the drop-list. This field is most useful when
creating a new brush.
• Freeform and Invert: these further define the brush action.
• Auto-picking: this defines the behavior of the brush when you move the mouse after the
first click. On the first click the mouse is on the terrain.
With auto picking on, the brush will stay on the terrain when you move the mouse. With
auto picking off, it will move straight (in a way parallel to the camera plane) when you
move the mouse.
For the most part, auto-picking should be left on. There are cases, such as with the Smear
brush, where brush is more effective when it’s off.
• Invert: Select to reverse the effect. If it is normally raised, this will dig out.
• Limit bandwidth: Use the slider to adjust the level of detail of the effect.
• Paint Material: check this option if you wish to associate a particular material to this
brush. Current material is selected by default. If you click Override with, the Material
browser opens so you can select another material to assign to this brush. This selection
can always be changed by clicking the Load button next to the displayed material to re-
access the Material browser.
• Falloff filter: use to pick a custom falloff filter for this brush.
• Mask: you can assign a bitmap mask to this brush and set subdivide limits. This image
can be inverted and/or rotated.
• Fix orientation: Select the pin to fix the orientation of the mask no matter whether the
terrain is rotated in the Terrain Editor or not. Deselect it if you want the mask to move
with the terrain rotation.
The Forced settings take precedence over the Global settings on the Paint tab.

For Custom brush only: When you are creating a custom brush, two more fields display at the
bottom of the Brush Editor.

The first, a dropbox, gives you the option of controlling the direction of an extrusion – along the
Camera line, World Z, or Normal.

The first dial below allows you to modify this direction by orientation, the second dial allows
you to modify by slope angle.

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Environment Tab

Brush Editor Environment

The settings on this tab define Altitude, Slope and Orientation constraints, restricting the
brush’s effective area. All environment constraints set up on this tab are previewed in the Ter-
rain Editor.

If these environment constraints are turned on for this brush you can see the active zones in
the Terrain Editor where your painting will apply and they serve as a protective mask keeping
you within the zone.

To save any changes you may have made to the brush setting, click on the Save Brush preset
icon under the Brush Presets. If you wish to delete any of the Brush Presets, highlight the
brush and select the Delete icon. You can always use the Add icon to add the brush back into
the list at a later time.

Creating a New Brush

To create a new brush, just open any of the brush presets. As an example, we’ll create a brush
for the Stairs effect.

In the Brush Editor:

• Change the name of the current brush to the new brush stairs effect.
On the General tab:
• Check Sculpt. For Function, select Effects 2D.
• If you wish to set a default brush size, flow or fall off, these can be set in the Forced set-
tings section.
• Skip down to the bottom, and select Stairs from the drop box.
• Click on the Save brush preset icon. On the screen that displays, key in stairs_effect for
brush name.
• The new Stairs brush will now appear in the presets.

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Terrain Editor ­­ Painting Materials

When editing a terrain, it is possible to manually paint the distribution of layered materials
using the brush. This is available for both standard and procedural terrains, but not for infinite
terrains. Zones can be painted separately from the main terrain as well.

When painting, the terrain preview switches to a customizable multi-color display that will
show where the materials will appear over the terrain.

Painted material distributions are fully independent from material scaling and mapping modes,
which means that tweaking these material settings in the Material Editor will not affect the
painted mapping on the terrain.

Make sure to first read the Sculpting Terrains chapter to learn the basics about brush settings
and brushing modes.

How to use

Terrain Editor – Painting Materials

Within the Terrain Editor, the Material section is located at the bottom of the Paint tab: you will
find there a list of the top layers of the terrain’s material.

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Add new material layers using the Add new material icon ( ). Mixed and multi-layered mate-
rials can be used.
• The sub-layers of the material, like nested layers in a Mixed Material or in a Layered Ma-
terial, are not shown and cannot be painted on. If you need such a level of complexity,
you will need to separate the nested groups of material layers to paint them, then merge
them back into a meta-material.
You can also remove a material layer by selecting it and clicking on the Delete icon ( ): keep in
mind that the layer (and all nested layers, when applicable) is deleted from the terrain material
as well, not just from the Terrain Editor layers list.

The Export alpha maps icon ( ) allows you to export the alpha information for use in the
Material Editor if further editing is required.

Each material layer’s preview color corresponds to the flat color accessible from the Color Editor.
Click on the color box to change the preview color in the Terrain Editor to increase visibility while
painting.
• Note that when a layer is selected, its color is made slightly brighter to emphasize its
status in the preview.
Next to the material box is an icon ( ) that opens the layer options menu. Read on the section
below for details.

Layer options
The layer options menu contains three entries: Painted presence, Presence from Altitude
Graph, and Show in Preview. The Painted presence and Presence from Altitude Graph are
two mutually exclusive modes. The Show in Preview menu entry can be used to show or hide
layers as needed when painting. Note that a selected layer is always visible in the preview, but
it will hide away once you select another layer for painting.

Until now this chapter explained the Painted presence mode, where you apply brush stroke
directly on the terrain to paint a material layer’s presence. The other option is to instead drive
the presence of a layer with a node from the terrain’s Altitude Graph. This disables the manual
painting mode, but makes room for interesting effects like applying the material automatically
on rough areas of the terrain.

To connect a layer to the graph, select the Presence from Altitude Graph submenu. It displays
a list of nodes and their possible outputs. Once any output is selected, the Painted presence
menu item is unchecked. You can witness the result of this connection in the 3D preview of the
Terrain Editor.
• When this mode is chosen, a few nodes are added in the background to make the neces-
sary connections: you can see a new Custom Output node in the Altitude Graph, and a
matching External Dependency input node in the Alpha graph of the layer in the Material
editor.

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Painting with Effects

To paint with effects, such as pebbles, stairs, cracks, one shortcut is to select the Pebbles Effect
brush, then open the Brush Editor:
• The Sculpt framebox should be checked and Effects 2D selected in the drop-box.
• Use the other drop-box at the bottom of the Brush Editor to change Pebbles by whatever
effect you wish to paint with.
On the Paint tab, Mode section, be sure both the Sculpt and the Material icons are selected.
Select the material you wish to paint the effect with: when applying brush stroke, the effect will
be applied on the terrain altitudes, and the material layer will be painted at the same time.

If you only wish to paint the effect and not use a material, just uncheck the Material icon in the
Mode section.

Terrain Editor ­­ Procedural Altitudes

Procedural Tab – Terrain Editor

Each time you modify the definition or mapping of the altitude function, VUE refreshes the 3D
preview of the terrain. While this refresh is taking place, the terrain modification tools are dis-

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abled.

The controls in this tab are as follows:

• Altitude production function: this is the function that defines the altitudes of the terrain
at each point. Double-click on the function preview, or click on the Load function but-
ton ( ) below the preview in order to load a new preset altitude function. The Terrain
altitude functions collection contains interesting function presets for generating proce-
dural terrain altitudes. However, any type of function can be used (including functions
that output a color – in which case the color will be converted to a brightness value auto-
matically). You can also edit the altitude function directly by opening the Function Graph
to modify the definition of the function (Click on the small graph icon , Ctrl+Click on
the function preview or select Edit Function from its popup menu). Read more on the
graph on its dedicated page: Function_Graph (Documentation/The_Editors).
• Scale: this setting lets you adjust the scale at which the altitude function is mapped to
the terrain. Increase the scale to create larger features, reduce it to see a larger portion
of the function.
• Filter: this lets you specify a filter to modify the altitude values according to a user de-
fined profile.
• Mapping mode: this lets you define the coordinate system that is used to generate the
altitudes of the procedural terrain. The different coordinate systems are the same as the
coordinate systems available in the Material Editor’s Mapping list and described in the
Understanding VUE section about coordinate systems. If you change mapping mode, VUE
will offer to insert nodes into the altitude function in order to maintain the look of the
terrain despite the change.
• Fast shadows: when this option is selected (the default), procedural terrain shadows will
be approximated using an extremely fast algorithm. However, in some cases, this approx-
imation may not be satisfactory (e.g. in the shadows cast by a terrain onto very distant
objects). If such artifacts appear, you should disable this option in order to enable a more
complete (and significantly slower) processing of terrain shadows.
• Legacy extension mechanism: the terrain extension was a parameter that controls the
vertical size of the region in which the terrain altitudes are evaluated. When legacy ter-
rains with Force extension mechanism enabled are loaded, the “Extension (legacy)” set-
ting appears. For newly created terrains, this parameter is not needed anymore.
• Vertical gain: this lets you adjust the height of the terrain using the slider.
• Quality boost: this setting lets you adjust the precision with which the geometry of the
terrain is evaluated at render time. This setting works in conjunction with the Advanced
effects quality setting in the Render Options. It is usually not useful to modify this setting,
unless you notice unwanted artifacts – especially near crests – in the terrain rendering.
Keep in mind however that increasing the render quality of the entire picture will also

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increase the rendering quality of the procedural terrain.

Terrain Editor ­­ Zones

Zones Tab – Terrain Editor

Zones are only available with procedural terrains. You can only work with zones using the 3D
settings, because 3D displacement accuracy is proportional to zone size, whereas 2D displace-
ment is only proportional to the entire terrain size.

Zones are created by selecting Add on the Zone tab, then using the left mouse button to create
the zone area directly on the terrain. When you release the mouse button, only the zone is
displayed in the Terrain Editor.

The Zone name contains the coordinates inside the terrain. You can change this name if you
choose.

This allows you to work with much higher resolution on that area of the terrain with a more
detailed heightmap. There is also less subdivision occurring which speeds processing. And
each zone can be painted/textured separately as well.

Fading: This controls the blending of the changes made in the zone into the rest of the terrain.
You can define the size of the blending area and the type of blending to use.

Use the Extract button to create a new procedural terrain from a zone. You can extract the

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defined zone which then becomes a new procedural terrain. The new terrain is created in the
same position and is the same size as the zone. It is created with an object mapping and no
Zero edges. The newly created terrain can then be moved to a different position. You have the
option of leaving the original terrain as it is or to actually subtract the new zone from the old
terrain, leaving a hole in the terrain.

Terrain Editor ­­ Effects

All Global and Erosion effects can be applied multiple times for greater effects. Right click on
the effect and a dialog displays with a slider to set the Iteration count and the effect will be
applied that number of times.

Erosion Effects

Using the controls of this section you can generate within seconds the effects of erosion that
are achieved by nature in millions of years!

The Rock hardness slider influences all of the erosive processes. Unlike real rock hardness, this
one may be modified at any time between successive applications of erosion.

There are 8 types of erosion to choose from:

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Effects Tab – Terrain Editor

• Diffusive: erosion is the result of the application of numerous types of erosion (including
vegetal growth, grazing animals…) over millions of years. It results in the rounding off of
any sharp features on the terrain. Harder rocks are less subject to diffusive erosion than
softer ones.
• Thermal: erosion results in the loosening up of substratum that subsequently falls down
to pile up at the bottom of an incline. Thermal erosion creates scree slopes of a constant
angle. It is caused by rocks bursting because of strong exposure to heat, or ice. Although
this is not geologically correct, the Rock hardness slider here controls the angle of scree
slopes: the harder the rock, the steeper the scree.
• Glaciation: is caused by glaciers tearing away parts of the terrain that are at low altitudes,
resulting in the typical smooth valleys with rounded profiles. Harder rocks are less sub-
ject to this type of erosion than soft ones.
• Wind: erosion rounds off features of the terrain that are directly exposed to the wind. In
VUE, this wind blows horizontally from left to right. Features that are sheltered by other
parts of the terrain will not be eroded as much as ones that are fully exposed to the wind.
Harder rocks are less subject to wind erosion than softer ones. You can change the direc-
tion of the wind by rotating the terrain in another 2D app (using Copy-Paste).
• Dissolve: erosion is caused by rainwater infiltrating the terrain and dissolving or flushing
away parts of the terrain. The effect is particularly strong at low altitudes. As a result,
numerous streams will appear at the surface of the terrain. If the rock is hard, the streams
will remain narrow, but if the rock is soft, the streams will be wide and the entire surface
of the terrain smoothed down.

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• Alluvium: is the same as dissolve, except that the matter that gets torn off the surface of
the terrain is moved down by the water streams onto flat areas where the stream slows
down on and creates sediment deposits.
• Fluvial: erosion is caused by streams of rainwater. As rain falls over the terrain, it gathers
in streams of increasing strength, tearing away pieces of rock as it goes by. When the
rock surface is hard, streams tend to remain parallel longer, and slowly dig furrows with
vertical sides. When the rock surface is soft, they join up more rapidly, and earth collapses
on the sides of the streams, creating wide, gently sloping furrows.
• River Valley: erosion is a more accurate, geologically based erosion filter. Because it’s
more accurate, it’s also quite a bit slower.
Maintaining one of the erosion buttons depressed will keep eroding the terrain until the button
is released.

Global Effects
The second section on the Effects tab displays a group of geological effects that can be applied
to the terrain. Holding any one of these buttons down will keep applying the effect until the
button is released.
• Grit: adds random noise all over the surface of the terrain, resulting in a surface cov-
ered by little bumps and holes. Maintaining this button down creates higher bumps and
deeper holes.
• Gravel: same as grit, except gravel concentrates on sloping areas of the terrain.
• Pebbles: adds randomly distributed pebbles all over the surface of the terrain. Useful for
modeling pebble beaches… Maintaining this button down creates thicker pebbles.
• Stones: adds randomly distributed round, bulging stones all over the surface of the ter-
rain (a good base for rocky terrains). Maintaining this button down creates thicker stones.
• Peaks: filters the altitude to emphasize high areas, while digging deeper valleys. Results
in peaks separated by deep valleys.
• Fir trees: adds tiny, randomly distributed cones all over the surface of the terrain. Very
useful for modeling distant forests. Maintaining this button down creates taller cones.
• Plateaus: very useful effect that causes high altitudes to swell, resulting in plateaus. Yields
interesting results when used in conjunction with stones.
• Terraces: gradually transforms any part of a sloping terrain into terraces. Ideal for culti-
vating rice!
• Stairs: quantizes altitudes in your terrain, resulting in stair-stepped terrain structures.
Very useful for modeling desert plateau structures. Keep the button pressed to reduce
the number of steps.
• Craters: bombards the surface of the terrain with random meteorites. The distribution

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of meteorite size is varied realistically.

• Sharpen: this effect will increase the steepness of already steep parts of your terrain.
• Cracks: adds random vertical cracks to your terrain surface, not unlike those created by
an earthquake.
• Apply material to effect: checking this box will apply the current selected material on
the Paint tab to the effect selected.

Published Parameters (for Procedural Terrains only)

The Published Parameters feature copies specific settings from the Function Graph that you
may need to change often and places them in a more convenient location for easier terrain
manipulation. In the Terrain Editor, a new tab is created. For terrains, this is usually some pa-
rameter used for a procedural altitude function.

To select a parameter for publishing, just click the underlined parameter name. A parameter
name is supplied and a group name is asked to improve the display of the published parameter.
This parameter will then be available on a Published Parameters tab in the Terrain Editor for
easy access.

Clipping Terrain Altitudes

The idea behind clipping altitudes is simple: anything beyond the clipping altitude will be left
out of the terrain when it is rendered. This means you can make lower parts of the terrain ac-
tually become holes in the terrain, and higher parts become perfectly flat. The creative power
behind this is incredible.

The result of clipping altitudes is the same as using a Boolean operation to remove low or high
parts of the terrain (only much more efficient).

The clip slider has two entries, one at each end. Drag the lower end of the slider to adjust low
clipping, and drag the upper end of the slider to adjust high clipping (you can also enter nu-
merical values for the clipping altitudes). If you drag the slider from its center, both low and
high clip values will be modified together. As you adjust the clipping slider, parts of the terrain
that are clipped out disappear or become flat in the terrain map. These altitudes will be left out
during render.

The altitude color map can be stretched to the clipping planes by clicking the small button ( )
to the left of the color map.

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Terrain Editor ­­ Exporting Terrain Geometry

Terrain Export dialog

Click on the Export terrain icon to export the terrain in a format readable by other 3D packages.

Along with the terrain, VUE can also automatically generate the corresponding color and bump
maps. These maps will fake the procedural materials used by VUE inside most other 3D pack-
ages.

The terrain can be exported using any one of the following file formats:

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• 3DS: 3D export in 3D Studio file format (automatic mapping with UV information),

• LWO: 3D export in LightWave file format (automatic mapping),
• OBJ: 3D export in standard Wavefront file format (UV mapping information),
• C4D: 3D export in Cinema 4D file format (UV mapping information),
• DXF: 3D export in standard AutoCAD file format (no mapping information),
• Picture Formats: terrains can be exported as 8 bit resolution bitmaps under all sup-
ported picture formats. Using the TGA format you can also export the terrain under the
standard 16 bit height field encoding scheme (the red byte is the high order byte, the
green one the low order byte, and the blue byte is ignored). The PSD(VUE Pro versions
only) and TIFF file formats let you export the terrain data as a 16 bit file.
The topmost drop-down list lets you select the file format under which the terrain will be ex-
ported in.

The Mesh resolution control lets you adjust the resolution of the polygon mesh that will be
generated by VUE when exporting the terrain as a 3D object. It also gives an estimate of the size
of the files generated depending on the resolution you choose. The higher the resolution, the
bigger the number of polygons in the file, and the larger the file.

If you select one of the picture file formats, the terrain data will be converted to grayscale pic-
tures (high altitudes will appear as bright areas, and low ones dark areas).

If you would like VUE to generate the corresponding color or a bump maps, select the Gener-
ate material maps option. You will have to indicate the files that should be used to store the
color and the bump maps. You can also indicate the Resolution at which these maps will be
generated. The higher the resolution, the more detailed the maps will be, but the longer they
will take to generate.

You can also export terrains using the generic File | Export Object menu command. Please turn
here for details on the “Export Object” command.

Geo­Located Elevation Data

You can import a large variety of terrain data using the Terrain Editor’s Picture button, but if you
import data into an already existing terrain, it will be resampled to fit the terrain’s geometry,
which may not be what you want.

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The Terrain Offset dialog

Any RGB or Grayscale picture as well as several elevation data formats can be imported directly
through the File | Import Object menu command. A terrain will automatically be created, keep-
ing the proportions of the input file. In the case of a geographically located (aka. geo-located)
elevation file, like the Digital Elevation Models (DEM: *.dem, *.ddf) freely available from the
United States Geological Survey, the terrain will be located and scaled in the scene in order to
preserve the geographical position and dimensions of the terrain. You can thus import several
geo-located files and they will automatically be scaled and positioned correctly relative to each
other and to any Real-World terrain in the scene.

The other geo-located formats currently supported are DTED files (*.dt0, *.dt1, *.dt2),
Geo-TIFF (they use the same *.tif extension as regular TIFF files), Erdas Imagine HFA-based
files (*.img), and ESRI EHdr (*.bil).

Note that if the Resize object and Center object options are selected in the Import Options
dialog, the possible geographical size and positions available in the input file are ignored and
the terrain will be placed at the center of the views.

The spatial reference of a scene, as well as its geographical center, are that of the first geograph-
ical elevation file or Real-World terrain imported inside it, and cannot be modified afterwards.

Other geographical terrains, whatever their projection and location, will be automatically re-
projected and translated to the correct position in your scene. The dialog that pops up when
importing a geo-located file allows you to optionally alter the default offset that is needed to
correctly position it in your scene. This dialog also allows you to select the type of terrain cre-

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ated (Procedural Terrain or Heightfield).

Terrain Editor ­­ Importing Terrain Data

The Import Terrain Data dialog lets you mix existing terrain data with external data sources

VUE lets you create terrains (heightfield terrains, not procedural terrains) from existing data:
press the Picture button ( ) to open the Import Terrain Data dialog and press Load button or
double-click on the picture preview to select the data file you want to convert. This data can be
in any of the supported picture file formats, or in one of the supported elevation data formats
(DTED, DEM, DDF, HFA/Erdas Imagine, Geo-TIFF, VistaPro DEM).

Note that another possibility to create a terrain based entirely on a picture or elevation file is
to load the file into the scene directly using the File | Import Object menu (see Geo-located
terrain import).

When picture data is not grayscale, it is usually converted to terrain data based on the bright-
ness of each pixel color. The brighter the pixel in the picture, the higher the resulting terrain
altitude. This is the Luminance mode offered under Color Interpretation. A second possibility is
provided to tailor to specific needs: for historical reasons, you may find some 16bits grayscale
picture files actually encoded as RGB colors, with the red and green channels encoding half
the precision each. For these files, easily recognized by their unusual color patterns, use the
Red-Green Encoded interpretation.

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The Import Terrain Data dialog when a RGB picture is selected

The picture will be automatically resampled to fit the resolution of the terrain. You can rotate
the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture using the button.

The Import Terrain Data dialog lets you mix existing terrain data with the data contained in the
picture. You can indicate how the data is mixed by picking one of the following modes from the
Mixing mode drop-down list.

Note:

These settings are not available until you load a picture

• Blend: the terrain data is blended with the data from the picture. The Proportions slider
controls the blending ratio between both sources. Just set 100% if you want the picture
to replace the existing function entirely.
• Add: the data from the picture is added to that of the terrain. The Proportions slider
controls the amount of picture data added to the terrain data.
• Max: the data from the terrain is replaced by that of the picture only if it is higher.
• Min: the data from the terrain is replaced by that of the picture only if it is lower.
• Subtract: the data from the picture is subtracted from that of the terrain.

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• Multiply: both data sources are multiplied. High altitudes in both sources will remain
high, others will be lowered.
Use the Proportions slider to vary the amount of mixing that takes place between the existing
data and the picture. The result is displayed on a small preview of the terrain. If you press the
Preview button, the changes will be visible in the Terrain Editor’s map.

If you want to completely replace the existing terrain by the data contained in the picture, use
a Blend mixing mode and drag the Proportions slider up to 100%.

Hint

Applying effects at different terrain resolutions will result in these effects having different reso-
lutions themselves.

For instance, a good way of achieving realistic erosion would be to start from a terrain with a
resolution of 128 × 128 and adding dissolve erosion, then doubling terrain resolution, applying
diffusive erosion, and then some more dissolve erosion. Then repeat this process again to raise
the terrain resolution to 512 × 512.

User Touch­up Graph Node ­­ Height­

field Terrains

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User touch-up node

The User Touch-Up Graph Node is created when you paint on a heightfield terrain using a 2D
sculpting tool (or brush) on a heightfield terrain.

This node appears in the Function Graph labeled User Touch-up. If you delete this node in
the Function Graph, the changes you made to the terrain will be deleted as well. Selecting the
Reset 2D sculpting only icon will also delete the node. If you then go back to the terrain and
make more changes, you will get another User Touch-up Node.

When you highlight this node, several options display in a drop-box below.
• Separable Convolution
• Erosion

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• Slope
• Convexity
• Blur
• Terraces
• Auto-Mapping
This feature is only available for the heightfield terrain.

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Text Editor

Text Editor – Text Tab

The Text Editor lets you create elaborate 3D Text effects. 3D Text can be used for creative titling,
but it can be also used as a basic modeling tool.

To access the Text Editor, either:

• Double-click on the 3D Text you want to edit in the 3D Views or in the World Browser,

• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the 3D Text object is se-
lected,
• Use the menu command Object | Edit Object.
The Text Editor also automatically appears when you create a new 3D Text object by:
• Clicking on the 3D Text icon ( ) in the left toolbar, or
• Selecting the menu command Object | Create | 3D Text.

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Interface Elements

The Text Editor is comprised of the following elements:

• A toolbar that contains icons to manipulate the 3D Text,
• A preview area where a preview of the 3D Text is displayed, and
• 4 tabs: Text, Bevel, Extrusion and Materials.

Toolbar

• New: creates a new empty file.

• Open: opens a saved text file.

• Save: saves a text file.

• Render Preview: clicking this icon will start rendering a preview of the 3D Text (this
preview uses the same settings whatever the scene setup). This rendering is done in the
background, so you can still access settings as it renders. If you change a setting or click
in the preview, rendering will stop. You can also use the options in the Preview Options-
Menu icon ( ) to enable automatic rendering of the text (see below). When automatic
rendering is enabled, this Render preview icon is disabled.

• Preview Options Menu: the Text Editor preview options menu is accessed by click-
ing on this icon in the toolbar. Options in this menu are:
• OpenGL Preview: select this option to display a detailed OpenGL preview of the text as
you edit it (the text is generated in a background thread).
• Auto-Render: select this option to automatically render the text as you edit it (the text
needs to be regenerated before rendering can begin, hence the small delay – all process-
ing is done in a separate thread for better response).

• Zoom In: click this icon to display a magnified view of the text in the preview, thus
letting you observe the text in finer detail. The current zoom factor is displayed beneath
the icon.

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• Zoom Out: click this icon to display a reduced view of the text and get a more global
view of it.

• Reset Point of View: if you rotate, pan and/or zoom in the interactive preview of
the text, this resets all these settings to the initial ones.

• Reset Zoom: click this icon to reset the zooming of the text without affecting the
orientation and pan of the view.

• Reset Rotation: click this icon to reset the orientation of the text without affecting
the zooming and panning of the view.

• Reset Pan: click this icon to reset the panning of the text without affecting the ori-
entation and zooming of the view.

• Reduce precision: click this icon to simplify the geometry of the text. The number
of polygons in the text is displayed beneath the icon. The overall shape of the text won’t
be modified, but the level of detail will be reduced, resulting in less polygons and a faster
– but coarser – representation of the text. This is ideal for text seen in the distance and
that doesn’t require the full level of detail.
Note:
Only curved sections of the text will be affected by the simplify/refine concept, and that
the effect of the simplification will be to reduce the smoothness of these curved sections.
The more curved sections in the text, the larger the polygon reduction each time you
press this icon. It is not possible to simplify the text geometry beyond a certain point –
point at which the icon will become disabled.

• Increase precision: this is the opposite of the previous icon. What it does is increase
the level of detail in the text (still without changing the overall geometry). This results in
a better defined text with smoother curves, but a longer render time. Refining text is
useful when you need to look at a text from up close, and you can see angular shapes in
the curved sections.
Note:
Only curved sections of the text will be affected by the simplify/refine concept, and that
the effect of the simplification will be to increase the smoothness of these curved sec-
tions. The more curved sections in the text, the larger the polygon increase each time
you press this icon. You should keep an eye on the total number of polygons in the text
as you can very easily end up with a massive number of polygons – this will result in slow

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rendering and heavy resource requirements.

Text Preview

The text you are working on is displayed in 3D in the middle of the editor (this display uses
OpenGL). Each time you modify your 3D Text settings, VUE will regenerate a new preview of the
text. Because this process can be time consuming, this regeneration is done in a background
thread in order to avoid slowing you down. The different characters in the text will appear in
the 3D preview as they are generated.

You can rotate this 3D preview by dragging it with the right mouse button, and you can pan it
by holding the left mouse button as you drag the preview (or you can use the scroll bars).

When rotating the 3D preview, if you release the mouse button while the mouse is still in move-
ment, the 3D Text will keep rotating automatically. To stop this automatic rotation, simply click
again on the preview.

You may enlarge or reduce the zooming on the preview by pressing the Zoom icons ( and
), or by dragging the mouse up/down with the Control key and the right mouse button
pressed. All this does is change the zooming at which the text is viewed in the preview. The
zooming factor is displayed under the two Zoom icons.

Text Tab

The Text tab lets you define the characters in the text as well as overall text layout.

Text

The main field in this group is used to enter the text. If you enter several lines of text, the align-
ment and vertical spacing tools become active.
• Approximate size of characters in VUE units: this setting controls the approximate size
of the characters as they will appear in the 3D Views. This size is approximate because all
the characters don’t necessarily have the same size.

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• Horizontal spacing: this setting controls the spacing between the characters. Negative
values will make the characters closer, positive values will increase the space between
the characters.
• Vertical spacing: this setting is only active if you have entered several lines of text. It
controls the spacing between successive lines of text. Negative values will make the lines
closer to each other, while positive values will increase the space between the lines.
• Alignment tools: these tools are only active if you have entered several lines of text. They
control the way the text is aligned from one line to the next:

– Align left: when this icon is active (orange) the lines will be aligned along their
left edges.

– Align right: when this icon is active (orange) the lines will be aligned along
their right edges.

– Align center: when this icon is active (orange) the lines will be aligned along
their centers.

– Justified left: when this icon is active (orange) the spacing between the char-
acters will be adjusted so that all lines except the last have exactly the same length.
The last line will be aligned with the left edge of the other lines.

– Justified right: when this icon is active (orange) the spacing between the char-
acters will be adjusted so that all lines except the last have exactly the same length.
The last line will be aligned with the right edge of the other lines.

– Justified paragraph: when this icon is active (orange) the spacing between
the characters will be adjusted so that all lines including the last have exactly the
same length.

Text Style

The controls in this group let you select the style of the base characters in the text.
• Font: use this drop-down list to select the font that will be used to generate the 3D char-
acters.
• Style: use this drop-down list to select the base thickness and style of the characters.
• Italic: this option lets you indicate whether the text should be italicized or not. It is only

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available on Windows as, on macOS systems, the italic property is part of the character
styles.

Using Vector Graphics

Instead of using regular text, you can also import a vector graphics file and use the Text Editor
to bevel and extrude it. To do this, click on the Import vector graphics button and select the
file to import using the Standard File Browser. Supported formats are:
• PS: Postscript,
• EPS: Encapsulated Postscript, and
• AI: Adobe Illustrator (up to version 3.2).
Note:

Because of the inherent complexity of these Postscript-based formats, it is impossible to en-

sure that all files will load correctly. In order to obtain best results, it is recommended that you
use only the simplest form of Postscript language when exporting vector data. In the case of
complex colored documents, only the vector contours are imported.

Note:

Although Scalable Vector Graphics (*.svg files) is offered in the formats list, it is not actually
supported for use in the Text Editor in the current release. The SVG format can be imported as
a Spline object, either directly or through the Import option of the Spline Editor.

Once a vector graphics has been imported, the text field and text-specific controls become dis-
abled. However, all other controls such as Extrusion, Bevel, etc. can be used to turn your 2D
graphics into nice 3D logos.

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Bevel Tab

Text Editor – Bevel Tab

This tab lets you control the beveling applied to the characters.
• Bevel: use this checkbox to enable character beveling.
• Width: this parameter controls the width of the bevel that will be added around the text.
This is a percentage of the total width of the characters.
• Depth: this parameter controls the depth of the bevel that will be added around the text.
This is a percentage of the total width of the characters.
• Cap bevels: when this option is enabled, the front and rear of the text will be capped in
between the bevels. If it is disabled, the text will be hollow in between the bevels.
• Bevel rear side: if this option is selected, both the front and the rear of the text will be
beveled.
• Bevel inwards/Bevel outwards: Check which way you would like the beveling to be
done.

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• Bevel profile: you can select a standard bevel profile using one of the presets, or you
can define your own profile by loading or editing the Custom bevel profile (the profile is
defined by a filter).
• Interior bevel profile: if you select this option, you will be able to define a different bevel
profile for the holes in the characters (only applicable if the characters have holes, e.g. ’a,
e, o…’). Select a standard bevel profile for the interior using one of the presets, or define
your own profile by loading or editing the Custom bevel profile (the profile is defined by
a filter).

Extrusion Tab

Text Editor – Extrusion Tab

This tab lets you control the way the characters are extruded.
• Extrusion: use this checkbox to enable character extrusion.
• Length: this parameter controls the length of the extrusion in VUE units.

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• Amplitude: this parameter controls the amplitude of the extrusion profile. If you extrude
along a flat profile, this parameter has no effect and will be disabled. If the extrusion
profile is not flat, the parameter controls the relative depth of the changes in the extrusion
profile.
• Scaled extrusion: this option indicates that the scaling of the characters takes place rel-
ative to the center of the character.
• Beveled extrusion: this option indicates that the scaling is done in the same way as the
beveling, that is relative to each stroke in the character.
• Symmetrical extrusion: when this option is selected, the extrusion profile is applied
symmetrically, first from left to right, and then reversed. The extrusion length is doubled
when you select this option.
• Extrusion profile: you can select a standard extrusion profile using one of the presets, or
you can define your own profile by loading or editing the Custom extrusion profile (the
profile is defined by a filter).
Hint: Using the extrusion tools, you can create entirely new geometrical shapes based on sim-
ple characters such as e.g. “o” or “H”.

Materials Tab

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Text Editor – Materials Tab

This tab lets you select the materials that should be assigned to the different parts of the text.
You can define separate materials for the caps, the extruded part and the beveled part, plus you
can define separate materials for the front and rear bevels and caps and the interior or exterior
bevels (8 materials altogether!).

Double click on the material preview to edit each material, or press the corresponding Load
material button ( ) to load an existing material. You can adjust the scale of the material using
the Scale settings below each material.
• Caps: this group controls the materials assigned to the text caps. If Same as front is
checked, the same material will be used for both the front and rear caps. Otherwise, a
second material preview will appear letting you assign a different material to the front
and rear caps.
• Extrusion: this group controls the materials assigned to the extruded parts. If Same as
exterior is checked, the same material will be used for both the interior and exterior ex-
trusion. Otherwise, a second material preview will appear letting you assign a different
material to the interior and exterior extrusion.
• Front bevel: this group controls the materials assigned to the beveled parts on the front
end of the text. If Same as exterior is checked, the same material will be used for both
the interior and exterior bevels. Otherwise, a second material preview will appear letting

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you assign a different material to the interior and exterior bevels.

• Rear bevel: this group controls the materials assigned to the beveled parts on the rear
end of the text. If Same as front is checked, the same materials will be used for the rear
end as for the front end (the other controls in the group will be disabled). If Same as ex-
terior is checked, the same material will be used for both the interior and exterior bevels.
Otherwise, a second material preview will appear letting you assign a different material
to the interior and exterior bevels.

Text Styles

Use the Load icon ( ) in the dialog bar to load a preset text style from the Text Styles Visual
Browser (see here for details on using Visual Browsers). Text styles are previewed using the
“Abc” text string. If the font used in a particular text style is not available on your system, the
default font will be used instead.

If you have designed a text style that you are particularly happy with, you can save it for future
use. Press the Save icon ( ) and select a file, title and description for the new text style. A
preview of the text style will be automatically generated.

You can reset all text settings anytime by clicking the New icon ( ).

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Plant Editor

The Plant Editor dialog

Plants are the essential touch to turn those barren terrains into convincing natural scenery.
Luckily, VUE has one of the most advanced plant generation technologies around. This technol-
ogy, called SolidGrowth™ lets you grow unique plants directly inside the application. Thanks
to the Plant Editor, it is now possible to modify these plants and create whole new species.

To access the Plant Editor, either:

• Double-click on the plant you want to edit in the 3D Views or in the World Browser.

• Click on the Edit object button ( ) on the top toolbar, when the plant is selected.
• Use the menu command Object | Edit object.
Inside the Plant Editor, the plant that is being edited is viewed in 3D perspective. Modifications
you make to the plant are reflected in real-time. You can also generate a rendered preview of
the plant.

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Plant Preview

The plant you are working on is displayed in 3D in the middle of the editor (this display uses
OpenGL). Unlike the preview in the 3D Views, the real-time 3D display of the Plant Editor at-
tempts to reproduce the variations in leaf colors.

You can rotate this 3D preview by dragging it with the right mouse button, and you can pan it
by pressing the left mouse button as you drag the preview (or you can use the scroll bars).

When rotating the 3D preview, if you release the mouse button while the mouse is still in move-
ment, the plant will keep rotating automatically. To stop this automatic rotation, simply click
again on the preview.

You may enlarge or reduce the zooming on the preview by pressing the Zoom icons ( and
), or by dragging the mouse up/down with the Control key pressed. All this does is change
the zooming at which the plant is viewed in the preview. The zooming factor is displayed under
the two Zoom icons.

Plant Preview for PlantFactory Plants

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Plant Editor for PlanFactory Plants

Since plants created in PlantFactory may have a more complex structure than basic VUE Solid-
Growth plants, the Plant Editor reflects the new parameters of the plant. In the example here,
parameters that can be changed in the Plant Editor include Age, Health and Season parameters
as well as a main branch count that can be varied.

Mesh Resolution

Meshing options are available in this Editor:

• allow use of smaller LOD: use automatically lower resolution when the plant is far from
the camera
• optimize for animation: adapt the meshing for more realistic deformation

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Published Parameters

If the plant has been created in PlantFactory with published parameters, these parameters are
available here so that you can easily adjust these parameters for the plant.

Some of the parameters which can be published by the creator of the plant may use some spe-
cific editors. See this page for details.

Toolbar

• Render Preview: clicking this icon will start rendering a preview of the plant (this
preview uses the same settings as for the previews of other plants shown in the Plant
Browser). This rendering is done in the background, so you can still access settings as it
renders. If you change a setting or click in the preview, rendering will stop. You can also
use the options in the Preview OptionsMenu icon ( ) to enable automatic rendering
of the plant (see below). When automatic rendering is enabled, this Render preview icon
is disabled.

• Preview Options Menu: the Plant Editor options menu is accessed by clicking on
the icon in the toolbar. Options in this menu are:
– OpenGL Preview: select this option to display a detailed OpenGL preview of the
plant as soon as you stop editing or moving the plant.
– Auto-Render: select this option to automatically render the plant as soon as you
stop editing or moving the plant.
– Show Wind Effects: by default, the effects of wind are not viewed in the editor, as
they can bias your perception of the plant. If you would rather like to view the effects
of the wind on the plant, select this option. This option is, of course, only available
when wind has been applied to the plant.

• New Plant: click on this icon to build a new variation of the plant based on the
same settings as the ones applied to the current plant. Clicking repeatedly will create
a different plant each time thanks to the way SolidGrowth dynamically grows the plants
inside the software. This is useful when you are trying to find a specific shape for a plant,
or when you want to see the effects of your settings on a selection of plants (prior to
saving a new plant species, for instance).

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• Save Plant: click on this icon to open a Standard File Browser and save the plant
under VUE’s native VOB file format. If you would like to save the plant using another
format, use the Export plant button instead.

• Response To Wind: click on this icon to display the Response To Wind Options dialog.
This dialog is used to adjust the amount of deformation of the plant under a wind (or
breeze) of given intensity.

• Load Plant Species: click on this icon to replace the current plant by a completely
different plant of a new species. The Visual Plant Browser appears letting you select a
new plant species. All adjustments made in the editor will be lost as they revert to the
new species’ settings.

• Save Plant Species: this is one of the most powerful features in the Plant Editor.
This icon lets you save an entirely new plant species that will appear in the Visual Plant
Browser like any other plant. You can subsequently grow instances of this new plant
species in future scenes. When you click this icon, the preview of the plant is rendered
and a Standard File Browser appears, letting you enter a name and description for the
new plant species.

• Frame: click this icon to automatically adjust the framing of the preview so that the
plant is centered and entirely visible.

• Zoom In: click this icon to display a magnified view of the plant in the preview,
thus letting you observe finer details of the plant. The current zoom factor is displayed
beneath the icon.

• Zoom Out: click this icon to display a reduced view of the plant and get a more
global view of it.

• Simplify Plant: click this icon to simplify the geometry of the plant. The number of
polygons in the plant is displayed beneath the icon. The overall shape of the plant won’t
be modified, but the level of detail will be reduced, resulting in a faster – but coarser –
representation of the plant. This is ideal for plants seen in the distance and that don’t
require the full level of detail.
Note:
Leaves are not affected by the simplify/refine concept, and that these operations are not
stored in plant species.

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• Refine Plant: this is the opposite of the previous icon. What it does is increase the
level of detail in the plant (still without changing the overall geometry). This results in
a better defined plant with smoother curves, but a longer render time. Refining plant is
useful when you need to look at a plant up close, and you can see angular shapes in the
branches.
Note:
Refining a previously simplified plant does not necessarily restore the initial geometry of
the plant. Leaves are not affected by the simplify/refine concept, and that these opera-
tions are not stored in plant species.

• Variation List: click this icon to select one of the pre-selected variations of this plant
(if any available)

• Advanced Edition: this icon replaces the Export Plant button when the plant being
edited is a .tpf plant (The Plant Factory). When you click this icon, The Plant Factory opens
with the plant displayed for you to make further changes to the plant. When you save the
changes to the plant in The Plant Factory and re-export, the plant will be reloaded in the
VUE Plant Editor.

Editing Plants

Editing plants is done by modifying the plant on a global basis, by acting upon subsets of a
plant species. Although this doesn’t let you act upon individual branches or leaves of the plant,
nor create a new species from scratch, the fact that the plant is separated into subsets provides
a very powerful means of modifying it, while maintaining a portable and generic alteration of
the plant that can hence be systematized to create a whole new plant species.

Modification of the plant is done by acting upon “subsets” of the plant. Subsets are separated
into two categories: trunk, branches and stems on the one side, and leaves and petals on the
other side. Trunk and branch subsets appear to the left of the Editor, while leaf and petal sub-
sets appear on the right hand side.

The number and the nature of the subsets depends on each plant species. For instance, co-
conut trees might define subsets for the trunk, the stump and the branches, whereas flowers
might define a subset for the stems, the leaves and the petals. Some species may only have sub-
sets in one category (e.g. the Dead Tree only has subsets in the branch/trunk category). Also,
certain subsets may refer to parts of the plant that do not exist in a given instance of a plant.

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For instance, if you have a plant that randomly exhibits fruit, an instance of the plant that has
no fruit will have nothing in the fruit subset.

Trunk and Branches

Description
You can modify the geometry of a plant’s trunk and branches by acting upon the trunk and
branch subsets of the plant. Trunk and branch subsets appear on the left of the editor. You can
act on all of these subsets at the same time, or modify each one individually.

Trunk and branch subsets are modified using the controls in the Trunk / Branches group. You
can switch from one subset to another using the subsets drop-down list, at the top of the group.
The number of different trunk and branch subsets in the plant is indicated above this drop-
down list. If there is only one trunk and branch subset in the plant, the drop-down list will be
disabled.

Some plants have no trunk and branch subsets (e.g. the Carex). In this case, the controls in the
group will be disabled.

All Subsets
When you first open the Plant Editor, the trunk and branch subset that is selected is the “All
subsets” one. As its name indicates, this subset comprises all the different trunk and branch
subsets of the plant. This means that any modification of that subset will apply to all the trunk
and branches of the plant.

If you select another subset using the drop-down list, the modifications you make will instead
only be applied to this selected subset.

Note:

Settings applied to all subsets are culminated with a given subset’s own settings to produce the
expected result.

Empty Subsets
Some plants may contain subsets identified as “Empty Subset”. This indicates that the par-
ticular plant you are working on has no elements in this subset, but other plants of the same
species might. Empty subsets can be modified like any other subset, but because there are no
elements in it, the modifications will not be immediately visible on the plant. However, creating
new variations of the plant (by clicking the icon) may yield a plant that has some elements
in the modified subset, and these elements will be affected according to the new settings. The
Primrose is a typical example of a plant that features empty subsets, because different subsets

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are used for each basic primrose color.

Trunk and Branch Materials

Original

Falloff=100

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Gnarl=300

Droop=30

Dead Tree

Immediately below the subset drop-down list is a standard material control. Using this control,
you can replace or modify the current subset material. If the trunk and branch subsets of the
plant use different materials and “All subsets” is selected, this control will be disabled.

Click the Load trunk/branchmaterial button ( ) to open a Material Browser, or double-click

on the material preview to open the Material Editor and modify the material. You can also mod-
ify the scale of the material using the material Scale control. Please turn here for full details on
editing materials.

Trunk and Branch Settings

The different settings available for trunk and branches will now be detailed:
• Length: this setting controls the overall length of the trunk and branch subset. Positive
values will increase the length of the branches, whereas negative values will reduce this
length. Zero setting means no modifications are applied to the length of the branches in
this subset.
• Falloff: this setting controls the way the above length setting applies to the subset. The
deciding parameter here is the “age” of a particular branch. The further down the tree

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hierarchy of the plant a particular branch is, the “younger” it is considered. Positive val-
ues for the falloff setting mean that the length setting applies mostly to young branches,
whereas negative values indicate that the length setting applies mostly to older branches.
Zero setting means that all branches in the subset are equally affected by the length set-
ting. This setting is very important to fine tune the way the branches grow.
• Gnarl: this setting controls the amount of random curvature in the subset. Positive val-
ues will yield very twisted branches, whereas negative values will “straighten” out the
branches.
• Diameter: this setting affects the overall diameter of the branches in the subset. Posi-
tive values will increase the diameter of the branches, whereas negative values will yield
thinner branches.
• Droop: this is a very interesting setting in that it allows you to control the overall shape
of the plant very easily. It affects the way the branches react to gravity. Positive values
will curve branches towards the ground, whereas negative values will make the branches
reach for the sky.
• Angle: this is also a setting that affects the global look of the plant. It controls the typi-
cal angle that branches make with the trunk, or the angle of the trunk with the ground.
Positive values increase this angle, whereas negative values reduce it. For instance, with
a Coconut tree , strong values mean that the trunk will start with a more horizontal direc-
tion (adding negative droop will then curve the tree upwards producing an interesting
variety of coconut tree). On the opposite, negative values would cause the coconut tree
to grow vertically from the ground.

Leaves and Petals

Description
You can modify the shape, color and aspect of a plant’s leaves and petals by acting upon the
leaf and petal subsets of the plant. Leaf and petal subsets appear on the right hand side of the
editor. You can act on all of these subsets at the same time, or modify each one individually.

Leaf and petal subsets are modified using the controls in the Leaves / Petals group. You can
switch from one subset to another using the subsets drop-down list, at the top of the group.
The number of different leaf and petal subsets in the plant is indicated above this drop-down
list. If there is only one leaf and petal subset in the plant, the drop-down list will be disabled.

Some plants have no leaf and petal subsets (e.g. the Dead Tree). In this case, the controls in
the group will be disabled.

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All Subsets
When you first open the Plant Editor, the leaf and petal subset that is selected is the “All subsets”
one. As its name indicates, this subset comprises all the different leaf and petal subsets of the
plant. This means that any modification of that subset will apply to all the leaves and petals of
the plant.

If you select another subset using the drop-down list, the modifications you make will instead
only be applied to this selected subset.

Note:

Settings applied to all subsets are cumulated with a given subset’s own settings to produce the
expected result.

Empty Subsets
Please refer to the section on trunk and branch subsets above for a description of what Empty
Subsets are.

Leaf and Petal Materials

Immediately below the subset drop-down list is a standard material control. Using this control,
you can replace or modify the current subset material. If the leaf and petal subsets of the plant
use different materials and “All subsets” is selected, this control will be disabled.

Click the Load leaf/petalmaterial button ( ) to open a Material Browser, or double-click on

the material preview to open the Material Editor and modify the material. You can also modify
the scale of the material using the material Scale control. Please turn here for full details on
editing materials.

Another – easier way – of creating new leaf/petal materials is to use the New leaf/petal map but-
ton ( ). This button opens the Leaf Editor that provides a convenient way of mapping leaves
as well as placing the point at which the leaf connects to the branch on these maps (see here
for details on the Leaf Editor).

Leaf and Petal Settings

The different settings available for leaves and petals will now be detailed:
• Length: this setting controls the overall length of the leaves in the selected subset. Pos-
itive values will increase the length of the leaves, whereas negative values will reduce
their length. Zero setting means no modifications are applied to the length of the leaves
in this subset.
• Width: this is the same as the above setting, except it controls the width of the leaves
instead of controlling their lengths.

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• Randomness: this setting controls the amount of variation between the size of different
leaves in the selected subset. Positive values mean that the larger leaves will become
even larger, whereas smaller ones will become even smaller. On the contrary, negative
values tend to reduce the difference in size of the various leaves in the subset. Zero leaves
the relative sizes of the leaves untouched.
• Flexibility: this setting controls the overall flexibility of the leaves in the subset. Posi-
tive values increase flexibility, meaning the leaves will tend to droop towards the ground.
Negative values will instead reduce the flexibility, and ultimately invert it so that leaves
will reach for the sky instead of drooping to the ground.
• Curl: this is the same as flexibility, only acting on the width of the leaves instead of their
length. Positive values will increase the curl, meaning the leaves will tend to curl around
themselves and towards the ground. Negative values will instead reduce the curl, and
ultimately invert it so that leaves will curl up towards the sky instead of curling down to
the ground.
• Overall color: this is a very interesting setting as it influences the color of the leaves in the
subset, letting you change the overall color of the plant in a wink. The control displays the
current average color of the leaves in the subset. If you double-click on the color swatch,
the Color Picker will appear, letting you select a new overall color for the leaves. Since
this is an “average” color, color variations inside the leaves will be retained. This setting
looks particularly good when animated…

Creating Variations of the Same Plant

It is often useful to be able to create a new plant of a given variety without losing other settings,
such as the position of the plant, its size or its orientation. The New variation of plant icon
( ) is designed for that very purpose. When you click on this icon, a new plant will be grown
using the exact same settings as the current plant. But, due to the way plants are grown inside
VUE, the result will be a different plant. By clicking repeatedly, you can create a set of variations
of the same plant (and you can browse through that selection using the Undo and Redo icons).
When you see a shape that you like particularly, press OK to replace the existing plant with the
new variation.

Creating variations of a plant is also very useful when you are designing a new plant species.
When you have found settings that produce interesting results, you can create several variations
of the plant based on those settings. This is good to make sure that the settings consistently
produce the results you are expecting.

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Creating New Species

Once you have achieved an interesting new plant design, you can save that design as a new
plant species. It is recommended that you test the new settings on a number of variations of
the plant (see above), to make sure that the results are always satisfactory.

To save the new plant species, simply click on the Save plant species icon ( ). A Standard
File Browser will appear, letting you select the name of the file for the new plant species, as well
as its title and description. You can also opt to have all texture maps incorporated in the plant
species file (convenient when you want to distribute your species). When you click OK, VUE will
render a preview of the new plant species, based on the current Plant Editor preview. When
saving the species is completed, you can check that it appears in the Visual Plant Browser, like
any other plant species. Your new species is ready to breed!

Exporting Plants

You can export a plant in standard 3D file formats by clicking the Export plant button. This
opens the Export Options dialog, letting you define the file format and export options, like for
any other object.

Leaf Editor

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Leaf Editor

This dialog prompts you to select the pictures that will be used to map the leaf. The first picture
(Color picture) will be used to color the leaf, while the second (Alpha picture) will be used to
define the shape of the leaf. If the picture that you select for the colors has embedded trans-
parency information, this information will automatically be loaded into the Alpha picture.

Note:

You cannot create leaves that are partially transparent using the Leaf Editor. If this is something
you want to do, and you are aware of the implications in terms of render times, you should use
the Material Editor instead.

To load a picture, click the Load icon ( ) below the picture previews. You can rotate the pic-
tures by using the and arrows. You can also invert the pictures using the button. This
is particularly useful when the Alpha information is encoded the wrong way around. To remove
the pictures, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture previews.

The Preview displays a preview of what the leaf will look like.

Note:

it is important that you use a high definition picture for the alpha channel of your leaves. Using
insufficient resolution will lead to aliases along the edges of the leaves. The color picture does
not need to be such high resolution.

On the preview of the leaf, you will notice a small red diamond-like marker. This marker indi-

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cates the point where the leaf is attached to the branch that carries it. You can click and drag
the marker to change the position, or you can use the numerical settings in the Hooking point
of leaf on branch group. Be sure to set this point correctly, as results may look somewhat sur-
prising otherwise…

Response To Wind Options

Response To Wind Options dialog

For VUE .veg files

The Response To Wind Options dialog appears when you click on the Response To Wind icon
( ) in the Plant Editor. This little dialog is used to customize the way the plant reacts to wind.
The settings in this dialog are not straightforward. They require trial and error before you can
achieve satisfactory results.

Overall sensitivity of trunk/branches: this setting controls the rigidity of the trunk and branches
to the breeze and wind. Higher values mean that the tree will be more deformed under a given
level of wind.

Sensitivity of leaves to breeze: this setting lets you control the amount of movement in the
leaves when subject to breeze. It has no effect on the movement of leaves in the wind. High
values mean that the leaves move more in a given amount of breeze.

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For PlantFactory .tpf files

Response To Wind Options dialog – for PlantFactory plants

The Response To Wind Options dialog appears when you click on the Response To Wind icon
( ) in the Plant Editor when editing a PlantFactory plant. This dialog is used to customize the
way the different plant parts react to wind.

Branch wind sensitivity: this setting controls the rigidity of the trunk and branches to the
breeze and wind. Higher values mean that the tree will be more deformed under a given level
of wind.

Blade wind sensitivity: this setting lets you control the amount of movement in the leaves or
blades when subject to breeze.

Billboard wind sensitivity: this setting lets you control the amount of movement when bill-
boards are used in the plant for leaves.

Using PlantFactory Plants With Presets

If a PlantFactory plant has presets and variations defined in PlantFactory, such as size or shape,
you can take advantage of these presets and variations directly inside VUE. All presets are dis-
played in the Plant browser.

When loading a plant in VUE exported from PlantFactory with predefined variations a new icon
button is available in the plant editor toolbar to pick a predefined variation of the plant
preset.

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Plants with Presets

Plants with presets in the Plant Editor

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Flagged variations for small preset

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Atmospheres
The key to a successful picture is often the atmosphere it evokes.

The scenes you build inside VUE are part of a world. A world that extends far beyond your scene.
A world with an atmosphere, with clouds, fog, haze and all... Real clouds, infinite ones, not just
a backdrop picture of a sky. And this world is coherent. And best of all, you can act upon every
aspect of it...

Parameters that describe the atmosphere are numerous. This section will show you through all
of them. However, creating an atmosphere from scratch can be a complex and time consuming
process. This is why VUE offers a list of predefined atmospheres. Choosing one of them will let
you to start building your scene from a good basis. You may decide later that you want to fine
tune such a setting to improve the atmosphere of your picture.

Basically, atmospheres include settings for the sky, clouds, sun, quality of light, fog and haze.

Loading an Atmosphere

The Atmosphere Browser

When you create a new scene, the Visual Atmosphere Browser pops up, prompting you to choose
one of the predefined atmospheres. Select the one that is the closest to that which you want
to achieve. You may load another atmosphere into your scene later, as work progresses.

How your atmosphere is previewed in the Main camera view can be controlled by options on
the Display menu. On the Display menu, select Atmosphere Preview and the submenu gives
you the options to preview the following:

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• OpenGL Atmosphere
• OpenGL Clouds
• OpenGL Lens Flares
• OpenGL Planets
These options can be toggled on and off.

After having worked on your scene for a while, you may suddenly realize that the atmosphere
you chose at the beginning is no longer suitable. You can load another one into your scene at
any time by choosing the menu command Atmosphere | Load Atmosphere.

If the atmosphere in your scene is basically correct, but you would like to modify certain parts
of it, you will want to use the Atmosphere Editor.

The Atmosphere Editor is designed in a set of tabs. The number of tabs depends on the atmo-
sphere model that is selected:
• Standard atmosphere model: this is VUE’s traditional “workhorse” model. It has been
widely used for a multitude of stills and animation projects. This model lets you control
sky appearance through the use of color gradients. You can create an unlimited number
of fully editable cloud layers, control fog and haze densities, or add special effects like
twinkling stars, rainbows and ice rings. All atmospheric elements can be fully animated.
The standard model’s main advantages are ease of use and fast rendering.
• Volumetric atmosphere model: this model offers a good compromise between the stan-
dard and spectral models, giving you a higher level of realism, yet rendering faster than
spectral atmospheres. Unlike the standard atmosphere, the appearance of the sky and
sun is not defined by color gradients. It’s directly affected by haze and fog settings and
by the sun’s position, much like in a real atmosphere. The volumetric model is especially
suited for animations: simply moving the sun around produces beautiful color and light-
ing shifts.
• Standard Spectral atmosphere model: this is VUE’s hyper-realistic model that accu-
rately simulates the behavior of real-world atmosphere and lighting according to weather
conditions. The appearance of sky, sun and clouds (both standard and spectral), as well
as the character of direct and ambient light are all affected by the delicate balance be-
tween the elements that constitute the atmosphere: air, dust and water particles. The
Spectral model provides its own set of controls that let you adjust each element’s density
and height and rendering quality. Using the Spectral model ensures a complete coher-
ence of all the elements of a scene.
• Standard Photometric: Photometric lighting ensures that relative intensity of sunlight
and artificial light sources is physically correct. The absolute intensity is also heavily af-
fected, leading to much brighter daylight renders than before, thus the need for different
exposure and natural film response settings that can be handled automatically by VUE
internally. If you are changing between a photometric atmosphere and another type of

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atmosphere model, you are given the option via a popup to let VUE change your current
settings to those more appropriate for this atmosphere model automatically. Or you can
make adjustments yourself.
The Atmosphere Editor can stay open all the time without blocking access to other parts of the
software. Modifications are taken into account immediately. You can reset, load and save an
atmosphere by using the icons in the dialog bar (the icon bar on the lower right edge of the
editor).

The following is a description of each of the tabs of the Atmosphere Editor.

Sun Tab

Atmosphere Editor – Sun tab

This tab allows you to adjust parameters related to the sun. It is mostly the same for all atmo-

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sphere models. If the scene doesn’t contain any directional lights, this tab will not be available.

VUE considers the sun as being a pinpoint source of light located at infinity (directional light).

Sun color: this control lets you specify the color map that will be used to color the sun, from
outside to inside as values increase. This option enables you to create a luminous halo effect
around the sun, for example. To change the color map, double-click on it. In the Volumetric
and Spectral atmosphere models, the sun color is defined automatically.

If you wish to set the sun position to exact geographic placement and time of day, the controls
are available on this tab. This is available for all lighting types.

Under Position of the sun, click the Real world

• Time: Set the exact time using the Hour and Minute fields. In the last field, indicate
whether you are using 12 hour time or 24 hour time.
• Date: set the date in DD/MM/YYYY format.
• Daylight Saving Time: click this option if applicable.
If you wish to change the position of North, do so by positioning the dial or enter the degree in
the field below the dial.

Click the Location button to display a world map.

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Atmosphere Editor – Sun tab-Map

On this map, click to select your location. You can also define location by precise Latitude and
Longitude settings and Time Zone. There is also a list provided of locations. If you wish to save
your location to the list, click the Save icon to the right of the list.

If you are not using the exact geographic positioning of the sun, check the Custom box. You can
adjust the position of the sun using the Azimuth and the Pitch boxes. If you check the Attach
sun to camera direction option, the position of the sun will be relative to that of the camera.
Changing the heading of the camera will rotate the sun accordingly.

The Size of the sun control lets you adjust the size of the disk that represents the sun in the sky.
If the value is non-zero, the sun will be visible, and the disk will be filled using the colors from
the Sun color map. The color gradation ranges radially. If the sun size is zero, no sun will be
visible in the sky, although it will still be emitting light. In this case the sun color map is ignored.

In the Standard and Volumetric atmosphere models, Sunlight masked by clouds, activates the
masking of sunlight by low altitude clouds. The larger the value, the more the light is masked
by clouds high in the sky. Because clouds diffuse light, high altitude clouds never get to mask
sunlight. This effect is automatically catered for in the more advanced Spectral model.

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Size of the corona: in some atmospheres, this setting is available to control the visible size of
the solar disk that is added to the atmospheric glow.

The Visibility of the sun control, which is specific to Spectral atmosphere modes, lets you ad-
just the sun disc visibility as rendered within the atmosphere without affecting sky or geometry
lighting. A physically correct sun disc visibility corresponds to 100%, which will render a sun
disc that will produce a correct image-based lighting intensity when exporting high dynamic
range skies (using HDR or EXR file format).

Light Tab

Atmosphere Editor – Light tab

There are 5 lighting models available in VUE:

• Standard,

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• Global ambience,
• Ambient occlusion,
• Global illumination, and
• Global radiosity.
Each point of the scene receives light from the sun, the sky as well as from the environment
(sky and surrounding objects). The different lighting models differentiate themselves by the
way they estimate the amount of light coming from the environment.

In the Standard model, which is the most basic model available in VUE, the light coming from
the environment is approximated to a constant term known as Ambient light. There is a slight
subtlety in the way the standard VUE lighting model defines ambient light: you can define how
much of the ambient light is actually coming from the sky (horizontal surfaces will get more of
this ambient light than vertical faces) as opposed to ambient light coming from all directions.
This is done using the Ambient light slider in the Global lighting adjustment group (see below).

The Global ambience model offers a slightly more elaborate estimation of the light coming
from the environment: this model takes into account the color of the sky in all directions. As a
result, parts of the scene that look towards blue sky will take on blue shades of light, whereas
other parts looking towards red sky will take on red shades of light. The global ambience model
will add an interesting touch to your renders while requiring very little rendering overhead.

Ambient occlusion is an improved version of global ambience where each point on the sky
dome is considered like a little source of light. Rays are traced towards each one of these lights,
to see whether a neighboring object is occluding the light or not. This results in very subtle
shadows appearing around objects that are close to one another. Obviously, tracing all these
rays increases rendering times significantly; the effects of ambient occlusion are particularly
noticeable and pleasing on areas of the scene that are not directly exposed to sources of light.
Also, since ambient occlusion computes ambient lighting, it is usually recommended that you
increase the contribution of ambient light in your scene when using this model. In order to
speed up the rendering process, only neighboring objects that are closer than a given distance
are taken into account in the occlusion process. Neighboring objects that are far away con-
tribute less and less to the occlusion. This is a trick that enables the scene to be rendered
much more rapidly than with Global illumination, without compromising too much on quality,
because the renderer doesn’t need to examine the entire scene to find occluders.

When the ambient occlusion model is selected, the ambient occlusion Range parameter be-
comes available. This controls the maximum distance beyond which objects will not contribute
to the occlusion. The bigger this value, the closer you get to the Global illumination model and
the slower the render. The smaller the value, the closer you get to global ambience (and the
quicker the render).

The Global illumination model improves over the ambient occlusion model by tracing light
rays all the way to the sky dome, thus ensuring that any object will cast ambient shadows onto

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other objects, whatever the distance. The result is usually darker than results achieved with the
ambient occlusion model. Again, tracing all these rays increases rendering times significantly;
the effects of global illumination are particularly noticeable and pleasing on areas of the scene
that are not directly exposed to sources of light. Also, since global illumination computes am-
bient lighting, it is usually recommended that you increase the contribution of ambient light in
your scene when using the global illumination model.

Note:

When using ambient occlusion or global illumination, it is essential that you increase the pro-
portion of ambient light in your scene – otherwise you will barely see the effects of the advanced
illumination model. You can actually even get very pleasing results with only ambient light (this
will results in a very foggy and overcast look).

The Global radiosity model is the ultimate model in terms of quality of illumination and real-
ism. It propagates light in the scene, instead of propagating shadows as the ambient occlusion
and global illumination models do. With this model, objects that are exposed to light will reemit
some of that light in all directions, according to the optical properties of their surface. Light will
thus “bounce around” repeatedly in the scene, as it would in reality. As a result, each point in
the scene receives light from all the other objects in the scene. Obviously, this results in ex-
tremely complex computation, and, despite the numerous optimizations implemented in VUE,
will lead to render times that are an order of magnitude slower than the standard model – but
will also yield incredibly pleasing results. In this mode, the ambient vs. direct lighting slider con-
trols the relative influence of light coming from the sky, versus light coming from light sources
such as the sun.

VUE has the ability to preserve the indirect lighting calculation “in-between” renders, even if the
scene has been modified. This speeds up dramatically the “tweaking” phase of scene prepara-
tion. When this mode is enabled, you can easily request the updating of indirect lighting next
time you render, so that it matches any changes made to the scene.

Note:

When using radiosity, be aware that materials containing luminosity or that have non-standard
(60:40) proportions of ambient diffuse light may cause strange lighting effects. These materials
may have to be adjusted to achieve the atmosphere effects you desire.

When the global radiosity model is selected, some controls that are specific to this model be-
come available:
• Indirect skylighting: when this option is selected, VUE will evaluate the amount of sky-
light that is received by each object and cast back onto the other objects in the scene. If
this option is not selected, the Ambient light color will be used instead of computing the
indirect contribution of the skylight. Evaluating the indirect lighting caused by skylight
is a slow process. Using the ambient color instead usually yields good enough results.

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• Indirect Atmospherics: If you wish to take into account the light being reflected from
clouds onto the objects in the scene, check this option to account for this effect when
calculating indirect lighting.
• Optimize for outdoor rendering: When this option is selected, VUE assumes that you are
rendering an infinite outdoor landscape. While radiosity usually has a very strong influ-
ence for indoor rendering, due to light being trapped into a room and bouncing several
times around, it is generally much less noticeable for outdoor scenery due to the light
quickly escaping the geometry towards the sky and very rarely getting trapped enough
to produce a high contribution. Therefore, this option will lower the order of indirection
for radiosity calculations, effectively ignoring highly indirect lighting contribution, thus
producing a faster and more robust render.
• Gain: this setting controls the intensity of the light that is scattered in between the ob-
jects.
• Bias: if you define a bias color, this color will be added to the light that objects receive
from their environment. For instance, if you add a slightly red color, the shadows and
light will take a very slight reddish tone. This setting should only be used for very fine
tuning of the effects of radiosity.
When one of the global lighting models is selected, the controls in the right half of the Lighting
model group become available. These controls are used to fine tune the effects of the lighting
model:
• Shadow smoothing: this parameter is available for all lighting modes above global am-
bience. It is designed to control the overall smoothness of global illumination shadows.
Low values will produce sharper and more accurate shadows, but may require higher
quality settings to avoid noisy shadows. On the other hand, high values will tend to
smooth out shadows, leading to less accurate results, but without the need for high qual-
ity settings.
• Artificial ambience: this parameter is available in the ambient occlusion and global illu-
mination models. It is designed to compensate for the fact that there is no inter-object
light reflection in these models. The indicated amount of ambient light will be added
to the sky’s contribution to determine the total amount of light that each point receives
from its environment. The color of this term can be controlled using the ambient light
color setting.
• Sky dome lighting gain: this parameter controls the overall intensity of the light received
from the sky. Increasing this setting adds more ambient light to your scene. It is some-
what similar to dragging the light balance control towards ambient and increasing the ex-
posure of the scene globally. This control does offer an added level of flexibility, though.
• Overall skylight color: this color control represents the overall color of the light coming
from the sky dome, and lets you adjust it in order to fine tune the ambient lighting of your
scene (double-click on the color control to edit the color). For instance, if you feel that
the parts of your scene in the shadows are taking a color tone that is too pronounced, you

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can reduce the saturation of the overall color. Because this color control represents the
overall color of the sky, if you modify the settings of the sky, the color displayed in the
control will change. However, the color correction that you indicated by modifying the
previous color will still be applied to the new color.
• Quality boost: this setting is part of the EasyGI™ technology that synthesizes the complex
settings required to efficiently render global illumination into one single quality setting.
As with other quality boost settings throughout VUE (such as the volumetric atmosphere
quality boost), this setting is used in conjunction with the Advanced effects quality set-
ting in the Render Options dialog (see here for details). When you are putting the scene
together and creating Preview renders, the quality of the global illumination evaluation
is rather crude, but as you decide that the scene is ready for rendering in Final mode (see
the preset render quality settings of the Render Options dialog), the quality of the com-
putation of global illumination is automatically increased to produce nicer results. The
Quality boost setting should only be used if you notice that there are some imperfec-
tions in the quality of the illumination in the final production render. Alternatively, if you
are doing a lot of test renders where the quality of the global illumination is not essential,
you can reduce the quality boost setting in order to accelerate the render process.

Global Lighting
The controls in this group let you adjust the distribution of light throughout your scene. If you
are using a global illumination or global radiosity model, it is recommended that you increase
the proportion of ambient light in the scene, in order to make the effects of this global illumi-
nation more visible.

You may adjust the overall luminosity of your scene using the Light intensity control.

Note:

Exposure only affects the sources of light, and, as such, is different from the exposure control
available in the camera’s Object Properties.

The correction is expressed in diaphragms.

• Light balance: lets you adjust the relative quantities of light coming from the sun and
from the environment (ambient light). Scenes with a bright sky will have lots of ambient
light, whereas sunset scenes should have little.
• Ambient light balance: lets you further customize ambient light by deciding how it is
shared between light coming from the sky, and light coming from everywhere (uniform
light). Scenes with fog will usually require larger amounts of uniform ambient light, whereas
scenes with a bright sky will have lots of light coming from the sky.
Lastly, you get the choice to Apply these settings either to all the lights, or only to sunlight.
Light color and exposure affect the color and intensity of light sources. If lights in your scene
(other than sunlight) are used for the atmosphere, you should apply the settings to all lights.

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Alternatively, if you have for instance a house that is lit up from the inside, you will not want
that light to be affected by changes in the exposure outside of the house, so you should select
Only to sunlight.

If you check the …to sky and clouds option, the lighting adjustments will also affect the color
of the sky and clouds.

Light Color
You can give a different color temperature to the sun light and to the sky / ambient light. Double-
click on the colors to adjust them.
• Light color: acts as a filter for the color of the lights in your scene. Having an orange
light color, with a sun color that is green will make the light coming from the sun a darker
shade of green. It is a natural phenomenon that sunlight gets warmer (i.e. takes yellow
to orange shades) as the sun gets closer to the horizon. Such warm lights can yield pleas-
ing results when exposed objects take on warm shades. This setting does not apply to
Spectral atmospheres. To change light color, modify the color of the sun light.
• Ambient light color: adjusts the color of ambient lighting, whether light comes from the
sky or from the environment. Since ambient light is diffused by the clouds, it usually has
a cooler tone (shades of blue) than that of direct sunlight.

Auto Decay Sunlight Color

This setting is available for Standard, Volumentric and Environment Mapping atmospheres. For
Spectral and Photometric atmospheres, the auto decay color and settings are handled on the
Sky, Fog & Haze Tab. The options in this group control the way the color of light reddens as it
gets closer to the horizon. This effect should not be disabled with the Volumetric atmosphere
model, because with this model, light is affected by the atmosphere as it travels through it
anyway…

Light decay color: this is the color that is used to make the color of light turn to red. By de-
fault, the color is R=218, G=171, B=71. Preferably, you shouldn’t modify these values, because if
you do, you’ll probably get unexpected (and unrealistic) results. Entering a different color will
completely affect the way light is colored by the atmosphere. Can be cool for alien planets!

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Atmosphere Editor – Light tab – Photometric Settings

Changes for Photometric Atmospheres

If the atmospheric model selected is Photometric and you select to let VUE control the settings
for this model, several fields on the Light Tab that can produce unrealistic settings are grayed
out and not selectable. A field has been added at the bottom of this called Allow overriding
photometric settings. If you check this settings the grayed out fields become available for use
again.

Albedo Scale
Albedo is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation
received by a surface. It thus roughly corresponds to the diffuse reflective strength of a sur-
face. Albedo scale allows to globally scale diffuse reflectivity of all surfaces in the scene. Older
versions of VUE had a hard-coded albedo scale value of 50%, which somewhat limits the max-
imum possible reflectivity of surfaces in the scene. For instance, to correctly simulate clean
snow (whose albedo can go beyond 90%) with a full white material, albedo scale should be set
to above 90%. This setting can thus be very important for physically correct rendering, espe-
cially when atmospheric model is set to Photometric spectral.

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Note:

For physically correct rendering, albedo scale should be set to 100%. This will ensure that input
reflectances be not scaled down at shading time. It is especially important when using PBR
materials, which are generally calibrated in a physically correct way.

Sky Tab

Atmosphere Editor – Sky tab Standard model

This tab deals with the colors of the sky in the standard model of atmosphere only. It isn’t
available in the other models.

The most important control is the Sky color map. This is where sky colors are defined. To edit
the color map, Control-click on it, which will open up the Color map editor.

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The color of the sky is generated by vertically mapping these colors. The resulting gradation
occurs inside a strip that is pulled down by the sun. This means that colors on the left side of
the map will show close to the sun, while colors on the right side of the map show towards
the zenith, and it also means that as you get higher in the sky, colors further to the right of the
gradation appear.

The two Color map position on sky dome controls let you adjust the altitudes at which the
gradation starts and ends in the sky. Bear in mind that these altitudes will be modified by the
presence of the sun, so probably some experimentation will be required here.

Sky color map distortion by sun controls the effect the sun has on the Sky color map. The
higher the value, the more distorted the gradation becomes, eventually ending up in circles
around the sun. As you get closer to the sun, colors to the left of the map get displayed.

Near the horizon, the sky is often a different color. It is the color of the fog (and haze), creeping
up into the sky with distance. You can adjust this effect using two controls: Thickness and Max
altitude. Thickness controls the maximum density of fog achieved at the horizon, and Max
altitude controls how high up in the sky the fog is seen.

Clouds Tab

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Atmosphere Editor – Clouds tab

This tab is available for all atmosphere models except Environment Mapping.

Clouds are generated inside flat layers, realistically positioned and mapped at different alti-
tudes around the earth. You can create as many layers of clouds as you want. These cloud
layers show up in the World Browser as objects. Each layer is displayed individually and can be
grouped together for ease of handling.

At the top-left of the tab, you will find a list of all the cloud layers in the atmosphere. To edit
one of the cloud layers, select it by clicking on the layer name, and use the controls in the tab
to edit the cloud layer settings.

Alongside each layer name, you will notice a icon. Click on this icon to hide the layer; the
icon changes to indicating that the layer no longer appears in the sky. Click again to return
the layer.

To add a new cloud layer, click the Add button, or click the Add Cloud Layer ( ) icon in the
left toolbar; the Cloud Layer Browser appears to let you select an existing layer. Cloud layers
are sorted by altitude.

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To delete the cloud layer that is currently selected, press Delete.

The details of each layer are displayed one at a time.

For each cloud layer in the atmosphere, the Clouds tab offers a set of controls that you can use
to customize the looks of the layer.

A small preview window shows the typical effect that the setting has on the cloud layer.

The two most important features about a cloud layer are the Altitude of the layer, and the ma-
terial of the clouds. Altitude is pretty straightforward. The slider covers “usual” altitudes, but
any value can be indicated.

The current material used for the cloud is displayed in the preview window. To modify it, you
can either load a new one (use the Load material button ), or edit the current one (double-
click on the preview of the material to open the Material Editor). When you load a new cloud
material, the settings for that layer of clouds will be modified to reflect the settings of the new
cloud material. You can also click the Randomize ( ) button to change the cloud distribution
to vary the cloud effect.

The preview of the cloud material is refreshed each time you modify an aspect of the cloud
layer.

Clouds are available in three different flavors: standard clouds (2D), volumetric clouds (2.5D)
and spectral clouds (true 3D volumetric clouds).

Standard Clouds

An important aspect of standard cloud materials is transparency. If the cloud material is opaque,
you will never get to see the cloud layers above or the sky through it. So it should be transpar-
ent in places. Varying Global transparency of a cloud material is a good way of modifying the
thickness of the clouds. In the same way, using the Transparency filter is a good way of varying
the density of the clouds.

You can change the scale of the clouds by using the Scale control.

Close to the horizon, the clouds tend to fade out, dissolving in a general haze. If you are using
the Standard or Volumetric atmosphere models, this effect can be captured using the Thick-
ness near horizon control which handles the speed at which clouds disappear as they get close
to the horizon. In the Spectral atmosphere model, this effect is achieved automatically, and
is replaced by a Thickness setting that lets you control how thick the cloud layer is in terms of
altitude (the total height of the layer).

The Cover setting controls the overall amount of clouds visible in this layer, and the Density

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setting controls the overall density of the clouds that are visible.

Adjust the Global exposure of the clouds using the slider to darken or brighten the clouds, and
use the Contrast setting to adjust the contrast between dark and bright areas in the clouds. The
Light balance control is only available if the Apply to sky and clouds option is not selected in
the Light tab. This control lets you adjust the balance between ambient and sunlight in each
layer independently. These 3 controls are only available in the standard and volumetric atmo-
sphere models. In the sky, clouds close to the sun are usually more illuminated than clouds
on the opposite side relative to the sun. You can change this illumination using the Global il-
lumination and Near the sun illumination parameters. Maximum illumination is achieved for
clouds that are close to the sun.

Volumetric Clouds

Volumetric clouds are a special kind of volumetric material that is optimized to accurately sim-
ulate real clouds. They are edited mostly in the same way as standard volumetric materials,
except that some settings are locked. Please turn here for details on editing volumetric materi-
als and clouds.

Spectral Clouds

Spectral clouds are a special kind of object which has actual thickness and is thus a real 3D
volumetric object. What this means is that the cloud layer is, just like in reality, a thick mass
of air and humidity that derives its look from the way the light travels inside the material and
interacts with the cloud particles.

Spectral clouds consist of two elements: the cloud layer “object” and the volumetric cloud ma-
terial which is visible within the boundaries of the cloud layer. Both elements are described in
more detail in the chapter on the Advanced Cloud Material Editor. The cloud tab in the Atmo-
sphere Editor provides quick access to several properties of both the cloud layer and the cloud
material.

Spectral clouds exist in two versions between which you can choose in the Advanced Cloud Ma-
terial Editor: spectral clouds I with a limited number of material features and spectral II clouds
with more functionalities. Spectral clouds share some settings with volumetric materials, but
also introduce new ones:

Altitude: this setting controls the placement of the spectral cloud layer in the sky along the
Z-axis. It refers to the position of the beginning of the cloud layer bounding box, so to the “un-
derside” of the cloud. Please note that the pivot point of the cloud layer object is located in the
center of the object and will thus have a different Z-coordinate compared to the Altitude’ setting

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in the Atmosphere Editor when you view the cloud layer’s position in the Object properties panel.

Height: this setting controls the overall height (thickness) of the cloud layer. Higher values
means the cloud will be higher, and consequently darker.

Cover: this setting adds or removes clouds within the cloud layer. It works internally by offset-
ting the shapes created by the density noise inside of the cloud material.

Density: Density controls how far light penetrates inside the cloud and how the light is scat-
tered inside the cloud. It basically defines how “transparent” the cloud is. The lower the den-
sity, the softer the cloud will appear and the better the light scattering in the cloud will look,
but the longer the render times will be.

Opacity: Opacity defines how quickly shadows form in dense areas of the cloud. It is similar
to absorption and is thus highly dependent on the cloud’s density. The lower the density, the
longer it takes for shadows to form (as most light simply passes through the cloud instead of
being absorbed) and vice-versa. If your cloud density is low, you will need to increase opac-
ity considerably for shadows to appear. On the other hand, if the cloud’s density is high, you
might need to lower opacity to avoid a pitch-black cloud that consists of nothing but internal
shadows.

Detail amount: this parameter controls a hardcoded “Perlin Noise (Gradient)”. It is a quick
and easy way to break the clouds into separate pieces. The noise is multiplied with the cloud
layer material and this slider controls the multiplication strength. The higher the value, the
stronger the noise will be visible and the more the clouds will break into separate pieces. You
can control the roughness and the size of this perlin noise with the “Cloud layer detail” settings
in the Advanced Cloud Material Editor.

Altitude variations: the effect of this parameter changes based on how the cloud has been
designed internally. When the cloud material does not use the Altitude offset modulation func-
tion, it displaces the top of the cloud layer with smooth perlin shapes. The higher the value, the
more displacement happens. 100% altitude variations correspond to the height of the cloud
layer. So, if the cloud layer is 1km thick and the altitude variations slider is at 100%, it means
that the cloud layer will be 2km thick in total (1km base + 1km of perlin height variations added
on top). The size of this perlin noise is controlled through the scale of the cloud material. If
the cloud material does use the Altitude offset modulation function, then this slider defines the
displacement strength of the “underside” of the cloud layer (i.e. the starting altitude, hence
the name “altitude offset”) that is created with the modulation function. See the chapter on
the Advanced Cloud Material Editor for more information.

Ambient lighting: this setting is only available in the spectral atmosphere model. This defines
how much Global Illumination lighting the cloud receives. It is essential for a realistic looking
cloud and especially useful to e.g. brighten up shadows created by Opacity through light bleed-
ing. This parameter is independent from the Global Illumination of the rest of the scene. Even
if you disable any form of Global Illumination in the Atmosphere Editor, you can still use the

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Ambient Lighting parameter to add indirect light to the clouds. Please note that the behavior
of this parameter changes based on whether GI Ambient Lighting is checked on the Lighting &
Effects tab in the Advanced Cloud Material Editor. If it is unchecked, the parameter will simply
act as an exposure slider and darken or brighten the cloud as a whole, but not add any indirect
light to it.

Shadow density: this setting is only available in the spectral atmosphere model. It controls
how dark the shadows cast by the clouds are. This influences both the density of the shadows
cast by the clouds onto the scene, and also the visibility of Godrays (if this option has been
enabled in the Sky, Fog and Haze tab – see here) which are caused by volumetric cloud shad-
ows in the atmosphere. The higher the shadow density, the more contrasted the godrays will
be against the sky and clouds. For maximum Godray visibility, shadow density should be set to
100%. If the cloud layer has been made to not cast shadows (this can be defined in the Advanced
Cloud Material Editor), this setting is disabled.

Note:

In order to view Godrays in your scenes, you need to enable the Godrays option in the Sky, Fog
and Haze tab

If the cloud layer uses a Spectral II cloud material, the following controls are also available:

Sharpness: this controls how sharp the edges of the cloud appear. What if you want to main-
tain great light scattering, which requires a low density, but still want a sharper cloud? This can
be achieved through adding sharpness. In fact, sharpness is additional density which is added
to the “outer surface” of the cloud only. This way, the overall cloud edges increase in sharp-
ness, while the inside of the volume retains the density and light scattering set by the Density
parameter.

Feathers: this parameter has only an effect when Detail amount is bigger than 0%. It adjusts
the perlin noise from the “Detail amount” slider and gradually blends it with a ridged perlin
noise which produces a “feathered” cloud look. In order to avoid feathers that appear too sharp,
it also clamps the maximum allowed sharpness internally, depending on the strength of the
feathering setting.

Simple Cloud Animation

The Cloud animation group provides straightforward controls for basic cloud animation (move-
ment and evolution): using Direction and Velocity, you can make your cloud layer drift in the
wind. The Rate of change control is used to set the evolution rate of the cloud layer (whether
the shape of the clouds evolves slowly or rapidly over time).

Note:

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The “Rate of change” control applies only to standad and volumetric cloud materials and to
spectral clouds which use some sort of detail amount. It animates the detail amount’s noise. If
no detail amount is used in a spectral cloud, this parameter will not have any effect.

Advanced editing of clouds

Volumetric and spectral cloud I & II materials for clouds can be also be edited further in the Ad-
vanced Material Editor. This editor allows you to use nodes to create fully custom cloud shapes
which go beyond the basic capabilties and controls available in the Atmosphere Editor.

Cloud Layers as Objects

When you create a cloud layer, it appears in the World Browser as an object. The layer is also
visible in the viewports, for example, the Side view if you zoom out a bit. You can select it and
modify the origin, altitude, the height, overall size and the rotation all within the viewports. You
can also animate the cloud layer.

As with other objects in the World Browser, you can hide the cloud layer object from render. And
cloud layers can be grouped together for ease of movement and altitude control.

Cloud Layer Zone

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Cloud Layer Zone

Spectral cloud layers can be restricted to a user-defined circular zone by selecting the cloud
layer in the World Browser and adjusting the parameters in the Object Properties area. The zone
actually removes all the clouds outside the zone, leaving only the portion inside it at render.

Once activated, you can switch to the zone from the object properties and manipulate it in the
viewports (you will see a dotted line cylinder corresponding to the zone and its falloff region,
and a manipulation gizmo at the center of it).

To use this feature,

• Select a cloud layer in the World Browser.

• In the Object Properties panel, a Move cloud layer/Move limiting zone icon is avail-
able.
• Click to activate the restriction zone and display the Cloud Layer Zone. You can enable or
disable the zone and edit the Falloff value. Selection can be switched back to the cloud
layer by clicking on the Move cloud layer/Move limiting zone icon.
• The Invert Cloud Zone setting allows you to generate a a hole inside inside your cloud
layer.
• In the viewports, the zone can be scaled within the cloud layer.
Use of these zones can greatly speed up rendering of cloud layers outside the zone since clip-
ping can be performed at render time. It may be worth isolating the interesting part of a cloud
layer with a limiting zone, to avoid rendering unnecessary parts of the layer.

The Randomize icon is also accessible from this panel.

Advanced Cloud Material Editor

In the Atmosphere Editor, the Clouds tab is where you can create cloud layers and change ba-
sic properties such as the altitude and height. However, the actual shape of the clouds in a
cloud layer is created in the Advanced Cloud Material Editor. When a cloud layer is added to the
scene, a preview image of the cloud material is displayed in the Atmosphere Editor. Click on
the preview image to open the Advanced Cloud Material Editor for editing the cloud material
and changing the shapes it creates.

The editor can be used to edit standard, volumetric and spectral cloud materials. In standard
& volumetric cloud materials, you can build your own cloud shapes with the Density Produc-
tion function (see below) which makes the materials partially transparent and thus shapes the
cloud.

For spectral clouds, the editor offers a lot more possibilities, but requires a solid understanding

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of the workings of spectral clouds.

The basics of designing Spectral Clouds

To understand the capabilities of this editor for spectral clouds, you need to understand how
they work in VUE. An infinite spectral cloud consists of two elements: the cloud layer and the
cloud material.
• Cloud layer: A cloud layer can be compared to a volumetric object in the shape of a cube
with a defined height (the Z-size), but with an infinitely large width and length. The cube’s
position is defined through the altitude setting on the Cloud tab in the Atmosphere Ed-
itor. The cloud layer is also listed as a physical object in the World Browser, and it can
be moved up and down, rotated around the Z-axis and stretched or squashed along its
height with gizmos. Any gizmo change you make will be reflected in the Atmosphere Ed-
itor, e.g. moving the cloud layer up or down will change its altitude value, and resizing it
will change its height.
• Cloud material: Inside the cloud layer, the cloud material will be visible. Thus, the cloud
layer’s top and bottom act as physical boundaries for the visible clouds. Whether or not
the material scales, moves and rotates with the cloud layer object depends on the map-
ping mode that the material uses in the material graph (object standard or world stan-
dard mapping).
The Advanced Cloud Material Editor allows you to use nodes to drive several properties of both
the cloud layer and the cloud material through functions. To create your own cloud shapes,
you can mix any of these approaches:
• Use the Density Production or Density modulation functions to make the cloud material
transparent in places to create shapes and influence the light scattering at the same time.
• Use the Height & Altitude offset functions to displace the top and bottom of the cloud layer
boundaries, which also creates shapes, but does not influence the light scattering.
• Use the Volumetric color, Opacity, Sharpness and Sky ambient color functions to setup
advanced shading and lighting rules.

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Color & Density Tab

Color & Density Tab

Density Production (Deprecated legacy function)

Note:

The Density Production is the function used in cloud materials created in older versions in VUE.
This includes standard clouds, volumetric clouds and older spectral clouds. It remains avail-
able for backwards compatibility purposes and for designing standard and volumetric clouds,
but in case of spectral clouds, it should not be used anymore, because of wrong internal scal-
ing and legacy design issues. If you want to drive a spectral cloud’s density with a function, use
the Density modulation function instead. You can also use both the Density Production and the
Density modulation at the same time and they will be combined internally by VUE, but this is
not recommended and can get confusing when working on cloud shapes inside the graph.

The Density Production influences the density of the cloud material. It works within a range from

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[-1;1], but higher values than 1 are allowed and will simply increase the density beyond the 100%
density from the Cloud tab in the Atmosphere Editor. Values below -1 will be clamped.

When using noise or fractal nodes to control the function, black parts (-1) of the function will
make the material transparent, and white parts (1) will produce 100% density. For example, if
you connect a checkerboard noise to the density production, you can create rectangular clouds.

To edit the function, right click on the spherical preview and choose “Edit graph” to enter the
Function Editor.

The function can be scaled globally along the X, Y and Z axes. If you resize the cloud layer
with gizmos in the viewports, the function will be scaled along the Z-axis, thus stretching or
squashing the density shapes. When you scale the material itself up or down using the global
material scale, the Density Production is affected by default and will also scale up and down.
When you move the cloud layer along X or Y in the viewports, the material will follow by default
and move with the cloud layer.

You can override this default scaling and moving behavior inside of the material node graph by
usig a Cloud Position Options input node instead of the regular Position node. See the chapter
below on coordinates, mapping modes and scaling.

Like any other function in VUE, you can use the filter curve next to the spherical preview to add
additional finetuning to the final output result.

Local Coordinates: This parameter is available for consistency reasons with the other cloud
functions. The cloud functions in the Cloud modulation group can be switched between world
and local (object) coordinates with this checkbox. However, this switch also introduces a scale
difference of 2000 due to legacy design limitations in older VUE versions. Any function using the
Local Coordinates mode will be 2000x larger than in world coordinates mode. While the Density
Production always uses local (object) coordinates by default internally to make the cloud ma-
terial move with the cloud layer, this checkbox was added to match the Density Production’s
scale to any of the other modulation functions which use Local coordinates. See the chapter on
coordinates, mapping modes & scaling.

Cloud layer detail

If the edited material is used for a spectral cloud layer or a MetaCloud, the detail settings are
available; these settings control the shape of the hardcoded Perlin noise (Gradient) used by the
Detail amount slider. If Detail amount is set to 0%, none of these settings will have any effect.
• Scaling: this parameter controls the scale of the noise. Higher values will produce larger
individual cloud shapes.
• Roughness: this parameter controls the roughness of the perlin noise in the cloud shape.
Typical values should be below 0.5. Higher values will produce a lot of feathering around
the cloud.

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• Variations: this parameter controls how much the noise roughness varies throughout an
entire cloudscape. It will add or remove roughness in random places across the material.
The effect of this setting is not visible at small scales, but will add large-scale variety to
your cloudscapes.
• Uniformity: this parameter controls if the Detail amount noise appears with the same
strength everywhere in the cloud layer or not. High values mean that the noise will be
visible the same everywhere, whereas low values will reduce the noise visibility at the
beginning of the cloud layer, thus producing a more rounded cloud underside.
Cloud Modulation
The settings in this category can be used to make any of the cloud layer & cloud material
properties non-uniform by driving them with nodes in a node graph. To add a node graph
to any of these parameters, click the small icon to the left of the parameter’s name. All
functions work with a final output result between [-1;1].
If no functions are used for the modulations, the modulations are represented as slid-
ers between 0% and 100% by default (which, again correspond to [-1;1] internally). The
modulations are mapped to the value from the Atmosphere Editor. For example, if you
set Sharpness in the Atmosphere Editor to 50%, a value of 100% sharpness modulation,
whether represented as a slider between [-1;1] or as a function between [-1;1], will corre-
spond to the 50% set as a limit in the Atmosphere Editor.
Cloud Modulation functions
Altitude offset: This function will displace both the underside and the top of the cloud
layer bounding box by offsetting the starting altitude. 100% corresponds to the altitude
entered in the Atmosphere Editor. For example, if the altitude is set to 1km, a value of 50%
will make the cloud layer start at 1,5km. By using noises or texture maps to drive this
modulation, you can effectively create irregular undersides and tops of clouds instead
of having a hard border. This feature can be used to make clouds flow over a terrain,
for example, by using the terrain’s height map for driving the Altitude offset. Any value
outside of [-1;1] is clamped.
Note:
To offset the starting altitude of the cloud layer without changing the ending altitude,
the cloud layer must be reduced in height. The strength of the altitude offset and thus
the height reduction is defined by the Altitude variations slider on the Cloud tab in the
Atmosphere Editor. So, to see the effect of this modulation function, make sure to increase
Altitude variations to a value above 0%.
For the math-savy users, here is a technical explanation of how the altitude offset is com-
puted internally:
The beginning of the cloud layer bounding box is offset by this function. If the altitude
variation value is x, VUE divides the height H of the layer in two parts, one of xH / (1 +
x) on which the offset factor is applied and which gives the offset, and one of height H /
(1 + x) which defines the real height of the layer. For a more visual explanation, see the

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illustrations below.
Altitude offset effect on Z: This is a very special function which has no equivalent setting
in the Atmosphere Editor and which you will possibly use in very few select cases only.
This function only has an effect when the Altitude offset modulation function is used and
when Altitude variations in the Atmosphere Editor is larger than 0%.
By default, when you displace the top and bottom of a cloud layer with the Altitude offset
function, the shapes created by the Density Production and Density modulation functions
will adapt and be also displaced (distorted) along Z to follow the displaced contours of
the cloud layer. If you do not want this to happen, you can use this function to undo this
change and have the density shapes not conform to the displaced shapes of the cloud
layer bounding box. A value of 100% completely removes the distortions caused by the
displacement, any value in-between partially. Usually, there is no need to drive this mod-
ulation with a function graph, as simply moving the slider is enough to remove any defor-
mations. Any value beyond [-1;1] will be clamped.
Again, for those interested, here is the mathematical explanation of this function:
The position inside a cloud layer has the form (x, y, z + altOffset). Altitude Offset Effect
on Z replaces this position by (x, y, z + altOffset * effectOnZ).
Note:
There is a way to ignore the displacement caused by the Altitude offset modulation func-
tion for density shapes by using the Cloud Position Options node inside the function graph.
If this override is used, Altitude offset effect on Z will not have any effect. See the chapter
below for further information.
Height modulation: This function displaces the top of the cloud layer inwards. You can
think of it a bit similar to using a heightmap for a terrain, just with the added possibility
of overhangs by using also the Z-axis of a noise or fractal node. A value of 1 (white) will
produce a cloud layer with 100% height, a value of -1 (black) will produce a cloud layer
with 0% height. This modulation function is a great way to shape the cloud layer from a
simple box into an object with an actual shape, and compared to using the density func-
tions for producing cloud shapes, this function does not affect the light scattering. Any
value beyond [-1;1] will be clamped.

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Simple altitude offset over a terrain; x is the altitude variations value between 0 and 1

Altitude offset and height modulation over a terrain; x is the altitude variations value be-
tween 0 and 1; h(pos) is the local height modulation between 0 and 1
• Density modulation: This function influences the cloud material’s density by making it
transparent in places where the function outputs -1 (black) and making it fully dense in
places where the function outputs 1 (white). It works just like the density production and
influences the light scattering while potentially creating shapes at the same time, but
it is by default not stretched or squashed when the cloud layer is resized with gizmos
along Z in the viewport and it is also not affected by material scale by default. This is
the recommended function to use for creating density shapes, instead of the deprecated
Density Production. Values below -1 are clamped, values above 1 increase the density to
a higher value than what is defined in the Atmosphere Editor.
• Sharpness modulation: This function can vary the sharpness added to the cloud. By
driving this with a noise or fractal, you can add sharpness only in select places. Please

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be aware that modulating the sharpness is a slow process and can increase render times
siginificantly. Values below -1 are clamped, values above 1 increase the sharpness to a
higher value than what is defined in the Atmosphere Editor.
• Opacity modulation: This function can vary the opacity in the cloud. You can use it to
artificially remove internal shadows where you don’t want them to appear, or to add ad-
ditional shadows in other places. Values below -1 are clamped, values above 1 increase
the opacity to a higher value than what is defined in the Atmosphere Editor, thus adding
more shadows in those places.

Local coordinates
All modulation functions operate in world standard material mapping by default. This means
the functions will not react to resizing, moving and rotating of the cloud layer object. They will
stay in place, and instead of being resized, more or less of the cloud material will be visible
when you change the height of the cloud layer.

As soon as you drive any of the modulations with a function, the Local Coordinates checkbox
becomes available. Enabling this checkbox will change the function mapping mode from world
standard to object standard and make the cloud material adapt to resizing, moving and rotat-
ing of the cloud layer, but it will also introduce a legacy scale difference of 2000 compared to
the world mapping mode. Every shape in Local Coordinates will be 2000x larger than before.
Thus, rather than using the Local Coordinates checkbox, we recommend setting the coordinate
system directly inside of the function graph, as described in the next section.

Scaling & Mapping Modes in Cloud Function Graphs

When editing any function in VUE, the Position Input reads the mapping mode from the Material
Editor and uses this to define if the noises and fractals used in a function move, rotate and scale
with the object or not.

In cloud materials, the Position node reads the Local Coordinates checkbox from the Advanced
Cloud Material Editor and produces different results, based on whether the box is checked or
not. Also, the scaling and mapping modes produced by the Position node differ between the
Density Production and the modulation and color functions:
• Density Production: The Position input node in a Density Production Function always
works in object standard mapping, which means the function will adapt to moving, ro-
tating and resizing of the cloud layer object and to changing the material scale. If Local
Coordinates is enabled for the Density Production function, the function will still use ob-
ject standard mapping, but the scale will be 2000x larger than without Local Coordinates.
• All modulation and color functions: The Position input node in any of the modulation
and color functions works in world standard mapping, which means the functions will not
react to moving, resizing and rotating of the cloud layer. If Local Coordinates is enabled
for a modulation function, the function will switch to object standard mapping and thus

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react to rotating, resizing and moving the cloud layer, as well as to changing the material’s
scale, but the function scale will be 2000x larger than without Local Coordinates.
This behavior is hard to control and predict and stems from legacy design limitations in older
VUE versions. Hence, there is a better way to control the mapping mode without having to
worry about scale differences.

The solution is the Cloud Position Options Node, available only in cloud material graphs.

If you use this node, you can precisely control which function uses which mapping mode and
scale.

Additionally, all mapping modes are available with modulation and without modulation. With
modulation means that the noises and fractals will adapt their Z-shape to any Altitude offset
displacement used, as described above in the section on cloud modulations. Without modula-
tion means that any deformation caused by the Altitude Offset function is always ignored. This
essentially makes the Altitude Offset effect on Z function obsolete. Any modulation function us-
ing a “without modulation” mapping mode will not be influenced by any changes to the Altitude
Offset & Altitude Offset Effect on Z modulations.

So, the best practice for designing cloud material functions is to ignore the “Local Coordinates”
checkbox in the editor, and to use the Cloud Position Options node in the function graph instead
of the regular Position node. Then use any of the available object & world mapping modes for
precise control.

The available mapping modes in the Cloud Position Options node are the following:
• Legacy: This mode is the same as using the regular Position input node and produces
exactly the hardcoded behavior described above.
• Local with modulation: This mode uses object standard mapping, while keeping the
legacy scale difference of 2000 in place. It ignores whether Local Coordinates is checked
in the editor and will always use object standard mapping. Any deformation along the
Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is taken into account, and can be undone by using the
Altitude Offset Effect on Z function. The function is affected by resizing of the cloud layer
through gizmos and by changing the material scale.
• Local without modulation: This mode uses object standard mapping, while keeping the
legacy scale difference of 2000 in place. It ignores whether Local Coordinates is checked
in the editor and will always use object standard mapping. Any deformation along the
Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is ignored. Thus, Altitude Offset Effect on Z has no effect
in this mode. The function is affected by resizing of the cloud layer through gizmos and
by changing the material scale.
• Object with modulation: This mode uses object standard mapping, without introducing
any scale difference between world and object mapping. It ignores whether Local Coor-
dinates is checked in the editor and will always use object standard mapping. This is the
recommended mapping mode for designing cloud materials. Any deformation along

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the Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is taken into account, and can be undone by using the
Altitude Offset Effect on Z function. The function is not affected by resizing of the cloud
layer through gizmos and by changing the material scale.
• Object without modulation: This mode uses object standard mapping, without intro-
ducing any scale difference between world and object mapping. It ignores whether Local
Coordinates is checked in the editor and will always use object standard mapping. Any
deformation along the Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is ignored. Thus, Altitude Offset
Effect on Z has no effect in this mode. The function is not affected by resizing of the cloud
layer through gizmos and by changing the material scale.
• World with modulation: This mode uses world standard mapping, without introducing
any scale difference between world and object mapping. It ignores whether Local Coordi-
nates is checked in the editor and will always use world standard mapping. Any deforma-
tion along the Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is taken into account, and can be undone
by using the Altitude Offset Effect on Z function. The function is not affected by resizing
of the cloud layer through gizmos and by changing the material scale.
• World without modulation: This mode uses world standard mapping, without introduc-
ing any scale difference between world and object mapping. It ignores whether Local
Coordinates is checked in the editor and will always use world standard mapping. Any
deformation along the Z-axis caused by Altitude Offset is ignored. Thus, Altitude Offset
Effect on Z has no effect in this mode. The function is not affected by resizing of the cloud
layer through gizmos and by changing the material scale.
Note:

These mapping modes are also used by the Object specific input node. See here for details.

Other settings
Custom layer profile: This filter curve represents the density of the cloud along the height (Z-
axis) of the cloud layer. You can use the curve to fade out the cloud material at the top and
bottom of the cloud layer, thus avoiding a hard and unnatural edge when the material reaches
the cloud layer’s boundaries.

Volumetric color: The Volumetric color of clouds can be linked to a function graph instead of
using a constant color. This allows you to create color gradients, colored noise patterns and
much more. The final cloud color is also influenced by the Ambient color contribution from
the sky and from the sun found on the Lighting & Effects Tab. On this tab, you can drive this
volumetric color with a function. If you want a constant color, click the color square to pick the
desired color.

Auto Scale Clouds: Auto-scaling will alway maintain the cloud’s size regardless ofe its altitude
when rendered (otherwise, moving a cloud layer further up in the sky will make the clouds look
smaller, because they will be further away from the camera). In MetaCloud materials, disabling
auto scaling means the cloud shapes from the MetaCloud material will not be resized with the

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MetaCloud when you resize the object, which is usually not intended. Thus, tt is recommended
to disable auto scale in cloud layers, but keep it enabled in MetaClouds.

Improve Low Quality Consistency: This option is available for backwards compatibility rea-
sons. In older VUE versions, rendering an image in a lower resolution cloud remove some small
details to save some render time. This was changed in VUE 2016. Now, clouds will always ren-
der with the same amount of detail, no matter the resolution. Unchecking this option will go
back to the legacy behavior to maintain consistency with the previous look. Every new scene
will have this option enabled by default on each layer. }}

Large scale density Tab

Large Scale Density Tab

The cloud settings on this tab are meant for scenes with planetary terrains, or for scenes where
the camera is so high up in the sky that you can see thousands of kilometers across the clouds.

Use planetary cloud density map: Enable this option and use the Load button to load a plan-

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etary cloud density map. A map must be loaded to activate the settings on this tab. For proper
planetary cloud mapping, the picture used should have been generated using cylindrical or
Mercator projection (where the poles are spread over top & bottom sides of the picture). This
prevents severe distortions at render time. A planetary cloud density map is combined with the
regular density and height settings from the cloud layer to control the distribution of clouds on
a much larger (planetary) scale.

In addition to static maps, it is also possible to load image sequences or animation files within
the spectral cloud layer’s planetary cloud density maps. Simply load the desired sequence or
animation file in the density map field.

Influence on density: This settings defines how strongly the texture map is mixed with the
regular cloud density functions. The higher this setting is, the more influence the texture map
will have on the cloud’s density, and thus their light scattering and transparency.

Influence on height: This settings defines how strongly the texture map is mixed with the reg-
ular cloud density height functions (or just the regular cloud height). It works like a heightmap
for terrains and changes the cloud height accordingl.y Bright regions being higher than dark
ones. This works along with the Altitude Variations amount, Altitude Offset and Height Modu-
lation fuctions of the cloud layer.

Limit wall effect: This setting blurs the map internally to avoid a sudden steep slope in clouds
where there is a sudden transition between black and white parts in the texture. Without a
smooth transition, this produces a “wall” of clouds which appears suddenly. This parameter
tries to limit this effect by automatically detecting such transitions and recreating a more real-
istic occurrence of clouds.

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Lighting & Effects Tab

Lighting & Effects Tab

Lighting
The controls in this group let you customize the way the material reacts to light.

Lighting model: use this drop-down list to select the lighting model used for the volumetric
material.
• Flat layer: this lighting model is the simplest. The color of the material is uniform, and
only depends on the density. Light is not taken into account when computing the color.
This is the default.
• Volumetric layer (v.1.0): This is the Spectral I cloud model. In this model, the influence
of light and shadows is computed at the surface of the material. The color of the volu-
metric material is added. Cloud modulation functions, feathers and sharpness are not
available in this model.

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• Volumetric layer (v.2.0): This is the Spectral II cloud model. It enables sharpness, feath-
ers and modulation functions.
If the selected lighting model is Spectral I or Spectral II, the following checkboxes become avail-
able.
• Internal shadows: when this option is selected, volumetric shadows inside the cloud will
be computed, meaning that some parts of the cloud will cast shadows on other parts of
the cloud. This option produces much more realistic clouds, but increases render times
significantly.
• Cast shadows: when this option is selected, the cloud layer casts shadows in the atmo-
sphere which can result in the appearance of Godrays if conditions are favorable. This
option also increases render times significantly and should be used with caution, as it
does not necessarily produce a noticeable improvement in picture quality. In order for
Godrays to be visible, you must also enable Godrays in the Atmosphere Editor or use a
volumetric sun light. Disabling this parameter also disables Shadow density on the Cloud
tab in the Atmosphere Editor.
• GI ambient lighting: This turns on the GI ambient lighting. If this option is disabled,
the Ambient Lighting parameter on the Cloud tab in the Atmosphere Editor will simply
brighten up the cloud shadows, but will not cause any light bleeding in indirectly lit ar-
eas to happen.
• Force ambient color: Checking this option overrides any Ambient Color computed from
the sky and atmosphere with custom colors. This checkbox enables access to the Sky
Ambient Color and Sun Ambient Color. Sky Ambient Color is the indirect light color com-
ing from the sky, which is mostly visible in shadow areas. Sun Ambient Color defines the
color influence of the sun’s color, which is visible during sunset when the sun color turns
reddish. It can be perceived in both indirectly and directly lit areas.
The colors can be set in the color squares next to the field. These also can be driven by a
function. When driven by a function, connecting a color result to the function output will
define the ambient color. Connecting a number instead will simply define the amount
of indirect skylight or sunlight, and still use the colors computed from the sky and the
sunlight.
The actual final color of the cloud is a result of complex light filtering, based on the Volu-
metric color and the Ambient colors.

Flare
The controls in this group are only active in Flat Layer models.

When light is seen from behind a thin volumetric material, it will cause the material to become
very bright. This is called flaring. Flaring doesn’t occur when the material is either too dense,
or too thin.

You control flaring through two settings: Intensity and Span. Flare span is the area around the

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light that will flare-up. Larger values yield bigger flares.

Origin of Material
These fields let you offset the material in material coordinate space. This enables the precise
positioning of clouds. By default, this settings is linked to the function graph and follow the
cloud layer dummy so that you can move the cloud by selecting it in the world browser.

Velocity of Material Origin

These fields let you define a displacement over time of the origin of the material. As a result,
the material will be changing as time passes.

Global Transformation
Selecting options in this group will apply global modifications to the material’s density produc-
tion. These options work the same as for Simple materials: when you select an option, the
corresponding Edit button becomes enabled. Pressing this button displays a dialog that lets
you adjust the effects. The editor dialogs for each type of modification are detailed in the sec-
tion on Simple Materials.

Dissolve Near Objects

If the edited material is a cloud layer material, this group of controls is available. These controls
let you automatically define how cloud layers react to the proximity of other objects in the scene
– for instance to let high mountains peak through the clouds.
• Dissolve near objects: select this option to have the density of volumetric cloud layers
drop automatically near the objects in the scene.
• Accuracy: this setting controls the precision with which the proximity to other objects in
the scene is evaluated.
• Softness: this setting controls how gradually the cloud dissolves near foreign objects.
Low values mean the clouds will vanish abruptly near objects.
• Distance: this setting controls how far away from the objects the clouds are influenced.
You can control the amount of dissolving using a combination of both this and the Soft-
ness setting.

Low Density Quality Boost

The VUE raytracer render engine will try to optimize very low (or empty) density regions of a
cloud layer. This optimization can be emphasized by lowering the quality boost value, thus
lowering rendering time at the risk of introducing noise. If a cloud looks too noisy, increase the
quality boost to reduce any disturbing noise (while trading it for potentially increased rendering
time).

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SmartClouds

Introduction
SmartClouds are highly realistic cloud layers with complex node setups and nested function
graphs. They cover a wide variety of common real-world cloud types such as cumulus, altostra-
tus, cirrus, altocumulus and more. They look equally good from both above and below, and
you can tweak each cloud through published parameters to your liking.

Note:

The clouds are meant to resemble real meteorological clouds and were designed with great
care to replicate their real-world counterpart as accurately as possible. We highly recommend
you use only the published parameters in the cloud materials for editing the clouds and do
not touch any parameters on the cloud tab in the Atmosphere Editor other than altitude and
possibly height, if at all. Also, changing the material scale on these cloud materials will have no
effect.

All clouds are animation ready out of the box and offer published controls for animation direc-
tion and speed. In addition, any published parameter can be keyframed through VUE’s usual
timeline tools, allowing for time lapses of growing / convecting, changing and dissolving clouds.
Of course, each cloud can also be exported as an OpenVDB file or a sequence of files in case of
an animated cloud using the regular scene export dialog. If you are interested in how the clouds
were made, you can check out the underlying Function Graph and MetaNodes.

Parameter descriptions
This section explains all parameters which can be found across the different cloud types. Not
every cloud will have every parameter. The available parameters depend on the cloud species.
To access the published parameters, double click the cloud material preview on the Cloud tab
in the Atmosphere Editor to open the Cloud Material Editor. Inside, you will find the Published
Params tab.

Global settings
At least a few of the settings in this group are available in almost every cloud material. They
control the lifecycle of the cloud and general properties.

Cloud maturity
This slider defines the development stage of the cloud. Move it to see how clouds form from
rising air and how they develop into fully grown shapes. By keyframing this parameter, you can
easily create a timelapse of growing clouds.

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Maturity mode
Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. When animating a cloud
timelapse, it might not look realistic when all clouds appear at the same time. By switching to
Random maturity variations, each cloud in the sky will get a random maturity value assigned
to it, thus introducing different development stages across the sky. This also means that not
all clouds will ever reach 100% maturity, even when Cloud maturity is set to 100%. If the matu-
rity mode is set to Same maturity for all clouds, all clouds will grow at the same time with the
maturity slider.

Maturity variations
Only available / applicable when Maturity mode is set to Random maturity variations. With this
slider, you can define how strongly the maturity may vary throughout all clouds. The larger the
value, the more variety across the sky. Small values usually work best.

Random dissipation phases during maturity

Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. This setting is mostly
relevant for timelapse animations. If checked, not all clouds will be able to fully evolve into a
mature cloud as you increase Cloud maturity. Some clouds will appear but dissipate soon after
their first appearance into nothingness. This provides a more realistic and less uniform look
across the sky during a timelapse animation. Because only some clouds will survive and reach
maximum maturity, this setting may reduce the overall number of clouds in the sky. It works
with both Maturity modes.

Cloud dissipation
This parameter makes a cloud “die” and disappear in a natural way. It takes the current maturity
state of the cloud and starts dissipation from there. By keyframing this slider, you can make
clouds naturally dissolve / collapse (depending on the cloud material) across the sky.

Dissipation mode
Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. When animating a cloud
timelapse, it might not look realistic when all clouds disappear at the same time. By switching
to Random dissipation variations, each cloud in the sky will have a random dissipation value
assigned to it, thus introducing different dissipation stages across the sky. Some clouds will
dissipate faster than others and / or start their dissipation stage later. If the dissipation mode
is set to Same dissipation for all clouds, all clouds will dissipate at the same time with the dissi-
pation slider. This setting can also be useful in still renders when you increase the amount of
Dissipation variations (see below) to make the effect more visible.

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Dissipation variations
Only available / applicable when Dissipation mode is set to Random dissipation variations. With
this slider, you can define how strongly the dissipation may vary throughout all clouds. The
larger the value, the more variety across the sky. Small values usually work best.

Force full dissipation of all variations

Only available / applicable when Dissipation mode is set to Random dissipation variations. By
default, dissipation variations cause some clouds to start dissipation later than others. This
means that when dissipation is at 100%, some clouds will not have fully dissipated yet and
will remain in the sky, depending on how large the value for Dissipation variations is. Force full
dissipation of all variations will make those clouds that started their dissipation later eventually
“catch up” with the rest of the clouds, so that all clouds will have completely dissipated when
dissipation is at 100%.

Wind direction
This slider sets the wind direction for several other settings. It influences Wind intensity, Stormy
base, Stretch clouds and the direction of any directional effects such as the alignment of fila-
ments in cirrus clouds or cloud street arrangement in radiatus cloud varieties. It is expressed
in degrees (0 to 360) where 0 degrees is “North” (direction of the Y-axis of the scene). By de-
fault, it is set to 90 degrees so that any stretching or wind distortion happens to the right, along
the X-axis. This setting has no influence on the direction of animation (e.g. convection or drift).
You can set the animation direction separately in the animation group. This allows for greater
flexibility by e.g. creating stretched stratus-like cloud formations with the Wind direction and
then animating the stretched patterns in a different direction using the direction controls in the
animation group.

Note:

Changing the wind direction inevitably changes the position of all clouds in the sky. We recom-
mend setting the wind direction before you start tweaking the cloud parameters, so that the
positions are finalized, and you can concentrate on shaping the clouds how you want.

Auto­scale with height

Available in cloud materials which resemble single or multiple clouds with large vertical extent
in the sky (e.g. a larger cumulus cloud). These clouds were designed with a specific height
(thickness) for the cloud layer in mind. When you change the height of the cloud layer in the
Atmosphere Editor, the cloud shapes will get squashed or stretched. To avoid this and to still
be able to change the height of the cloud layer at will, use this checkbox to instruct the cloud
shapes to automatically adapt their width and length and shapes to the current height. As
you change the height, all cloud shapes will scale up or down accordingly, thus preserving the
aspect ratio between cloud height and fractal shapes, diameter etc.

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Presence
The settings in this group influence where clouds appear and how much of the sky is covered
by them.

Average No. of clouds per 10 km² / 30 km²

Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. With this slider, you can
add or remove single clouds in the sky. You can indicate how many clouds appear on average
across an area of roughly 5 km² / 50 km² (depending on the cloud type). Please note this is an
approximation. There might be a few more or a few less clouds in some places, depending on a
random seed. With this setting, it is easy to transition from a sparsely covered sky to a crowded
sky with many individual clouds.

Arrangement
This setting switches between different varieties of the current cloud species. It changes the ar-
rangement of either individual clouds in the sky or certain prominent shapes within the clouds.
Random produces a random placement of clouds. In cloud streets arranges clouds in lines
which resemble the radiatus variety. In cirrus clouds, Regular produces a simple cirrus pattern
which is closely aligned with the Wind direction. Chaotic creates seemingly entangled patterns,
which corresponds to the intortus cloud variety.

Cover
Controls how much of the sky is covered by clouds. ‘Important’: Only use this cover parameter
for adjusting the cover. ‘Do not use’ the cover parameter in the Atmosphere Editor, as it will not
work properly for these specially designed cloud materials.

Cover mode
Available in all cloud materials. This setting controls whether clouds appear everywhere across
the sky or only in random places with larger gaps in-between. Everywhere adds clouds all across
the sky, whereas Random with gaps adds random empty spaces where no clouds will appear.

Gap size
Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. Only applicable when
Cover mode is set to Random with gaps. This setting changes the size of the larger empty areas
where no clouds appear. Setting this to 0% is identical to the Cover mode of Everywhere.

Perimeter softness
Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. This setting adds a soft
fade-out of the edges in cloud patches created by the Cover mode setting. This provides very
nice transitions between empty parts of the sky and cloud patches. It is not available in the Fast

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shading mode and also not when the Cover mode is set to Everywhere.

Note: When the cloud material is animated with Gradual shape evolution and/or Drifting move-
ment, the gaps will also move and change shape, albeit much more slowly than the clouds
themselves (roughly at 10% of the cloud’s animation speed). This simulates cells with differ-
ent atmospheric stability in the sky which usually stay local for a while before changing and
evolving.

Randomize gap positions

Available in all cloud materials. Only applicable when Cover mode is set to Random with gaps
and Gap size is larger than 0%. Pressing this button will randomize the position of the gaps in
the sky.

Randomize cloud placement

Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. Pressing this button will
randomize the position of all individual clouds across the sky.

Cirrus and Cirrostratus shapes

The settings in this group define the shapes of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds. Both cloud fami-
lies are closely related and share many of the same settings.

Basic shape
Cirrus and cirrostratus clouds exhibit complex patterns with subtle details. This control lets
you select which shapes to use in the cloud. Filaments only will create clouds with thin hair-
like structures. Filaments mixed with feathery patches produces a mix of hair-like structures
with semi-transparent, feathery patches. This setting also enables the Feathery patches vs. fil-
aments slider.

Feathery patches vs. filaments

This setting is only available when Basic shape is set to Feathery patches vs. filaments. With
this parameter, you can blend seamlessly between the feathery patch shapes and the filaments.
Please note that even at 100%, feathery patches will still be visible, since this mode is nonethe-
less a mix of both patterns.

Feathery patch size

This setting is only available when Basic shape is set to Feathery patches vs. filaments. With this
slider, you can change the size of the feathery patches.

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Randomize feathery patches

This setting is only available when Basic shape is set to Feathery patches vs. filaments. This
parameter randomizes the feathery patch shapes while keeping the filaments untouched.

Intersecting filament layers

With this parameter, you can add more than one layer of filaments to the cloud, which corre-
sponds to the “duplicatus” cloud variety and can produce very nicely looking elaborate pat-
terns.

Filaments turbulence
This parameter adds turbulence to the filaments to make the wavy or curved. With low turbu-
lence, the filaments are more or less arranged in straight lines.

Filaments roughness
This parameter increases the roughness of the filaments. It adds more detail and very thin
structures to the already thin pattern.

Gaps between filaments

With this parameter, you can add gaps between the individual hair-like filaments. Larger values
increase the gap size.

Gaps affect feathery patches

This setting is only available when Basic shape is set to Feathery patches vs. filaments and Gaps
between filaments is larger than 0%. By enabling this checkbox, changing the gap size for the
filaments will also add gaps to the feathery patches with which the filaments are mixed. When
disabled, the feathery patches will not be influenced by the gaps slider.

Randomize filaments
This parameter randomizes the filament shapes while keeping the feathery patches untouched.

Shape
The settings in this group influence the outer shape of cumulus clouds. Depending on the cloud
species, some of these settings might be placed in groups with a different name.

Cloud radius in km
Available in cloud materials with multiple separate clouds in the sky. This slider lets you set
the average size of each cloud in the sky by defining each cloud’s radius. Please note that the

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radius is an approximation. To keep the clouds as natural as possible, they will deviate from
the radius setting a bit here and there, depending on a random seed.

Wind shear
This setting simulates a cloudscape with directional influence, distorted by wind shear and
strong gusts. The distortion will happen into the direction specified with the Wind direction
parameter. It will influence both the outer shape of the clouds by making the clouds lean into
the specified direction with more turbulent shapes and the billows and feathers by twisting and
shearing them accordingly.

Stormy base
This parameter is best used together with Wind shear and imitates a stormy cloudscape. Clouds
often exhibit rougher, feathery bases after a storm which will also have risen up. Use this slider
to simulate this effect. The bases will gradually rise into the direction specified by Wind direc-
tion.

Stretch clouds
With this slider, you can stretch clouds into the direction specified by Wind direction. Note that
the stretching does not distort the cloud. Instead, it just makes the cloud itself larger.

Add surrounding clouds at base

Checking this box adds a flat layer of clouds around the base of the main cloud, thus producing
a look which imitates a main cloud rising from an area of smaller surrounding clouds.

Surrounding clouds cover

Only available when Add surrounding clouds at base is enabled. This parameter separately con-
trols the cover of the surrounding clouds at the base of the main cloud, without affecting the
cover of the main cloud.

Altocumulus and cirrocumulus shapes

The parameters in this group control the shape of altocumulus clouds and cirrocumulus clouds,
which are both very similar in structure.

Average cloud size

This slider controls the average cloud size of a single billowy altocumulus or cirrocumulus cloud
in the sky.

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Size variations
With this parameter, you can make some clouds deviate from the average cloud size. The devi-
ation is negative, which means a high value will produce more smaller clouds. Thus, even with
size variations, no cloud will ever be bigger than the Average cloud size.

Clumping
This slider makes individual clouds clump together in larger groups. The higher the value, the
larger the clumps that are created.

Cloud gap size

This parameter increases the gap size between individual clouds. Both cirrocumulus and al-
tocumulus clouds can be stuck closely together or be further apart, and this parameter repli-
cates this look.

Randomize clouds
This setting randomizes the cloud shapes across the sky.

Altostratus shape
The parameters in this group control the shape of the altostratus cloud species. Note that all
parameters related to Undulating bands are identical to the parameters found in the Undulatus
bands group and are thus not explained here.

Main structure
Altostratus clouds are rather boring looking clouds overall, but they can nonetheless exhibit
very subtle structural detail. This parameter lets you select between the structures that are
faintly visible in the cloud. No distinct structure adds no structure whatsoever to the cloud,
other than the “regular” uniform cloud shapes that the cloud already consists of. Parallel bands
adds thick bands to the cloud, which correspond to the radiatus variety. Undulating bands add
wavy, undulating bands to the cloud structure, but in contrast to other species with undulatus
bands, these bands will not divide the cloud layer into standalone band structures. Instead, the
bands will be only very subtly visible on the underside and on the top of the cloud layer.

Parallel bands direction

Only available when Main structure is set to Parallel bands. This slider defines the direction
into which the parallel bands point. 0° corresponds to “North” (the Y-axis of the scene). The
direction is clockwise.

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Billows
The parameters in this group control the shape of the billows noise – the cauliflower shapes
which are so typical for cumulus clouds.

Base breakup
Most cumulus clouds have a rather compact base with no gaps or floating cloud pieces. Base
breakup introduces gaps and detail into the edges of the base – and the base only (!) – which
might provide a bit of variation across a sky full of clouds that might otherwise look too uniform.
This is mostly visible when little to no feathers are present.

Compactness
This slider controls the contrast of the larger billowy shapes that a cloud consists of. With
high values, the contrast between large scale billows will be reduced, thus producing a more
rounded cloud with a denser center. By reducing compactness, the cloud will be gradually di-
vided into individual smaller, round billowy parts, thus breaking the cloud up and potentially
creating more separated and floating bits and pieces (especially when feathers are present).

Randomize billows
This button randomizes the fractal used for the billows and creates new variations without af-
fecting the other parameters such as placement, or outer shape.

Feathers / Cloud Breakup (Fractus or pannus clouds)

The settings in this group control the shapes of the noise which is used to simulate broken up
clouds such as fractus or pannus clouds. This noise produces turbulent feathers.

Feathers visibility
This setting is only available when feathers are enabled. This slider blends between billows and
feathers. At 100%, the feathers take over completely and no billows will be visible anymore.

Presence (along height)

This setting is only available when feathers are enabled. You can control where feathers appear
along the height of the cloud with a filter curve. Usually, feathering occurs mostly at the base
of a cloud (the filter curve set to 100% on the left hand side) whereas billows dominate the top
parts (the filter curve for feathers set to 0% on the right hand side).

Feathers roughness
This setting is only available when feathers are enabled and Feathers visibility is larger than 0%.
This slider defines how rough and thus detailed the feathers are.

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Feathers soft fade­in

This setting is only available when feathers are enabled and Feathers visibility is larger than
0%. This parameter can make feathers slowly fade out at their edges which produces beautiful
density variations in a render. It is not available in Fast shading mode. Beware: Because this
setting reduces the density of feathers, it is slow to render.

Randomize feathers
This setting is only available when feathers are enabled. This button randomizes the fractal
used for the feathers and creates new variations without affecting the other parameters such
as billows, placement, or outer shape.

Castellanus turrets
The parameters in this group control the number and size of the turrets in castellanus cloud
species.

Number of turrets per 1km²

This parameter adds more or less turrets on average across the cloud.

Turrets compactness
This slider makes the turrets thicker or thinner. The higher the compactness, the thicker the
turrets.

Randomize turrets
This button randomizes the placement of the turrets.

Stratocumulus floccus shapes

The parameters in this group control the shapes in the stratocumulus floccus material.

Randomize clouds
This button randomizes the shape of the floccus clouds, without affecting the cloud base.

Lift cloud base

This parameter lifts the cloud base through displacement upwards. The higher the value, the
stronger the displacement.

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Cloud base roughness

This slider defines how rough the displacement at the cloud base is. Higher values produce
more details, but also more separate floating bits and pieces.

Randomize cloud base

This button randomizes the displacement shape of the cloud base, without affecting the rest of
the cloud shapes.

Lacunosus clouds (Secondary shapes / honeycomb pat­

tern)
Lacunosus clouds are an accompanying cloud type in many clouds. They produce holes in the
cloud connected by thin “walls” which often resemble a net-like structure or a honeycomb pat-
tern.

Lacunosus presence
This setting lets you select where lacunosus clouds occur in the cloud layer. Everywhere places
the pattern across the whole cloud, whereas Mixed with patches of regular clouds adds patches
of the original cloud shapes back in.

Average patch size

Only available when Lacunosus presence is set to Mixed with patches of regular clouds. This
slider controls how big the patches of regular clouds are.

Regular cloud patches visibility

Only available when Lacunosus presence is set to Mixed with patches of regular clouds. This
slider defines if the patches of regular clouds are fully visible or only partially blended into the
lacunosus pattern.

Randomize patches
Only available when Lacunosus presence is set to Mixed with patches of regular clouds. This
button randomizes the placement of patches of regular clouds across the sky.

Lacunosus size
This defines the average size of the honeycomb pattern of lacunosus clouds.

Increase hole size

This slider increases the default hole size of the honeycomb structure and essentially thins out
the surrounding “walls” of clouds which connect the honeycomb pattern.

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Randomize lacunosus clouds

This button randomizes the shapes of the lacunosus clouds patterns.

Mammatus clouds (Secondary shapes)

Mammatus clouds are round “bubble shapes” hanging from the underside of a cloud. The con-
trols in this group define the occurrence and shape of mammatus clouds.

Mammatus presence
This setting lets you define where mammatus clouds occur on the underside of the cloud layer.
Everywhere places the pattern across the whole cloud, whereas ‘In random patches limits the
mammatus clouds to patches only.

Average patch size

Only available when ‘Mammatus presence is set to In random patches. This slider controls how
big the patches of mammatus clouds are.

Randomize patches
Only available when ‘Mammatus presence is set to In random patches. This button randomizes
the placement of mammatus patches across the cloud.

Average mammatus size

This defines the average size of a single mammatus “bubble”.

Mammatus roughness
This parameter defines how rough and detailed or smooth the mammatus clouds are.

Gaps between mammatus clouds

This slideradds gaps between individual mammatus “bubbles”. In those gaps, the regular clouds
above the mammatus clouds will be visible.

Mammatus vertical depth

This parameter defines how far down the mammatus clouds extend from the main cloud. The
actual maximum depth allowed depends on the overall cloud layer thickness and differs from
cloud species to cloud species.

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Mammatus turbulence
This parameter adds a slight and subtle turbulence to the entire mammatus cloudscape, thus
producing a less unform and more wavy look.

Undulatus bands
The parameters in this group control the shape of undulating bands, a very common occurrence
in many cloud species. Please note that not all parameters are available in every cloud species
which exhibits undulations. Some clouds show the undulations clearly and thus have more
parameters than others, where the undulating bands might even just appear very subtly within
the cloud’s structure (for example in altostratus clouds).

Bands presence
This setting lets you define where undulating bands occur in the cloud layer. Everywhere places
the pattern across the whole cloud, whereas Mixed with patches without undulation adds patches
of regular clouds back in.

Average patch size

Only available when ‘Bands presence is set to Mixed with patches without undulation. This slider
controls how big the patches of clouds without undulations are.

Patches visibility
Only available when ‘Bands presence is set to Mixed with patches without undulation. This slider
defines if the patches of regular clouds are fully visible or only partially blended into the undu-
latus pattern.

Randomize patches
Only available when ‘Bands presence is set to Mixed with patches without undulation. This but-
ton randomizes the placement of patches of regular clouds across the sky.

Bands width
This setting lets you choose if the width of the undulating bands adapts to the Average cloud
size setting or if it’s controlled separately. Automatic uses the same size for the bands as set for
the main clouds, whereas Custom allows you to define the size separately.

Custom bands width

Only available when ‘Bands width is set to ‘Custom. This slider allows to define a custom width
for the bands.

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Bands direction
This slider defines the direction into which the undulating bands point. 0° corresponds to
“North” (the Y-axis of the scene). The direction is clockwise.

Gaps between bands

This slider controls how far apart the individual bands are. Large values introduce significant
gaps into the pattern.

Directional edge softness

Only available when Gaps between bands is larger than 0%. This parameter makes one edge of
the undulatus bands softly fade in, which is a very pleasing effect. This setting is not available
in the Fast shading mode.

Undulation strength
This slider controls how wavy the bands are. A low value creates only slight undulations in the
bands, whereas a high value adds lots of undulations and turbulence.

Bands edge roughness

This slider adds noise to the edge of the bands to make them irregular. Both smooth and rough
band edges can yield very pleasing looks.

Break up bands into separate clouds

When this checkbox is enabled, the undulating bands will be broken up into separate floating
cloud pieces.

Breakup intensity
Only available when Break up bands into separate clouds is enabled. This slider controls how
strongly the bands are broken up. Higher values produce more individual bits and pieces.

Shading
The parameters in this group control the light scattering & absorption, sharpness & softness
and color of the clouds.

Shading mode
This setting is useful during the tweaking phase of the cloud. With Fast shading, the whole
cloud material will use a uniform density with no variations which is a lot quicker to render, but
also simplifies the lighting detail and light scattering a lot. Fast shading is meant to speed up
preview renders while you are still designing the cloud shapes. For the final render and also for

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any cloud export as OpenVDB, the shading mode should always be set to Full shading which will
switch the cloud to full variable density for maximum light scattering and detail. Other settings
which influence the density (Edge softness, Feathers Softness, Overall density (along height) to
name just a few) will only have an influence with Full Shading.

Density / Opacity / Sharpness / Ambient Lighting

These parameters allow adjusting the basic cloud shading properties Density, Opacity, Sharp-
ness and Ambient Lighting. They are here for convenience purposes only, so that you do not
need to go back to the Atmosphere Editor to make adjustments. Normally, you should not need
to tweak these settings, as the clouds were already designed with properly adjusted shading
settings.

Optical thickness
Many clouds exist in different varities related to how dense and translucent they are. The Op-
tical thickness parameter provides presets for each specific cloud species which change the
cloud’s density, opacity and sharpness. Even though the presets might have the same names
across different cloud species, the shading settings behind each preset still differ from cloud to
cloud and were developed to resemble the real-world species as closely as possible.

Base darkening boost

This slider allows boosting the opacity at the base of the cloud. It is useful for clouds with a very
soft base with a low density. Without boosting the shadows, these cloud bases might otherwise
lack internal shadows and appear too bright. It is not available in Fast shading mode, and in
some clouds, it is only available when using a specific Optical thickness mode such as opacus
varieties.

Edge softness
This parameter makes the edges of clouds soft and produces beautiful and natural transitions
between clouds and sky. It is not available in Fast shading mode. Beware: This setting reduces
the density and is thus slow to render.

Overall density (along height)

With this filter curve, you can make the density vary throughout the cloud along its height. Use
it to create a soft cloud base or a soft cloud top, for example. It is not available in Fast shading
mode. Beware: This setting reduces the density and is thus slow to render.

Color or gradient (along height)

You can apply a color gradient along the cloud height with this parameter. This is a great way to
quickly fake some nice sunset colors in the cloud, for example, when tweaking the Atmosphere
parameters does not produce the colors you have in mind. Cloud color can also be included as

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a grid when exporting the cloud as an OpenVDB file.

Animation
The controls in this group animate the noises used for creating the clouds through different
methods. The animation happens procedurally in the graph. As soon as you enable an anima-
tion property, the clouds will be animated automatically. You can scrub through the timeline
and preview the animation. No additional keyframing is required. When combining the anima-
tion parameters in this group with keyframed changes for Cloud maturity or Cloud dissipation,
you can create beautiful timelapses of developing or disappearing clouds.

Note:

For exporting a cloud animation as OpenVDB, you still need to create keyframes for the cloud
layer (not the cloud material!) to get access to animation export settings in the export options.

Gradual shape evolution

Enabling this checkbox adds random noise morphing which changes the shape of the clouds.
This is a simple effect which should ideally be used in conjunction with Convection animation
(rising / sinking air) to add a bit of additional shape variations.

Evolution speed
Only available / applicable when Gradual shape evolution is enabled. This parameter sets the
speed of the convection animation in kilometers per hour. The higher the value, the faster the
noise will change.

Evolution direction
Only available / applicable when Gradual shape evolution is enabled. This parameter sets the
direction into which the noise morphs. It is expressed in degrees between [0; 360]. 0° is “North”
(the Y-axis of the scene). The direction is clockwise.

Drifting movement
Enabling this checkbox moves all clouds across the sky. Of course, you could also move the
cloud layer itself in the scene and keyframe the start and end position, but this control allows
you to fully automate cloud movement without keyframes, and you can later quickly change
direction and speed of movement without requiring any adjustments of previously created
keyframes.

Drift speed
Only available / applicable when Drifting movement is enabled. This parameter sets the speed
at which the clouds move across the sky in kilometers per hour. ====Drift direction= Only

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available / applicable when Drifting movement is enabled. This parameter sets the direction
into which the clouds drift. It is expressed in degrees between [0; 360]. 0° is “North” (the Y-axis
of the scene). The direction is clockwise.

Convection animation (rising / sinking air)

Enabling this checkbox morphs and rotates the noise with specific methods to replicate the
look of rising and sinking air. It looks a bit similar to making the cloud shapes “boil”. This is the
main animation type for cumulus clouds and by far the most realistic effect and thus the ani-
mation type we recommend to always use. It can be combined with any of the other animation
effects for additional detail.

Convection speed
Only available / applicable when Convection animation is enabled. This parameter sets the
speed of the convection animation in kilometers per hour. The higher the value, the faster the
noise will animate.

Convection direction
Only available / applicable when Convection animation is enabled. This parameter sets the di-
rection into which the air rises and sinks. It essentially controls the rotational part of the noise
animation. It is expressed in degrees between [0; 360]. 0° is “North” (the Y-axis of the scene).
The direction is clockwise.

Cloud Export Zone

Cloud layers can be limited to a cloud zone, as explained in the chapter about spectral clouds.
This is not only useful for isolating a part of a cloud layer. It is also a requirement for exporting a
cloud layer for rendering with Cycles or for use with other applications. Because the transition
at the borders of a cloud zone is quite harsh, the settings in this group allow you to also limit
the cloud material itself “artificially” to a zone and provide a much nicer transition towards the
zone’s edge. You should enable this group whenever you enable a cloud zone for a cloud layer
in the Object properties tab.

Position
This parameter indicates the position of the cloud zone within the cloud layer. You should enter
the same coordinates for X and Y as for the actual cloud zone in the Object properties tab.

Diameter
This parameter defines the size of the cloud zone. You should set it to the same size as the cloud
zone in the Object properties tab.

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Shape fade­in
This parameter fades the cloud shapes slowly in from the edges of the zone towards the center,
and provides a much nicer transition to the zone’s edges than the default cloud zone.

Density fade­in
This parameter fades the cloud’s density slowly in from the edges of the zone towards the center.
This produces very nicely looking clouds when exported, which only gradually appear like in the
real world.

Irregular edge
This parameter adds noise to the edges of the cloud zone, so that it is not perfectly round. This
helps obscuring the borders of the zone even more.

Drift animation also moves cloud zone

When this checkbox is enabled, any Drifting movement enabled in the Animation group will also
make the cloud zone drift. If disabled, the clod zone will stay in place and the clouds within the
zone will drift in and out of the zone instead.

Fog and Haze Tab

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Atmosphere Editor – Fog and Haze tab Standard (top) and Volumetric (bottom) models

The Fog and Haze tab is available in the standard, volumetric and environment mapping at-
mosphere models. In the spectral and photometric models, it is replaced by the Sky, Fog and
Haze tab.

Although you may think fog and haze are used only on special occasions (e.g. to achieve partic-
ular photographic atmospheres), this is not the case. Whatever the weather conditions (unless
you are out in space), you will find that fog and haze are always present. Fog and haze are what
give its color to the sky. What changes is the distance at which they become significant. Fog
and haze are important for fine tuning the atmosphere, because they give an idea of distance.
This is why nearly all the predefined atmospheres have some amount of fog and haze.

Because fog and haze are responsible for the color of the atmosphere, they are an essential
component of the volumetric atmosphere model. By adjusting the density of the fog and haze
you will adjust the color of the sky.

This tab looks somewhat different depending on the selected model of atmosphere.

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Fog

Fog is a generic term that covers all types of particles that you find in the atmosphere and that
are large enough to reflect light (i.e. larger than the average wavelength of light). This is, in
particular, the case of droplets of humidity, but also dust, crystals of ice, etc.

Objects tend to gradually disappear into fog as they move away from the camera.

The further the objects, the more the color of the objects will blend into the color of the fog.
There are two types of fog in the standard atmosphere model:
• uniform fog that has constant thickness whatever the altitude,
• altitude dependent fog that has a density that varies exponentially with altitude.
In the volumetric atmosphere model, only the second type of fog is available.

Select the fog Color by double-clicking on the color box. The color editor pops-up, letting you
select the new color.

Density is the distance at which objects totally disappear inside the fog, regardless of altitude.

Falloff controls the way that fog gets gradually thinner with altitude. The greater the value,
the more rapidly the fog density decreases with altitude. In the standard model, the extra fog
controls are enabled only if the fall off rate is non zero.

To help you in understanding how the thickness of the fog works, the curve on the right displays
a Preview of fog thickness relative to altitude.

Standard Atmosphere Model Only

The following controls are available only in the standard atmosphere model:
• If you want the fog to be accumulated in the lower part of the scene (which is usually
the case), select the Fog gathers at low altitudes box; alternately, if you want fog to
accumulate at high altitudes (for instance to render mountains lost in high altitude fog or
a smoke filled cave, for that matter), select the other box.
• Indicate the Altitude at which altitude dependent fog achieves maximum density. This
controls the altitude of the “layer” of fog created by altitude dependent fog. In practice,
it is somewhat tricky to use.

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Haze

Haze is particularly strong on hot days. It is caused by light being scattered in all directions
when it collides with the very small particles in the atmosphere (molecules of Oxygen and Nitro-
gen mainly). This is known as Rayleigh scattering, and is the reason why the sky is blue and the
sun light turns red near the horizon. Other colors can be observed, depending on the various
densities of particles in the air (e.g. the sky can sometimes be green after volcanic eruptions,
because of the large quantities of very thin particles of smoke that get thrown into the air by
the eruption).

Luckily, in VUE, it doesn’t take a volcanic eruption to make the sky turn green.

Unlike fog, the effects of haze saturate with distance.

Haze controls are pretty straightforward: if the selected model for the atmosphere is the volu-
metric one, the controls for haze work exactly like those for fog; if it is the standard one, the fall
off setting isn’t available, because haze density is considered constant with altitude.

Volumetric Atmosphere Model Only

Glow intensity: this setting controls the intensity of the bright area around the sun, which is
caused by the light being reflected on the larger particles in the atmosphere (droplets of water,
dust…). The higher the setting, the brighter the atmosphere near the sun.

Volumetric sunlight: check this option to make the sun volumetric. Objects in the scene will
start to cast shadows in the atmosphere. The result can be particularly impressive when the
sun is low on the horizon. Volumetric sunlight should be used with great care, because they
can dramatically increase render times, without necessarily having any noticeable effect.

Quality boost: This setting is available only in the volumetric and spectral atmosphere models.
It controls the number of samples that are taken throughout the atmosphere in order to com-
pute the interactions of light with the air. Increase the Quality boost setting if you can see noise
in the atmosphere (beware: longer render times will result). Advanced effects can be tuned as
well.

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Sky, Fog & Haze Tab

This tab is specific to the Spectral and Photometric atmosphere models.

Sky

Atmosphere Editor – Sky, Fog and Haze tab

The controls in this group let you adjust the density of the gasses that constitute the atmo-
sphere (namely nitrogen and oxygen). On earth, these gasses are responsible for the blue color
of the sky, and the reddening of the sun near the horizon.

The first set of controls in this group are related to the sky, and the way the blue color appears:
• Sky ground density: this setting controls the density of the atmospheric gasses at ground
altitude.
• Sky mean altitude: this indicates the rate at which the density of the atmospheric gasses

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drops with altitude. The lower the mean altitude, the more quickly the density drops (the
atmosphere density is exponential with altitude).
Note:
Mean altitude: this is the altitude where density reaches half the density at ground level.
Because density is exponential with altitude, this is usually a lot less than half the max-
imum altitude of the component. For instance, we know that the Earth’s atmosphere
reaches up to approximately 60 miles high, but it’s mean altitude is only 5.5 miles (at an
altitude of 5.5 miles, the density of the atmosphere is half of that at ground level).
• Sky color: this lets you change the color shift caused by the gasses in the atmosphere.
On earth, this color is blue, but you can imagine alien planets where the gasses in the
atmosphere result in a different color for the atmosphere.
The other settings in this group are relative to the color decay caused by atmospheric gasses.
This controls the way the color of light turns red as the sun gets closer to the horizon:
• Decay amount: this is the amount of reddening that occurs as the sun gets closer to the
horizon.
• Decay mean altitude: like for sky, this controls the rate at which the decay disappears
with increasing altitudes.
• Decay color: on earth, the atmospheric gasses result in a blue color in the sky, and a red-
dening of light near the horizon. However, the gasses in the atmospheres of other planets
could result in a different base sky color and light decay. This setting lets you change the
color hue taken by the sun as it gets lower on the horizon. For earthen atmospheres, you
shouldn’t need to modify the sky and decay colors.

Fog and Haze

The settings in this group control the other components of the atmosphere: small particles,
such as dust, and humidity. Small particles are responsible for the haze while humidity is re-
sponsible for fog. The settings for Fog and Haze work like Sky and Decay above:
• Haze ground density: this indicates the density of particles of dust and pollution at ground
altitude. Haze is typically responsible for the gray color that appears near the horizon
when the sun is high up in the sky.
• Haze mean altitude: controls the rate at which the density of small particles in the atmo-
sphere drops with altitude.
• Haze color: controls the color that is added to the atmosphere as a result of the small
particles. Usually, this color is gray.
• Fog ground density: this indicates the density of water particles at ground altitude. These
water particles create a strong glow effect when illuminated from behind. When there is
a lot of humidity in the atmosphere, the atmosphere becomes gradually opaque.
• Fog mean altitude: controls the rate at which the density of water particles in the atmo-

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sphere drops with altitude.

• Fog color: controls the color that is added to the atmosphere as a result of the water
particles. Usually, this color is a dark shade of gray.
• Glow intensity: glow is caused by water particles being illuminated from behind. They
result in a bright glow around the sun. This setting lets you control the amount of glow
in the atmosphere around the sun.
• Scattering anisotropy: this controls how “directional” the glow effect is. It influences
the overall shape of the glow effect around the sun, and how bright the fog is depending
on the direction you look at.
• Clouds anisotropy: this provides additional control over the way light is scattered inside
clouds. This can make dramatic changes in sunset clouds nearest the sun, for example.

Global Settings
• Aerial perspective: this setting controls the overall “thickness” of the atmosphere. A
value of 1 corresponds to the typical Earth atmosphere. If you increase this value, the
effect, in terms of atmosphere, will be like increasing the scale of your scene.
Note:
In the preset atmospheres, this value is usually set to 10, so that the effects of the atmo-
sphere can be seen without having to use “real-world” size environments. If you are look-
ing for physical accuracy, you should reset this value to 1, which is the aerial perspective
of the Earth’s atmosphere. You should also construct your environments at Earth scale
(hundreds of miles).
• Quality boost: This setting is available only in the volumetric and spectral atmosphere
models. It controls the number of samples that are taken throughout the atmosphere in
order to compute the interactions of light with the air. Increase the Quality boost setting
if you can see noise in the atmosphere (beware: longer render times will result). Please
read the discussion on tuning advanced effects.
• Godrays: when this option is checked, the clouds will cast shadows in the atmosphere, re-
sulting in rays of light showing through the clouds. The result can be particularly impres-
sive when the sun is low on the horizon. Rendering Godrays can dramatically increase the
render times, without necessarily having any noticeable effect (just like in the real world,
it takes very specific conditions to see Godrays shining through the clouds). Read here for
more details on Godrays. This option is only available in the Spectral atmosphere model.
You can turn Godrays on and off for each individual cloud layer (see here). You can also
adjust the intensity of the Godray effect using the shadow density setting in the Clouds
tab.
The drop-list below Godrays has to do with shadows on clouds:
• No shadows on clouds: this option will not produce shadows on clouds from other clouds
or any object above the cloud layer.

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• Projected shadows on clouds: this selection will show shadows on clouds from other
clouds or even from a plane flying above the cloud layer.
• Volumetric sunlight: this option casts full volumetric and projected shadows onto clouds
and through the atmosphere. MetaClouds can cast Godrays only in the “Volumetric sun-
light” mode.

Wind Tab

Atmosphere Editor – Wind tab

This tab lets you control the nature and the amount of breeze that is applied to the plants in
your scene. Provided that breeze is enabled, all plants created in VUE will automatically move
gently in the breeze.

On top of this global breeze that affects all plants, you can also define strong winds that will

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only be applied to given plants in the scene.

• Enable wind: if you uncheck this option, no wind will be applied to plants, even if some
wind has been defined. Only breeze effects will be applied (if some breeze is defined).
• Enable breeze: uncheck this option if you don’t want the plants in your scene to move
in the breeze. Breeze is a global setting; unlike wind, you cannot disable breeze for given
plants only.
Note:

do not confuse breeze and wind. Breeze is defined globally and applies to all plants. It is suit-
able for gentle, automatic movements of plants. Wind is defined on a per-plant basis, and is
better suited for strong amplitude movement of the plants. Plants affected by wind are slower
to render than plants that are only subjected to breeze.

Adjusting Breeze

In this section we take a closer look at the different settings that let you control the breeze
effect.

Breeze Settings
• Intensity: this setting controls the overall intensity of the breeze. Low values mean very
gentle breeze, while higher values will produce stronger movement of the plants.
Note:
when you vary the intensity of the breeze, you should also modify the other settings in
order to capture realistic breeze movements.
• Pulsation: this setting controls the average speed of the plant movements created by the
breeze. Use low values when recreating gentle breeze, but increase it if you are creating
a stronger effect.
• Uniformity: the effect of the breeze is global throughout the scene; however, when you
look at real plants moving in gentle breeze, you will notice that each plant seems to move
independently. But you can also see an overall movement sliding across the landscape as
stronger gusts of wind blow by. This effect is simulated by VUE breeze, and is controlled
by the uniformity setting. Low values mean that the plants move independently, whereas
high values mean that the plants move all together.
• Turbulence: the turbulence setting controls the amount of random movement of each
leaf on the plant (as caused by turbulence in the air). Low values mean that all the leaves
move together, and high values mean that all leaves move independently.

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Gusts of Wind
Gusts of wind appear randomly on top of the overall breeze. They create sudden movements
of greater amplitude. The controls in this group let you customize the influence of the gusts of
wind:
• Amplitude: this setting controls the overall amplitude of the movement caused by the
gusts of wind. Low values mean that the gusts of wind create very little noticeable effect,
whereas high values mean that gusts of wind will cause strong movements within plants.
Gusts of wind appear with random amplitude.
• Frequency: this setting controls the average rate at which the gusts of wind occur. Be-
cause gusts of wind appear randomly, this setting only indicates the average lapse of time
between two gusts of wind. Also, because the amplitude of the gusts is random, not all
gusts of wind will necessarily cause noticeable results.

Influence of Wind Intensity

If you look at the way a plant moves in the wind, you will notice that the amount of random
movement increases with the intensity of the wind. This effect is captured by VUE’s breeze
model, and the settings in this group let you control the way the intensity of the wind influences
the breeze:
• Intensify: this setting controls the overall relationship that exists between the intensity
of the wind and that of the breeze. Low values mean that the intensity of the breeze in-
creases only slightly as the intensity of the wind increases. This is appropriate if you want
to simulate the deformation of a tree under wind without causing random “noise” in that
deformation. High values mean that the intensity of the wind will be strongly influenced
by that of the breeze. Strong winds will cause strong random movements of the plant
around the wind direction.
• Accelerate: this setting controls the influence of the wind on the overall frequency of
the movements caused by the breeze. If the value is low, the frequency of the random
movements will be the same, whatever the intensity of the wind. If the value is high,
strong winds will cause faster random movement of the plant.

Fluttering of Leaves
If you observe the way leaves move in gentle breeze, you will notice that randomly, the leaves
suddenly start a burst of rapid movement. This effect is also captured by VUE and it is what
we call leaf fluttering. The settings in this last group allow you to control the fluttering of the
leaves:
• Speed: the speed setting simply controls the speed (frequency) at which the fluttering of
the leaves happens.
• Amplitude: this is also a straightforward control that adjusts the amplitude of the flut-
tering of the leaves. Low values mean no fluttering, whereas high values mean sudden
bursts of strong fluttering.

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Breeze Preview
To the right of the breeze settings, you will notice a moving tropic. This tropic is used to preview
the effects of the breeze.

Check the Breeze preview box to see an animated preview of the effects of the breeze on a
typical tropic.

Underneath the tropic, you can see a set of 3 checkboxes and associated gauges. These check-
boxes let you select which component of the breeze you want to preview:
• Show example wind: if you check this option, a wind of increasing intensity will be ap-
plied to the tropic. The wind is applied as a cycle where there is initially no wind, then
the intensity of the wind increases gradually to a peak value and subsequently drops back
down to zero and begins a new cycle. The current intensity of the wind can be monitored
using the gauge. This option is interesting to observe the effects of the intensity of the
wind on the behavior of the breeze. In particular, it is appropriate to understand the set-
tings in the Influence of Wind Intensity group (see above).
• Preview gusts of wind: select this option if you want to view the effects of the sudden
gusts of wind. The current intensity of the gusts of wind can be monitored using the
gauge. Unchecking this option is like setting a 0 amplitude for the gusts of wind. Tog-
gling this option on and off is a good way to appreciate the effects of the settings in the
Gusts of wind group (see above).
• Preview leaf fluttering: select this option to view the effects of the sudden bursts of
quick leaf movement. Toggling this option on and off is a good way to appreciate the
effects of the controls in the Fluttering of leaves group (see above).

Effects Tab

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Atmosphere Editor – Effects tab

This tab in the Atmosphere Editor is identical in all atmosphere models. It lets you add cool
atmospheric effects such as stars, rainbows or ice rings to your renders.

In the case of the Environment mapped model, the Effects tab lets you define the picture to be
used in the background.

Stars
Select this option to automatically add stars to your skies. When you turn on stars, the following
controls become active:

Number of stars: increase the value to add more stars in the sky.

Brightness: increase the value to make the stars brighter. If the sky is dark, you will probably
want to increase the brightness of the stars. If it is blue, you may want to reduce it, because
stars are barely visible in the daytime.

Twinkle: this control is used to adjust the amount of twinkling of the stars in an animation. A

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value of zero means that the stars don’t twinkle at all. A value of 100% means that the stars may
be completely “turned off” during the animation process...

With lens flares: this option adds tiny cross-like lens flares to all the brighter stars.

Colored stars: checking this option makes the stars appear with random colors.

Rainbow
Selecting this option will automatically add a rainbow effect to your scene.

However, you must understand that rainbows only appear when the sun is shining from behind
the camera. If this is not the case, the rainbow will appear outside the field of view. So if you
don’t see the rainbow, make sure the sun is placed behind the camera, close to the horizon.
This is because rainbows are created by the light from the sun being diffracted inside drops of
water (rain) and reflected back towards the source.

When you turn on the rainbow feature, the following controls become active:

Intensity: this setting controls the overall intensity of the rainbow effect. The lower the setting,
the less noticeable the rainbow will be.

Size: this setting controls the thickness of the rainbow (i.e. the amount of angular spread be-
tween the two extreme colors, red and blue).

Falloff: this setting controls the way the intensity of the rainbow reduces with altitude. If the
value is high, the rainbow will vanish near the top. The higher the value, the shorter the rainbow.

Secondary bow: turn this option on to display a secondary, inverted bow, larger and dimmer
than the main bow. Notice how the sky becomes darker in between the two bows.

Realistic colors: select this option if you want the rainbow to display a realistic distribution of
colors, rather than the regular, comic-style red-green-blue rainbow.

Ice Rings
As opposed to rainbows, ice rings are only visible in the atmosphere when looking straight at
the sun. Ice rings are caused by tiny crystals of ice in suspension in the air. These ice crystals
concentrate light into a ring around the sun, at a specific angle around the direction of the light.
This angle (22°), and thus the size of the ring, is directly linked to the angle between the sides
of the ice crystals.

When you turn on the ice ring option (this option is only available in the standard and volumetric
atmosphere models), the following controls become active:

Intensity: this setting controls the overall intensity of the ring effect. The lower the setting, the
less noticeable the ice ring will be.

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Size: this setting controls the thickness of the ring (i.e. the amount of angular spread of light).
Low settings will make for less noticeable rings.

Parhelic arc: check this option to show a parhelic arc around the ice ring. This is a secondary,
much dimmer ring that appears at an angle of 46° around the direction of the sun.

Sundogs: check this option to show the sundogs on either side of the sun. The sundogs are
a horizontal flare of light that appear on either side of the sun, in between the sun and the ice
ring.

Pillar: check this option to show the sun pillar. The sun pillar is a vertical flare of light that
appears to extend the central sun flare to the edges of the ice ring.

Default Lens Flares

When you create a new light, it is assigned a default lens flare that depends on the type of light.
Please turn here for an explanation of what Lens Flares are.

If the light is a directional light (e.g. the sun), it is assigned the default lens flare for directional
lights.

If the light is a point or spot light, it is assigned the default lens flare for other types of light.

This avoids having to define lens flares for each light, and also offers the incredible opportunity
to modify all lens flares at the same time. It is also close to reality, because since lens flares
occur in the camera, there is no real reason why different lights should be causing different
lens flares…

To remove lens flares, uncheck the appropriate options:

• If you don’t want the directional lights to have a lens flare effect, simply uncheck the
…directional lights option!
• If you don’t want the other types of lights to have a lens flare effect, simply uncheck the
…all other lights option!
This will remove the lens flares of all lights that don’t have a custom lens flare.

You can also modify the lens flares of all the lights that don’t have a custom lens flare by pressing
the corresponding Edit button. This will open the Lens Flare Editor. When you are done, close
the Lens Flare Editor, and all the lights in the scene will use the modified lens flare!

If a light has a custom lens flare, it won’t be affected by these settings. Lens flares can be cus-
tomized for individual lights.

The settings for the default lens flares are saved together with the atmosphere.

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Environment Map
The main control in this group lets you define the image to be used as an environment map.
The picture you select will appear in the back of your render, in place of the sky.

Click the Load icon ( ) below the picture preview, or double-click on the picture preview to
open the Picture Browser and load a picture. If the picture you load does not map seamlessly
(meaning that a seam appears on the edge of the picture when it is mapped onto the back-
ground), VUE will detect this and offer to create a seamless joint.

When you load a picture as environment map, a message appears, asking you if you want to
setup your scene for Image Based Lighting (read here for details on this type of rendering). If
you click Yes, global illumination will be enabled and the lighting information in the picture will
be used to illuminate the scene.

Note:

You don’t have to use a HDRI image for Image Based Lighting. However, HDRI images produce
the nicest results because they contain actual sources of light. If you use a standard picture,
you will probably have to increase the sky dome lighting gain to compensate for the fact that
there is no light in the map.

If you click No to the aforementioned message, the picture you loaded will simply be used as a
background to your scene.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can opt to animate the environmental map. The Animated texture options icon ( ) is
located directly under the picture.

Mapping mode
The Mapping mode parameter can have these values :
• Spherical: This mode can be also called equirectangular and matches the default previ-
ous behavior : the whole dome is mapped on the whole image rectangle with the Azimuth
as U coordinate and the Pitch as V coordonate.
• Hemispherical: This mode matches the behavior of VUE before version 2016R5 with the
check “Map upper atmosphere only” checked : like Spherical mode, the mapping is done
via Azimuth and Pitch coordinates but only upper half dome is mapped.
• LightProbe: This mode allows the use LightProbe maps.
• Cylindrical: This mode allows to use the Panoramic Renders renders as cylindrical.

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• Cube Map and Compact Cube Map: This mode allows to use Cube Maps; either with
standard cube pattern or with compact one.
Here is the convention to be used for Cube Mapping :

Here is the convention to be used for Compact Cube Mapping :

Dome rotation
The Dome rotation controls let you fine tune the placement on the environment map on sky
dome. The Azimuth parameter (same usage as previous Map Offset U coordinate) will rotate
the picture around the vertical axis. The Pitch parameter will rotate the picture around the hori-
zontal axis. The Horizontal shift (same usage as Map Offset V coordinate) will adjust the height

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of the horizon in the sky dome. The Exposure and Contrast sliders let you adjust the exposure
and contrast of the environment map. If the current environment map is a high dynamic range
image, you can view the entire image’s dynamic by sliding the exposure setting up and down.
• Map ground plane: when this option is selected, the lower half of the environment map is
automatically mapped onto the ground plane. This will produce particularly nice results
when the horizon in the environment map is exactly halfway up the picture.
• Ignore atmosphere on map: if you check this option, the effects of the atmosphere (i.e.
fog and haze) won’t be visible on the environment map. This is very useful when you
need to match the atmosphere of the VUE scene with the atmosphere that is visible in
the picture background. For instance, if the background picture show a rainy day, you
will probably need to add fog to the scene – or else the objects in your scene will look
fake and out of place.

Separate Illumination Map

This option is only available in the Environment mapping atmosphere model. In this model,
the Environment map will be used by default to illuminate the scene. Using the Separate illu-
mination map, you can however, specify a different image to use as the illumination source.
This is particularly useful if you have a low resolution HDR image of an environment coupled
with a high resolution non-HDR image.

Click the Load icon ( ) below the picture preview, or double-click on the picture preview to
open the Picture Browser and load a picture. If the picture you load does not map seamlessly
(meaning that a seam appears on the edge of the picture when it is mapped onto the back-
ground), VUE will detect this and offer to create a seamless joint.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon offset parameters using this dialog (see this for
more information).

Default Reflection Map

This is the reflection map that will be used for all materials in the scene that do not explicitly
define another reflection map. Please turn here for further details on reflection maps.

If you are using the Environment mapping atmosphere model, by default the default reflection
map will be the same as the Environment map. However, you can specify a different image to
be used as reflection map by selecting the Separate reflection map option.

This setting is very useful since the environment is theoretically the same for all objects, hence
all objects should use the same reflection map (this is of course not an obligation…).

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To change the default reflection map, click the Load ( ) icon underneath the reflection map
preview or double click the reflection map preview to open the Bitmap Browser. Select the
picture you want to use as reflection map and validate. A message should appear if your pic-
ture doesn’t loop smoothly horizontally, and offer to create a smoothed junction between both
edges. This is because the reflection map is mapped onto an imaginary sphere, thus looping
horizontally. If you click Yes, then VUE will add a smooth transition strip from the right to the
left border of the bitmap in order to avoid a sharp transitions in the reflection map. Of course,
if you don’t want to alter the bitmap, click No. Your bitmap should now be displayed in the
reflection map preview.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can also set the default reflection map using the Material Editor and pressing the Set de-
fault button.

You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon offset parameters using this dialog (see this for
more information).

Use Environment Map Beyond Atmosphere

When this option is checked, you can select an environment map to use as an outer space at-
mosphere map. Just load the map using the Load icon in the lower left below the image area.

You can rotate the picture by using the ( ) and ( ) arrows. You can also invert the picture
using the ( ) button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction
( ) options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

The Dome rotation controls let you fine tune the placement on the environment map on the
environment hemisphere. You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon offset parameters
using this dialog (see this for more information).

The Exposure and Contrast sliders let you adjust the exposure and contrast of the environment
map. If the current environment map is a high dynamic range image, you can view the entire
image’s dynamic by sliding the exposure setting up and down.

You can adjust the Mapping mode parameter, see the Mapping Mode section for more informa-
tion)..

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Rain & Snow Tab

Atmosphere Editor – Rain & Snow tab

The Rain & Snow tab contains the settings for rain and snow weather systems. This tab is avail-
able for all atmosphere models.

Type: select either Rain or Snow from the dropbox.

Precipitation area: defines the size of the area affected by precipitation

Rain/Snow strength: slider allows definition of rain strength

Rain drop/Snow flake size: the size of the rain or snow EcoParticle

Rain drop/Snow flake speed: the speed that the snow or rain is falling

Fog boost: this boosts the fog levels in the precipitation area.

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Wind direction: move the pointer to indicate the direction that the rain is falling

Falling angle: indicates the angle that the rain or snow is falling.

Turbulence: the amount of agitation of the snow (falling gently or whipping around).

Motion blur: this is the amount of motion blur applied to the rain or snow.

Collisions dialog

Enable collisions: check to allow collision between the snow or rain EcoParticles. Clicking on
Edit displays an additional screen to set some additional parameters:
• Resolution: The size of the cells in the grid that makes up the precipitation area.
• Fade rate: the amount of gradual loss of intensity
• Maximum impact: the maximum force of an EcoParticle collision
• Store impact energies: when selected, the collision grid will store energy instead of col-
lision count. For energy, the more the particle is fast and heavy, the more energy will be
stored at collision.
• Smooth: the smoothness of EcoParticles impact
• Collisions with static EcoSystems: allows collisions with EcoSystem instances in a scene.
This only applies to static EcoSystems. Collisions are not available for dynamic and Eco-
Particle systems.
Material preview: double-click the preview image to open the Advanced Material Editor to edit
the weather EcoParticle material.

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Saving an Atmosphere

This command lets you save your current atmosphere in a stand-alone file, for use in future
scenes. Saved atmospheres will appear in the atmospheres Visual Browser like any other of
the predefined atmospheres.

When you select this command, a Standard File Browser appears, letting you choose the name
of the file under which the atmosphere will be saved. You may add a title and a comment (rec-
ommended).

By default, atmospheres are placed in the Atmospheres subfolder. This means that they will
appear in the Personal collection inside the atmospheres Visual Browser.

Before writing the file to disk, VUE renders a small preview of the atmosphere. This preview
will be used in the atmospheres Visual Browser to illustrate your atmosphere. You cannot act
upon this preview (framing…).

Photometric atmospheres in Integra­

tion Plugins

Because photometric atmospheres use a brighter sun (with an intensity matching the real sun),
it is necessary to use exposure controls in the host applications to avoid overexposed renders.
They allow the control of 3 parameters that define the exposure : shutter speed, film speed (iso)
and f-number.

The default exposure value (EV) for a sunny exterior scene, recommended for the default VUE
atmosphere, is 15 EV which is obtained with:
• a shutter speed of 1/500s
• a film speed of 100 ISO
• an f-number of 8
You adjust the exposure by changing one of these parameters. For instance, you can add 1 EV by
dividing the shutter speed by 2. This makes the render darker. Or subtract 1 EV by multiplying
the shutter-speed by 2. This makes the render brighter.

Note:

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This exposure value must not be confused with the exposure compensation of recent cameras,
that works in the opposite way than exposure scale, and is relative to the automatic exposure
value computed by the camera.

Here is a short description of how to activate exposure controls in the various host applications:

3dsMax

V­Ray
With the V-Ray renderer, you have to use an Exposure Control that lets you change the param-
eters defined above. Select Rendering > Exposure Control... in the menu of 3ds Max, then
select Physical Camera Exposure Control (with 3ds Max 2016 and newer versions) or V-Ray
Exposure Control (with 3ds Max 2015 and older versions).

Exposure Controls can be used in combination with a Physical Camera:

• To create a physical camera with 3ds Max 2016 and newer versions, use the menu Create
> Cameras > Physical Camera. The exposure parameters are available in the right panel,
in the “Modify” tab, in the “Physical Camera” and “Exposure” rollouts.
• With versions older than 3ds Max 2016, use the menu Create > Cameras > V-Ray > V-
Ray Physical Camera. The exposure parameters are available in the right panel, in the
“Modify” tab, in the “Basic parameters” rollout.
If you use a physical camera, make sure that the exposure applied to the scene is defined by the
camera paramaters, by checking Use Per Camera Exposure (or by selecting the “From VRay
Camera” mode, if it’s a V-Ray Exposure Control).

Note:

There is a display bug in 3ds Max 2016 (independent from VUE): the exposure controls don’t
always affect the real-time display correctly. For some reason, the value “Exposure for Non-
Physical Camera” is the one that affects the display even if the camera is a physical one. In 3ds
Max 2015 and 2017 however, this bug is not present.

Note:

There is another display bug in 3ds Max 2016 and 2017 (independent from VUE): with the Realis-
tic display mode, the V-Ray Exposure Control doesn’t work well with standard directional lights.
The viewports appear fully white when using these features. The bug happens with VUE which
uses a directional light for its sun. See the last note to avoid the bug. In 3ds Max 2015 however,
this bug is not present.

Note:

With the Physical Camera Exposure Control, you should let the Physical Scale option enabled

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(it is by default), with a value of 1500 candelas / RGB unit. This option is in Rendering > Expo-
sure Control...

Note:

If you encounter exposure problems in the real-time viewports (where the scene may appear
too luminous), you can change their lighting settings. For this, right-click on the quality menu
in the top-left corner of a viewport, select the submenu “Lighting and Shadows”, then check
the option “Illuminate with Default Lights”.

Maya

With the VRay renderer, create a standard Maya camera, select it and select the associated
shape tab in the Attribute Editor. In the menu, select Attributes > VRay and check Physical
camera. In the Extra VRay Attributes rollout, check the option Treat as VRay Physical cam-
era which enables the exposure settings.

Cinema 4D

First, select the physical renderer in the render settings. Create a camera, and select the Physi-
cal tab in the Attributes Manager, where you can then edit the exposure parameters. The option
“Exposure” has to be checked otherwise these parameters won’t have any effect.

Lightwave

There is no real exposure control like in the other applications supported by VUE. You have to
use an Exposer filter.

To use an Exposer filter, in the Lightwave menu select Windows > Image Processing... which
opens a window. At the bottom of this window, click on the dropdown list Add Image Filter
and select the Exposer. Once it is added, double click on its line to edit it, which opens a second
window. Disable the Auto-Iris and Auto-Exposure options; these don’t give good results with
VUE photometric atmospheres. It allows you to set your own values of White point and Black
point. For instance, if you loaded the VUE photometric atmosphere named Afternoon, setting
the white point value to 90 and the black point value to 3000% gives a correct exposure. If you
loaded the Sunset photometric preset, setting the white point value to 10 and the black point
value to 750% is more appropriate.

Note:

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the effect of the Exposer is applied at the end of the render only, so the render shows an over-
exposed image while it is in progress.

An alternative solution to control the same settings is to use the Image Viewer in the menu
File > Image Controls. In the window that is opened, check the option Exposure and adjust
the White Point and Black Point values.

Natural Film Response

Alternatively, you can use the Natural film response option. This will emulate a exposure filter
for all the renders done by VUE. However, the 3d host objects will not be treated. This option is
better to do preview renderings before setting a proper exposure filter in your host application.

Automatic Sun Softness

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Automatic Sun Softness

This option computes the softness of the shadows produced by the sun from other atmosphere
settings, in order to reproduce realistic behavior in terms of soft shadows. More specifically, the
softness depends on
• the height of the sun: (its pitch) This is on the Sun Tab.
• on the fog ground density: This is on the Sky, Fog & Haze Tab.
• the haze ground density: This is also on the Sky, Fog & Haze Tab.
The higher the sun, the softer the shadows are. The softness is also proportional to the fog
ground density and the haze ground density.

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How to use it
Select the sun of your scene, and look for the checkbox Automatic sun softness in the Object
– Aspect dialog. If you check it, you won’t be able to select manually the sun’s softness: it will
be determined automatically depending on the atmosphere’s parameters (explained above).

By using this option, you can easily animate the lighting changes of a whole day.

Example:

- create two keyframes

- set the sun position to “Real world” in the Atmosphere Editor’ on the Sun Tab.

- set the time of the first keyframe be in the morning (e.g. 6 AM)

- set the time of the second keyframe be in the evening (e.g. 6 PM)

- animate between these two keyframes: the shadows will change automatically according to
the time of day.

Env Map Tab

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Atmosphere Editor – Env Map tab

Environment Map
The main control in this group lets you define the image to be used as an environment map.
The picture you select will appear in the back of your render, in place of the sky.

Click the Load icon ( ) below the picture preview, or double-click on the picture preview to
open the Picture Browser and load a picture. If the picture you load does not map seamlessly
(meaning that a seam appears on the edge of the picture when it is mapped onto the back-
ground), VUE will detect this and offer to create a seamless joint.

When you load a picture as environment map, a message appears, asking you if you want to
setup your scene for Image Based Lighting (read here for details on this type of rendering). If
you click Yes, global illumination will be enabled and the lighting information in the picture will
be used to illuminate the scene.

Note:

You don’t have to use a HDRI image for Image Based Lighting. However, HDRI images produce

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the nicest results because they contain actual sources of light. If you use a standard picture,
you will probably have to increase the sky dome lighting gain to compensate for the fact that
there is no light in the map.

If you click No to the aforementioned message, the picture you loaded will simply be used as a
background to your scene.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can opt to animate the environmental map. The Animated texture options icon ( ) is
located directly under the picture.

Mapping mode
The Mapping mode parameter can have these values :
• Spherical: This mode can be also called equirectangular and matches the default previ-
ous behavior : the whole dome is mapped on the whole image rectangle with the Azimuth
as U coordinate and the Pitch as V coordonate.
• Hemispherical: This mode matches the behavior of VUE before version 2016R5 with the
check “Map upper atmosphere only” checked : like Spherical mode, the mapping is done
via Azimuth and Pitch coordinates but only upper half dome is mapped.
• LightProbe: This mode allows the use LightProbe maps.
• Cylindrical: This mode allows to use the Panoramic Renders renders as cylindrical.
• Cube Map and Compact Cube Map: This mode allows to use Cube Maps; either with
standard cube pattern or with compact one.
Here is the convention to be used for Cube Mapping :

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Here is the convention to be used for Compact Cube Mapping :

Dome rotation
The Dome rotation controls let you fine tune the placement on the environment map on sky
dome. The Azimuth parameter (same usage as previous Map Offset U coordinate) will rotate
the picture around the vertical axis. The Pitch parameter will rotate the picture around the hori-
zontal axis. The Horizontal shift (same usage as Map Offset V coordinate) will adjust the height
of the horizon in the sky dome. The Exposure and Contrast sliders let you adjust the exposure
and contrast of the environment map. If the current environment map is a high dynamic range
image, you can view the entire image’s dynamic by sliding the exposure setting up and down.

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• Map ground plane: when this option is selected, the lower half of the environment map is
automatically mapped onto the ground plane. This will produce particularly nice results
when the horizon in the environment map is exactly halfway up the picture.
• Ignore atmosphere on map: if you check this option, the effects of the atmosphere (i.e.
fog and haze) won’t be visible on the environment map. This is very useful when you
need to match the atmosphere of the VUE scene with the atmosphere that is visible in
the picture background. For instance, if the background picture show a rainy day, you
will probably need to add fog to the scene – or else the objects in your scene will look
fake and out of place.
• Use important sampling: if you check this option,

Separate Illumination Map

This option is only available in the Environment mapping atmosphere model. In this model,
the Environment map will be used by default to illuminate the scene. Using the Separate illu-
mination map, you can however, specify a different image to use as the illumination source.
This is particularly useful if you have a low resolution HDR image of an environment coupled
with a high resolution non-HDR image.

Click the Load icon ( ) below the picture preview, or double-click on the picture preview to
open the Picture Browser and load a picture. If the picture you load does not map seamlessly
(meaning that a seam appears on the edge of the picture when it is mapped onto the back-
ground), VUE will detect this and offer to create a seamless joint.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon shift parameters using this dialog (see this for
more information).

Separate Reflection Map

This is the reflection map that will be used for all materials in the scene that do not explicitly
define another reflection map. Please turn here for further details on reflection maps.

If you are using the Environment mapping atmosphere model, by default the default reflection
map will be the same as the Environment map. However, you can specify a different image to
be used as reflection map by selecting the Separate reflection map option.

This setting is very useful since the environment is theoretically the same for all objects, hence
all objects should use the same reflection map (this is of course not an obligation…).

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To change the default reflection map, click the Load ( ) icon underneath the reflection map
preview or double click the reflection map preview to open the Bitmap Browser. Select the
picture you want to use as reflection map and validate. A message should appear if your pic-
ture doesn’t loop smoothly horizontally, and offer to create a smoothed junction between both
edges. This is because the reflection map is mapped onto an imaginary sphere, thus looping
horizontally. If you click Yes, then VUE will add a smooth transition strip from the right to the
left border of the bitmap in order to avoid a sharp transitions in the reflection map. Of course,
if you don’t want to alter the bitmap, click No. Your bitmap should now be displayed in the
reflection map preview.

You can rotate the picture by using the and arrows. You can also invert the picture us-
ing the button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( )
options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

You can also set the default reflection map using the Material Editor and pressing the Set de-
fault button.

You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon shift parameters using this dialog (see this for
more information).

Use Environment Map Beyond Atmosphere

When this option is checked, you can select an environment map to use as an outer space at-
mosphere map. Just load the map using the Load icon in the lower left below the image area.

You can rotate the picture by using the ( ) and ( ) arrows. You can also invert the picture
using the ( ) button. To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction
( ) options. To remove the picture, click the Remove icon ( ) below the picture preview.

The Dome rotation controls let you fine tune the placement on the environment map on the
environment hemisphere. You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon offset parameters
using this dialog (see this for more information).

The Exposure and Contrast sliders let you adjust the exposure and contrast of the environment
map. If the current environment map is a high dynamic range image, you can view the entire
image’s dynamic by sliding the exposure setting up and down.

You can adjust the Mapping mode parameter, see the Mapping Mode section for more informa-
tion)..

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Light Editor
The Light Editor groups all the controls relating to the advanced lighting options. It is made of
6 tabs that each lets you control a specific aspect of lights:
• Lens flares: this controls the lens flares that appear on the lights
• Gel: this is used to have lights project varying colors or images
• Volumetric: this controls the visible rays of light caused by the light source
• Shadows: this controls the density of shadows as well as shadow mapping options
• Lighting: this controls how the intensity of the light evolves with distance from the source
• Influence: this controls how objects are influenced by the light source
The Light Editor is a non-modal dialog, meaning that it can remain open while you work on
other aspects of the scene. If you select another object, the editor for that type of object will
replace the Light Editor.

If several lights are selected when you open the dialog, the modifications will apply to all these
lights. Settings that are not the same for all the lights will be displayed empty. The name of the
light that is being edited is reminded at the top-left of the dialog.

Lens Flare Tab

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Light Editor – Lens Flare tab

The Lens Flare tab of the Light Editor is directly accessed by either clicking on the Lens Flare
icon ( ) in the Light Properties panel (see here), or by clicking Edit in the Effects tab of the
Atmosphere Editor.

The Lens Flare tab lets you customize the looks of the lens flares created by a light. When you
have finished modifying the lens flare, press OK to close the editor. If several lights are selected
when you open the lens flare editor, the modifications will apply to all these lights. Settings that
are not the same for all the lights will be displayed empty. The name of the light that is being
edited is reminded at the top-left of the editor.

The controls of this tab are:

Enable lens flare: select this option to show a lens flare for this light. If you deselect this option,
all the controls in the editor will be disabled.

Use default: click this button to restore the lens flare to the default. This is the same as select-
ing Default Lens Flare from the Lens Flare icon menu. All modifications of the lens flare will be
lost.

Set default: click this button to transfer the current settings to the default lens flare settings

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for this type of light. All lights that use the default lens flare will now reflect the modifications.
This is the same as editing the lens flare through the Effects tab of the Atmosphere editor.

Flare intensity: this setting controls the overall intensity of the lens flare effect. Intensities
above 100% are possible, when extremely bright lens flares are required. The size of the lens
flare depends on the overall intensity, on the distance to the camera and on the brightness of
the light source.

Rotation: use this setting to rotate the lens flare. This rotation is only visible on the stars and
streaks (see below).

Anamorphism: this setting causes the lens flare to be stretched horizontally, as seen in motion
pictures filmed in Panavision. The higher the value, the more stretched the lens flare will be.
Values below 1 will make the lens flare narrower.

Blue anamorphic streak: this option creates a bright blue elliptical flare of light that always
remains horizontal, and is caused by the use of an anamorphic lens.

Ring
Select this option to create a colored ring around the center of the lens flare. The ring settings
become active when you select this option.

Ring color: double-click on this control to open the color selection dialog and modify the over-
all color of the ring. The default is red.

Intensity: this setting controls the overall brightness of the ring. Typical values are quite low.

Radius: this setting controls the distance between the center of the flare and the ring.

Color Shift
Select this option to gradually shift the color of the central flare towards the indicated color as
light moves away from the center of the flare. The shift typical color is red. Double-click on the
color to modify it.

If no color shift occurs, the central flare will be entirely white.

Random Streaks
This option adds dozens of small random streaks of light that emanate from the center of the
light source. The random streaks settings become active when you select this option.

Intensity: this setting controls the average brightness of the streaks. Typical values are very
low, because streaks usually appear as slight variations inside the central flare. However, you
can achieve very nice effects by pushing up this value.

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Amount: this setting controls the typical number of random streaks emanating from the light
source.

Sharpness: this setting controls the average sharpness of each streak. Low values will create
large, wide and soft streaks, whereas high values will create very sharp and narrow streaks.

If you click on one of the sliders without modifying the values, a new set of random streaks will
be generated.

Star Filter
This option simulates the effects of a star filter placed in front of the lens. What it does is add a
given number of regularly spaced, symmetrical streaks around the light source. The star filter
settings become active when you select this option.

Number of major stars: this setting indicates the number of stars that appear around the cen-
ter of the flare. Because the stars are necessarily symmetrical, only even numbers are allowed.
You can create up to 10 stars around each light source.

Sub stars: check this option to add shorter and dimmer intermediate stars in between the ma-
jor stars.

Reflections
Reflections appear as light is reflected on the surface of the different lenses inside the camera.
They create rounded shapes that appear all over the picture, and are all lined up on a line that
joins the center of the picture to the center of the light source in the picture. When the light
moves in the picture, the lens flares move around accordingly.

The reflections settings become active when you select this option.

Intensity: this setting controls the overall brightness of all the reflections in the lens flare. The
realistic value is 100% where the reflections have their nominal brightness, but you can reduce
this value to create more subdued reflections. You can also increase the value above 100%,
which will result in extremely bright, and generally detracting reflections.

Type of lens: the shape and distribution of the reflections in the lens flare are caused by the way
the lenses are arranged inside the camera’s lens. This drop-down list offers a selection of typical
lenses that will each create a different type of reflection. If you select the Custom… option at
the bottom of the list, the Lens Flare Reflections Editor will appear, letting you customize the
reflections of the lens flare.

You can save the lens flare reflection settings as a .lfr file, in which case the new reflections will
appear in the drop-down list.

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Fading
The options in is group control the general behavior of the lens flare inside the scene.

Fade off screen: turn this option on to make the lens flare gradually disappear as it moves out
of the field of view. The lens flare will remain visible even when the light source does not appear
in the picture. This is because, although the source isn’t visible, some rays of light are entering
the lens from the sides and still creating the flare.

Fade behind objects: select this option to make the lens flare disappear as the light source
passes behind obscuring objects.

Progressivity: this setting applies to both of the previous fading modes. It is only available if at
least one of these is turned on. If the progressivity setting is low, the flare will vanish suddenly
as it exits the field of view, or as it passes behind objects. On the contrary, when the setting is
high, it will disappear very gradually. As a result, part of the flaring effect will remain visible
although the light has completely disappeared behind the masking object.

Fade in fog: when this option is selected, the brightness of the lens flare is affected by the fog
in the scene.

Lens Flare Reflections Editor

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Lens Flare Reflections Efitor

The Lens Flare Reflections Editor is accessed by selecting the ‘Custom…’ option from the Re-
flections drop-down list in the Lens Flare Editor (see above). This dialog lets you create custom
lens reflection effects, as well as save them for future use.

A global preview of the reflections is displayed at the top-left of the editor. This preview is auto-
matically refreshed each time you change a setting. Below this preview is the list of reflections.
This will be detailed below.

Polygonal Reflections
The shape of the reflections depends on whether the reflection is created on a lens placed be-
fore the camera’s diaphragm (such reflections will be circular), or if it is created on a lens placed
after the camera’s diaphragm (such reflections will be polygonal, where the number of vertices
in the polygon depends on the number of blades in the diaphragm).

Diaphragm blades: this setting lets you control the shape of the polygonal reflections on lenses
after the diaphragm in the lens flare reflections. This number indicates the number of blades
that constitute the diaphragm. Due to the way diaphragms are built, the reflections resulting
from light are polygons, and the number of sides of those polygons is equal to the number of
blades in the diaphragm.

Adding Interpolated Reflections

This frame provides you with the option of creating a large number of reflections quickly by
interpolating two existing reflections. The settings in this frame only become active when 2
reflections are selected from the list of reflections. Enter the number of interpolated reflections
that you want to create in the Reflections to add field, and press Add reflections to add the
interpolated reflections. This will place in between the two selected reflections the requested
number of additional reflections, with all new reflections settings being interpolated between
the selection. If the two selected reflections are of a different type, the new reflections will be
of the same type as the first selected reflection.

List of Reflections
This list displays all the reflections, together with their settings. If there are more reflections
than will fit in the list, a scrollbar appears to the right of the list, letting you scroll to other parts
of the reflection list.

The following settings are defined for each reflection:

• Preview: this displays a preview of the reflection. In order for the preview to be easily
identifiable, the Intensity and the Size settings (see below) are not taken into account
when building this preview. Obviously, depending on the Intensity setting, the reflection
may appear much dimmer in the global lens flare reflections preview. You can make the

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previews show the actual lens flare reflection as it will appear in the global lens flare re-
flections by deselecting the Saturated preview option below the list
Note:
The size setting is never taken into account when generating the preview.
• Position: all reflections are positioned along the axis that joins the center of the picture
to the light source in the image. This setting defines the position of the reflection on that
axis. Positive values will mean that the reflection appears “on the same side” as the light
source relative to the center of the image, while negative values mean that the reflection
appears “on the other side”. A value of zero always places the reflection at the exact center
of the image.
• Type of reflection: this drop-down list box lets you define the type of the reflection.
These types are based on typical reflections observed in the real world, and are caused
by the different types of lenses in the camera, or the position of these lenses. Available
types of reflections are:

– Circular, bright center: this creates a round spot with a bright center and dim
edges.

– Circular, bright center with ring: this is the same as the previous type of re-
flection, with an added ring that appears around the center of the bright spot.

– Circular, uniform: this creates a uniformly colored disk.

– Circular, uniform with soft edge: this is the same as the previous reflection,
only the edge of the colored disk fades gradually.

– Circular, linear brightness: this also creates a disk, but the brightness of the
disk is dependent on the position along the axis. Brightness is maximum at the
center of the disk, and drops as the point on the disk moves away from the center
along the axis.

– Circular, dim center: this creates a “hollow disk” type of effect where the re-
flection is dull at the center of the disk, and bright on the edges.

– Circular, dim center with ring: this is the same as the previous reflection,
with an added ring around the edge of the reflection.

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– Polygonal, bright center: this is the equivalent of the ’Circular, bright cen-
ter’ reflection, only the shape of the reflection is polygonal instead of being circu-
lar, because the reflection is created by light that has already gone through the di-
aphragm.

– Polygonal, bright center with ring: this is the same as the previous type of
reflection, with an added ring that appears around the center of the bright spot.

– Polygonal, uniform: this creates a uniformly colored polygon.

– Polygonal, uniform with soft edge: this is the same as the previous reflection,
only the edge of the colored polygon fades gradually.

– Polygonal, linear brightness: this also creates a polygon, but the brightness
of the polygon is dependent on the position along the axis. Brightness is maximum
at the center of the polygon, and drops as the point on the polygon moves away
from the center along the axis.

– Polygonal, dim center: this creates a “hollow polygon” type of effect where
the reflection is dull at the center of the polygon, and bright on the edges.

– Polygonal, dim center with ring: this is the same as the previous reflection,
with an added ring around the edge of the reflection.

– Rainbow ring: this creates a circular reflection, where the colors of the reflec-
tion go through the entire spectrum, ranging from blue on the inside of the ring
through yellow in the middle and red on the outer edge. Usually, rings are created
with a white color, but you could use other colors to tint the rainbow ring.
• Color: this defines the color of the reflection. In order to clearly see the preview of the re-
flection, as well as the reflection’s tint, you should use bright colors and adjust the actual
brightness of the reflection using the intensity setting below.
• Size: this parameter defines the size of the reflection. This parameter is not taken into
account when generating the reflection preview.
• Intensity: this parameter defines the intensity of the reflection. This parameter is not
taken into account when generating the reflection preview, except if the Saturated pre-
view option is deselected.

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Note:

Keep in mind that it is the association of several basic reflection types that creates realistic
reflections. In order to achieve realistic reflections, you should create many reflections of low
intensity, rather than a few very bright reflections.

Underneath the list of reflections is the Saturated preview checkbox that lets you decide whether
the reflection previews take into account the Intensity setting or not.

Click the Sort button to reorganize the list of reflections by position.

Click Add to add a new reflection at the end of the list, or after the selected reflection if a reflec-
tion is selected.

Click Remove to delete the currently selected reflection(s).

New, Load, Save

Pressing New will clear the list of reflections.

Press Load to load a Lens Flare Reflections file that defines a list of reflections.

Press Save to save the current Lens Flare Reflections in a stand-alone file, for use in future
scenes. By default, Lens Flare Reflection files are placed in the Environment/Lens Flare Re-
flections folder, and have the extension .lfr. Saved Lens Flare Reflections will appear in the
Type of lens drop-down list box of the Lens Flare Editor (see here), and will appear under the
name of the file they were saved in.

Gel Tab

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Light Editor – Gel tab

The Gel tab of the Light Editor is directly accessed by clicking on the Gel icon ( ) in the Object
Properties panel (see here).

The Gel tab lets you modify the gel material that is applied to the light.

You can edit the gel using the Gel Editor (double-click on the gel preview). In effect, the Gel
Editor is nothing more than the Simple Material Editor, with only the Color tab available. When
you have finished modifying the gel, press OK to close the editor.

Note:

you cannot create gels that are based on Mixed or Volumetric materials.

Uncheck the Enable gel option to remove the gel from the light.

Click the Load icon ( ) to load a new gel material. You can select how the gel is projected.
These options are the same as in the Light Gel options menu.

If several lights are selected when you open the editor, the new gel will apply to all these lights.

Please turn here for a detailed explanation of the Material Editor.

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Volumetric Light Tab

Light Editor – Volumetric tab

The Volumetric tab is accessed directly by selecting Edit Volumetric Options from the Volu-
metric Light icon’s menu ( ) in the Object Properties panel (see here).

The Volumetric tab lets you customize the looks of the volumetric effect of lights. When you
have finished modifying the volumetric options, press OK to close the dialog.

You can remove the volumetric effects from the light by unchecking the Enable volumetric
lighting option.

If several lights are selected when you open the dialog, the modifications will apply to all these
lights. Settings that are not the same for all the lights will be displayed empty. The name of the
light that is being edited is reminded at the top-left of the dialog.

When turning on the Volumetric light property of one or several lights, use of shadow maps
is automatically activated (this dramatically increases rendering speed). Although there is usu-
ally no reason for this, if you would rather use ray-traced volumetric shadows, remember to
uncheck the Use Shadow Map option in the Shadow and Lighting tab.

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Volumetric Light Controls

The controls of this tab are:

• Intensity: this setting controls the overall brightness of the beams of light cast by the
light source.
• Quality boost: this is the quality boost setting for the volumetric light effect. The higher
the value, the better the quality of the volumetric effect, but the longer it will take to
compute. The Advance Effects Quality section has more information for using this setting
appropriately.
• Cast shadows in volume: select this option if you want objects to cast shadows in the
volumetric light. Turning it off will make the volumetric light render much more rapidly.
So, when shadows in the volume are not required, it is a good practice to uncheck this
option. The Cast shadows in volume option is not available when the light doesn’t cast
shadows.

Smoke/Dust in Volumetric Light Beams

Select the Show smoke or dust in light beam option to add variations to the density of the
volumetric beams of light. When you select this option, the Smoke/Dust density production
controls appear.

This is how the Smoke/Dust density production works: for each point of the volume, the func-
tion returns a number in the range of 0 to 1 (0 appears black on the preview and 1 white). The
number is then transformed by the filter into a smoke density at this point. The brightness of
the light at this point is directly proportional to the smoke density (0 if there is no smoke, hence
no light, 1 if there is a lot of smoke and the light is bright). When rendering the volumetric beams,
VUE accumulates the density of smoke all along the ray that is traversing the beam, and then
computes the resulting brightness of the volumetric effect.

To modify the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Visual
Function Browser.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes. Ditto for the filter. Use
a filter that presents a strong saturation to increase the contrast between the dark and bright
areas of the beam.

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Shadow Tab

Light Editor – Shadows tab

This tab lets you customize the looks of the shadows cast by lights, as well as the way these
shadows are generated.

The Shadow tab is accessed directly by selecting Edit Shadow from the Shadow and Lighting
Options Light icon menu ( ) in the Object Properties panel.

Enabling Shadows
If you want to remove all shadows cast by the light, uncheck the Enable shadows option.

The Shadow density setting controls the overall darkness of the shadows cast by the light. If
the value is 0, it means that no shadows are cast by the light. If the value is 100%, it means that
objects that are in the shadow of the light won’t be receiving any light from it. Intermediate
values indicate that objects that are in the shadow of the light do in fact receive some amount
of light from it, as if the shadowing objects were partially transparent.

The Softness quality slider becomes available when the Softness of the light is set to a non
zero value. Pressing the Edit button displays the Custom softness options dialog, letting you

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customize the softness quality further. You will find three controls:
• Min: this setting controls the number of rays initially sent to evaluate the softness of the
shadow.
• Max: if the render engine decides that more shadow rays are required, it will keep sending
new batches of rays until the total number of rays sent for that pixel reaches this setting.
• Quality threshold: this setting controls the severity with which the render engine de-
cides whether more rays are required or not, after having computed the first batch. The
higher the setting, the more often sub-rays will be sent into pixels.

Using Shadow Maps

To render the shadows cast by this light using an AccuShadows™ shadow map, check the Use
shadow map option. If this options isn’t selected, shadows will be rendered using a standard
ray-tracing algorithm.

Note:

when rendering a volumetric light, shadow maps will always be used to render the light volume
(to increase rendering speed).

When you select this option, the controls in the shadow map group become available.

Projected Hard Shadows

This parameter is used when the light doesn’t create soft shadows (the Softness setting of the
light(s) is set to zero, thus producing hard shadows on the surrounding scene). You can specify
how these projected hard shadows should be generated:
• Ray-traced: a shadow ray will simply be cast towards the light to determine any occlud-
ing objects. This produces the best quality results.
• Shadow mapped: a shadow map will be used to compute the shadows. Depending on
the resolution of the shadow map, shadows will be computed much more rapidly than
when using the ray-traced option. Although the shadows are less accurate, you may find
that the quality is sufficient under certain circumstances.
Note:

When rendering a volumetric light (see here), shadow maps will always be used to render the
light volume. The ray-traced versus shadow mapped setting above only acts upon the pro-
jected shadows – not on the light volume.

Quality
This is the most important group of controls for shadow maps. It is mainly with these parame-
ters that you will be able to find a proper compromise between performance and accuracy of
the shadow map.

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• Size of the shadow map: the size of the shadow map controls the accuracy of the shadow
map (i.e. the precision of the shadows generated – you will need higher sizes for sharp
edged shadows, whereas a lower size would be enough for blurry shadows). If, for in-
stance, you choose a size of 256, then your shadow map will consist of 256×256 = 65536
cells that will be used to map your light’s field of view. With this parameter, you strongly
influence the accuracy/performance compromise. When the Auto size option is checked,
shadow map size is specified as a Ratio of the rendering resolution. For instance, if you
set the Ratio to 0.5, your shadow map size will be half of the rendering resolution. When
Auto size option is unchecked, you can directly specify the Size of the shadow map. Cell
count is limited to 4096 × 4096 because of the high memory requirements involved. You
will notice that default Ratio and Size can differ from a light type to another. This is be-
cause light’s field of view can be more or less important, depending on light type. For
instance, the field of view of a directional light is much greater than that of a spot light,
therefore a bigger ratio is needed for directional lights to obtain an acceptable accuracy.
• Bias: is another very important parameter, but you may never need to change it. Because
it is an approximation, the shadow map needs an error tolerance for the information con-
tained in each cell. This tolerance is controlled by the Bias parameter. The default value
of 1 is often acceptable, and changing it could have undesirable effects, as it is very sensi-
tive. If you notice moiré patterns appearing on surfaces (this is caused by a lack of accu-
racy in some cases where the scene is ill-conditioned for shadow maps), you should try
to modify the Bias and the Filter Bias to eliminate this undesirable effect. If it persists, try
increasing the size of the shadow map instead; this will improve accuracy.
• Filter Bias: is another error tolerance controller used during filtering of the shadow map
(described below) and is also very sensitive. Normally, you shouldn’t have to modify this
parameter, unless you encounter the previously mentioned moiré patterns artifacts.
Note:

These bias parameters are intended for advanced users only. They are useful only in very spe-
cific cases, and they are difficult to control. Generally speaking, simply increasing the size of
the shadow map to improve accuracy is a safer approach for solving moiré pattern issues.
• Sampling boost: this parameter deals with shadow map filtering. Filtering is used to im-
prove the softness of shadow mapped soft shadows. It specifies the maximum number
of samples used for filtering the shadow map. This parameter can strongly influence the
quality/performance compromise: too few samples will result in noisy shadows, (espe-
cially if Softness is high) whereas too many samples will slow down rendering dramati-
cally, as filtering is performed for every rendered pixel. If you notice noise in the shadows,
you might want to increase the boost setting to improve quality. However, because the
actual number of samples taken increases with the render quality setting (see here for
details), this may not be necessary. You should first check the quality of the shadows
with the better rendering modes.
Note:

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The filtering radius of the shadow map is directly related to the Softness parameter: the higher
the Softness, the greater the filtering radius. Thus, for high Softness settings, more filtering
samples are necessary to reduce noise.

Softness
The settings in this group are used to control shadow dispersion with distance. When using
ray-traced soft shadows, the softness parameter controls this dispersion. With shadow maps,
it is only used to determine the filtering radius that controls the amount of softness. Dispersion
with distance must therefore be simulated for improved realism of mapped shadows.

VUE offers three different methods for computing shadow dispersion:

• Constant: this is the most simple – and fastest – method for computing dispersion. In this
mode, the softness doesn’t vary with distance, thus dispersion is not taken into account.
This option can be used when dispersion is not important. It avoids having to increase
the Max samples value in regions that would otherwise display a high shadow dispersion.
• Light based: this is the most robust solution to simulate dispersion, although it is not
physically accurate. The further away the shadow is from the light source, the more dis-
persed it becomes. With this method, you may notice that the shadows at the base of
shadowing objects are not as hard as they should be… Directional lights are incompati-
ble with the “Light based” mode.
• Object based: this method attempts to accurately capture the physical phenomenon in-
volved with shadow dispersion. If you look closely, shadows are always hard near the
object that casts the shadow. But as you move away, the shadow becomes softer. Un-
fortunately, this is a behavior that is extremely difficult to capture with shadow maps,
and selecting this option may produce unexpected results (sudden transitions, shadow
bleeding). In some cases however, the results can be satisfactory. If the physical accu-
racy of the soft shadows is essential, you should use ray-traced soft shadows instead (this
method accurately simulates the physical phenomenon behind soft shadows).
Note:
It is usually preferable to use the Light based rather than the Object based dispersion
method. Light base is a more robust approach that usually produces acceptable results.
Directional lights are incompatible with the “Object based” softness mode.
• Dispersion coefficient: when used with the dispersion method setting, this parameter
is used to modulate the dispersion over distance. For instance, if you feel that shadows
are spreading too rapidly with distance, you can lower the value to reduce spreading with
distance. Although this parameter has no physical justification, it is very useful because
it allows you to control the dispersion over distance at whichever scale you work at.

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Additional Information
When turning on the Volumetric light property of one or several lights, use of shadow maps
is automatically activated. Although there is usually no reason for this, if you would rather use
ray-traced volumetric shadows, remember to uncheck the Use shadow map option.

Also, you may notice that with very simple scenes – e.g. made of only a few basic primitives – the
use of shadow maps may actually be less efficient than the use of standard ray-traced shadows.
This is because of the computational overhead involved in the creation and management of a
shadow map. As mentioned in the introduction to this section, the benefits of using shadow
maps increase with the scene’s complexity.

Lighting Tab

Light Editor – Lighting tab

The settings in this tab will let you modify the profile of light attenuation with distance, as well
as customize the color of light based on distance.

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Light Attenuation
The controls in this group are used to adjust the way the intensity of the light drops as distance
to the light source increases.

The first set of controls are used to determine the attenuation profile of the light:
• Linear: this is a standard attenuation profile where the attenuation of light is propor-
tional to the distance from the light source. Although this is physically incorrect, it is
useful for creating lights that “reach further”.
• Quadratic: this is the physically correct attenuation profile, whereby light intensity drops
with the square of the distance to the light source. This is the default attenuation profile
of Quadratic light sources. As mentioned above, quadratic attenuation is rather strong,
and linear attenuation might be preferable in some cases.
• Custom: the attenuation profile is user defined, and controlled by the attenuation filter
and the cut-off distance settings described below. This is useful for fine tuning of light
intensity over distance.
Note:

Lights using linear and quadratic attenuation profiles will add additional shadow computations
for all rendered pixels in the scene, because their contribution become infinitely small but never
reaches zero. When there are many lights in your scene, you can reduce the render time by using
the custom attenuation profile, so that lights only contribute to specific areas (defined by the
cut-off distance).

When the Custom attenuation mode is selected, the following controls become available:
• Attenuation filter: this filter represents the attenuation profile used for the light(s) if the
Custom attenuation mode is selected. The standard look of this filter – for a plausible
attenuation profile – should be a decreasing curve, but you can achieve interesting results
by specifying other shapes. The profile you indicate will be applied to a linear attenuation
of light intensity. This means that if you create a constant filter, the intensity of light will
actually drop linearly with distance.
• Cut-off distance: this value specifies the range of distances to which the Attenuation filter
applies. This means that the leftmost value of the filter is applied at zero distance from
the light source, and the rightmost value of the filter is applied at the distance specified
by this parameter. At a distance that is superior to this cut-off distance, the attenuation
value corresponds to the rightmost filter value. Of course, this value will be used only if
the Custom attenuation mode is selected.

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Variable Color

Spotlight with variable color

The settings in this group let you control the color of the light emitted by a light source. If the
Variable color option is selected, the color of the light will vary with the distance to the light
source (of course, the intensity of the light varies independently from the color – you can adjust
the way the intensity varies using the Light Attenuation controls described above). Although
there is absolutely no physical justification behind this behavior, it can be used to create in-
teresting effects on occasions (especially when using volumetric lights). If the Variable color
option is not set, the color of the light will be the same, whatever the distance from the light
(obviously, the intensity of the light changes with distance).

When the Variable color option is selected, the following controls become active:
• Color map: this color map represents the color of the light based on distance to the light
source. Edit this color map to create custom lighting schemes.
• Cut-off distance: this value specifies over which distance range the color map is applied.
This means that the leftmost color value of the color map is applied at zero distance from
the light source, and the rightmost color value of the color map is applied at the distance
specified by Cut-off distance. At a distance that is superior to the cut-off distance, the
color of the light will be the rightmost color in the color map.

Photometric Settings
• Color: use the droplist to select the type of lighting you are using. For some types of
lighting, the strength can be adjusted. Most types of lighting will have a default color
that is indicated by the color square to the right.
The different types of lighting are:
Pure White
Candle flame
Tungsten
Halogen
Carbon arc

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Sunlight
Xenon arc
Daylight
Warm fluorescent
Full spectrum fluorescent
Standard fluorescent
Cool white fluorescent
High pressure sodium
Sodium vapor
Mercury vapor
Metal halide
Custom
• Use IES Profile: click the checkbox if you want to use an IES profile. Then, click Load to
select the file you wish to use.

Influence Tab

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Light Editor – Influence tab

The settings in this tab let you specify which objects are influenced (or not influenced) by the
light(s), as well as how they are influenced.

Specular and Diffuse Components

The options in this group let you decide which components of the light are applied to objects
lit by the light:
• Specular lighting: if this option is selected, the specular (or highlight) component of the
light will be applied to all objects lit by this light.
• Diffuse lighting: if this option is selected, the diffuse component of the light will be ap-
plied to all objects lit by this light.
Using these settings you can create light that do not exhibit any highlights on shiny materials –
ideal when setting-up stage-like lighting.

Objects Influenced by Light

The options in this group let you decide which objects are going to be lit by the light.

There are four influence modes which can be used to specify how your objects should react to
light:
• All: all objects in the scene will be affected by the light. This is the default mode.
• None: none of your scene objects will be affected. Only the lens flare – if a lens flare was
defined for this light – will reveal the presence of the light when rendering. This can be
useful if you want to add a local lens flare without perturbing the lighting of your scene.
• Only objects marked below: only the objects selected in the object list below will be
affected by the light. In other words, you specify which objects should be influenced.
• All objects except...: all objects in the scene except the ones selected in the object list
below will be affected by the light. In other words, you specify which objects should not
be influenced by the light.
Use the Object list to select the objects that are (or are not) affected by the light. All the objects
in the scene appear in this list. Simply navigate through the list and check the ones you want by
clicking the check boxes on the right of the object name. This list is only active when the Only
marked or All except modes above are selected.

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Material Editor

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Material Editor – Basic (top) and Advanced (bottom)

Materials are the secret behind the quality of pictures generated by VUE. And the reason for this
is twofold: VUE materials are not just 2D pictures mapped onto objects, they are truly three
dimensional (which means when you carve into them, you actually carve into new parts of the
material), and they are designed to respond to their environment (altitude, slope, orientation,
etc).

Unfortunately, this visual quality has a drawback: creating materials can be a complex process.
However, we have striven to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible, while maintain-
ing full access to every aspect of material synthesis.

Each time you make a modification to a material, the material preview is redrawn by a multi-
threaded background task without slowing down the interface.

The Material Editor is accessed by double-clicking on the preview of a material, or by selecting

Edit Material from the popup menu that appears when you press the right mouse button over

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the preview. It can stay open without restricting access to other parts of the software.

There are two types of Material Editors in VUE:

• the Basic Material Editor, ideal to setup basic texture mapped materials easily (see here,
and,
• the Advanced Material Editor that gives you full access to all material parameters (see
here).
You can switch from one Material Editor to the other anytime by clicking the large button at the
top-left of the Material Editor.

Types of Materials

Materials are divided into 7 types:

• Simple materials
• PBR materials
• Two-sided materials
• Mixed materials
• Grouped materials
• Volumetric materials (this type of material cannot be edited in the Basic Material Editor)
• EcoSystems | Particles (this type of material cannot be edited in the Basic Material Editor)
Mixed materials are built by mixing together 2 other materials, either simple ones or mixed ones
themselves. You cannot mix together several volumetric materials, but you can mix EcoSys-
tems.

Materials can also be layered to easily add e.g. stains to an existing material. Material layers
work in a similar way to Photoshop layers in that they are added one on top of the other, and
layers below are only visible in places where the layers above are nonexistent (see here for de-
tails).

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Multi­Materials

Multi-Materials are created by saving all of the materials of a selected object or plant as one
material. These materials can then be accessed as a .mat file from the Material Browser, the
saved image in the browser showing the different materials in the file. These materials are a
convenient way to quickly change materials of objects. A specific multi-material should always
be used on a specific object, so that the number of materials matches.

These materials are saved or loaded from the menu displayed by right-clicking on the window
in the Object Properties panel.

Common Material Controls

This section details the controls that are common to all types of materials.

New, Load, Save

In the dialog bar, on the right edge of the editor you will find these usual commands. These are
found in the lower right corner:
• Ok: applies the changes you have made to the settings.
• Cancel: cancels any changes you have made to the settings.
These are found on the right side of the screen in the upper part of the dialog:
• New: will reset all material characteristics so that you can start working on your material
from a clean base.
• Load: lets you open and detail the characteristics of an existing material using the Mate-
rial Browser.
Note:
If the material you are editing is animated, loading a material here will create a new ma-
terial animation keyframe.
Note:
Substance files (.sbsar) can now be loaded as materials.
• Save: lets you save the current material in a stand-alone file, for use in future scenes.
Saved materials will appear in the Visual Material Browser like any other of the predefined
materials. By default, materials are placed in the Materials subfolder. This means that
they will appear in the Personal collection inside the Visual Material Browser.
Note:

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There are so many parameters involved in material creation, that it is usually easier to modify
an existing material rather than to start from scratch.

Type
This is where you choose the type of material. The available types of material are:
• Simple material
• PBR material
• Mixed material
• EcoSystem/Particles material.
These options are only available on the Advanced Material Editor
• Volumetric material
• Grouped
• Two-sided
Selecting one of these options will toggle between the different types of materials. Additionally,
simple materials and EcoSystem materials can be layered.

Note:

When loading a Substance archive file (.sbsar), type will automatically be set to PBR material.

Mapping
The Mapping drop-down list lets you select the mapping mode that will be used for the mate-
rial. Mapped pictures have their own specific mapping mode. They may be overridden inside
a particular function.

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Material Options

Effects

Cliking the icon ( ) above the material preview will open a sub-dialog with these options:

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• One sided: If the icon is selected, it indicates that objects using this material should
be traced for only one intersection per ray. This option is only available in the Advanced
Material Editor. Since opaque objects block all rays at their surface anyway, One sided
will only affect transparent materials. Rays actually never pass through a one sided ob-
ject, so this should not be used with materials that have some fading out. Some effects
(like Fuzziness) will force One sided to be activated. One sided objects can be very useful
when rendering details on the surface of an object, while not wanting to see details on
the opposite surface.
• Disable anti-aliasing: If this icon is selected, it lets you selectively disable anti-aliasing
on given materials. On a general basis, anti-aliasing increases picture quality. However,
some materials may lose their grainy aspect when anti-aliased, and you may want to re-
move anti-aliasing in such cases.
• Hide from camera rays: When this icon is selected, this material displays only through
reflections or refractions.
• Hide from reflected/refracted rays: When this icon is selected, this material displays
only when being viewed directly through the camera.
• Disable indirect lighting: Selecting this icon disables indirect lighting on the material
being edited.
• Disable caustics: Selecting this icon disables any caustics that might be used with
this material.
• Ignore lighting: Selecting this icon disables any influence that either sunlight or light-
ing sources such as a spotlight might have on this material.
• Ignore atmosphere: Selecting this icon disables any influence that the sun, ambient
lighting or any other kind of atmospheric effect would have on this material.
• Don’t cast shadows: Selecting this option will prevent the object from casting a shadow
which can be useful for luminous objects. Deselecting this option when the shadow of
an object is not needed (because it isn’t visible) can also significantly improve rendering
speed.
• Don’t receive shadows: When this icon is selected, objects made of this material will
not be shadowed by other objects in the scene.
Note:
Materials that have no diffuse lighting never receive shadows anyway.
Note:
Since computing shadows is a time consuming process, you might want to turn shadows
off where they are not required.

• Only shadows: When this icon is selected, the object will not be directly visible in the

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rendered picture. It will however still cast a shadow on other objects. This is particularly
useful when you want to create shadow-casting masks without actually seeing the mask.
• Matte / Shadow / Reflection: When this option is selected, it will generate alpha
masks that are proportionate to shadowing & reflected geometry at each shaded point.
Global illumination shadowing is also taken into account and will also affect alpha mask-
ing accordingly.
• Show in the timeline: This option adds this material to the animation timeline. When
this option is selected, Animated Material is appended to the caption of the editor.
• Disable material animation: This option blocks animation of this material.
• Animate material surface (Z = time): This option turns material surface animation on
for that material. Please read here for details on material surface animation (and other
types of material animation). When this option is selected, Time dependent material is
appended to the caption of the editor.
• TAA boost: The Texture Anti-Aliasing boost offers the ability to adjust texture anti-aliasing
quality on a specific material. Use the slider to raise or lower the amount of anti-aliasing
compared with the global setting.
Note:
Anti-aliasing must be enabled in the Render Options for this feature to have any effect.
• Subray quality drop: This feature allows you to decrease secondary rays quality (i.e. re-
flected or refracted rays) of the render for this particular material. Render times can be
reduced using this feature for materials where reflections and/or refractions are costly to
evaluate while their contribution to the image is relatively low. This can be useful for wa-
ter surfaces with strong perturbations, as the reflections and refractions will be blurred
by these perturbations. Thus, each secondary ray quality can be reduced without alter-
ing the final image quality.
Note:
Anti-aliasing must be enabled in the Render Options for this feature to have any effect.

Material Hierarchy
The material hierarchy is the list that sits in the middle of the Material Editor. This list displays all
the different sub-materials and layers of mixed or layered materials. Mixed or layered materials
can be expanded to display the different layers and sub-materials. If you click on one of these
items, the Material Editor will change to reflect the settings of that sub-material or layer. Using
the material hierarchy, you can easily access all the different components of the material.

Click on the Name field to change the name of the material.

The material hierarchy operates exactly like the hierarchy displayed in the Materials tab of the
World Browser, with the exception that only the hierarchy of the current material is displayed.

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Alongside each line of the material hierarchy is the Visibility switch. Left-click on this to toggle
between the three possible states:
• The default state of a sub-material or layer is indicated by this icon:

• Clicking once makes the sub-material or layer invisible at render:

• Clicking once more allows to “highlight” the sub-material or layer (the icon is replaced by
a small square showing the chosen color). Highlighted materials will be displayed using a
solid color, thus letting you easily check where the material appears in a scene and adjust
its contribution.
– You can adjust the highlight color by right-clicking on the colored square.
– When you are done adjusting the material, simply left-click the switch again to re-
store the normal colors of the material.
– Note that most of the shading effects of the material layer are disabled when it is
highlighted (Bump mapping, Normal mapping, Ambient occlusion, etc.), with the
notable exception of the Displacement Mapping, as it affects the objects’ geometry
and render aspect far beyond the highlighted material layer. Disabling it would thus
have defeated the most common purpose of material highlighting.

Layering Materials
Click the Add layer button to add a layer to the current material. The Material Browser will
appear, letting you select the material you want to add as another layer to the current mate-
rial. Closing the Browser will add an empty layer. If the current material is a simple, mixed, or
EcoSystem material, it will become a layered material, with at least two layers.

To remove a layer, select it in the hierarchy and click Remove Layer.

You can move layers up and down by clicking the Up and Down buttons alongside the material
hierarchy.

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Material Previews

Preview Options

In the middle of the Material Editor are square spaces that can contain materials. When you
start, only the first square is occupied by a preview of your current material.

Randomize ( ): clicking this icon makes a random change to all fractal and noise nodes used
for a material. You can keep clicking until you find the effect you like. This is only for use with
procedural materials.

Preview Options ( ): Clicking the Options icon displays the Preview Options dialog.

This dialog enables you to select which object should be used to preview materials or functions.
Sphere is the fastest, and Cloud should only be used for cloud materials. XY Plane displays a
2D representation of the material in perspective, whereas 2D Plane presents the material on a
plane seen from above.

It also lets you choose a background type for the preview (Uniform or Checker), as well as the
Background color by modifying the color map (double-click on the map).

Check Local light to use a local light rather than a directional light.

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Zoom: Clicking the Zoom icon ( ) displays an enlarged view of the material. Click on Render
to re-render the preview; press Esc to stop.

Store
Selecting the Store icon ( ) copies the current material into the first available material pre-
view (in the set of previews to the right of the material hierarchy), making it available for future
retrieval. If you select Restore This Version (from the popup menu), or double-click on one of
these stored materials, the corresponding settings are copied to the current material.

Tabs

The tabs contain further settings for the material. If the material does not contain any of the
features on a particular tab, the tab will not be highlighted. You can still use that tab to make
changes to the material; then it will become highlighted.

Hint:

When a Substance file (.sbsar) has been loaded, the Published Params tab will contain the
Substance settings.

Basic Material Editor

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Basic Material Editor

The Basic Material Editor is particularly convenient to easily setup texture mapped materials,
or do basic modifications of existing materials. This version of the Material Editor won’t let you
access the entire range of effects possible in VUE, but it is a good way to begin with materials
before you delve into the intricate complexity of the Advanced Material Editor.

The Basic Material Editor is split in two halves. The top half has been detailed above. The con-
tents of the lower half changes depending on the type of material (simple, mixed or layered).
The following pages detail the lower part of the editor for each type of material.

If you try to load a Volumetric material or an EcoSystem material into the Basic Material Editor, a
message will appear informing you that this requires switching to the Advanced Material Editor.

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Simple Materials in Basic Editor

If the current material is a Simple Material, the Basic Material Editor displays the controls de-
scribed below.

Color Frame
The controls in this frame let you adjust the colors of the material.

Overall color: this color control lets you modify the overall color of the material. Because the
control displays an average color, this color may not be actually visible in the material. For
instance, if the material exhibits a red and white checkerboard, the overall color will turn out
pink – despite the fact that there is only red or white in the material. The overall color can be
modified by double-clicking on the color control. All colors in the material will be modified in
order to produce an average color that is the same as the one indicated by the overall color
control.

Color map: check this option if you want the material to be colored by a picture. Double-click
on the picture preview or click the Load icon ( ) to load a new picture.

To create an animated texture map (Rotoscoping) , select an animation file from the Bitmaps
Browser, or press the Browse file button ( ) in the Bitmaps Browser to display a Standard File
Browser and select multiple picture files. The Animated texture options icon ( ) will appear
under the picture preview. Click this icon to display the Animated Texture Options dialog.

If you need to rotate the picture, use the and buttons (90° increments). To invert the
colors in the picture, click the Invert button ( ). To the right of the image, you can select to
set the Gamma correction ( ) options. Click on the Remove button ( ) to delete the picture
or animation.

Bump Frame
The controls in this frame let you adjust the bumpiness of the material surface.

Bump gain: this control adjusts the amount of bump at the surface of the material. The bigger
the value, the bumpier the surface.

Note:

If the material does not define any bumps (either through the use of a bump map, or procedu-
rally), no amount of bump gain will make bumps appear on the surface of the material.

Bump map: check this option if you want the bumps at the surface of the material to be gener-
ated according to the grayscale values in a picture. Double-click on the picture preview or click

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the Load button ( ) to load a new picture.

To create an animated texture map (Rotoscoping), select an animation file from the Bitmaps
Browser, or press the Browse file button ( ) in the Bitmaps Browser to display a Standard
File Browser and select multiple picture files.

The Animated texture options icon ( ) will appear under the picture preview. Click this icon
to display the Animated Texture Options dialog.

If you need to rotate the picture, use the and buttons (90° increments). To invert the
colors in the picture, click the Invert button ( ). Click on the Remove button ( ) to delete
the picture or animation.

Use color map: if this option is selected, the same map will be used for the bump map as the
one used for the color map.

Transparency Frame
The controls in this frame let you adjust the transparency of the material.

The top slider controls the global transparency of the material. It is only available when no
alpha map is applied to the material.

Transparency map: when this option is selected, the transparency of the material is defined
according to the grayscale values in a picture (white areas will be transparent, whereas black
areas will be opaque). If you select this option, the value of the global transparency displayed at
the top of the frame will be bumped up to 100% (because the alpha map is just a modulation of
the global transparency setting). Double-click on the picture preview or click the Load button
( ) to load a new picture.

To create an animated transparency map (Rotoscoping), select an animation file from the Bitmaps
Browser, or press the Browse file button ( ) in the Bitmaps Browser to display a Standard File
Browser and select multiple picture files.

The Animated texture options icon ( ) will appear under the picture preview. Click this icon
to display the Animated Texture Options dialog.

If you need to rotate the picture, use the and buttons (90° increments). To invert the
colors in the picture, click the Invert button ( ). Click on the Remove button ( ) to delete
the picture or animation.

Use color map: if this option is selected, the same map will be used for the alpha map as the
one used for the color map.

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Other Settings
Scale of the maps: this control lets you adjust the scale of all the texture maps along the X and
Y axes. If no texture maps are used, this control will be disabled.

Highlight intensity: this setting controls the overall intensity of the highlights that appear on
surfaces that point towards the sources of light.

Reflection amount: this setting controls the overall reflectivity of the material.

Mixed Materials in Basic Editor

Basic Material Editor – Mixed Material

If the current material is a Mixed Material, the Basic Material Editor displays the controls de-
scribed below.

You can switch from Simple Material to Mixed Material by selecting the appropriate option in

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the Type frame at the top of the Material Editor.

Mixed materials are created by mixing two other materials together. The rules for mixing the
materials together can be very complex, but the Basic Material Editor only lets you select the
two materials that are mixed as well as adjust the mixing proportions.

Mixing proportions: this slider lets you define “how much” of each of the two materials that
are being mixed will be visible in the resulting material. If you drag the slider to the left, you
will see more of Material 1, and if you drag it to the right, you will see more of Material 2. You
may notice that all mixed materials are not mixed in the same way (e.g. some materials are
influenced by slope or altitude). If you want finer control on the way the two materials are
mixed, you will have to use the Advanced Material Editor.

Material 1 and 2: these are the two materials that are mixed together. Change the materials by
loading materials that already exist on the disk with the button, or by double-clicking on a
material preview to edit it. Materials inside a mixed material can be scaled independently using
the Scale controls. This only modifies the size of the material once it is applied to an object. A
scale equal to 1 does not change the size of the material.

Swap: press this button to swap material 1 and 2.

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Layered Material in Basic Editor

Basic Material Editor – Layered Material

If the current material is a layered material, the Basic Material Editor shows a list of all the layers
of the current material. This list is very similar to the Material Hierarchy, with the exception that
it only displays the layers of the current material.

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PBR Material in Basic Editor

Basic Material Editor – PBR Material

With PBR materials, the Basic Material Editor has 3 separate tabs:
• General: containing the Color, Ambient Occlusion and Alpha channels
• Bump: containing the Bump and Displacement channels
• Reflection: containing the Roughness and Metalness channels
In each channel, you can load a picture. See the Color Frame section above for details about
the icons to load an manipulate pictures.

In the Bump tab, you can use the Bump Gain slider to adjust the intensity of the effect, and the
Depth slider to adjust the intensity of displacement.

In the Reflection tab, use the Highlight intensity slider to adjust the intensity of specular high-

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lights (contrary to Simple materials, you can’t set their size).

For some explanations about the PBR specific channel, see this pages:
• Ambient Occlusion
• Metalness
• Roughness

Advanced Material Editor

Advanced Material Editor

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The Advanced Material Editor lets you define more precisely the look of your materials. The
downside to this is that this version of the editor is significantly more complex to master. In the
following pages, we will review and explain all the different options offered by this version of
the Material Editor.

As with the Basic Material Editor, the lower part of the Advanced Material Editor changes accord-
ing to the type of material being edited:
• Simple materials
• PBR materials
• Two-sided materials
• Mixed materials
• Grouped materials
• Volumetric materials
• EcoSystems | Particles

Driving Material Settings with Functions

In the Advanced Material Editor, a number of material settings are preceded by the Drive with a
function icon ( ). If you click this button, the setting will be driven by a function: the Function
Graph will appear with a new output node available. That output node corresponds to the
material parameter. A constant node will be connected to it, and the value held by this constant
node will be the same as that of the material parameter before it was extracted. At this point,
the material is not yet affected by the operation (except under very specific cases where the
extraction of the parameter changes the way that parameter is interpreted – such cases will
be clearly documented in the corresponding parameter descriptions). However, now that the
parameter is extracted, you may drive it with any type of function (e.g. a noise node!).

If you go back to the initial node, you will notice that the Extract parameter button ( ) has
been replaced by the Disconnect parameter button ( ), and instead of displaying input con-
trols, an indication that the node is “connected” appears. If you click the disconnect parameter
button, or if you disconnect that parameter’s output in the Function Graph, the parameter will
be reintegrated into the node and restored to its initial constant value.

The underlying power of this simple feature is truly amazing! This can be used to create totally
unique material shaders. For instance, by connecting the highlight color to a function, you can
create unique iridescent effects.

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Published Parameters

The Published Parameters feature copies specific settings from the Function Graph that you
may need to change often and places them in a more convenient location for easier material
manipulation. In the Advanced Material Editor, a new tab is created for these parameters.

To select a parameter for publishing, just click the underlined parameter field name in the Func-
tion Graph. For example, if you are using a variable noise fractal for a material bump, you might
want to publish the Roughness parameter. A parameter name is supplied and a group name is
asked to improve the display of the published parameter. This parameter will then appear on
a Published tab in the Material Editor so that you can change the settings there.

Note:

When you load a Substance file (.sbsar), the matching Substance parameter is automatically
published so as you may tweak the inputs directly from the Material Editor without having to
dive into the Function Graph and select the Substance node.

Simple Materials

Simple materials are defined by several sets of parameters (also called channels), each corre-
sponding to a tab in the editor:
• Color: color of the surface.
• Alpha: alpha of the surface.
• Bump: bumps on the surface (bump-mapping algorithm).
• Normal: normal of the surface.
• Displacement: displacement of the surface.
• Highlights: specular reflections: is the surface shiny or dull?
• Transparency: transparency / refraction of the material.
• Reflection: reflection on the surface of the material.
• Translucency: sub-surface scattering and translucency of the material.
• Effects: local surface lighting and special effects.
• Presence: used with layered materials.

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Material Layer

If the material is a layer of a multi-layer material, the Alpha boost control will appear on top of
the tab control. This setting lets you control the overall “presence” of the layer in the multi-layer
material. If you drag the slider towards positive values, the layer will appear stronger (within
the limits of the environment constraints that you set using the Presence tab).

Automatic texture loading

When selecting a texture file for any channel, the application can look for similar files to load
for the other material channels.

See Texture File Tag Editor

Channel mode

This page describes the common elements related to the channel’s mode, that can be found in
each tab of the material editor. For specific parameters, please look at their dedicated page.

In each tab of the material editor, a combo box enables the selection of a channel mode:
• None (Constant) (or None for some channels)
• Mapped Picture
• Procedural

Constant/None
This mode is the simplest one. It is associated with a single value, whose control is shown just
below the selected mode.

For some channels, a constant value is not wanted or has no meaning (like for Alpha, Bump,
Normal and Displacement), so there is a None mode instead, that disables the effect of the
channel and hides all its parameters.

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Mapped Picture

Mapped Picture mode

You can use any picture to define the channel of a material.

First, you must indicate the picture that you want to use by clicking the Load icon ( ) and
selecting a file from the Bitmaps Browser. You can change the name of the image ( Picture File
) by clicking on the image name in the Material Editor. This name can be changed in the Function
Graph as well.

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To the right of the image, you can select to set the Gamma correction ( ) for this material,
overriding the global settings.

To create an animated texture map (Rotoscoping), select an animation file from the Bitmaps
Browser, or press the Browse file button ( ) in the Bitmaps Browser to display a Standard
File Browser and select multiple picture files.

If you need to rotate the picture, use the and buttons (90° increments). To invert the
colors in the picture, click the Invert button ( ). Click on the Remove button ( ) to delete
the picture or animation.

It is possible to load image sequences directly into a single multi-image sample node and it
will distribute the loaded images randomly over the texture. To load a sequence one has to
specify the path as a regular expression (for example, c:\img*.bmp will load all the img1.bmp,
img2.bmp etc in c:\).

The advantage over creating several multi-image sample nodes and connecting them through
an image combiner is that it’s easier to use when one has many images and that the image
overlapping order is not fixed. However, one cannot specify different distribution settings for
these images (like density, rotation, scale etc).

Tiling mode X/Y: See Tiling mode.

Interpolation type: See Interpolation mode.

Indicate the Scale of the picture along the X and Y axes.

You can position the picture precisely on the object by using the Image offset commands. This
will move the picture around by increments of one pixel.

Mapping Mode
To map the picture (2D by definition) onto a 3D volume, VUE must use one of the available
mapping modes. Each of these mapping modes is best suited for some types of objects (e.g.
spherical for Spheres).

Select one of the following:

• Automatic: The mapping technique is chosen automatically, depending on the object
onto which the material is applied (e.g. Spherical for a sphere, cylindrical for a cylin-
der…).
• Automatic UV: This mapping technique is used for a 3D displaced textured terrain to al-
low for the generated mesh of the terrain at render time.
• Flat: Vertical projection / slide projector type, oriented so as to project the picture on the
ground; values don’t depend on altitude.

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• Faces: Slide projector type of projection oriented along one of the three world axes. For
each point, the projection axis is the closest axis to the normal vector of the object.
• Cylindrical: Mercator projection: the picture is wrapped around a cylinder around the
vertical axis before being projected.
• Spherical: The picture is projected so that it covers exactly a sphere. Since the picture
wraps around 180° vertically, and 360° horizontally, the scale seems to double vertically.
• Torical: The picture is projected so that it covers exactly a torus. A strange, and not very
useful mapping mode, hum…
If you don’t know which to use, select Automatic.

Note:

The shape of the object on which you project the picture does not have to be the same as the
type of projection you choose.

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Animated Texture Options

Animated Texture Options

This dialog lets you customize the way animated texture maps are displayed.
• Image sequence: this is the list of pictures to use in the animation. You can add new
pictures by clicking the Load icon ( ). You can replace pictures in the list by selecting
them and then pressing Load. To remove images from the list, select them and then press
the Remove icon ( ).
• Frame rate: this defines the playback rate of the pictures on the list. Ideally, this should
at least be equal to the global animation frame rate.

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• Interpolate frames: when this option is selected, in-between frames are interpolated by
gradually blending the previous and the next frames. This ensures smooth playback and
will avoid any jumps in the animated texture.
• Animation filter: use this filter to change the flow of time in the animated texture. Double-
click on the filter to load a filter, or select Edit from the filter’s popup menu to edit the
filter.
• Phase: use this to adjust the start frame in the animation sequence. The value has to be
set in seconds.
• Image offset, Mirror X & Y, Picture scale, Mapping mode: these settings are identical
to the settings in the Color tab of the Advanced Material Editor (see here). Changes made
to these settings will be immediately reflected in the Advanced Material Editor.
• Origin: defines the point of origin of the projection – e.g., when mapping in spherical
coordinates, defines the center of the sphere.

Procedural

Procedural mode

With this mode, the channel is defined by a function, a scale and a filter (or two in some chan-
nels).

This is how it works: for each point on the surface, the function gives a value in the range of 0
to 1 (0 appears black on the preview of the function, 1 white). This value is then transformed by
the filter into another value in the range of 0 to 1 that indicates the final value of the channel at
this point.

To change the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Function

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Visual Browser.

You can control the scale of the function along the X, Y and Z axes using the corresponding
fields.

If necessary, use the filter to modify the channel’s profile relative to the values of the func-
tion (double-click the filter). Note that the Color channel doesn’t use a filter but a color map,
which works similarly. And some channels use a second filter (Highlights, Reflection and Trans-
parency). Please look at their dedicated page for more explanations.

Color Tab

Color tab – Simple Material – Mapped picture mode

The Color tab defines the color of the surface of the material.

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the color channel. For general explanations
about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

There is an additional mode for this channel: the Natural Grain (see below).

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Procedural Colors

Color tab – Simple Material – Procedural colors

When the Procedural mode is selected for this channel, VUE produces the colors of the material
algorithmically, using a function, a filter and a color map.

This is how it works: for each point of the surface, the function calculates a value in the range
of 0 to 1 (0 appears black on the preview of the function, 1 appears white). This value is then
transformed by the filter into another value in the range of 0 to 1. The filter can be added in
the Function Graph. From this last value, the color map produces the color of the surface (if this
value is 0, the color will be the one at the left end of the map, if it is 1, it will be the one at the
right end).

To modify the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Visual
Function Browser.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X and Y and Z axes. If necessary, use the
filter to modify how function values are transformed into colors (Control-click on the filter).

Finally, indicate which colors are assigned to the values of the function by editing the color map
(Control-click on the map).

Note:

If the color map is solid (only one color), whatever the function and filter values might be, the
material will always yield a uniform color.

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Natural Grain

Natural Grain Texture Options

The aim of this feature is to produce more natural or realistic color variations for terrains, ground,
or any natural element in the scene, and provide an easy access to settings such as contrast,
balance or roughness.
• Coloring Mode: Natural grain is selected.

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First you must indicate what is the basic color. Click on the first color box to use the color chart
to select the color you wish. If you wish to mix with another color, add a second color. The lock
icon toggles the second color on and off.

There are controls for you to manipulate the color(s).

• Scale: defines the overall scale of the noise. This should typically remain high (2000 by
default) for a terrain or ground.
• Roughness: defines the roughness of the color.
• Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes made to the color.
• Balance: defines the balance of the two colors.
• Distortion: defines any distortion, if any.
• Alpha grain: this should be enabled only if the current material layer is not a leaf layer. In
this case, it automatically adds ALPHA to produce the same kind of pattern as the color
noise.
Now, if you right-click on the Color Production image, and select to edit the color function, the
Function Graph displays with the fields listed above as well as other fields to further define the
color.

Color Correction
• Overall color: this color control is common to the Mapped Picture and Procedural Color
options. It lets you modify the overall color of the material. Because the control displays
an average color, this color may not be actually visible in the material. For instance, if
the material exhibits a red and white checkerboard, the overall color will turn out pink
– despite the fact that there is only red or white in the material. The overall color can
be modified by double-clicking on the color control. All colors in the material will be
modified in order to produce an average color that is the same as the one indicated by
the overall color control.

Color Blend
The Color blend group lets you blend the colors of the picture with a solid color. To activate
this feature, check the corresponding checkbox.

The color is applied in product mode, and the slider lets you adjust the amount of blending.
The higher the value, the more the solid color modifies the picture.

Click Color mask to apply the color in replacement of the bitmap as the setting increases. When
set to 0%, the color is applied as a mask. When set at 100% the color completely replaces the
bitmap.

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Alpha Tab

This tab can be used to control the alpha value of the material. Alpha is the same as non-
refractive transparency. It can be used to “cut out” parts of a material, and is especially use-
ful when working with layers. For instance, if you wanted to create a label using a bitmap, you
would create a bitmap layer and connect the alpha channel so that the layer is completely trans-
parent outside of the label. Alpha can also be used in conjunction with refractive transparency
to “cut out” parts of glass materials.

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the alpha channel. For general explanations
about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

If the surface of the material is colored by a bitmap, the alpha output is automatically connected
to the alpha value of the image (fully opaque by default). Outside the image (if the image is not
tiled), the alpha value is automatically set to 0 (fully transparent).

If the surface of the material is colored using procedural colors, the alpha output is connected
to the alpha value of the color map.

You can access the Function Graph by right-clicking on the sphere under Production. Right click
on the graph to the right of the alpha image to edit the filter.

Alpha values are especially useful to control the presence of a layer in a multi-layer material
(see here).

Bump Tab

Bump tab

This tab describes bumps and holes that appear on the surface of the material.

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Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the bump channel. For general explanations
about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Parameters
The Depth parameter defines the intensity of the bump. The bigger the value, the bumpier the
surface will be.

Dependent on slope
When this option is selected, VUE produces higher bumps on the vertical surfaces than on flat
surfaces – which is the case in the nature, typically on eroded terrains. Use the slider to indicate
the strength of slope influence. You can also set the Coordinate system to World or Object.

Add to Underlying Layer Bumps

This option is only available when the material is a layer of a multi-layer material (and it isn’t the
bottom-most layer). Use this setting to control how the bumps of the current layer are added
to the bumps caused by layers beneath it. If the value is 0%, the bumps of the underlying layer
are replaced by the bumps of this layer. If it is 100%, the bumps are added.

Normal Tab

The normal channel is used to add details to a surface. It generally uses a mapped picture
defining how the normal is modified on the surface (the xyz coordinates of the vector added
to the normal are a function of the rgb components of the picture).

Normal tab – Simple Material

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the normal channel. For general explanations

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about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Parameters
The Intensity parameter defines how much percentage of the vector defined by the normal
map is applied to the original normal of the surface.

The Link intensity to object’s scale option is useful when you scale an object in a non uni-
form way (for instance if you only increase the Z scale of a terrain), and want to link the normal
mapping intensity to the object’s scale.

Normal Mapping – Link Intensity to Scale

The Invert option is used to invert the vector defined by the normal map.

When Invert on back face is checked, back faces use the opposite of the vectors used on the
corresponding front faces. This means that, when Invert is checked as well, the back faces will
use the vectors natively represented by the specified normal map (non inverted).

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Displacement Tab

Displacement tab

The displacement channel is used to modify the geometry of objects, not only their normals
(like the bump and normal channels do).

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the displacement channel. For general expla-
nations about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Parameters
The Depth parameter defines the intensity of the displacement. You can use the small icon
beside the Depth slider to toggle between real unit (depth defined as a measurable length) and
relative value (depth depending on object’s and material’s scale). This is not only a display
question: the displacement will actually be computed differently if your objects uses a non-
uniform scaling, or if the edited material is used by more than one object.

Note:

limitations of the Real Unit mode: if your (procedural) displacement function produces values
greater than 1, the resulting depth will also be greater than the displayed value (typically if you
add a multiplier in the graph, directly connected to the displacement output).
Also, if several instances (EcoSystem) use the same material and have different scales, the depth
will be computed only once for all instances (for obvious performance reasons).

The Smoothing slider is used to remove any high frequency artifacts caused by displacement
settings.

Use the Quality boost slider to increase the amount of detail that is added to the geometry.

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Very high values will result in adding micro-polygons that are not even visible in the final render.
If the results look jagged, increase the setting (you should only do this when you are finalizing
your work in high quality render modes, see here for an explanation). The higher the setting,
the better the material will look, but the longer it will take to render and the higher the memory
overhead.

Note:

Using displacement mapping is extremely easy in VUE: just check a box! However, you should
be aware that this feature adds an incredible level of complexity and memory overhead to your
scenes. Use displacement mapping with care – especially when creating very high resolution
renders – because the amount of data added to the scene can become daunting. When creating
such renders, you might like to consider reducing the quality boost of your materials, or baking
your objects to a set resolution (see here).

Displacement mapping is designed to work with functions that output values in the standard
range of -1 through 1, but values outside this range will not be clamped. When using displace-
ment mapping, however, make sure that your production functions do not output values too
much beyond this standard range (extreme displacement amplitudes can “break” the geome-
try or introduce artefacts).

The Direction drop-down list enables to select the direction of the displacement on the surface
of the objet.

Move EcoSystem instances: when this option is selected, the EcoSystem instances that are
attached to the material will be automatically repositioned according to the amplitude of the
displacement (so that e.g. trees will always remain at the surface of the object, despite the fact
that this surface is being displaced).

Displace outwards only: when this option is selected, displacement values are adjusted so
as to only produce positive values. As a result, the surface of the object will only be displaced
outwards. This option is provided for compatibility with other applications that do not support
negative displacement values (typically, in order to achieve similar results when using bitmap
displacement maps created with such applications).

Affect material distribution: when this option is selected, VUE will re-evaluate the contribu-
tion of environment-sensitive materials after displacement has been applied (typically so that
the new displaced slope can be taken into account to determine material contribution).

Subdivision strategy: in most cases, the geometry has to be subdivided in order to get good
results. You can choose between 3 modes:
• Dynamic (default choice): VUE will adapt the subdivision level to the point of view. Poly-
gons which are far away from the camera may not be subdivided at all whereas the clos-
est polygons may be subdivided a lot. In this mode, you can still use the Limit auto-
matic subdivision option to limit the number of polygons generated to render objects

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with displacement. Check the option and choose the value in the drop box (from 1X to
64X). Dynamic subdivision is a good choice to optimize the memory foot-print and get a
good quality. However, in some specific cases, you may prefer controlling the subdivi-
sion by hand, typically if you are working with a high definition mesh already ready to be
displaced without subdivision).
• Uniform: define the subdivision level (from 1X to 64X) which will be applied uniformly
to the geometry. The advantage of this technique is that it will produce a more regu-
lar geometry, and thus generate less artifacts in many cases. It is also much faster than
dynamic subdivision (except if you set a level too high, not fitting the original object’s
polygon count or distance to the camera).
• No subdivision: use this option if your mesh has already a sufficient resolution to be dis-
placed in place. It’s of course the fastest mode, but should be handled with care.
Note:

Displacement mapping requires a polygonal representation of the objects. For procedural ob-
jects such as vegetation or primitives, VUE does the conversion internally, with a default resolu-
tion. The subdivision step detailed here is applied to this polygonal geometry. You can change
the quality of this polygonal conversion (see here for details).

Add to Underlying Layer Displacement: this option is only available when the material is a
layer of a multi-layer material (and it isn’t the bottom-most layer). Use this setting to control
how the displacement of the current layer is added to the displacement caused by layers be-
neath it. If the value is 0%, the displacement of the underlying layer is replaced by the displace-
ment of this layer. If it is 100%, the displacements are added.

Highlights Tab

Highlights tab – Simple Material

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This tab describes the surface quality of the material (shiny or dull). The specular highlights cre-
ate spots of light on the surface of the object, in the direction of the light sources. The smoother
the surface, the more concentrated and bright the spots will be (e.g., think of polished marble).

The highlights are built with two parameters: the intensity of the light spots that appear on the
surface and the size of the spots.

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the highlights channel. For general explana-
tions about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Parameters
The Lighting Model drop-down list lets you choose which internal model to use to compute
highlights intensity, based on incident and light directions during rendering:
• Phong: the legacy mode, an empirical model offering more artistic control over the shape
of the highlights through the Global size parameter, while keeping Global intensity in-
dependent (allowing to create bright big spots, for instance).
• GGX: the physically based model, relying on a microfacet model of the surface. This is
the model used by PBR Materials, and the Global size parameter will actually control the
surface Roughness. Small size values will correspond to a smooth surface where micro-
facets are mostly aligned with each other, while bigger size values will correspond to a
rough surface where microfacets have highly varying orientations.
Note:

in GGX mode, the overall intensity of the highlights will be coupled to their size, in order to
maintain energy conservation (wider highlights will look dimmer, while narrower highlights
will look brighter, for a given Global intensity value.

Note:

When using the Path Tracing engine, GGX mode will always be used internally, for physical cor-
rectness. For Phong highlights, settings will be converted automatically in order to match the
overall look as well as possible, but there may be cases where matching is not possible, if Phong
settings don’t correspond to a phyiscal behaviour of the surface. GGX highlights will however
look identical in both rendering engines.

The Color parameter gives a uniform color shade to highlights. This is useful for modeling pearl-
like materials (where highlights take on a blue color).

The Global intensity corresponds to the average intensity of the light spots. Indicate a bril-
liance percentage (0% = no spots, 100% = very intense spots).

The Global size controls the average concentration (size) of the light spots. Indicate a concen-
tration percentage (0% = big spots for dull materials, 100% = small spots for smooth materials).

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Anisotropic highlighting is used to simulate the special type of highlights that appear on wo-
ven or fibrous materials. They are particularly useful to create realistic hair effects. Anisotropic
highlights appear around a privileged direction, known in VUE as the “Scratch direction”.

Note:

in GGX mode, this setting is currently not available.

You can drive each one of these 4 parameters independently with a function by pressing the
corresponding Drive with a function icons ( ). For global intensity and size, this can also be
achieved using the Variable highlights option described below. However, by extracting the pa-
rameters, you can drive the two parameters each one by a function that is in no way correlated
to the other. See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Procedural Highlights
When the Procedural mode is selected for this channel, VUE generates variable highlights from
a function and two filters, the first of which indicates the highlights intensity and the second
the highlight size.

This is how it works: for each point of the surface, the function returns a number in the range
of 0 to 1 (0 appears black on the preview and 1 white). The number is then transformed by the
filters into an intensity and a size at this given point (0 for a dull surface, 1 for a shiny one). The
maximum variable highlight value is the overall highlight value.

To modify the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Visual
Function Browser.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

Indicate a highlight intensity with the Intensity Filter (double-click the filter).

Indicate a highlight size with the Size Filter (double-click the filter).

Bypassing the Standard Highlight Model

When editing material functions, the Function Graph defines an additional output that does
not correspond to any specific material setting. This output is known as Highlight Value. It
expects a color value. If you connect a color node to that output, the color will be used as the
highlight value. It will be evaluated for each light source, so that you can create a totally custom
highlighting profile (e.g. create strong highlights at low angles of incidence).

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Transparency Tab

Transparency tab – Simple Material

This tab controls transparency and refraction over the surface of the material. Transparency
can also be controlled via the alpha tab. This tab is not available in Simple materials that are
layers of multi-layer materials (unless it is the bottom-most layer).

Note:

The alpha and transparency channels are different in that alpha does not affect the direction of
light, where transparency can have a refraction index that modifies the direction of light inside
the material/object.

Incident light arriving on the surface of a material divides into 3 different lights:
• diffused light, sent by the surface in all directions, more intensely in the highlight direc-
tion; this makes the color of the surface,
• reflected light that bounces off the surface of the material, and
• refracted light (or transmitted); it is the light that goes through the surface and penetrates
the material.
Some of the parameters in this tab can be driven independently with functions by pressing the
corresponding Drive with a function icons ( ). For global transparency and blur, this can also

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be achieved using the Procedural mode described below. However, by extracting the param-
eters, you can drive the two parameters each one by a function that is in no way correlated to
the other. See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the transparency channel. For general expla-
nations about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Global Transparency
The quantity of light diffused is equal to the quantity of incident light less the quantity of re-
fracted and reflected light.

Indicate the amount of light that penetrates the surface of the object using the Global trans-
parency control.

If you would like objects seen through the material to be blurred (because the material is impure
or distorted), raise the value of Blur up to non zero.

Refraction Index

Light subdivides as it hits the surface of a material

The refraction index (a.k.a. Index of Refraction) identifies the optical density of the material.
It bends rays of light that cross the surface of the material, thus creating the magnifying glass
effect, and giving the impression that a stick in the water is broken. Common refraction indexes
are:
• Air: Index of Refraction = 1.00. This is the reference IOR.
• Water: Index of Refraction = 1.33.

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• Glass: Index of Refraction = 1.52.

You can modify the Refraction index of the material using the Refraction index control.

Note:

refraction indexes less than 1 are seldom observed, and would correspond to materials less
dense than air…

Turn Reflective with Angle

When a transparent refractive (i.e. IOR different from 1) material is seen at a low angle of inci-
dence, it sometimes happens that it becomes reflective. Take a piece of glass, and look at it
from the side. You will notice it acts as a mirror. The same thing happens with water: looking
vertically, you see through it, but in the distance, it becomes reflective.

This behavior can be captured by VUE, using the Turn reflective with angle control. You can
even fine-tune that effect using the slider. Zero cancels it. Values around 40% yield good re-
sults.

Flare
When light is seen from behind a partially transparent material, it will cause the surface of the
material to become very bright. This is called flaring. Flaring is a bit to transparency what high-
lights are to reflectivity. It will not occur at the surface of perfectly transparent materials. It is
maximum for a transparency amount of 50%. Flaring is particularly useful for clouds.

You control flaring through two settings: Intensity and Span. Flare span is the area around the
light that will flare-up. Larger values yield bigger flares.

Effects
• Fuzzy: selecting this option will make the edges of the object become fuzzy (blurred) in-
stead of being sharp. The Fade out control changes into a Fuzziness control, letting you
adjust the strength of the effect. This, combined with Procedural transparencies, is the
key to making realistic clouds (see tutorial on making clouds).
• Additive: When this option is selected, the color of the material is added to that of the
background, yielding luminous, immaterial objects. This is an interesting effect for mak-
ing light rays (see tutorial on making light beams).
• Thin surface: This setting is used to render thin, one-sided surfaces such as a window,
with no refraction. You still have the reflectivity effect, but there no refraction, with dis-
tortion. To use, the material must be one-sided. The refraction index cannot equal “1”
and Turn reflective with angle must be activated.

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Procedural transpacency
When the Procedural mode is selected for this channel, VUE generates a variable transparency
from a function and a filter that indicates the amount of transparency depending on the value
of the function.

This is the way it works: for each point on the surface, the function generates a number in the
range of -1 to 1 (-1 is black on the preview of the function and 1 is white). This number is then
transformed by the filter into a transparency value. The maximum variable transparency is
equal to the overall transparency.

To change the function, double-click on the preview of the function. This will open the Function
Visual Browser. Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

Indicate the values of the transparency using the filter (double-click on the filter).

Absorption & Scattering

This option allows for a physical simulation of light volumetric scattering and absorption through
transparent media. It is particularly suited for realistic glass and water simulation.
• Mode: specifies the desired accuracy of the water simulation. Three modes are available:
– Fast ocean: an analytical model suitable for ocean simulation and should be used
only for sea rendering. It is really fast but will only consider sun lighting and with
no volumetric shadowing calculations. Using it over other objects might lead to
unpredictable results.
– Direct volumetric light (default): ambient lighting is roughly approximated within
the medium, but direct lighting calculations are fully raytraced, allowing for the sim-
ulation of volumetric shadowing through the medium. It is therefore slower than
the Fast ocean mode. This can be applied to any object.
– Indirect volumetric light: all lighting is fully raytraced, thus faithfully simulating
direct and indirect shadowing through the medium. However, it is slower than the
other two modes. It should only be used when necessary, since volumetric ambient
shadowing is generally subtle. Most often, Direct volumetric light mode should
work fine, and will be faster to compute.
• Depth: specifies the distance beyond which objects aren’t visible anymore through the
medium. It therefore drives the overall optical thickness of the medium.
• Absorption: specifies the remaining fraction of light after absorption by the medium par-
ticles. It corresponds to the overall coloring of objects seen in the distance through the
medium.
• Scattering: specifies the remaining fraction of light after being scattered in another di-
rection through the medium. It corresponds to the coloring of light while being diffused
through the medium.

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• Anisotropy: specifies how light is statistically scattered through the medium. A forward
anisotropy will mostly scatter light ahead, while a backward anisotropy will mostly scat-
ter light back towards the incoming direction.
• Quality boost: specifies the simulation quality. A higher value will lower noise at render,
but will take longer to compute.

Fading Out
When light travels through a material, it progressively fades out with distance. This is why deep
water always looks blue. VUE captures such effects: indicate a Fade out rate, that is the depth
at which light has completely disappeared and the color becomes that of the fade out color. If
the value is small, the material will be clear, and you will see deep into it. If it is zero, no fading
out will ever occur.

Indicate the Fade out color (double click on it), that is the color of the material when light has
traveled deep into it.

Objects placed behind a transparent material, receive light of a color depending on the distance
traveled through the transparent material. As light travels further through the material, it takes
on a particular color that can be defined using the Light color control. This is how you make
blue water look green when sand gets close to the surface.

Enable Dispersion
Dispersion simulates the spectral decomposition of light through refractive media, like when
light gets refracted through a prism. It corresponds to a physical law which tells that the index
of refraction actually varies with incident light wavelength. To make this option work, Compute
physically accurate caustics render option must be enabled.

The dispersion value drives the amount of spectral dispersion when photons get refracted. Small
values will tend to keep light quite concentrated, showing only a slight spectral decomposition,
while large values will separate the spectrum more clearly.

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Reflection Tab

Reflection tab – Simple Material

This tab controls how the surface of the material reflects light.

Use the Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the reflection channel. For general explana-
tions about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode

Parameters
Indicate the amount of reflected light with the Global reflectivity slider. Note that if the amount
of reflected light + the amount of transmitted light exceeds 100%, the material will become “lu-
minous”. If you are using radiosity it will actually be emitting light. Minimal reflectivity can be
combined with the Sensitivity to incidence angle to modify the global reflectivity. If there is
no sensitivity to incidence angle, the reflectivity is homogeneous. Also, a minimal reflectivity
of 100% gives a homogeneous reflectivity as well.

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Minimum reflectivity to angle 0%

Minimum reflectivity to angle 50%

Minimum reflectivity to angle 100%

Working with Global reflectivity, use the Sensitivity to incidence angle slider to change the
angle of reflectivity.

If you would like the surface of the material to be imperfectly reflective, resulting in distant
objects appearing blurred inside the reflections, push up the value of Blur to non-zero.

Some of the parameters in this tab can be driven independently with functions by pressing the
corresponding Drive with a function icons ( ). For global reflectivity and blurred reflections,
this can also be achieved using the Procedural mode described below. However, by extracting
the parameters, you can drive the two parameters each one by a function that is in no way cor-
related to the other. See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Specular level (PBR material)

This slider defines the F0 (Fresnel/specular reflectivity factor at zero incidence) for dielectric
(i.e. non-metallic) areas of the material.
The slider range is [0; 1], with a default value of 0.5, which matches the common F0 value of 4%.
This means that the slider actually covers a [0%, 8%] range for F0.

Note:

A value above 1 can be manually entered in the text field next to the slider.
This allows to have a greater value for dielectric areas’ F0, which may even go over 100%.
Be aware that the material would now longer be physically realistic then, since it would not

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simulate any known real dielectric material, and might even reflect more light than it receives.

Procedural Reflection
When the Procedural mode is selected for this channel, VUE generates variable reflections using
a function and a filter that indicate the local amount of reflection depending on the value of the
function.

This is the way it works: for each point on the surface, the function generates a number in the
range of -1 to 1 (-1 is black on the preview of the function and 1 is white). This number is then
transformed by the filter into a reflection amount. The maximum variable reflectivity is equal
to the overall reflectivity.

To change the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Visual
Function Browser.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

Indicate the amount of reflection using the filter.

Reflection Map
If you would like to use a reflection map to simulate the reflections on this material, check the
Use reflection map option (you must have set some amount of reflectivity for this option to
be available). The settings in the Reflection map group become available, letting you define a
custom reflection map for this material. It also lets you set the default reflection map. Please
turn here for further details on reflection maps.

To define a new reflection map, press the Load button or double click the reflection map pre-
view to open the Bitmap Browser. Select the picture you want to use as reflection map and
validate. A message should appear if your picture doesn’t loop smoothly horizontally, and of-
fer to create a smoothed junction between both edges. This is because the reflection map is
mapped onto an imaginary sphere, thus looping horizontally. If you click Yes, then VUE will
add a smooth transition strip from the right to the left border of the bitmap in order to avoid a
sharp transitions in the reflection map. Of course, if you don’t want to alter the bitmap, click
No. Your bitmap should now be displayed in the reflection map preview.

If you would rather use the default reflection map for this material, click the Use default button
(the default reflection map is also accessible via the Atmosphere Editor – see here).

You can adjust the Azimuth, Pitch and Horizon offset parameters to rotate the map on the sky
dome (see this for more information).

If the reflections on this material are blurry (Blurred reflections set to non zero), the reflection
map will automatically be blurred accordingly. Also, the reflection map preview will appear
more or less blurred according to the blurring amount.

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If you click the Set default button, the current reflection map will become the default and will
be applied to all materials that use the default reflection map. The U and V offsets will also be
applied to all materials that use the default reflection map.

If you use the Force use of reflection map option in the Render Options dialog (see here), all
materials with reflective surfaces will use reflection maps. If no reflection map was used for a
material, it will use the default reflection map.

Translucency Tab

Translucency tab – Simple Material

This tab controls the translucent characteristics of the material. Translucent materials react to
light in a very different way than “regular” materials.

With a regular material, incident light is either diffused, reflected, or refracted. With translucent
materials, the light is also absorbed by the surface of the material and re-emitted at a point that
is not the same as the point where it arrived. The technique used to capture this effect is known
as subsurface scattering.

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Translucency Settings

Light is scattered inside translucent materials

To enable translucency, activate sub-surface scattering for the material by checking the Subsur-
face scattering box. When this option is selected, the sub-surface scattering controls become
accessible. The Translucency group displays a set of controls that are common to absorption
and multiple scattering:
• Average depth: this setting controls how translucent the material is. It indicates the av-
erage distance traveled by light inside the material. Typical “real-world” values are in the
range of a fraction of a millimeter to a couple of centimeters (for wax-like materials). You
must make sure that your translucent objects are compatible in size in order to see the
effects of subsurface scattering (don’t expect to see anything – except desperately-long
render times – if you assign a translucent material with an average depth of 1 inch to a
square-mile terrain!).
• Balance: this setting controls the amount of absorption vs. multiple-scattering that takes
place inside the material. The default is 50%, which means that all absorbed light is re-
distributed by the multiple scattering, but you can achieve interesting effects by varying
this balance.
• Refraction index: this is identical to the refraction index in the Transparency tab. When
you enable sub-surface scattering, the refraction index control in the Transparency tab
becomes disabled.
• Quality boost: use this slider to increase the number of samples taken to compute the
translucency. If the results look noisy, increase the setting (you should only do this when
you are finalizing your work in high quality render modes, see here for an explanation).
The higher the setting, the better the material will look, but the longer it will take to ren-

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der.
• Use infinitely thin surface model: select this option when rendering one sided translu-
cent materials, such as planes.

Absorption
Check this option to enable absorption for this material.

The Anisotropy setting controls how directional the scattering is inside the material. A value
of 0 indicates that the light is scattered equally in all directions, a negative value indicates that
light is scattered mostly backwards, and a positive value, that light is scattered forwards (the
usual scattering).
• Absorption filter color: this setting controls the overall color that light picks up as it trav-
els through the translucent material (the red color when you put your finger over a light
source).

Multiple Scattering
Scattering filter color: this setting controls the diffuse color of the material (the pink color
of the skin). Because multiple scattering bounces light in all directions, there is no preferred
direction for this effect (unlike absorption).

Variable depth
Check this option to have a variable depth in the translucency channel. You can control the
scale if necessary. Right-click to open the Function Graph to control the depth with a function.

Effects Tab

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Effects tab – Simple Material

This tab controls the lighting characteristics of the material, and miscellaneous effects.

Some of the parameters in this tab can be driven independently with functions by pressing the
corresponding Drive with a function icons ( ). See here for further details on driving material
parameters with functions.

Lighting
The surface of the material receives light from light sources (e.g. the sun) and from the environ-
ment, and may react differently to each of these types lights.

The Diffuse lighting parameter controls the way the material reacts to light coming directly
form light sources.

The Ambient parameter controls the way the material reacts to ambient lighting.

By default, these values are respectively 60% and 40%.

It is usually not recommended that you modify these values for a material except under very
special conditions (e.g. you could make a cloud more reactive to ambient light, because the
cloud is far enough, and physically different from solid objects in the foreground). This is be-
cause it may cause a mismatch between the different materials of your scene. If you want to
modify the diffuse and ambient settings, you’re probably better off doing so on a scene level
(see the Atmosphere Editor, Light Tab for details on how to do this). Also, the total amount of
Diffuse + Ambient should always be equal to 100%.

If you want to create materials that seem to emit light, use the Luminous setting. Keep in mind
that luminous objects do not cast real light, though (except when using the Global Radiosity
lighting model – see here). If you wish to have a luminous object actually cast light, you could
put a light source inside it and turn off Casts shadows for the material.

Luminous lighting is not affected by the global settings of the scene. This works particularly
well when used in conjunction with Glow (see below), because it emphasizes the impression
that the object is emitting light.
• Contrast: this setting adjusts the speed at which the material goes from light to shadow.
This is useful for modeling fluffy materials.
• Backlight: use this option when a material is supposedly thin enough to let some light
show through when illuminated from behind. This is typically what happens when the
sun shines behind a leaf. The leaf isn’t dark – light passes its surface, although it isn’t
transparent.
• Color reflected light: to give a metallic aspect to a reflective material, select this option.
This will give the color of the surface to highlights and reflections.

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• Color transmitted light: selecting this option with a transparent material will give the
color of the surface to the light crossing it. This is a great for colored glass and church
windows.

Origin of Material
Position: these fields let you offset the material in material coordinate space. This enables the
precise positioning of materials on objects.

If the material is completely animated (read here for details on material animation), VUE will
automatically compute the corresponding velocity, and fill the Velocity fields with the resulting
values.

Velocity: these fields let you define a displacement with time of the origin of the material. As
a result, the material will be changing as time passes. Defining a Velocity of material origin
creates a Velocity Animated material (read here for details on the different types of material
animation). The keyword “Time dependent material” appears in the caption of the Material
Editor.

Changing the velocity of the material origin of a completely animated material will set the Po-
sition fields.

Glowing Material
Select this option to create a haze of light around the material (turn here for an explanation
of glow). Keep in mind that glow is a post-processed effect added once the rendering pass is
complete. So when the render starts, you won’t be able to see the glow. You need to wait until
rendering is complete to be able to judge the effect.

When you select this option, the controls in the group become available. The Intensity slider
controls the amount of light in the glow, and the Radius slider controls the average size of the
haze of light.

Select Glow behind objects if you want the glow to be visible on objects that are placed in front
of the glowing material. Uncheck it if you want the glow effect to be masked by objects in front.

The color of the glow is determined by the color of the material. Dark materials won’t glow
much.

Adding some luminous lighting to glowing materials emphasizes the glowing effect (see above).

Remember that, although glowing materials give the impression that they are emitting light, no
real light is actually cast by the material onto other objects in the scene. If you want a glowing
object to actually cast light, you can add a point light inside it, and uncheck the Casts shadows
option.

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Global Transformation
Selecting options in this group will apply global modifications to the material.

When you select an option, the corresponding Edit button becomes enabled. Pressing this but-
ton displays a dialog that lets you adjust the effects.

Global Turbulence

Turbulence Editor

Press the Edit button to the right of the Turbulence checkbox to display the Turbulence Editor.

Using a noise, turbulence repeatedly displaces the location at which the material or the func-
tion is being evaluated. Turbulence is defined by 4 parameters (complexity, scale, amplitude
and harmonics), a noise type and a combination mode.
• Complexity: defines the number of times the noise is repeated.
• Amplitude: is the average displacement applied by the noise to the material or to the
function layer.
• Scale: controls the frequency at which the Noise functions vary relative to position.
• Harmonics: characterize the way the noise is scaled each time it is added: for each new
addition, scale and amplitude are multiplied by the harmonic parameter. If the complex-
ity is equal to 1, the harmonic parameter has no meaning.
• Suggestion:: to understand correctly the effects of turbulence, watch the variation of a
material made from simple functions (e.g. use a rectangular wave noise to drive the color
channel).
• Basic noise: defines the type of noise that is added to the current position, and
• Combination: indicates how successive noise applications should be combined. For full
details on combination modes, refer to the section on the Function Graph.

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Rotation

Transformation Editor

Pressing the Edit button on the side of the Rotation checkbox brings up the Transformation
Editor.

This dialog lets you indicate a rotation angle around each of the world axes, as well as a twisting
angle of these axes one towards another.

Cycling
• Cycling: is a large scale perturbation of the material that helps to prevent it from looking
too repetitive.

Presence Tab

If the current material is a layer of a multi-layer material, and if it is not the bottom-most layer
on the stack, an additional tab called Presence is available. This tab lets you control how the
environment affects the presence of the current layer.

Note that for most settings, the current layer’s Mapping (top-right corner of the Material Editor
panel) will determine whether the altitude, slope and/or orientation used to compute the influ-
ence is determined in the Object’s coordinates system, or the World coordinate system. Only
altitudes used by the Absolute and Relative to sea modes are always expressed in World coor-
dinates (offset to the Sea level, for the latter).

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Altitude Constraint

Presence tab – Layered Material

This group lets you control how altitude influences the presence of the layer:
• Altitude range: this dual slider lets you define the range of altitudes in which the cur-
rent layer appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear
outside this range.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to altitude. High values mean that the layer appears very gradually in
its altitude range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip.
• Range of altitudes: this lets you define in what coordinates the altitude range is defined:
– By object: in this mode, the range is relative to each object to which the material is
applied.
– By material: in this mode, the range is relative to all the objects that use this mate-
rial.
– Absolute: in this mode, the range of altitudes is expressed in global coordinates.
– Relative to sea: the altitude is Absolute but computed from the sea level and not
from zero.

Slope Constraint
This group lets you control how the local slope influences the presence of the layer:
• Slope range: this dual slider lets you define the range of slopes in which the current layer
appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear outside
this range. Values to the right end of the slider indicate flat surfaces, and values to the
left indicate upside-down surfaces. Intermediate values indicate vertical surfaces. Slope
values can range from -180 to +180 degrees.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are

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made in response to slope. High values mean that the layer appears very gradually in its
slope range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip on areas
of appropriate slope.

Orientation Constraint
This group lets you control how the local orientation influences the presence of the layer:
• Preferred orientation: this setting controls the orientation of the surface that is the most
favorable to the presence of the layer.
• Orientation tightness: this setting controls the influence of orientation on the presence
of the layer.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to orientation. High values mean that the layer appears very gradu-
ally on surfaces of the preferred orientation, whereas low values will result in the layer
appearing as a solid strip on areas of preferred orientation.

Texture Placement Editor

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Texture Placement Editor

This editor is available for channels using the Mapped Picture mode. It enables the modifica-
tion of the image mapping with gizmos and live feedback. It supports standard terrains and
meshes.

Click on the Show Manipulation Gizmo button to display the Texture Placement Editor. This
dialog displays the selected object with a gizmo representing the scale/rotation center. You can
show the isolated object by un-toggling the Show Scene button.

The gizmo you see is a representation of the scale/rotation center of your image on the edited
object. Use Alt to move the pivot center.

Note:

Edition mode is only accessible in Flat and Faces mapping mode.

In Faces, the gizmo will position itself on the nearest mapping face regarding your view orien-
tation. In Flat, the gizmo will be positioned in the top plane of the object’s parametrical space.

Be careful to slow object’s reconstructions. Changing the mapping necessitates that the UV are
re-baked for the OpenGL display at every interaction frame. This can be computation heavy
for large objects such as terrains. We recommend lowering the quality settings when editing
mapping to improve the interactivity on the Display tab of the Options panel (Instant draw
and Background draw faster instead of better).

The Pivot
The pivot is the rotation center for your manipulation. But it is also the position at which the
manipulator will be displayed and reset after each movement. You can edit the pivot position
using the Alt key, or the Edit pivot toggle button.

You can position your pivot in 3 dimensions in order to place the manipulator exactly at the
location you are looking at. To simplify this task you can use the Pick pivot position toggle
button. Just click that icon and click inside the editor window to select the position of the pivot
on the object you are editing.

How It Works
There are two proxy objects, the Mapping manipulator (a little plane) and the Rotation center.
When you manipulate the plane proxy, its movement is read and translated into change in the
image mapping parameters: Scale, Offset and Rotation. These parameters are mirrored in the
top of the editor. When you manipulate the pivot proxy, it only changes an internal position that
is used to recalculate offsets when you are doing rotations with the plane. This is used to create
the sensation of free rotation center. In reality, the rotation center is always at the (0.0) in UV
space, but you will notice the “offsets” changing after each rotation to simulate the displaced

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center.

Limitations
There are inherent limitations of the above mentioned points. This is not an UV editor tool, it is
only a mapping parameters editor. As such, for example, if you are in Faces mapping projection,
you cannot edit independently the mapping parameters of each 6 sides.

The manipulator proxy object is trying to match at best the texture speed and movement, but
in certain circumstances movement of the gizmo can very well be unrelated to the movement
of the texture. Notably, when editing the mapping of a mesh with UV, we cannot predict the
direction and speed that the texture will take when the mapping is changed.

To avoid problems like this, avoid slants in object transformations, and use linear projections
rather than UV mapping, like Faces and Flat.

There are also limitations in the previsualization. The VUE OpenGL is used to preview the modi-
fications in conjunction with the small render scene preview at the right of the application main
panel.

The limitations of VUE’s standard viewports OpenGL also applies in the editor. It is impossible
to preview multiple layer materials at once. On the performance side, it is impossible to change
the mapping without reconstructing the entire object. (We plan to develop improvements in
future versions). This limitation, however, does not prevent you from editing the mapping of
an intermediate layer, in a multi-layer material. You can use the Function Graph for that. From
the Material Editor, select the layer you want to edit, then in the Color Tab, right click on your
image and choose Edit Function. Then, in the Function Graph, your Projected Texture Map
node will be selected. Then access the Show Manipulation Gizmo. The editor’s OpenGL will
show a temporary material featuring only the layer you selected. You can do the same for any
Projected Texture Map node in your graph.

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PBR Materials

PBR materials (or Physically Based Rendering materials) are a very generic class of materials
that can describe most of existing surface types in a physically correct way, using a small set of
parameters.

Those surface types can range from specular (smooth appearance) to diffuse (rough appear-
ance), for both metals and non metals. Intermediate surface types (commonly called glossy
surfaces) are also supported, producing more or less blurry reflections.

As PBR materials parameters can be spatially varying, a single PBR material can even describe
a complex mix between several of these surface types.

Note:

The only surface types that PBR materials cannot describe are transparent surfaces (refractive
or not). For transparent materials, the Simple material type should be used instead

Hint:

As opposed to Simple materials, PBR materials are always reflective, their appearance will
thus change only based on how rough the surface is described at a microscopical level, effec-
tively producing more specular reflections if the surface is rather smooth, or more diffuse re-
flections if the surface is rough.

Note:

There are currently two standard PBR materials formats: the Glossy/Specular model, and the
Metal/Roughness model. VUE only supports the Metal/Roughness model for the time being.
Generally, PBR material samples found over the Internet provide both formats anyway.

The PBR material type is to be chosen when user wants to import Substance files (.sbsar) into
VUE. The Substance graph node will then automatically handle the import of all supported PBR
channel maps from the Substance file. It will also automatically convert maps data from the
Glossy/Specular model to the Metal/Roughness model, if needed.

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Parameters

PBR materials do share common parameters with Simple materials (only partially for some of
them), namely:
• Color: color of the surface.
• Alpha: alpha of the surface.
• Bump: bumps on the surface (bump-mapping algorithm).
• Normal: normal of the surface.
• Displacement: displacement of the surface.
• Highlights: for PBR materials, only the Global Intensity of highlights is available, be-
cause their shape is entirely defined by the Roughness parameter.
• Reflection: for PBR materials, there are only two main settings available, since they are
always reflective (see the introduction):
– Specular Level, related to the minimum material reflectivity at normal incidence,
in a normalized [0; 1] range. The default value, set to 0.5, corresponds to a 4% reflec-
tivity at normal incidence, which corresponds to most physical materials. A value of
1 will correspond to 8%. Higher values are allowed, but are likely not to correspond
to a physically plausible material.
– Reflection Map options.
• Effects: for PBR materials, only Luminous and Backlight parameters are supported.
In addition to these common parameters, PBR materials add three specific parameters used to
control the appearance of the surface:
• Ambient Occlusion: modulates incoming lighting over the surface.
• Metalness: is surface a metal or not?
• Roughness: blurriness of the surface reflections.
• Clearcoat: second glossy layer to simulate a thin clear coating

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Automatic texture loading

When selecting a texture file for any channel, the application can look for similar files to load
for the other material channels.

See Texture File Tag Editor

Ambient Occlusion Tab

The Ambient Occlusion channel defines how much of the incoming lighting is accessible to a
surface point. For non metals, it only affects the diffuse contribution and will not occlude the
specular contribution.

Metalness Tab

The Metalness PBR channel defines which areas of a PBR material denote raw metal, operating
similarly to a mask.

A value of 1 will denote raw metal, while a value of 0 will denote non metal. Intermediate values
are supported for smooth transitions, and describe a blended state between metal and non
metal, but generally metalness masks are binary (either 1 or 0).

In practice, the metalness value will indicate how the material color should be considered:
• for non metals, color corresponds to the material albedo, thus to the reflected color of
the material.
• for metals, color corresponds to the material reflectance, thus to the coloring of reflec-
tions.

Roughness Tab

The Roughness PBR channel describes, at a microscopical level, the surface irregularities that
will define how light gets reflected off the surface (rougher surfaces will have larger and dim-
mer looking highlights, as well as blurred reflections, thus having a more diffuse look, while
smoother surfaces will keep reflections more focused, thus having a more specular look).

A value of 0 will correspond to a perfectly smooth surface, producing perfect specular reflec-
tions. A value of 1 will correspond to the maximum surface roughness, producing diffuse reflec-
tions. Intermediate values will produce glossy reflections.

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Clearcoat Tab

The Clearcoat channel simulates the effect of a thin reflective layer on top of a surface. A com-
mon use case is the transparent coating on top of car paint.

Normal Production
Clearcoat layer has its own normal definition.

Use the Normal Mode drop-down list to select a mode for the normal production. For general
explanations about the available modes, please look at this page: Channel mode The Intensity
parameter defines how much percentage of the vector defined by the normal production is
applied to the original normal of the surface.

Parameters
The Intensity option defines the presence of the layer. 0 % means no effect.

The Tint option defines the color of the coat. This color will be multiplied by the underlying
color.

The Roughness option defines the blurriness of the coat reflections.

The Refraction Index option defines a specific Index of Refraction for the coat.

The Flatten option defines the amount of blends between the specific normal of the coat (100%)
and the bumped normal of the underlying layer (0%). If no normal production is defined, the
specific normals of the coat are smooth.

Two­Sided Materials

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Material Editor – Two-Sided Materials

Two-sided materials allow you to define two different materials to each facet of a two sided
object like a leaf. Only a few object types are supported: PlantFactory plants, planes, alpha
planes, terrains and meshes (imported or baked objects).

Materials to Mix Tab

This tab is used to select the materials to use.

Front Face – Back Face: Select the two colors to use, one for each face. You can switch the
colors from front to back by clicking on the double-arrow icon.

Each of these materials can be edited by clicking on the material. You can mix together sim-
ple materials, materials that are themselves a mix of other materials (create nested material
hierarchies for amazing effects!), or even EcoSystem materials.

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Alpha Tab

Material Editor – Two-Sided Material Alpha

Alpha production can be edited on this tab. You can load a new filter by right-clicking the dis-
played filter and selecting Load Filter to access the Filter Browser. Or, you can edit the current
filter by right-clicking the displayed filter and selecting Edit Filter to open the Material Alpha
Filter dialog.

You can also modify the alpha channel by using the Function Graph. Access the Function Graph
by right-clicking the Alpha production picture and selecting Edit Function. You can also select
to load a function from the Function Browser by selecting Load Function from the menu.

Mixed Materials

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Material Editor – Mixed Materials

A Mixed Material blends two materials together using a set of rules that define, at any given
position on an object, which of the two materials show, or how to blend contributions from
both. The rules in the Influence of Environment tab are especially useful to configure the mix
depending on the altitude, slope or orientation at the considered position.

You can mix together Simple Materials, other Mixed Materials (creating nested material hierar-
chies for amazing effects!), or even EcoSystem materials (mix an EcoSystem of fir trees with an
EcoSystem of rocks to place trees at low altitudes and rocks higher up!).

When you select the Mixed materials option at the top of the Material Editor, the tab part of
the editor changes, displaying three tabs.

The Mixing proportions slider lets you balance how much each of the two mixed materials will
be visible. Pushing the slider to the right will have more of the second Material showing, while
pushing it to the left will show more of the first.

The Alpha Channel can also be edited for Mixed materials.

Materials to Mix

The first tab lets you choose the materials that will be mixed together, and the way they will be
mixed. Volumetric materials cannot be mixed together.

Change the materials by loading materials that already exist on the disk with the button, or
by double-clicking on the preview to directly edit the material in a nested Material Editor.

Materials inside a mixed material can be scaled independently using the Scale controls. This
only modifies the size of the material once it is applied to an object. A scale equal to 1 does not

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change the size of the material.

Distribution of Materials
To decide if the mixed material should display the first or the second material, or a blend of the
two, VUE basically uses a function and a filter.

For each point on the surface, the Distribution function generates a value in the range of 0 to 1
(0 appears black on the preview of the function and 1 white). This value is then transformed by
the filter and by influence of environment settings (see below) into another value in the range
of 0 to 1, which is then compared to the Mixing proportions setting. If it is much less than this
setting, material 1 is displayed. If it is far greater, material 2 is displayed. If the result is close to
the Mixing proportions, inside a range indicated by the Smooth blending strip, a blend of the
two materials is computed, in order to get smooth transitions from one material to the other.

To modify the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Function
Graph.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

If necessary, use the filter to further adjust the distribution of materials.

Smooth Blending Strip

The width of the strip inside which materials are blended can be adjusted using the Smooth
blending strip control. Pushing it to the right will make for smoother transitions, while pushing
it to the left will yield fast transitions.

Blending Method
Inside the strip, materials are blended together. The Bump channel can be handled in several
ways, depending on the result you are looking for:
• Simple blend: the surface aspect of the two materials are mixed together. This is the de-
fault. This method is compulsory to mix materials that are themselves mixed materials.
• Full blend (linear bumps): the characteristics of the two materials are blended together
before the material is rendered. Surface heights are blended linearly, resulting in a cham-
fer between both materials (provided one of them has a higher surface Bump than the
other).
• Full blend (cubic bumps): same as blended Bumps above, except heights are blended
following a cubic rule. The result is a rounded chamfer between the two materials (like
snow on rocks).
• Cover: no smooth transition for colors, only for Bumps. Material 2 seems to cover up
material 1. Inside the transition strip, only Material 2 is visible.

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• Color and lighting blend: in this mode, only color and lighting (ambient and diffused)
features are used from Material 2, retaining all other features of Material 1. This is useful
for shifting colors of a material, without having to duplicate it (for instance near the water
surface).

Alpha

Alpha tab – Mixed Materials

Alpha production can be edited on this tab. You can load a new filter by right-clicking the dis-
played filter and selecting Load Filter to access the Filter Browser. Or, you can edit the current
filter by right-clicking the displayed filter and selecting Edit Filter to open the Material Alpha
Filter dialog.

You can also modify the alpha channel by using the Function Graph. Access the Function Graph
by right-clicking the Alpha production picture and selecting Edit Function. You can also select
to load a function from the Function Browser by selecting Load Function from the menu.

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Influence of Environment

Influence of Environment tab – Mixed Materials

The third tab of the mixed materials editor lets you define the influence of slope, altitude, and
orientation on the way the two materials are mixed together. Controls in this tab become active
once you select the option Distribution of materials dependent on local slope, altitude and
orientation.

Some of the parameters in this tab can be driven independently with functions by pressing
the corresponding Drive with a function icons ( ). Jump to this section for further details on
driving material parameters with functions.

Note also that for more advanced Environment settings, an alternative is to use Layered mate-
rials.

Influence of Altitude
This lets you adjust the influence that altitude has on the distribution of materials, depending
on the mode selected for the range of altitude. You can select whether the Material 2 should
appear at higher or at lower altitudes using the radio buttons.

Altitude Range defines in what coordinate system this range is defined, and how the transition
between the two materials is handled:

Relative modes
• By object: in this mode, the range is relative to each object to which the material is ap-
plied.
• By material: in this mode, the range is relative to all the objects that use this material.

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In both these modes, the Mixed material’s Mapping (top-right corner of the Material Editor panel)
decides whether the “altitude” is computed in the object’s coordinate system, or in the world’s
coordinate system.

The influence of the altitude over the material mix at any given point is here configured using
percentage value: zero means that the distribution is not affected by altitude. Non-zero values
mean that Material 2 will appear more often at high (or low) altitudes: the higher the value,
the sharper the transition to Material 2 will be. The level at which the transition between the
two materials occurs will only depend on the overall “Mixed proportions” setting for the Mixed
material (described earlier on this page).

Absolute modes
• Absolute: in this mode, the range of altitudes is expressed in global coordinates.
• Relative to sea: in this mode, the range of altitudes is expressed in global coordinates,
but the altitude is computed from the sea level and not from the scene’s zero.
In both these modes, the Material mapping mode does not affect how the two materials are
mixed.

Instead of a percentage value, a Transition altitude setting lets you customize a transition
threshold in World coordinates (offset to the Sea level, in the latter mode). The sharpness of the
transition between the two materials will only depend on the overall Smooth blending strip
setting for the Mixed material (described earlier on this page).

Influence of Slope
Influence of slope adjusts how the local steepness or flatness of the geometry influences the
distribution of materials. In other words, the slope is the local normal projected onto the verti-
cal axis.

A value of zero means that the distribution is not affected by slope. Non-zero values mean that
Material 2 will appear more often on steep slopes (or on flat surfaces). Indicate whether Material
2 should appear on steep parts of your scene, or on flat surfaces by selecting the requested box.

Influence of Orientation
Influence of orientation adjusts how the orientation of the local geometry (which direction
it faces) influences the distribution of materials. In other words, the orientation is the local
normal projected onto the horizontal plane.

Zero means that the distribution is not affected by orientation. Non-zero values mean that Ma-
terial 2 will appear more often on parts of the scene that are facing the azimuth indicated by
the Azimuth slider.

For a realistic distribution of snow on a landscape, you could for example indicate that snow

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appears mostly at high altitudes and that it tends to gather on flat surfaces. You could also
make snow accumulate on faces of the landscape that are facing away from sunlight (more
likely to be in the shadows).

Coordinate System
This group lets you indicate if the environment considered for computing the local slope and
orientation should be linked to the object itself, or to the world. If the environment is linked
to the object, rotating the object won’t change the distribution of materials on the surface (the
distribution moves with the object).

Grouped Materials

Grouped Materials

Unlike Layered Materials, you can control multiple layer presence driven by one item in the ma-
terials list. Alpha is also controlled for all layers. You can, for example, control both an EcoSys-
tem and it’s underlying layer presence in one place with such material type.

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Alpha Tab

Alpha production can be edited on this tab. You can load a new filter by right-clicking the dis-
played filter and selecting Load Filter to access the Filter Browser. Or, you can edit the current
filter by right-clicking the displayed filter and selecting Edit Filter to open the Material Alpha
Filter dialog.

You can also modify the alpha channel by using the Function Graph. Access the Function Graph
by right-clicking the Alpha production picture and selecting Edit Function. You can also select
to load a function from the Function Browser by selecting Load Function from the menu.

Presence Tab

This group lets you control how altitude influences the presence of the layer:
• Altitude range: this dual slider lets you define the range of altitudes in which the cur-
rent layer appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear
outside this range.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to altitude. High values mean that the layer appears very gradually in
its altitude range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip.
• Range of altitudes: this lets you define in what coordinates the altitude range is defined:
– By object: in this mode, the range is relative to each object to which the material is
applied.
– By material: in this mode, the range is relative to all the objects that use this mate-
rial.
– Absolute: in this mode, the range of altitudes is expressed in global coordinates.
– Relative to sea: the altitude is computed from the sea level and not from zero.

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Presence tab-Group Material

Slope Constraint
This group lets you control how the local slope influences the presence of the layer:
• Slope range: this dual slider lets you define the range of slopes in which the current layer
appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear outside
this range. Values to the right end of the slider indicate flat surfaces, and values to the
left indicate upside-down surfaces. Intermediate values indicate vertical surfaces. Slope
values can range from -180 to +180 degrees.
• Fuzziness (steep): this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer pres-
ence are made in response to slope. High values mean that the layer appears very gradu-
ally in its slope range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip
on areas of appropriate slope.
• Fuzziness (flat): this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence
are made in response to flat areas.

Influence of Orientation
This group lets you control how the local orientation influences the presence of the layer:
• Preferred orientation: this setting controls the orientation of the surface that is the most
favorable to the presence of the layer.
• Orientation influence: this setting controls the influence of orientation on the presence
of the layer.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to orientation. High values mean that the layer appears very gradu-

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ally on surfaces of the preferred orientation, whereas low values will result in the layer
appearing as a solid strip on areas of preferred orientation.

Volumetric Materials

Material Editor – Volumetric Materials

Unlike the other two types of materials that are only defined by their surface, volumetric mate-
rials are defined over the whole of their volume.

When you select the Volumetric material option at the top of the Material Editor, the tab part
of the editor changes, displaying two tabs. Some of the options may change depending on
whether you are editing a cloud material, or a material for an object.

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Color and Density

Volumetric materials are based on a density production that indicates the local density of the
material over a complete volume.

Density Production
This is how Density production works: for each point of the volume, the function returns a
number in the range of 0 to 1 (0 appears black on the preview and 1 white). The number is
then transformed by the filter into a density at this point (0 if the material doesn’t exist, 1 if the
material is solid). When rendering the material, VUE accumulates the density of material all
along the ray of light that is traversing the material, and then computes the resulting color of
the material.

To modify the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Visual
Function Browser.

Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes. The same for the filter.

Volumetric Settings
These settings are not available for volumetric spectral cloud layer materials in the Spectral
atmosphere model. Instead, they are replaced by the Cloud layer detail settings (see below).
• Volumetric color: this control indicates the global color of the material. Double-click on
it to open the Color Selection dialog and modify the color.
• Overall density: use this slider to modify the overall density of the volumetric material.
Overall density increases or reduces the average density of the material over its entire
volume.
• Fuzziness: this slider controls the density of the material near its edges. The density of
the material is automatically reduced as you get close to the edges of the material. If
fuzziness is 0, the density of the material is not affected by the proximity of the edges.
The greater the fuzziness, the thinner the material near the edges. This parameter can be
driven by a function by pressing the Drive with a function icon. ( ).
• Quality boost: use this slider to increase the number of samples taken to compute the
material. If the results look noisy, increase the setting (you should only do this when you
are finalizing your work in high quality render modes. The higher the setting, the better
the material will look, but the longer it will take to render.
• Use distance field: when this option is enabled, the volumetric density takes into ac-
count the depth inside the object. The density will automatically increase as you go
deeper inside the object. When this option is checked, the Field depth parameter be-
comes active, letting you indicate the depth at which the density function reaches its

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maximum value.

Lighting and Effects

Some of the parameters in this tab can be driven independently with functions by pressing the
corresponding Drive with a function icons. ( ).

Lighting

Lighting and Effects tab – Volumetric Materials

The controls in this group let you customize the way the material reacts to light.

Lighting model: use this drop-down list to select the lighting model used for the volumetric
material.
• Uniform: this lighting model is the simplest. The color of the material is uniform, and
only depends on the density. Light is not taken into account when computing the color.
This is the default.
• Shaded: in this model, the influence of light and shadows is computed at the surface of
the material. The Diffuse, Ambient, Luminous and Flare controls become active.
• Additive: this is similar to the Uniform model, except that the color of the volumetric
material is added to the background instead of masking it. This is great for fire balls, and
other similar effects.

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• Volume shaded: this is a more advanced model where the contribution of light is evalu-
ated throughout the entire material instead of being evaluated only at the surface. The
color of the material can be varied inside the volume. This is ideal for fireballs, thick
smoke or explosions. Volume shaded materials are a lot slower to compute than the sim-
pler shaded and uniform models.
• Flat layer: if you are editing a material for a standard cloud layer in the Spectral atmo-
sphere model, the lighting model is locked to a model specifically designed for the ren-
dering of flat cloud layers.
• Volumetric layer and Cloud object: if you are editing a material for a cloud layer or a
MetaCloud, the lighting model is locked to a model specifically designed for the rendering
of clouds.
The other controls in the lighting group are active only when a Shaded lighting model is se-
lected. They perform the same as their equivalents in Simple materials:

The Diffuse lighting parameter controls the way the material reacts to light coming directly
from light sources.

The Ambient parameter controls the way the material reacts to ambient lighting.

By default, these values are respectively 60% and 40%.

Also, the total Diffuse + Ambient should always be equal to 100%.

If you want to create materials that seem to emit light, use the Luminous setting. Keep in mind
that luminous objects do not cast real light, though. Luminous lighting is not affected by the
global settings of the scene.

If the selected lighting model is the Volumetric layer, the following checkboxes become avail-
able:

Internal shadows: when this option is selected, the shadows inside the cloud will be com-
puted, meaning that some parts of the cloud will cast shadows on other parts of the cloud.
This option produces much more realistic clouds, but increases render times significantly.

Cast shadows: when this option is selected, the cloud layer casts shadows in the atmosphere
that can result in the appearance of Godrays if conditions are favorable. This option also in-
creases render times significantly and should be used with caution, as it does not necessarily
produce a noticeable improvement in picture quality. In order for Godrays to be visible, you
must also enable Godrays in the Atmosphere Editor.

Flare
The controls in this group are only active in Shaded and Volume shaded models.

When light is seen from behind a thin volumetric material, it will cause the material to become

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very bright. This is called flaring. Flaring doesn’t occur when the material is either too dense,
or too thin.

You control flaring through two settings: Intensity and Span. Flare span is the area around the
light that will flare-up. Larger values yield bigger flares.

Volume Shaded Material

The volume shaded lighting model is the most advanced volumetric material model. The color
of the material is re-evaluated at each sample, as well as illumination and internal shadowing
(when parts of the material cast shadows on other parts of the same material).

To let you define the color of the material inside the material, a third tab called Volumetric
Color is added to the Material Editor when you select the Volume shaded model. This tab is
similar in its behavior to the Procedural Color production of the Advanced Material Editor and
lets you define the material color as a 3D volume.

Hypertextures
Hypertextures are a solid/volumetric hybrid that can be used to create porous materials such
as corroded metal or sponge, and various special effects like water splashes. Hypertextures are
also defined using a density function, however this density is used in a different way: instead
of being interpreted as a gas density, the density is used to define the interface between the
material and the absence of material. Wherever the density is higher than the Overall density
setting is considered as being “inside” the material, and wherever the density is less than that
value is considered as not being in the material.

If you select the Hypertexture model, a third tab called Hypertexture Material appears. This
tab lets you define the material that appears at the surface of the hypertexture.

Origin of Material
These fields let you offset the material in material coordinate space. This enables the precise
positioning of materials on objects.

If the material is completely animated, VUE will automatically compute the corresponding ve-
locity, and fill the Velocity of the material origin fields with the resulting values.

Velocity of Material Origin

These fields let you define a displacement with time of the origin of the material. As a result,
the material will be changing as time passes. Defining a Velocity of material origin creates a
Velocity Animated material. The keyword “Time dependent material” appears in the caption
of the Material Editor.

Changing the velocity of the material origin of a completely animated material will set the fields

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in the Origin of material group.

Global Transformation
Selecting options in this group will apply global modifications to the material’s density produc-
tion. These options work the same as for Simple materials: when you select an option, the
corresponding Edit button becomes enabled. Pressing this button displays a dialog that lets
you adjust the effects.

The editor dialogs for each type of modification are detailed in the section on Simple Materials.

Dissolve Near Objects

If the edited material is a cloud layer material, this group of controls is available. These controls
let you automatically define how cloud layers react to the proximity of other objects in the scene
– for instance to let high mountains peak through the clouds.
• Dissolve near objects: select this option to have the density of volumetric cloud layers
drop automatically near the objects in the scene.
• Accuracy: this setting controls the precision with which the proximity to other objects in
the scene is evaluated.
• Softness: this setting controls how gradually the cloud dissolves near foreign objects.
Low values mean the clouds will vanish abruptly near objects.
• Distance: this setting controls how far away from the objects the clouds are influenced.
You can control the amount of dissolving using a combination of both this and the Soft-
ness setting.

Layered Materials

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Layered Material – Layer List

VUE’s Material Editor offers extended control over the creation of complex materials through a
layered system. With material layers, you can:
• Add, delete, and rename layers on the fly.
• Rename materials and change scale in the layer list.
• Move layers up and down in the stack.
• Each layer has its own alpha channel.
• Each layer has its own independent reaction to altitude, slope and orientation.
• Create mixed materials with any number of sub-materials.
• Easily navigate even the most complex layered/mixed/nested materials.
Layers can be Simple, Mixed or EcoSystem materials. You cannot layer Volumetric materials.
Mixed materials can be made up of layered materials.

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Multi­Layer Materials

When a multi-layer (or layered) material is selected, the Advanced Material Editor appears as
opposite. The Layer stack lists all layers used in this material.

When evaluating the layered material, VUE renders each layer in turn, starting with the top of
the stack. If a layer is partially transparent (alpha is less than 1), or doesn’t exist at that point (e.g.
because of environment constraints), it moves on to rendering the layer beneath it on the stack.
And so on, until total opacity is achieved or the bottom-most layer has been reached. Bumps at
the surface of Simple materials are processed in the same way, except that bumps from a given
layer are added to the bumps of the layer beneath it (unless the Add to underlying bumps
option is set to 0 – see here).

If the layers in the layered material involve EcoSystems, the population of the EcoSystem is
done from the bottom up. First, the bottom-most EcoSystem layer is populated, then the layer
above it is populated according to the population of the previous EcoSystem layer.

Adding a Layer
You don’t have to select a multi-material to add a layer to a material: simply select the line
where you want to add the layer in the Material Hierarchy and press the Add layer button to the
right of the hierarchy. The Material Browser appears, letting you select the new layer to add to
the material. The layer is added immediately above the layer that was previously selected.

If you want to create a new layer without loading a preset material, just click Cancel in the
Material Browser. A new “empty” layer will be added.

You can delete a layer by selecting it in the Material Hierarchy and pressing the Del layer but-
ton to the right of the hierarchy.

Changing the Order of Evaluation

You can change the order in which layers are evaluated by selecting a layer and pressing the Up
and Down buttons to the right of the Material Hierarchy, or by dragging it in the list with the
mouse. If you move a layer up, it will be evaluated earlier on the stack, appearing “on top” of
other layers. Using the left mouse button, this also affects the environment settings.

If you use the right mouse button to reposition the layers, the environment settings are not
affected. Any distribution mapping you have done remains the same; only the materials are
swapped.

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Presence of Layers
Layers can be placed according to their environment, using the Presence tab of the Material
Editor when the layer is selected. Using this tab, you can constrain the layer to appear only
at given altitudes, on given slopes or at given orientations. Please jump to this section for de-
tails on the Presence tab, which works likewise for both Simple material layers and EcoSystem
materials.

The placement of the bottom-most layer on the layer stack cannot be influenced by the envi-
ronment: it has to be “everywhere”, since it defines the default aspect of the geometry where
no other layer above it applies.

As for EcoSystem layers, note that they can additionally interact with other EcoSystem layers
beneath them through the affinity/repulsion settings (jump to this section for details).

Material Snapshots
You can store a snapshot of a particular layer, by selecting the layer and clicking on the Material
Snapshot icon, located to the far right above the last column. If you left-click another material
or layer, it’s snapshot goes in the lower box; the next layer you select will go in the lower box
and the previous material stored is moved to the upper box. Now, if you select a material and
right-click you can select which box that snapshot will be stored in.

The Shared Material Layer

This feature is a way to allow you to create a layer in a material that can be shared by other
materials in your scene. A modification on a shared layer in a material will modify this layer in
any other materials it is used in. You can have many shared material layers.

To make a shared layer, right-click on the icon of the layer and select Share layer.

In order to add a shared layer onto an existing material, you can use the Add shared layer com-
mand from the contextual menu. This option is only available if you have previously created
shared layer(s) in the scene. This operation is also accessible from any material line of the World
Browser, from the Summary of Materials and from the selected object’s material preview in the
Object Properties panel.

In the Material Editor (Advanced or Basic), you also have an Add Shared Layer icon ( ) right
above the Add Layer icon to perform this operation.

In order to “dissociate” a material layer previously added through the Add shared layer com-
mand, you have a Make unique command in the material menu (only in the Material Editor).
By making a material layer unique, you dissociate it from the other materials previously shar-
ing it. It is like making a copy, and means that further edition of this layer will not affect other

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materials anymore. Only the edited material gets a unique copy of the layer, other materials
using the original shared layer will still share it among themselves, ie. they are unaffected by
this action.

There is now a new pictogram to identify shared layers easily ( ).

Note:

Only Simple materials can be shared (neither Volumetric, Mixed nor EcoSystem/Particle mate-
rials).

Texture File Tag Editor

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Texture file tag editor

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Overview

This is used to help you load all the maps of a material in a single operation. When you select a
texture file for a material channel, the material editor can automatically look for other files to
load, following configurable name patterns.

The search is done by using the initial file you are loading, and looking for all files in the same
folder that match when replacing the tag they have by any other one.

The material type must be set beforehand, to either simple or PBR, so that the application looks
for the right channels to fill.

Tags

The tags define what to search for each channel.

You can define several tags for each channel by separating them with spaces: “_n -nmap _nor-
mal”

The search occurs anywhere in the filename you selected.

If we have:
• Color : “_color”
• Normal : “-nmap _normal”
If you select wood_color-2K.png, the application will look for wood-nmap-2K.* and wood_normal-
2K.*

Export

Those tags are also used for naming exported maps. The first tag is used for each channel.

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False positives

Because this feature is using a simple pattern matching algorithm, it may not work all the time
or confuse some files.

It that case you have to setup all the files manually.

However the matching function looks for case changes in order to distinguish _BumpEr and
_Bumper or _Bump5.

So it should not happen too often.

Preserve existing mappings

If a non trivial mapping exists, this will prevent overwriting those with found textures.

Special cases

The _VARn present in some poliigon files is supported if you select a file that has it, but not the
reverse (it will not select one of several variations for you)

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Function Graph

Function Graph

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Description

Functions are the key to the visual quality of materials.

They are used every time it is necessary to generate a value depending on position (e.g. to
indicate a transparency amount that depends on the position inside the material).

Basically, functions enable you to associate any point in space with a value in the range of -1 to
1.

The Function Graph is accessed by clicking on the preview picture of a function with the Control
key pressed, or by selecting Edit function from the contextual menu. The editor can stay open
without stopping other parts of the software from being accessible.

The Basics

What Is a Graph?

A graph displays a set of interconnected nodes that are used to generate output values based
on the values of a given set of inputs.

Input and Output Nodes

The graph inputs sit on the left side of the graph. The graph outputs are placed at the right side
of the graph. Input nodes are the points where data enters the graph, and output nodes are the
points where the data exits the graph. Output nodes represent the value that is computed by
the function.

Data enters the graph at the input nodes, flows through the different nodes and links in the
graph, and exits at the output node. You cannot delete input or output nodes, and you cannot
place other nodes to the left of the input nodes or to the right of the output nodes.

The default types of input are:

• Position: this input node produces a vector value representing the position of the point
where the function is being evaluated. The value of this input node depends on the map-

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ping mode selected for the object’s material.

• Normal: this input node produces a vector value representing the direction in which is
pointing the surface at the point of evaluation of the function.
• Altitude: this input node retrieves the current position along the Z-axis of the scene or the
object. It can be used to create a gradient along an object’s height, for example. In object
and world standard mapping modes (absolute, relative to sea), the output is expressed in
scene units according to the object or scene size. In object parametric mode, the output
covers a range from [-1;1].
• Slope: this input node retrieves the current slope of the object’s surface. If the surface is
horizontal, the value of the input will be 1. If the surface is vertical, it will be 0. And if the
surface is horizontal, only facing down, the value will be -1.
• Orientation: this input node produces a signal whose value varies between -1 and 1 ac-
cording to the azimuth of direction in which the surface is currently pointing. If the sur-
face is pointing up along the Y axis, the input value will be 0. The signal jumps from -1 to
1 as the normal turns from south-west to south-east.
You can create additional input nodes by clicking the Input Node icon ( ) in the left toolbar
of the Function Graph. Please turn here for details on the different additional input nodes that
can be created.

When editing an Object Graph, the input and output types depend on the type of object being
edited. For instance, Light objects will expose a Light Color input and output. Please turn here
for further details on object graphs.

Output Data

The name and type of output nodes depend on what values are expected from the function
(i.e. what the purpose of the function is). For instance, if you are editing the terrain altitude
function of a procedural terrain, the output will be labeled “Altitude”, and the value generated
by the function will be used to generate the altitudes of the procedural terrain.

Multiple and Master Outputs

In some cases, functions can output multiple channels of data. This is for instance the case
when you edit a function from a simple procedural material. In that case, the Function Graph
will display output nodes for all the different channels in the material (color, bump, transparency,
etc.). You can reuse portions of the graph to generate outputs for several channels simultane-
ously instead of having to duplicate portions of the graph (e.g. you could plug the color and
bump outputs to the same node).

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You can create additional output nodes by clicking the Output Node icon ( ) in the left toolbar
of the Function Graph. The number and nature of additional output nodes that can be created
depends on the context of the function. For instance, settings in the Material Editor that are
“exportable” (they are identified by the icon – see here) will have a corresponding optional
output node in the corresponding Function Graph.

If there are several output nodes in the Function Graph, there will always be one of the out-
puts that is known as the master output. There can only be one master output in a function
graph. The master output is the output that corresponds to the channel from where the Func-
tion Graph was accessed. For instance, if you entered the Function Graph by editing the color
channel production function, the master output will be the color output. But if you enter the
Function Graph by editing the bump production function, then the master output will be the
bump output instead of the color output.

The master output is displayed with a stronger contrast than the other output nodes – even
when it is not selected (or a node connected to this output is not selected). If you press the Save
icon ( ) in the dialog bar, only the part of the graph that is connected to the master output
will be saved. Saved functions will appear in the Visual Function Browser like any other of the
predefined functions. By default, functions are placed in the Functions subfolder. This means
that they will appear in the Personal collection inside the Visual Function Browser. In the same
way, if you load a new function into the Function Graph using the Load icon ( ), or reset it by
pressing the New icon ( ), only the part of the graph connected to the master output will be
replaced (or removed).

Nodes

Nodes are represented by little boxes on the graph. A node receives a flow of data on its en-
tries, affects a certain processing on that data according to its type and the values of optional
parameters, and generates one or several flows of outgoing data. This outgoing data can be of
the same type as the incoming data, or it can be of a different type.

There are 10 different categories of nodes: noise nodes, fractal nodes, color nodes, texture map
nodes, filter nodes, constant nodes, turbulence nodes, combiner nodes, math nodes and dy-
namics nodes. For your convenience, the category of a node is identified by the shape of the
box that represents the node on the graph.

Nodes can appear on the graph in two different sizes:

• a small version with a symbol that identifies the node category (on top of the shape of
the box), or
• a large version with a preview of the node in it (the shape of the box still indicates the

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node category).
The size of the nodes is defined automatically according to the settings in the Graph Options
menu (see here), but you can force any of the two versions using the Show in graph option in
the node details section of the Function Graph (see here). That way you can make important
nodes stand out by making them larger than the other ones.

It is possible to change the display color of any node (or groups of nodes) on the graph to im-
prove readability. Just select the node; under the preview of the node there is a color box. Click
on it to open the Color Selection and select a display color for that node.

Types of Data

The nodes in the Function Graph can process 4 different types of data:
• Number: this is a floating point value. It is the typical output of a function graph. Noise
nodes and Fractal nodes (among others) produce numbers.
• Color: this is the typical output of the color nodes. If you are editing the Color channel
of a material, the function may either output a number (in which case the number will
be converted into a color outside of the function using a color map), or directly output a
color.
• Texture Coordinates: this is a two-dimensional vector that typically indicates the texture
coordinates of the point where the function is being evaluated. This is the typical output
from the Projection node.
• Vector: this is a set of 3 numbers that indicate a position or a direction in space. Typi-
cally, the position and normal inputs are both vectors, where position indicates the po-
sition of the point where the function is being evaluated (converted into the appropriate
coordinate system depending on the selected mapping mode), and where normal is the
direction in which the surface of the object is pointing, at the point where the function is
being evaluated.

Links

Links are the lines that connect different nodes together. Links represent the flow of data
through the graph. The data always flows down, from top (inputs) to bottom (outputs). If a
node is higher than another one, you know it is being processed before.

The color of the link indicates the type of data that is being transported by the link:
• Blue link: number (e.g. noise output),
• Green link: color information,

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• Purple link: texture coordinates,

• Red link: vector data (e.g. position),
• Gray link: undefined data type.
When a link is selected (e.g. by clicking on it), it is drawn with a thicker line, and the two nodes
that the link connects are displayed in the link properties part of the Function Graph.

Presentation

The Function Graph is constituted of the following elements:

Function Graph
• Menu

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• Main Toolbar
• Node Toolbar (the vertical toolbar)
• Nodes Used in Graph
• Node Selector
• Function Graph (the main display area)
• Function Output Preview
• Node Properties

Function Graph

Navigation

You can zoom in and out of the function graph using the Zoom icons ( and ), or by using
the Zoom trigger defined in the shortcuts list of the Operations panel. There are limits to the
amount of zooming in and out that you can do.

You can move the graph around by pressing space and dragging it, or using the Pan trigger
defined in the shortcuts list of the Operations panel.

The Pan and Zoom triggers are the ones in the Triggers in 1D & 2D views category, if they are
defined, or in the top-most category otherwise.

You can also navigate using the node connections. By right clicking a connection and using
Go to source or Go to destination. That can be handy for large function graphs with far away
connections.

Node Selection
You can select nodes or links by clicking on them. They will be highlighted in red. Outgoing
links from nodes are also highlighted with a different color.

If you want to select multiple nodes, click on all the nodes you want to select with the while
holding the Shift key, or by drawing a marquee rectangle around the area that you want to
select (all nodes in that rectangle will then be selected).

Adding a node
Nodes can be added from multiple places:
• From the right click context menu: Right click anywhere into the empty graph area to
open a context menu with all available node categories. The new node will be inserted at

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the place where you opened the context menu. Instead of going through the categories,
you can also start typing to close the context menu and open a search field (see the para-
graph about searching for more info).
• From the search field: If you want to search immediately for a node, you can bypass
the context menu altogether and open the search immediately with the Tab key on the
keyboard. The node will be inserted at the place where you opened the search field. If
you first select an existing connection between two nodes and then do a search, the node
will be inserted into the middle of the connection line between the two existing nodes.
• From the Node selector: Browse through the node selector panel on the left of the graph
and double click to add a node (which will place the node automatically in an empty area
of the graph with sufficient space). You can also drag and drop nodes from the panel into
the graph.
• From toolbars: Using the Panels menu entry in the top menu, you can display a tool-
bar with buttons for every available node category. Clicking a button adds the default
node from that category into the graph. The node will be placed in an empty area with
sufficient space. From within the node settings, you can then switch the nody type to a
different node from the same category.
Note:

It is possible to change the color display of every node in the Function Graph to improve visibility
of the graph. When a node is selected, under the preview of the node there is a color box. Click
on that to select a display color for that node.

Connecting Nodes
To create a connection between two nodes, you must click a node handle (the small half discs
on the left and right of the node) and then drag it to another node handle on a different node.

While dragging the handle, compatible nodes will be highlighted in green. Drop the link on
one of the compatible nodes, and the new connection will be created. To cancel the operation,
simply drop the handle on an empty part of the graph.

Under certain conditions, a message may popup to forbid a connection, even though it was
marked green. That can occur for some connection that cannot be checked in advance without
slowing down the interaction a lot.

You can also move existing connection. For that move the mouse over the starting of ending
part of a connection. A portion of the connection is then highlighted. Hold down the Shift key,
click and drag the connection line to some other node handle. This will also work with multiple
connections at the same time.

To delete a connection altogether, select the link and press Delete, or right click it to access a
contextual menu and select delete connection.

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Resizing nodes
Nodes can be freely resized by dragging their top right corner. This allows to adjust their ap-
pearance.

If resize to the left, when width is small, the node will go in minimized mode (left version on the
picture below). When resized with a large height, the node preview will move above the title,
so that the available space is better used (right version on the picture below).

Replacing a node
Select a node, and then use the combo box displaying the type of the current node to change
it to another node of similar type.

Or, select a node and click on one of the node icons. Depending on which type of node was
selected, and which icon was pressed, the selected node will either be replaced with a node of
the new type, or a new node will be added beneath the selected node (e.g. pressing Fractal
when a noise node is selected will replace the noise node by a fractal node of the same noise,
but pressing Filter when a noise node is selected will connect a filter node on the noise output).
If the selected node was already connected to another node, the application will attempt to
insert a node of a compatible type from the desired category. If no such node can be found, a
message will appear asking you if you want to break the connection.

Deleting a node
To delete a node, select it and press the Delete key. If possible, the application will reconnect
the open link.

Searching for nodes

The search field located in the top right of the graph view can be used to select and highlight
nodes (sorted by names). You can also highlight a category of nodes with the combo box beside
this search field.

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You can also access the search quickly by pressing TAB on the keyboard, by right clicking in an
empty area to open the context menu and to start typing, by dragging out a connection line
from a node, releasing the mouse in an empty area and starting to type and by selecting an
existing connectiond and pressing TAB to open the search field and immediately insert a new
node into an existing connection.

If you hold down CTRL while dragging out a connection line and releasing it in an empty area,
you will be asked when inserting the new node to which input you want to connect the line,
including any secondary inputs. Without holding CTRL, you will only be asked to choose from
the main inputs.

MetaNodes
You can regroup a selection of nodes into a MetaNode using the “Create MetaNode” icon of the
toolbar. Existing MetaNodes can be ungrouped using “Ungroup MetaNode”.

That allows a better organization of a graph by abstracting some parts as new nodes, instead
of keeping everything in the same place.

A newly created MetaNode will have inputs and outputs based on the existing connections be-
fore its creation.

It can be edited using the edit button (in the bottom right area, when the meta node is selected).
And you can save them for later reuse. Inside its graph you will find inputs and outputs nodes
that correspond to the metanode inputs and outputs.

Node frames
Node frames are colored rectangles for organizing and annotating the graph and for making
complex graphs more readable. Node frames can be inserted using this button on the Main

Toolbar:

If no nodes are selected, the button activates a drawing mode where you can draw a marquee
around nodes you want to frame. If nodes are selected, the frame will be automatically created
around the selected nodes.

Node frames can also be nested and colored accordingly. You can, however, not draw a node
frame inside another node frame or a node frame which partially overlaps others. In this case,

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draw the node frame in an empty area first and then move it within another frame as a child. To
drag a frame, click on its name. The nodes inside the frame and any other nested frames will
follow.

You can adjust the frame’s color, transparency and name in the frame settings when the frame
is selected. The frame can also be renamed directly in the graph itself by double clicking on the
title.

When moving a node frame, the nodes within the frame will move with it. To delete a frame,
select it and press DELETE on the keyboard. Deleting a frame will not delete its nodes and
nested child frames.

Node and Function Previews

Node and function previews are used to visualize the results of the function at a given node.
The function is represented by a black and white object (sphere, cube, cone...) with the value
of the function indicated on its surface. If the node returns -1 at a point, this point will be black;
if it returns 1, the point will be white.

If the node or the function returns a color, that color will be displayed at the surface of the
preview object.

You can change the shape of the object used to preview the function with the Preview Options
dialog (select the Preview Options command from the Graph Options icon menu – see below).
This is the same as the Preview Options dialog from the Material Editor (see here for details).

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Published Parameters
The Published Parameters feature copies specific settings from the Function Graph that you
may need to change often and places them in a more convenient location for easier access. If
you have accessed the Function Graph from the Terrain Editor, the selected parameters will ap-
pear on a special tab in the Terrain Editor. If you accessed the Function Graph from the Materials
Editor, a special tab will appear in the Advanced Material Editor.

To select a parameter for publishing, just click the underlined field name of the parameter. A
parameter name is supplied and a group name is asked to improve the display of the published
parameter.

MetaNodes can also have published parameters which will appear as parameters when the
MetaNode is selected.

You can also configure elaborate rules and UI widgets for each parameter in the Published Pa-
rameters Editor.

Menu

The menu is on the top of the Function Graph in the default workspace.
• File:
– New: Resets the function
– Load: Loads a function from file
– Save: Saves the function to a file
• Edit:
– Undo: Undos the last operation. You can undo multiple changes. When you undo
an operation, the Redo icon becomes available.
– Redo: Redos the last operation that was undone. If you have undone multiple op-
erations, you can redo them all (unless you make a change).
– Cut: Cuts the selected nodes out of the graph and onto the clipboard.
– Copy: Copies the selected nodes onto the clipboard.
– Paste: Pastes the nodes in the clipboard onto the graph.
– Delete: Delete the selected nodes/connections.
– Disable Node: Disable the selected nodes. These nodes evaluation will be skipped
when evaluating the function.

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– Create MetaNode from selection: Converts the selected nodes into a MetaNode.
Connections are automatically preserved.
– Ungroup MetaNode: Places the content of the selected MetaNode back in the graph.
– Create Node Frame: Creates a Frame around the selected nodes
– Draw Node Frame: Actives the draw tool to draw a frame in the graph
– Automatically Map Connected Paramters: When connecting nodes parameters,
the application will automatically map the output value range of the input node to
the value range of the connected parameter.
– Automatically Convert Data Types: When connecting nodes with different data
types, the application will insert suitable converter nodes when possible.
– Remove All Single Nodes: Remove isolated nodes that have no connection.
• Display:
– Show All Previews in Graph: shows per node function previews, can take some
time in case of complex graphs.
– Preview Only Noises and Colors: only shows per node function previews for noise
and color nodes.
– Hide All Previews: no per node function previews are shown, only node boxes.
– Preview Options: select this option to display the Preview Options dialog (see above)
and change the look of the node previews. These changes are global to the entire
graph.
– Zoom Entire Graph: acts on graph position and zoom to make sure the graph best
fits its window.
– Zoom Graph Area: allows to draw a rectangle on the graph and to zoom this part of
the graph.
– Zoom Selected Nodes: Adapts the view to show the selected nodes.
– Fold All Nodes: All noded are reduced the the header part.
– Unfold All Nodes: All nodes are expanded to show connected inputs and ouputs.
– Fully Unfold All Nodes: All nodes are expanded to show everything.
– Keep Input and Output Nodes Aligned: the input nodes are vertically aligned on
the left; the output nodes are vertically aligned on the right.
– Show background grid: Displays an alignment grid as graph background.
– Constrain nodes to Grid: when enabled, enforces alignment of nodes onto the
white lines of the grid.

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– Align all nodes on grid now: Moves all nodes to the nearest grid cells.
– Enable navigator: Display a small overview of the graph in a corner.
– Show Real-World Units: real-world units are shown in the Function Graph.
• Panels:

Main Toolbar

The main toolbar is the top toolbar of the Function Graph in the default workspace. The main
toolbar contains icon buttons for main actions.

• New function: Resets the function

• Load function: Loads a function from file

• Save function: Saves the function to a file

• Cut: this command is available when at least one node is selected. Press the Cut
icon to cut the selected nodes out of the graph and onto the clipboard.

• Copy: this command is available when at least one node is selected. Press the Copy
icon to copy the selected nodes onto the clipboard.

• Paste: this command is available when at least one node is selected. Press the Paste
icon to paste the nodes in the clipboard onto the graph.

• Undo: click this icon to Undo the last operation. You can undo multiple changes.
When you undo an operation, the Redo icon becomes available.

• Redo: click this icon to Redo the last operation that was undone. If you have undone
multiple operations, you can redo them all (unless you make a change).

• Create MetaNode from selection: this option is only available when you have se-
lected several nodes. Clicking this icon will convert the selected nodes into a MetaNode.
Connections are automatically preserved.

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• Ungroup MetaNode: when a MetaNode is selected, clicking this icon will place the
content of the MetaNode back in the graph.

• Frame: click this icon to automatically adjust the framing of the preview so that
graph is centered and all the nodes are visible.

• Frame Selected Area: click this icon to automatically adjust the framing of the pre-
view so that the selected nodes are centered in the graph view.

• Zoom In: click this icon to display a magnified view of the graph in the preview,
thus letting you observe the nodes in finer detail. The current zoom factor is displayed
beneath the icon.

• Zoom Out: click this icon to display a reduced view of the graph and get a more
global view of it.

• Function Node Preview: click this icon to open (or close) the Function Node Preview
panel. This panel displays a detailed view of the output of the currently selected node
along 3 axes. This is a toggle icon. If you close the Function Graph with this panel open,
it will automatically open next time you open the Function Graph. See here for details on
the Function Node Preview panel.

• Function Output Observer: click this icon to open (or close) the Function Output
Observer panel. This panel displays a contextual preview of the function’s output. If you
are editing a material function, a preview of the material will be displayed. If you are edit-
ing the altitude function of a procedural terrain, it will display a terrain. This is a toggle
icon. If you close the Function Graph with this panel open, it will automatically open next
time you open the Function Graph. See here for details on the Function Output Observer
panel.

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Node Toolbar

The node toolbar is the left toolbar of the Function Graph in the default workspace. The node
toolbar is used to add or replace nodes in the function graph. In order to make the creation of
elaborate functions an easier process, the icons in the node toolbar will either add new nodes,
or replace existing nodes, depending on the context.

For a faster selection, there is a search box to find easily the node you are looking for. The layout
could also be switched from one column to 2 columns.

Here is the description of the different icons in the node toolbar:

• Input Node: click this icon to create a new input node. The Input nodes appear in
a column on the left in the graph area.
When editing an Object Graph, the list of available input nodes depends on the type of
object being edited. Most objects will have a Position, Size and Orientation input node,
but other properties may also be available as inputs (e.g. Light Color when editing a
light). You can also create External Dependency and Recall Dependency nodes that
will let you import values from other graphs.
When editing material functions, the list of additional input nodes that can be added to
your function graph is displayed. See the different types of input nodes for details.

• Output Node: click this icon to create a new output node. The Output nodes appear
in a column on the right in the graph area. The choice of possible output nodes depends
on what the function is being used for. For instance, if it is being used to compute the
altitudes of a procedural terrain, this will be the only output node. But if the function
is used for a material, you can create new outputs for other material parameters. If the
function is used as an Object Graph, there will be output nodes for all of the object’s prop-
erties. Also, the Custom Dependency node lets you output any kind of data for retrieval
in another graph.

• Noise Node: click this icon to create a noise node. A noise node outputs a number
between -1 and 1. If a fractal node is selected, it will be converted to a noise node of the
same base noise as the fractal. See the different types of noise nodes for details.

• Fractal Node: click this icon to create a fractal node. A fractal node is based on
a noise that is repeated at several different frequencies in order to create much more
elaborate patterns as the standard noise node. Fractal nodes create patterns that exhibit
details over a large range of frequencies. If a noise node is selected at the time of clicking

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this icon, it will be replaced by a Simple Fractal node based on the same noise as the noise
node. Please see the different types of fractal nodes for further details.

• Color Node: click this icon to create a color node. Depending on the context, color
nodes either output a color based on the value of a number, or converts a color into an-
other color. If a node is selected at the time of clicking this icon, again depending on
context, a color node of the appropriate type will usually be added behind the selected
node. Please see the different types of color nodes for further details.

• Texture Map Node: click this icon to create a texture map node. Texture map nodes
are used to map pictures (texture maps) onto objects. The texture map node is also cre-
ated together with a Projection input node. The projection input node converts the cur-
rent position into mapping coordinates used by the texture map node to map the texture.
Please see texture map node for further details.

• Filter Node: click this icon to create a filter node. Filter nodes take a signal as input
and output another signal. Clicking repeatedly on the Filter node icon will add as many
filter nodes. Please see the different types of filter nodes for further details.

• Constant Node: clicking on this icon will create a constant node. If another node
was selected at the time of clicking, the selected node will be replaced by a constant node
of the appropriate type. Please see different types of constant nodes for further details.

• Turbulence Node: clicking on this icon will create a turbulence node. Turbulence
nodes take a vector as input, and return a vector. They are usually plugged into the Origin
noise parameter, as this is where they will behave as actual turbulence. Please see the
different types of turbulence nodes for further details.

• Combiner Node: click this icon to create a combiner node. Combiner nodes are
used to combine together different values. Most of them work on all types of data, and
output the same type of data as the one provided in input. Please see the different types
of combiner nodes for further details.

• Dynamics Node: click this icon to create a dynamics node. Dynamics nodes are
mostly used to create dynamic connections between object properties. Please see the
different types of dynamics nodes for further details.

• Heightfield Node: click this icon to create a heightfield node. Heightfield nodes
can only be used with Heightfield Terrain. Please see the different types of heightfield

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nodes for further details.

• Layout Node: click this icon to create a layout node. Layout nodes are mostly space-
related nodes. Please see the different types of layout nodes for further details.

• Math Node: click this icon to create a math node. Math nodes are used to perform
all sorts of operations and conversions between different data types. Please see the dif-
ferent types of math nodes for further details.

• Load MetaNode: click this icon to load a MetaNode from disk. A Standard File
Browser will appear, letting you select the MetaNode you want to load. You can also cre-
ate MetaNodes of a specific type using the popup menu. Please see the MetaNodes for
details.

Input Nodes

Here the list of available input nodes of a material function

• Position: This is the default node with which almost every graph starts. See ‘Position’
input for details.
• Position Options: This is an advanced version of the position node above that lets you
select the coordinate system in which the position vector is expressed. This input node
displays a drop-down list that lets you select the coordinate system for this instance of the
node (you can create several “Position Options” nodes with different coordinate systems).
The different coordinate systems are the same as the coordinate systems available in the
Material Editor’s Mapping list. You can specify the Distance unit in VUE units, Display
units or any other unit available in a drop-list for selection.
• Cloud Position Options: This node is only available when editing the function graph of
a cloud material. It is similar to the Position Options node, because it lets you select
the coordinate system and unit that you want to use for any nodes connected to this
node. However, the available options also take cloud modulation functions into account.
Please see the chapter on the Advanced Cloud Material Editor for a full explanation of the
Cloud Position Options Node.
• Normal: this is the ‘Normal’ input node.
• Normal Options: again, this is an advanced version of the “Normal” node described
above. This input node lets you define the coordinate system in which the normal vector
is to be expressed. The node displays a drop-down list that lets you select the coordinate
system for this instance of the node (you can create several “Normal Options” nodes with
different coordinate systems). If you select the Object option, the normal vector is ex-

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pressed in object coordinates, and hence is independent on the orientation of the object.
On the other hand, if you select the World option, the normal vector will be modified by
the orientation of the object.
• Slope: this is the ‘Slope’ input.
• Altitude: this is the ‘Altitude’ input.
• Orientation: this is the ‘Orientation’ input.
• UV Coordinates: this input node returns the texture coordinates of the current point, ac-
cording to the selected texture mapping mode. It is created automatically when you cre-
ate a Texture Map node. This node is typically used to drive the mapping of a texture.
Please see the options of the UV Coordinates node for further details.
• Time: this input node returns the current scene time in seconds, used for animated func-
tions. This is for example the current animation frame’s time, as displayed and manipu-
lated in the Timeline, but it can be any value in between animation frames, when inter-
polating animated properties or functions. If you create a time-dependent node (such
as the Open Ocean node in the Fractal category), a connection to this input node will
automatically be created.
• Angle of Incidence: this input node returns the angle of incidence between the incoming
ray (the ray coming from the camera, the reflected ray coming from a reflective surface,
etc) and the surface of the object. If the surface of the object is exactly facing the ray (the
incoming ray is perpendicular to the object surface), the input node returns a value of 1.
At low incidence angles (when the ray is tangent to the surface), the return value is 0. If
the ray hits the surface from the inside, the return value will be negative.
• Ray Direction World: this input node returns a vector that indicates the direction of the
incoming ray expressed in world coordinates.
• Ray Direction Object: this is the same as the Ray Direction World input described above,
except that the incoming ray direction vector is expressed in object coordinates instead
of world coordinates. This is useful if you want to create a function that depends on the
direction of the incoming ray, but is not affected by the orientation of the supporting
object.
• Position On Picture: this input node returns a vector representing the position of the
point in the final picture. The X and Y components of this vector respectively indicate the
horizontal and vertical position of the point in the picture, where -1 is the left/top edge
and +1 is the right/bottom edge of the picture. The Z component of the vector is always
0.
• Distance to Camera: this input node returns the distance between the point where the
function is being evaluated and the camera, whatever the ray recursion depth. The dis-
tance to the camera is at most equal to the actual distance traveled along the ray. You
can specify the Distance unit in VUE units, Display units or any other unit available in a

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drop-list for selection.

• Distance on Ray: this input node returns the total distance traveled by the ray from it’s
origin, including all recursions. This means that if the point where the function is being
evaluated was hit by a reflected ray, the distance on ray would include the distance trav-
eled by the reflected ray plus the distance traveled from the ray’s origin to the point where
it was reflected. You can specify the Distance unit in VUE units, Display units or any other
unit available in a drop-list for selection.
• Distance to Object Center: this input node returns the distance between the point where
the function is being evaluated and the actual center of the object that was hit by the
ray. This would yield a constant value on a sphere, since, by definition, all points of the
sphere’s surface are at the same distance from the sphere’s center. This is however not
true for other geometries, and can also be useful when evaluating volumetric materials.
You can specify the Distance unit in VUE units, Display units or any other unit available
in a drop-list for selection.
• Distance to Object Below: this input node traces a ray downwards from the point where
the function is being evaluated and returns the distance to the first object encountered.
This could be useful for instance to evaluate the depth of an ocean and create foam (or
waves) near the shore. Warning: because this input requires the actual tracing of a ray, it
is very slow to process. You can specify the Distance unit in VUE units, Display units or
any other unit available in a drop-list for selection.
• Distance to Surface: this input node returns the distance to the surface of the object. It
is only defined for primitives and Metablob objects and is only really useful when com-
puting volumetric effects (because it returns the distance to the surface, this input node
will always return 0 when evaluating a standard material). You can specify the Distance
unit in VUE units, Display units or any other unit available in a drop-list for selection.
• Object Center: this input node returns the coordinates of the center of the object that
was hit by the ray. Obviously, this value is constant over the entire surface of the object,
but it can be particularly useful to switch textures in an EcoSystem population
.
• Incident Light Angle: this input node returns the angle of incidence between incoming
light rays and the surface of the object. If the light hits the object’s surface perpendicu-
larly, the value returned by the input node is 1. If the light hits the object’s surface at a
very low angle of incidence, the value will be close to 0. This is useful e.g. if you want
to create a custom BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function) for your mate-
rials. Obviously, the value returned by this input node is usually different for each light
source. This input is only valid when evaluating the specular contribution.
• Specular Light Angle: this input node returns the dot product between the direction of
incident light and the direction of reflection of the viewing ray. This is useful for create
custom specular reflection effects. Obviously, the value returned by this input node is

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usually different for each light source.

• Light Direction: this input node returns the direction of the incoming light expressed in
world coordinates. Obviously, the value returned by this input node is usually different
for each light source.
• Light Color: this input node returns the color and intensity of the incoming light. Obvi-
ously, the value returned by this input node is usually different for each light source.
• Reflected Direction: this input node returns the direction of reflection of the viewing ray,
expressed in world coordinates.
• Anisotropic Direction: this input node returns the direction of the “scratches” used to
compute anisotropic reflections, expressed in world coordinates.
• Transformed Z Vector: this input node returns the direction of the upwards vector trans-
formed by the object’s transformation matrix, expressed in world coordinates. This ba-
sically tells you which direction is “up” on an object, taking into account the rotation of
the object.
Note:
The resulting vector is not necessarily of length 1.
• Transformed Left Vector: this input node returns the direction of the left vector trans-
formed by the object’s transformation matrix, expressed in world coordinates. This basi-
cally tells you which direction is “up” on an object, taking into account the rotation of the
object. Please note that the resulting vector is not necessarily of length 1. This, together
with the “Transformed Z Vector” provides all information about the object’s transforma-
tion matrix.
• Sea level: this input node returns the value of the current sea level. The value is set either
in the Options panel, Units & Coordinates tab, or by moving the sea level directly in your
scene.
• Object specific (formerly known as Impact specific data): This function is used when
building materials for VUE different types of objects:
– Rocks: It allows to retrieve the local convexity information by providing a measure,
at any given point of the rock, of how much the rock is protruding at that point (or
caving in). This information allows realistic customization of the rock material, tak-
ing into consideration that convex areas of a rock are more exposed to interaction
with the environment (typically weathering) than the concave ones, and their as-
pect will therefore evolve very differently. There is one parameter, a scalar in [0; 1]:
* Account for larger features: This controls whether the convexity information
returned should focus on small scale details or on larger scale features. In other
words, with a value of 0.0, the node will return the local convexity at a small
scale which helps identify small “pointy” bits on the rock. On the other hand,
with a value of 1.0, the node will give information on the overall shape of the

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rock. When this node is called on something which is not a rock, the default
value of 0 is returned.
– Plants: This function is used when building materials using plant geometry infor-
mation:
* Primitive parameter: Yields the position on the primitive axis, ranging from 0
(primitive bottom) to 1 (primitive top).

* Primitive section angle parameter: Yields the angular position of the point in
the plane orthogonal to the primitive axis. It ranges from 0 to 1.

* Primitive radius: Yields the distance from the primitive axis.

* Primitive age: Yields the age of the primitive.
* Primitive depth: Yields the number of ancestors in the plant hierarchy of the
primitive.

* Parent primitive parameter: Yields the position of the current primitive in-
stance on the axis of an ancestor primitive instance.

* Parent primitive section angle parameter: Yields the angular position of the
current primitive instance in the plane orthogonal to the axis of an ancestor
primitive instance.

* Parent primitive radius: Yields the distance of the current primitive instance
from the axis of an ancestor primitive instance.

* Child distance: Yields the distance from the nearest child of the primitive
* Maturity: Yields the current age of the plant as a ratio of the maximum age of
the plant.

* Season: Yields a value in [0; 1] which has then to be interpreted as the current
position in the course of the year.

* Health: Yields the health value for the plant ranging in [0; 1]. 0 means the plant
is dying, 1 means it is thriving.
– Clouds: This option is used when building clourd materials. You can use this to
make nodes in a grah depend on various properties of the cloud layer. Some pa-
rameters can be expressed in different cloud specific coordinate systems. Please
see the chapter on the Advanced Cloud Material Editor for a full explanation of these
coordinate systems and mapping modes.
* Cloud Starting Altitude: Retrieves the lowest altitude of the cloud.
* Cloud Ending Altitude: Retrieves the highest altitude of the cloud.
* Cloud Height: Retrieves the height of the cloud.
* Ambient Lighting: Retrieves the Ambient Lighting amount from the Atmosphere

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Editor (for Cloud layer) or from the Cloud Tab in the Material editor (in case of
a MetaCloud material).
• Spline Stroke UVs: When applying a Material Effect using a VUE Spline, this input sup-
plies the UV coordinates from the projected spline’s stroke at the impact point. This is
useful when you want the effect’s mapped pattern or picture to follow the spline curve
instead of the hit object’s UVs. See here for more details and examples.
The following input nodes are all EcoParticle system related. Functions related to collisions can
be used for any object material, whereas other nodes can only be used for EcoParticle material.
• Particles Collision Density: this is a way to get data from the collision grid. You can ei-
ther get a collision count or an energy clamped to a maximum. You have to select the
EcoParticle system you want to sample from the node.
• Atmospheric Particle Collision Density: this is the same as Particle Collision Density,
except it is for rain and snow.
• Particle Speed (m.s – 1): the velocity of the EcoParticle in meter per second.
• Particle Mass (kg): mass of the EcoParticle in kilogram.
• Particle Adhesion Coeff [0; 1]: how the EcoParticle will stick when it slides on a surface.
• Particle elasticity [0; 1]: how the EcoParticle will bounce when it collides.
• Particle Age (s): how long the EcoParticle has lived.
• Particle Last Collision Time (s): how many seconds ago the EcoParticle has collided.
• Particle Collision Count [0; ∞[: how many times the EcoParticle has collided.
• Particle Radius at Birth (m): the size of the EcoParticle at birth in meters.
• Particle Last Collision Normal: The normal to surface the EcoParticle last collided (if
any).
• Particle Drag Coefficient [0; ∞[: it is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object
in a fluid environment such as air or water. A lower drag coefficient indicates the object
will have more aerodynamic or less drag. The drag coefficient is always associated with
a particular surface area.
• Particle Birth Time (s): when the EcoParticle was born in seconds. Time here is the same
as in the Timeline.
• Particle Death Time (s): the age of the EcoParticle when it will die. Time here is the same
as in the Timeline.
• Particle Life Duration (s): How long the EcoParticle lived (in seconds).
• Sub-particle Normalized Rank[0; 1[: this is only useful for a child EcoParticle (emitted
from another EcoParticle). It will be the normalized rank of the emission. For example a
mother EcoParticle will emit 3 child EcoParticles. The first child will have 0 in this node

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(0/3), the second 0.33333... (1/3), and the third will have 0.66666... (2/3).
• Particle Count: the total EcoParticle count of the EcoParticle system in which the EcoPar-
ticle exists.

Noise Nodes

Common Parameters
Scale
The scale parameter is a number that controls the overall scale of the noise. Larger values mean
that the noise pattern looks larger. This parameter works in conjunction with the Wavelength
parameter to determine the final scale of the noise along each axis.

Wavelength
Whereas the scale parameter only lets you control the size of the noise pattern globally, the
Wavelength parameter is a vector parameter that lets you adjust the scale of the noise along
each axis. For instance, if you want the noise to vary only along the Z axis, enter 0 in the X and
Y wavelengths.

Origin
The origin parameter is a vector that indicates the point at which the noise originates.

By modifying this value, you can shift the noise pattern around. Typically, offset values smaller
than “1” are used to do small adjustments to the patterns’ positions. Bigger, arbitrary values
can be used to randomize the node’s patterns, and break the correlation that can be visible
between various noises when they are based at the same origin.

Plugging the Origin parameter into a Turbulence node will add turbulence to the noise’s pat-
terns.

Cellular Patterns
A cyclic version of Cellular Patterns is available. Refer to the previous section for more infor-
mation.

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Chipped, Crystals, Pebbles

Chipped noise

Crystal noise

Pebble noise

These nodes do not define any additional parameters.

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Drought

Default crack width

Crack width = 0.25

This noise looks like the patterns created by wet soil that has dried out.

Crack width: controls the width of the cracks.

Voronoi
Voronoi noises produce patterns that are based on the distance to randomly positioned seed
points on a grid.

Smoothing (Experimental): this parameter allows to smooth the hard edges normally produced
between their “cells” by the Voronoi patterns. Note that this experimental parameter is only
available when using the Closest Neighbor and 1st – 2nd neighbor variants. Higher values
of the parameter (close to 1.) can lead to some artifacts, depending on the random positions
chosen for each cell by the algorithm.

Neighbor mode: determines what distance is taken into account to produce the noise pattern:
• Closest neighbor: the shortest distance to a neighboring seed point

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• 2nd closest neighbor: not the shortest distance, but the 2nd shortest
• 3rd closest neighbor: not the shortest distance, but the 3rd shortest
• 4th closest neighbor: not the shortest distance, but the 4th shortest
• 1st – 2nd neighbors: distance to the closest neighbor minus distance to the 2nd closest
• 2nd – 3rd neighbors: distance to the 2nd closest neighbor minus distance to the 3rd clos-
est
• 3rd – 4th neighbors: distance to the 3rd closest neighbor minus distance to the 4th clos-
est
Voronoi noises: neighbor mode

Closest neighbor (default)

2nd closest neighbor

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3rd closest neighbor

4th closest neighbor

1st – 2nd neighbors

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2nd – 3rd neighbors

3rd – 4th neighbors

Voronoi profile: determines the curvature of the noise over a fragment as the distance in-
creases:
• Flat: creates fragments of uniform value, the distance to the closest neighbor being used
on the entire fragment
• Spikes: the noise amplitude varies linearly with the distance, creating pointy shapes
• Angles: a little more rounded than spikes
• Round: yet a little more rounded
• Smooth rounded: the most rounded Voronoi profile
Voronoi noises: profiles

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Flat

Spikes

Angles

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Rounded (default)

Smooth-rounded

Voronoi (Altitude)
Basically the same as the above Voronoi noise, except that the altitudes of the different frag-
ments varies randomly. The Voronoi Altitude Flat noise is identical to the Voronoi Flat noise.
You cannot select the neighbor mode for this type of Voronoi.

Voronoi profile: same as above.

Voronoi altitude: profile

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Flat

Spikes

Angles

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Rounded (default)

Smooth-rounded

Voronoi (Generalized)
The generalized Voronoi noise is yet another variation of the Voronoi noises where the curvature
of the fragments is adjustable continually, and where you can adjust the amount of randomness
in the size of the fragments.

Randomness: controls the amount of randomness in the size and shape of the different frag-
ments that constitute the noise pattern. If 0 randomness is entered, the fragments will all be
square.

Voronoi Generalized: Randomness

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Randomness = 0

Randomness = 0.2

Randomness = 0.5

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Randomness = 1

Voronoi profile: this controls the curvature of the fragments. It is similar to the Voronoi type
described above, except that it lets you vary the curvature continuously.

Voronoi Generalized: profile

Profile = 1

Profile = 1.25

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Profile = 1.75

Profile = 2

Distributed Patterns
These types of noises create a pattern by scattering a basic shape randomly in noise space.
Warning: these types of noise are very slow to compute. Use the 2D counterparts wherever
possible. A cyclic version of Distributed Patterns is available. Refer here for more informa-
tion.

Round Samples and Round Samples (2D)

Distributes round patterns. These two noises are very similar. The only difference between the
two noises is that the second version only scatters the patterns along the X and Y axes, resulting
in much quicker evaluation (which is especially useful for procedural terrains).

Size: controls the average size of the patterns.

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Size = 0.2

Size = 0.4

Size = 0.6

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Size = 1

Randomness: controls the randomness in the distribution of patterns, both in terms of size
and position.

Randomness = 0

Randomness = 0.2

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Randomness = 0.5

Randomness = 1

Shape: controls the shape of the patterns in terms of altitude:

• Cylinder: the altitude of the pattern is constant all over its surface; the noise scatters tiny
cylinders in noise space
• Cone: the altitude of the pattern varies linearly with the distance to the center of the
pattern; the noise scatters tiny cones in noise space
• Round: the noise scatters hemispheres in noise space
• Smooth round: the noise scatters little round bumps that connect smoothly with the
underlying geometry
• Cone tower: same as cone, except the cones are placed on tiny cylinders
• Round tower: same as round, except the hemispheres are atop tiny cylinders

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Cylinder

Cone

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Round

Smooth-round

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Cone-tower

Round-tower

Samples: indicates the number of patterns that are scattered per grid unit:
• 1 sample per cell: only one pattern will be mapped per grid unit
• 2 samples per cell: exactly two patterns will be mapped per grid unit
• 3 samples per cell: exactly three patterns will be mapped per grid unit
• 4 samples per cell: exactly four patterns will be mapped per grid unit
}

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1 sample per cell

2 samples per cell

3 samples per cell

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4 samples per cell

• 0 to 1 samples per cell: each cell will contain a maximum of 1 pattern, maybe none
• 0 to 2 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 0 through 2 patterns
• 0 to 3 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 0 through 3 patterns
• 0 to 4 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 0 through 4 patterns

0 to 1 sample per cell

0 to 2 samples per cell

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0 to 3 samples per cell

0 to 4 samples per cell

• 1 to 2 samples per cell: each cell will contain either 1 or 2 patterns
• 1 to 3 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 1 through 3 patterns
• 1 to 4 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 1 through 4 patterns

1 to 2 samples per cell

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1 to 3 samples per cell

1 to 4 samples per cell

• 2 to 3 samples per cell: each cell will contain either 2 or 3 patterns
• 2 to 4 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 2 through 4 patterns
• 3 to 4 samples per cell: each cell will contain anything from 3 through 4 patterns

2 to 3 samples per cell

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2 to 4 samples per cell

3 to 4 samples per cell

Random altitudes: this option, when checked, will assign a random altitude to each pattern.

Without random altitude

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Without random altitude

With random altitude

With random altitude

Find maximums: if this option is checked, the noise will find the maximum of all the patterns
that overlap the point of evaluation of the noise.

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Without find maximums

Without find maximums

With find maximums

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With find maximums

Square Samples and Square Samples (2D)

These noises are similar to the Round Sample noises, except they map square patterns instead
of round patterns.

Size: same as the Round Samples noise.

Randomness: same as the Round Samples noise.

Scale variations: controls the amount of variation in the aspect ratio of the square patterns. If
0, all patterns will be square. If non zero, the patterns will be more or less stretched.

Scale variation = 0

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Scale variation = 0.3

Scale variation = 0.6

Scale variation = 1

Angular variations: controls how well the patterns are aligned with the noise axes. If 0, all
square patterns are aligned with the axes. If non zero, the patterns will be more or less twisted.

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Angular variation = 0

Angular variation = 0.3

Angular variation = 0.6

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Angular variation = 1

Shape: similar to the shape parameter of the Round Samples noise, except applied to square
patterns:
• Cube: the noise scatters little cubes in noise space
• Pyramid: the noise scatters little pyramids in noise space
• Round pyramid: the noise scatters pyramids that have a rounded profile in noise space
• Pyramid tower: same as pyramid, except the pyramids are placed atop little cubes
• Round pyramid tower: same as round pyramid, except the round pyramids are placed
atop little cubes

Cube

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Pyramid

Round pyramid

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Pyramid tower

Round pyramidtower

Samples: same as the Round Samples noise.

Random altitudes: same as the Round Samples noise.

Find maximums: same as the Round Samples noise.

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Flat Patterns
The noises in this category create flat patterns. They don’t work so well for bumps, because
they tend to create sharp edges. There are noises in other categories that also produce flat
patterns. A cyclic version of Flat Patterns is available. Refer here for more information.

Varying Blocks, Clumps, Water Cress

These noises do not define any additional parameters.

Varying Blocks

Clumps

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Water Cress

Line Patterns
The noises in this category create patterns that are mostly based on lines. A cyclic version of
Line Patterns is available. Refer here for more information.

Lines, Fabric
These noises do not define any additional parameters.

Lines

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Fabric

Cracks
Crack width: controls the width of the cracks.

Crack width = 0.01

Crack width = 0.03

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Crack width = 0.20

Crack width = 0.70

Sparse Cracks
Crack width: controls the width of the cracks.

Crack width = 0.01

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Crack width = 0.05

Crack width = 0.20

Crack width = 0.80

Math Patterns
The noises in this category define simple patterns based on mathematical functions. They are
mostly used to combine other noises together or create special patterns that require the regu-
larity of mathematical functions.

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Patterns with no additional parameter

Those are the Onion, Wavelet, Step (Vertical), Step (Gradual), Tooth (Rectangular), Tooth (Tri-
angular), Tooth (Gaussian), Radial Sine, Sine Wave, Triangular Wave, Leopard, Saw Teeth, and
Water Wave patterns.

Radial sine

Sine wave

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Triangular

Leopard

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Saw teeth

Water wave

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Spiral

Rectangular

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Onion

Wavelet

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Step (rectangular)

Step (smooth)

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Tooth (rectangular)

Tooth (triangular)

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Tooth (Gaussian)

Spiral
Radial expansion: if checked, this option will make the wavelength of the spiral pattern in-
crease as it moves away from its origin.

Without radial expansion

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With radial expansion

Vertical warp: if set, this option indicates that the phase of the spiral changes with the altitude.

Without vertical warp

With vertical warp

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Rectangular Wave
Step width: controls the steepness of the transitions between low and high values. 0 means
perfectly vertical edges.

Step width = 0

Step width = 0.1

Step width = 0.3

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Step width = 0.5

Up/down ratio: controls the size of the patterns when the output is high (up) versus when it is
low (down). Similar to the pulse width. This parameter only has an effect if the step width is
non zero.

Up/down ratio = 0.5

Up/down ratio = 0.6

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Up/down ratio = 0.7

Up/down ratio = 0.9

Slope: controls which transitions are done abruptly and which ones are done smoothly. This
parameter only has an effect if the step width is non zero.
• Slope up and down: if the step width parameter is non zero, both transitions from up to
down and from down to up will be gradual.
• Slope up only: only transitions from down to up will be gradual. Transitions from up to
down will be abrupt.
• Slope down only: only transitions from up to down will be gradual. Transitions from
down to up will be abrupt.

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Slope up and down

Slope up only

Slope down only

Other Patterns
Dots, Water (Calm), Water (Rough), Granite
These noises do not define any additional parameters.

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Dots

Water (Calm)

Water (Rough)

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Granite

Perlin Noises
Noises in this category are all based on work by Ken Perlin. They produce repeatable patterns
that look random and are the basis to most procedural textures.

There are 3 types of basic Perlin noises: Linear, Value and Gradient. Linear Perlin produces
sharp edges, Value is a slightly better but slower version of the Perlin noise, and Gradient is the
best (and also slowest version). Each type of Perlin noise has its pros and cons in terms of looks.
A cyclic version of Perlin Noises is available. Refer here for more information.

Common Parameter
• Ridged: this option creates ridges in the noise pattern. It also has the side effect of mak-
ing the noise higher on average.
• Animated: when this option is selected, the noise will be evaluated in 4 dimensions in-
stead of 3, the fourth dimension being that of time. This will result in a noise that pro-
duces patterns that change over time. Whenever you select this option, a link will be
automatically established with the “Time” input.

Linear, Value, Gradient

The basis Perlin styles of noises. No additional parameters – aside from the Ridged option – are
defined for these noises.

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Linear

Value

Gradient

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Gradient + Ridged

Value­Gradient (Variable), Linear­Value­Gradient (Vari­

able)
These two noises are combinations of the base Perlin noises. The different types of noises are
blended according to a random pattern.

No additional parameters – aside from the Ridged option – are defined for these noises.

Value-Gradient (variable)

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Value-Gradient (variable) + Ridged

Linear-Value-Gradient (variable)

Linear-Value-Gradient (variable) + Ridged

Value­Gradient, Linear­Value­Gradient
These two noises are combinations of the base Perlin noises. The different types of noises are
blended according to the Ratio setting.

Ratio: controls the proportion of each type of Perlin noise in the final noise.

Value-Gradient:

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Ratio = 0

Ratio = 0.2

Ratio = 0.5 (default)

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Ratio = 0.9

Linear-Value-Gradient:

Ratio = -0.9

Ratio = -0.3

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Ratio = 0 (default)

Ratio = 0.7

Square Patterns
A cyclic version of Square Patterns is available. Refer here for more information.

The square patterns (Random Altitudes, Squares, Squares (Pairs), Stones, Square Blobs, and
Square Stones) do not define any additional parameters.

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Random Altitudes

Squares

Squares (pairs)

Stones

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Square Blobs

Square Stones

Cyclic Nodes
VUE includes a set of noise and fractal nodes that are cyclic. This means that instead of an every
varying pattern repeating over the mapped space, a single pattern will repeat itself periodically
along all axes (3D space for 3D functions, and also along time for 4D functions).

The advantage of these nodes is that there is no seam between adjacent repetitions of the pat-
tern.

Currently these are available for Noises and Fractals.

How to Use Them

Cyclic noises and fractals are located in a sub-menu of the standard noises and fractals. All
parameters are exactly the same as those in the corresponding non-cyclic flavor of the noise or
fractal. For technical reasons, not all noises and fractals have a corresponding cyclic version.

There are additional parameters to specify the repetition period over each of the 3 or 4 axis of
the function. The period can be different along each axis, which leads to non-square patters

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(but still seamless). The period is expressed as a multiple of the wavelength.

Note:

you can also use a cyclic noise in a non-cyclic fractal, but it will lead to results much more pred-
icable than a cyclic fractal, because the periodicity will be the same at each octave, whereas it
is not in a cyclic fractal.

Fractal Nodes

Common Parameters
The following settings are common to all fractal nodes (some of them are not available in the
“Basic Repeater”, “Fast Perlin Fractal” or “Open Ocean” nodes, because these nodes are simpli-
fied or degenerate forms of fractals).

Base noise: to create its output, the fractal node replicates the base noise at different frequen-
cies, and with different amplitudes. This drop-down menu box lets you select the noise to be
used by the fractal. If the noise defines extra parameters, you can access these extra parame-
ters by clicking on the Edit button. This will open a Node Options dialog, letting you adjust the
properties of the noise. If the noise has no extra parameters, the Edit button remain disabled.
If you select a noise that is time dependent, a link will automatically be established with the
“Time” input.

With rotation: check this option if you want the noise to be rotated in between each harmonic.
This is useful if the base noise exhibits strong directional features and you want to minimize
these directional features.

Without rotation

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With rotation

Wavelength: this is the same as the wavelength parameter of noise nodes (see here).

Origin: this is the same as the origin parameter of noise nodes (see here).

Metascale: This is the scale of global variations in the noise. If you take a fractal that represents
a mountain, the largest feature scale would be the size of mountains, the metascale would be
the size of the entire mountain range, and the smallest feature would be the smallest detail.

Largest feature: this is the same as the scale parameter of noise nodes (see here). Generally
speaking, fractal nodes should have features that are larger than the scale at which the fractal
will be observed.

Largest feature = 0.1

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Largest feature = 0.5

Largest feature = 2

Largest feature = 10

Smallest feature: by default, when computing a fractal pattern, VUE will keep adding detail
until these details are so small that they cannot be seen in the final picture. This is the default
behavior when the smallest feature setting is left at 0. There are cases where you may want to
skip the smaller details in the fractal, in which case you should indicate the scale of the smallest
details you want, using this setting.

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Smallest feature = 0

Smallest feature = 0.02

Smallest feature = 0.05

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Smallest feature = 0.10

Roughness: this parameter controls the overall roughness of the fractal pattern. Namely, the
amplitude of each iteration of the fractal’s base noise is multiplied by the Roughness parameter.
The default value of 0.5 will produce a fractal pattern with the same level of detail at all scales.
Smaller values for the roughness parameter will produce a smoother surface, whereas values
greater than 0.5 will yield spiky patterns with lots of small details.

Roughness = 0.2

Roughness = 0.4

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Roughness = 0.6

Roughness = 1

Gain: this parameter controls the overall amplitude of the signal output by the fractal. Because
fractal patterns can have very large features, their output can be in a much larger range than the
standard noise range of -1 through 1. You can use this parameter to tone down the amplitude
of the fractal’s output.

Gain = 0.5

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Gain = 1

Gain = 4

Gain = 10

Stretch Damping: This setting is only available if the fractal is stretched along one or several
axes (non uniform wavelength). Stretch damping will reduce the amount of stretching applied
to the higher frequencies in the fractal, thus avoiding the entire fractal pattern looking as if it
had been stretched.

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The fractal’s output is modulated by a user defined filter. The amount of filtering can be made
to vary according to the harmonic. If no filter is defined, this processing is ignored. You can
define the range of values in between which the filter is applied.

Filter: this is the filter that will define the profile of the altitudes. Double-click on the filter
preview to load a new filter, or select Edit from the popup menu to customize the filter. Please
turn here for details on the Filter Editor.

Function view

Function graph

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Filter

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Creep in: this parameter controls how much of the original (unfiltered) signal gets mixed back
into the signal at each iteration. Higher values mean that the filter only affect a few large-size
harmonics.

Min and Max: the range of values to which the filter applies is automatically defined according
to the other settings in the fractal. Using Min and Max, you can adjust this range (for instance,
if you want the filter to apply to an intermediate range of values only). The Min and Max values
are given as percentages of the full range computed by the fractal.

For improved clarity, we will use the above cut-off filter in the examples below:

Creep in = 0

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Creep in = 0.1

Creep in = 0.3

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Creep in = 0.5

Outputs: most fractals are capable of outputting both an Altitude value (the default usage) and
also a Rough areas value, which can be used to drive the distribution of materials according to
the local roughness of the fractal pattern. When the second output is connected, a 2nd output:
Detect rough areas option appears with the Ref. feature size setting. This is typically used to
control the distribution of materials on the terrain according to fractal roughness.

Basic Repeater
The Basic Repeater is a special type of fractal that is in some respect “degenerate”. The reason
for this is that basic repeaters only add a limited amount of detail to their patterns, whereas
true fractals will add infinite details. What this means is that if you zoom in close onto a basic
repeater pattern, you will begin to notice the lack of detail. There are cases when the basic
repeater can be useful because it offers greater control over the harmonic behavior of the noise.
Whenever possible, however, you should prefer true fractal patterns.

Note:

Although the Basic Repeater can have a filter assigned to its output values, the Creep in param-
eter defined above is not available in this node.

Repeat: this parameter controls the number of times the base noise is repeated in order to
produce the final pattern. Higher values will produce very detailed patterns, but will take longer
to render. It is rarely useful to use values higher than 4-6.

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Repeat = 0

Repeat = 1

Repeat = 2

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Repeat = 10

Scale: this parameter controls the scaling ratio that is applied to the base noise’s wavelength in
between each iteration of the noise. Values close to 0.5 produce the best results; values greater
than 0.5 will enhance larger elements, whereas values under 0.5 will enhance the smaller de-
tails.

Scale = 1

Scale = 0.75

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Scale = 0.5

Scale = 0.2

Amplitude: this parameter controls the amplitude ratio that is applied to the base noise’s am-
plitude in between each iteration of the noise.

Amplitude = 0.25

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Amplitude = 0.5

Amplitude = 0.75

Amplitude = 2

Combination mode: this drop-down list defines the method used to combine the noise itera-
tions together:
• Add: values are added together.
• Blend: values are averaged.

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• Variable roughness: values are added depending on the result of the first iteration. Low
first iteration values mean lots of successive iterations being added in, high values mean
little influence of successive iterations.
• Variable roughness (abs): same as Variable roughness, except the distance to 0.5 is con-
sidered instead of the value of the first iteration itself.
• Max: the biggest value is retained.
• Max (abs): the value that is the furthest from 0.5 is retained.
• Min: the smallest value is retained.
• Min (abs): the value that is the closest to 0.5 is retained.
• Multiply: values are multiplied together.

Add

Blend

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Variable roughness

Variable roughness ABS

Max

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Max ABS

Min

Min ABS

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Multiply

Simple Fractal
This is the simplest type of fractal. It repeats the base noise uniformly.

The simple fractal node does not define any additional parameters.

Roughness = 0.5

Roughness = 1.0

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Roughness = 1.5

A cyclic version of this Simple Fractal is available. A cyclic Animated Simple Fractal is also
available. Refer here for more information.

Grainy Fractal
The Grainy fractal is particularly useful for color and bump patterns that exhibit a lot of detail
at all frequencies.

Roughness = 0.75

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Roughness = 1.0

With rotation: check this option if you want the noise to be rotated in between each harmonic.
This is useful if the base noise exhibits strong directional features and you want to minimize
these directional features.

Double noise: this option adds more interesting variations to the base noise. It is however
more complex to compute.

Noise Variation: use the Variation strength, Variation roughness, and Smooth area altitude
settings to control how the grain in the noise varies, and to create smooth and grainy areas.

Other: use the Distortion and Filter Steepness to add distortion to the overall fractal pattern,
as if it had been smeared around randomly. Steepness controls the amount of contrast in the
noise.

A cyclic version of this Grainy Fractal is available. Refer here for more information.

Terrain Fractal
This is the same as the grainy fractal, except that the noise/landscape type parameter can be
made to vary according to the altitude of previous iterations of the base noise. This results in
smooth areas at certain levels, and rougher areas away from this level. This node is mostly used
for creating natural-looking terrains.

Ridges Roughness = 0.5

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Ridges Roughness = 1.0

Plain noise Roughness = 0.5

Plain noise Roughness = 1.0

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Billows Roughness = 0.5

Billows Roughness = 1.0

Ridge Mix Roughness = 0.5

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Ridge Mix Roughness = 1.0

Billow-Ridge Mix Roughness = 0.5

Billow-Ridge Mix Roughness = 1.0

Distortion: adds distortion to the overall fractal pattern, as if it had been smeared around ran-
domly.

Bump surge: causes bumpy areas to rise above or sink below the average surface.

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Ridge smoothness: controls how much rounding is applied to the Perlin ridges/Billows. This
setting is not available in Plain noise mode.

Noise/Landscape type: this drop-down list defines the shape of the base noise.
• Ridges: a modified version of the Perlin noise that creates sharp ridges.
• Plain noise: the basic Perlin noise.
• Billows: a modified version of the Perlin noise that creates billows.
• Ridge-Mix: a blend of different ridged Perlin noises.
• Billow-Ridge Mix: a blend of billowy and ridged Perlin noises.
Blend: this setting is only available for mixed noise types. It controls the method used to com-
bine the noise and landscape iterations together.

A cyclic version of this Terrain Fractal is available. Refer here for more information.

Terrain Fractal 2
This node is a fractal function designed to create realistic terrain landscapes, similar to the Ter-
rain Fractal. Differences are:
• This fractal has a better variability of shapes, and the rough areas simulating rocks and
cliffs are more convincingly integrated in the relief.
• An optional stratification can be applied to create an effect similar to what a separate
Strata Filter node would achieve if fed with the fractal’s output, but with the added ad-
vantage of benefiting from knowledge of some of the fractal’s internal value: For exam-
ple, the strata follow the general relief of the landscape, to simulate the deformation of
actual geological strata due to landscape movements after the formation of the strata
themselves.
• Also, the stratification process is modulated to be much more visible on rough areas than
on smooth areas. This is because the smooth areas represent parts of the landscape
where sediments have covered the underlying, stratified rocks.
• Like most other fractals, Terrain Fractal 2 also provides a 2nd output which value reflects
the terrain roughness at the evaluated point.
Terrain Fractal 2 comes with several groups of parameters. The first group contains generic
parameters which are the same as those seen on other fractals. Please refer to previous docu-
mentation for details.

The Overall aspect parameters control the influence of the first few octaves of the fractal over
the rest of the algorithms. These octaves will define regions with different density of rocks.

Turbulence: controls the overall distortion of the terrain.

Turbulence damping: controls the influence of the first octaves’ turbulence on subsequent

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octaves of noise.

Large scale smoothness: controls the smoothness of the transition from regions of low rock
density to others of high rock density.

Large scale contrast: defines the range in which the rock population density can vary.

Buoyancy: controls the balance between large scale noise octaves and smaller scale ones. A
positive buoyancy means that the average altitude will be low and the rocky features will raise
above it, whereas with a negative value the features will dig below a higher average altitude. A
null buoyancy means that the average altitude will be around zero while some features will be
above it and some below it.

This fractal tries to simulate rocks emerging from a sedimentary soil. These rocks tend to be
gathered at specific places where the soil thickness is lower, whereas in thicker soil areas they
are almost all hidden below the sediments. The Ground aspect parameters control this.

Bump surge: controls how much the rocks will spring up out of the ground.

Rock abundance: controls the quantity of rocks visible.

Soil thickness: controls the typical thickness of the layer covering the rocks. A thin layer will
let more rocks show up, and most of the smoother areas will still retain a little bit of roughness.
On the other hand, a thicker layer will cover more rocks, and most of the smoother areas will
have almost no roughness at all.

Rock dispersion: controls how much rocks tend to be scattered in the landscape rather than
gathered in specific areas.

The Strata processing parameters are similar to those available on the Strata filter located in
the Recursive filters subcategory:

Processing strength: controls the influence of the strata filtering over the landscape.

Layer spacing: controls the height of the main layer.

Offset: allows fine-tuning of the vertical strata pattern positioning with respect to the underly-
ing terrain.

Rocky Mountains Fractal and Eroded Rocky Mountains

Fractal
This is a new type of fractal that produces terrain features typical of the tertiary geologic period.

Terrain features generated by this fractal are fully user adjustable. The fractal can also be used
to drive material distributions and produce a wide variety of appearances.

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The Base settings section of the fractal settings are the same as the Terrain fractal.

Separate mountains Roughness = 0.5

Separate mountains Roughness = 1.0

No Separate mountains Roughness = 0.5

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No Separate mountains Roughness = 1.0

Two flavors of this fractal are available in the Overall aspects section. The Separate moun-
tains checkbox drives this difference.

When this option is checked, the terrain appears as independent mountain “blocks” placed
side by side. This is useful when in need of one or several big summits or to overlay on top
of another relief. When the Separate mountains option is unchecked, the terrain appears as
independent basins separated by irregular mountain ridges. This can be a useful basis to define
interconnected or separate valleys, especially with proper distortion.

Number of iterations: this fractal is very specific in that it produces irregular ridges that appear
at each iteration. This means the lower frequency components will not be as visible as they are
in regular fractals. The trade-off is that it can be quite slow to compute with a lot of iterations.

Subdivision quality: the algorithm is in fact an approximation of an algorithm intrinsically

much slower. Therefore, some faults (discontinuities) can appear in the fractal. This quality
parameter allows some control over the performance/quality trade-off of the implementation.

Scale factor: each new iteration adds irregularities at a scale smaller than the previous itera-
tion. This parameter defines how much smaller each new iteration will be. A higher scale factor
will allow for smaller details with fewer iterations, but it will also be more predictable and less
appealing.

Flat level (per iteration): each iteration applies some pattern which is made of some very
smooth areas and some much rougher, ridged areas. This parameter controls the balance be-
tween the two types of areas. A high value will leave fewer ridges, while a lower value will yield
much smaller smooth areas.

Ground level: this parameter, especially useful when Separate mountains is ticked, makes
the fractal “sink” into the ground.

Stretch and distortion

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Stretch factor: the pattern applied at each new iteration is stretched along some privileged
direction, to reflect the way real ridge networks actually look like in a mountain range. This
parameter controls the amount of stretching. This parameter is ignored when the Separate
mountains setting is not checked, unless you are using Eroded Rocky Mountains.

Distortion: this parameter is quite similar to its namesake in Terrain Fractal. It distorts the input
coordinates in order to perturb the fractal overall aspect.

Optional rocks: when activated, this feature overlays rocks on top of the fractal itself.

Rock correlation: This optional feature adds rocks in the rough areas, while preserving the
smooth aspect of the flatter areas. To do this, it relies on the ridges seen at the iteration given
by this parameter.

Rock roughness and Rock height: These allow for finer control over the aspect of the overlaid
rocky fractal, and behave like Roughness and Gain would in a regular fractal.

2nd Output: Detect rough areas

Ref. feature size: The rough area output is divided into two subranges for easier filtering:
• Where there are no overlaid rocks, the underlying fractal’s rough value is used, as if Op-
tionalrocks were set to None. It is mapped to [-1;0].
• On overlaid rocks areas, their height over the underlying fractal is used as “rough” value,
mapped in [0; 1].
This is how to detour the rocks, at least when second output’s Ref. feature size is 0. When it is
not, rough area detection does not correlate with the terrain’s aspect and rock detouring is no
longer exact.

Fast Perlin Fractal

This is a highly optimized version of the Simple Fractal node, based on a standard Value-Perlin
noise with rotation. The number of settings in this fractal is limited in order to maximize effi-
ciency of the node. It is very useful for all cases where you need a basic – but good quality –
fractal pattern.

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Roughness = 0.5

Roughness = 1.0

Variable Roughness Fractal

This is the same as the simple fractal, except that the roughness parameter can be made to vary
according to the altitude of previous iterations of the base noise. This results in smooth areas
at certain levels, and rougher areas away from this level.

Smooth level: this is the reference level for minimum roughness of the fractal. The roughness
increases according to the distance to the smooth level.

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Smooth level = -0.6

Smooth level = -0.2

Smooth level = 0.1

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Smooth level = 0.5

Influence: this parameter controls the influence of the altitude on the roughness. If set to 0,
the Variable Roughness Fractal behaves exactly as a Simple Fractal.

Influence = 0

Influence = 0.4

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Influence = 0.6

Influence = 1

Local influence: this parameter controls how the roughness is computed according to altitude.
If set to 0, the roughness is modulated by altitude only. If set to 1, the roughness will be modu-
lated by the altitude of the last iteration of the noise, resulting in local patches of “smoothness”
appearing at different altitudes.

Local influence = 0

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Local influence = 0.4

Local influence = 0.6

Local influence = 1

Creep in: this parameter controls how much of the original roughness gets mixed back into the
local roughness at each iteration. Higher values mean that the variable roughness only affect
a few harmonics.

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Creep in = 0

Creep in = 0.02

Creep in = 0.1

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Creep in = 0.5

Variable Noise Fractal

This type of fractal is able to vary its base noise according to altitude. The first noise is used to
compute the first iteration. Subsequent iterations are computed by blending the two types of
noise according to altitude: the first type of noise will appear at lower altitudes, whereas the
second type of noise will appear at higher altitudes.

Variable Noise Fractals create very subtle variations in the surface properties. They are however
very slow to compute.

Noise 1: this is the same as the base noise setting common to all fractals.

Noise 2: this drop-down menu lets you select the second noise to be applied at higher altitudes.
You can edit the noise properties by pressing the Edit button.

Switch level: this parameter is similar to the smooth level parameter of Variable Roughness
fractals (see above). It controls the point at which the fractal switches its noise. If the altitude
is below the switch level, the fractal will use the first noise. If the altitude is higher than the
switch level, the fractal will use the second noise. Around the switch level, the two noises are
blended according to the altitude.

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Switch level = -1

Switch level = 0

Switch level = 0.2

Switch level = 0.5

Switch speed: controls the speed at which the fractal switches noise around the switch level.

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Switch speed = 0.1

Switch speed = 0.2

Switch speed = 0.5

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Switch speed = 1

Local influence: this parameter controls how the fractal decides which noise to use according
to altitude. If set to 0, the current altitude is used. If set to 1, the fractal will base its decision
solely on the last iteration of the noise, resulting in local patches of one noise appearing at
different altitudes.

Local influence = 0

Local influence = 0.5

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Local influence = 0.75

Local influence = 1

Three Noise Fractal

This is a complex fractal that mixes different noises according to the scale of the noise. It also
lets you control the fractal’s roughness in the same way as the Variable Roughness fractal.

Variable roughness: all the settings in this group behave as the Variable Roughness fractal’s
settings.

Turbulence damping: this setting controls the influence of the turbulence (origin shift) accord-
ing to the harmonic. If set to 0, turbulence will be applied to all harmonics the same. The higher
the value, the less harmonics that are affected by the turbulence – only large scale patterns are
affected by the turbulence.

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Damping = 0

Damping = 0.15

Damping = 0.4

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Damping = 0.5

Mid-scale noise: this is the second noise to be used by the fractal when the scale becomes less
than the change-over setting below.

Change-over scale: this is the scale below which the fractal switches its base noise to the mid-
scale noise.

Small-scale noise: this is the third noise to be used by the fractal when the scale gets very small
and becomes less than the small-scale change-over setting below.

Change-over scale: this is the scale below which the fractal switches its base noise to the small-
scale noise.

In the examples below, we will use the following noises:

Large scale noise: “Water cress”

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Mid scale noise: “Rectangular” Change over scale = 8

Small scale noise: “Sparse cracks” Change over scale = 2

Zoom 0: water cress noise is mostly visible

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Zoom x8: some small rectangles from rectangular noise start appearing

Zoom x80: mostly patterns from the rectangular noise, but the sparse cracks are starting to show
up

Zoom x300: at large zoom levels, the sparse cracks noise dominates

Open Ocean
The Open Ocean node is a simple simulation of open ocean water surfaces. It will create a nice
simulation of the surface of the water, but it will not take into account any surrounding objects

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– hence the name. This node works best when used to produce the altitude function of a pro-
cedural terrain. By assigning a “World – Standard” mapping mode to the terrain and resizing
the terrain in the Top view so that it fills up the entire world will yield very nice “infinite” ocean
surfaces.

This node is not a fractal per se, because the shape of the waves is different depending on the
size of the wave, and there is a wave size under which the waves stop appearing (due to water
surface tension). However, at larger scales, it does exhibit a somewhat fractal behavior, hence
its classification in this category.

Unlike other fractal nodes, the Open Ocean node does not use a base noise to create water pat-
terns. The “With rotation” and “Roughness” parameters do not exist either. Because this node
takes all of its parameters into account to create a simulation that is as accurate as possible,
the actual “roughness” of the water surface is controlled through other settings:

Wind direction: this parameter controls the direction in which the wind is blowing, as seen
from above (the azimuth). A value of zero will make the wind blow from left to right in Top view.
A value of 90° will make the wind blow from top to bottom in Top view. There is no relationship
between this wind setting and the wind or breeze effects applied to plants.

Intensity: this parameter controls the intensity of the wind. Higher values will realistically lead
to higher waves and rougher water surfaces.

Wind intensity = 0

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Wind intensity = 0.7

Wind intensity = 1

Wind intensity = 2

Wave agitation tweak: this parameter lets you adjust the overall velocity of the waves created
by the Open Ocean node. Its effects are only visible in animations. Values greater than 1 will
make the waves move faster at the surface of the water, while values less than 1 will slow down
the waves.

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Foam output: when you connect to the Open Ocean node, you get the choice between Altitude
and Foam outputs. The Foam output represents the typical foam density at the top of waves,
and can be exported for use in the Material Editor to realistically distribute foam on the water.

Agitation tweak = 0.2 waves move slowly in animations

Agitation tweak = 2: waves move quickly in animations

Choppiness: this parameter controls the shape of the waves. Small values will yield soft round
waves, whereas high values will produce choppy waves that are sharp at their top.

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Choppiness = 0

Choppiness = 0.5

Choppiness = 0.7

Choppiness = 1

Gain: like with other fractal nodes, this parameter lets you adjust the altitude of the waves with-
out interfering on the other settings of the simulation. It is generally recommended that you
leave this value to the default value of 1 as this creates a realistic water simulation. This param-

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eter may however come in useful, for instance if you have resized the supporting procedural
terrain vertically.

Gain = 0.3

Gain = 1

Gain = 2

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Gain = 10

Color Nodes

Color nodes all output a color. Depending on the type of node, they either convert a number
into a color (the color creation nodes), or convert one color into another color (the color correc-
tion nodes). The Color Map node (see below) can also output an alpha value.

Color Creation Nodes

Color Map
This node basically converts a number in between -1 and 1 into a color or an alpha value using
a color map.

Color map: this defines the color map used for the conversion of the input value into a color
and alpha. You can load a color map by double-clicking on the color map control, and you can
edit the color map by selecting Edit Color Map from the popup menu. Please turn here for
details on editing color maps.

If you connect another node to an output of this color map node, you will have the choice of
connecting to its color output, or its alpha output.

2 Color Output
This node produces only two colors, according to the value of the input.

Color 1: if the input value is less than the threshold, the node outputs this color.

Color 2: if the input value is greater than the threshold, the node outputs this color.

Threshold: defines the value at which the output color switches from the first to the second
color.

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Linear Interpolation 2
This color node blends the two colors according to the input value.

Color 1: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is -1.

Color 2: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is +1.

Spline Interpolation 2
This color node blends the two colors according to the input value. This is similar to the previ-
ous node, except that the interpolation profile favors the extreme colors (you will see more of
the actual 2 colors you defined than you would using the linear interpolation node).

Color 1: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is -1.

Color 2: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is +1.

3 Color Output
This is similar to the 2 color output node, only this node can output any one of three colors,
according to the value of the input relative to the values of the 2 thresholds.

Color 1: if the input value is less than the first threshold, the node outputs this color.

Color 2: if the input value is greater than the first threshold, and less than the second threshold,
the node outputs this color.

Color 3: if the input value is greater than the second threshold, the node outputs this color.

First threshold: defines the value at which the output color switches from the first to the sec-
ond color.

Second threshold: defines the value at which the output color switches from the second to the
third color.

Linear Interpolation 3
This color node blends the three colors according to the input value.

Color 1: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is -1.

Color 2: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is 0.

Color 3: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is +1.

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Spline Interpolation 3
This color node blends the three colors according to the input value. This is similar to the pre-
vious node, except that the interpolation profile favors the extreme colors (you will see more
of the actual first and third colors you defined than you would using the linear interpolation
node).

Color 1: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is -1.

Color 2: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is 0.

Color 3: this defines the color output by the node when the input value is +1.

Color Variation
This creates variation in roughness and noise using one color only.

Color 1: click on the color box to select the color from the color chart.

Roughness: defines the rough areas in the color.

Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes made to the color.

Noise Variation: use the slider to increase or decrease noise variation.

Strength: defines the strength of the noise.

Noise Scale: defines the overall scale of the noise.

Color Brightness Variation

This takes the variation from the Color Variation node and adds brightness and saturation to
the mix.

Color 1: click on the color box to select the color from the color chart.

Roughness: defines the rough areas in the color.

Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes made to the color.

Noise Variation: use the slider to increase or decrease noise variation.

Color Variation: this is the amount of variation in the color.

Brightness Variation: this adjusts the brightness of the color.

Saturation Variation: this increases or decreases the strength of the color.

Noise Scale: defines the overall scale of the noise.

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Two Color Variation

This creates variation in roughness and noise using one color only.

Color 1: click on the color box to select the color from the color chart.

Color 2: select a second color to mix with the first color.

Roughness: defines the rough areas in the color.

Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes made to the color.

Noise Variation: use the slider to increase or decrease noise variation.

Noise Scale: defines the overall scale of the noise.

Natural Color Blend 2

This produces more natural or realistic color variations for terrains, ground, or any natural ele-
ment in the scene, and provide an easy access to settings such as contrast, balance or rough-
ness.

Color 1: click the color box to choose color 1 from the color chart.

Use color 2: check to use a second color.

Color 2: click the color box to choose color 2 from the color chart.

There are controls for you to manipulate the color(s).

Noise Scale: defines the overall scale of the noise. This should typically remain high (2000 by
default) for a terrain or ground.

Roughness: defines the rough areas in the color.

Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes made to the color.

Balance: defines the balance of the two colors.

Distortion: defines any distortion, if any.

Noise Variation: use the slider to increase or decrease noise variation.

’Alpha grain: this should be enabled only if the current material layer is not a leaf layer. In this
case, it automatically adds ALPHA to produce the same kind of pattern as the color noise.

Color Variation Map

This node takes advantage of color gradient maps to produce a mixed material.

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Color Map
Color Map: click the color box to select a gradient map to use.

Other
Roughness: defines rough areas in the color.

Contrast: defines the contrast of the changes in the color.

Noise Variation: use the slider to increase or decrease noise variation.

Noise Scale: set the scale of the noise pattern

Terrain Color Patterns

This node is a fractal function designed to create color patterns, typically for use in the Material
Editor’s functions. It produces a mix of smooth and rough variations of colors similar to the
distribution of rocks on a sedimentary soil. It is in fact based on the new algorithm developed
for Terrain Fractal 2.

The Terrain Color Patterns node provides several groups of parameters.

The Roughness aspect parameters are very much inspired from the “Ground aspect” parame-
ters of the “Terrain Fractal 2” node.
• Bump surge: controls the contrast between rougher and smoother areas.
• Roughness abundance: controls the overall quantity of roughness present in the pat-
terns.
• Smooth Threshold: controls the smoothness of the transition strip.
• Roughness dispersion: controls how much the roughness tends to be scattered in the
patterns rather than gathered in specific areas.
• Roughness trend at higher frequency: controls whether roughness increases or de-
creases at higher frequency.
The Strata processing parameters are similar to those available on the “Strata” filter located
in the “Recursive” filters subcategory:
• Processing strength: controls the influence of the strata filtering over the color patterns.
• Layer spacing: controls the height of the main layer.
• Offset: allows fine-tuning of the vertical strata pattern positioning with respect to the
underlying patterns.

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Color Correction Nodes

The color correction nodes apply modifications to the color that is passed to them as input.

Common Settings
The following setting is common to quite a few color correction nodes:

Allow luminous colors: when this option is checked, VUE will generate colors that are brighter
than white. Such colors actually generate light; they can produce very interesting lighting ef-
fects when used in conjunction with a radiosity rendering. If you don’t check this option, colors
will be clamped at white.

Gamma
This color correction node lets you adjust the gamma setting for the color.

Gamma: the gamma color correction parameter. Higher gamma values will produce darker,
more saturated colors.

Gain
This color correction node lets you adjust the gain setting for the color. Higher gain values boost
the contrast of medium brightness colors.

Gain: the gain color correction parameter.

Brightness
This color correction node lets you adjust the brightness setting for the color.

Brightness: the brightness color correction parameter.

Contrast
This color correction node lets you adjust the contrast setting for the color.

Contrast: the contrast color correction parameter.

HLS Shift
HLS stands for Hue-Luminosity-Saturation. It is another way of working with colors than the
standard Red-Green-Blue paradigm.

This color correction node lets you adjust the overall brightness (luminosity), color tone (hue)
and saturation of your colors.

Hue shift: this parameter controls the amount of shifting applied to the color’s hue.

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Luminosity shift: this parameter controls the amount of shifting applied to the color’s lumi-
nosity – in effect, a brightness setting.

Saturation shift: this parameter controls the amount of shifting applied to the color’s satura-
tion. Strong negative values will convert all colors to black and white (desaturation).

HLS Color Shift

This color correction node is similar to the previous one, in the sense that it also lets you adjust
the overall brightness, color tone and saturation of your colors – however, adjustment is done
via a color instead of independent parameters.

HLS shift color: this color is used to define the color correction that is applied to the colors. The
default color is a pale shade of blue. If you edit this color, you will notice that it corresponds to
a medium setting (128) for hue, luminosity and saturation. If you modify the hue for this HLS
shift color, this modification of hue will be applied to all the colors passed to the node. In the
same way, if you modify the luminosity or saturation, this modification will be applied to the
colors passed to the node.

Filter
The filter color correction node multiplies all colors by the filter color – as if colors where seen
through a colored gel.

Filter color: this parameter defines the color applied as a filter. Double-click to edit the color.

Perspective
The perspective color correction node replaces darker colors with the perspective color.

Perspective color: this parameter defines the color used to replace the darker colors. Double-
click to edit the color.

Color Blender
The Color Blender node will blend the input color with a solid color.

Blending color: this is the color that will be blended in with the input color.

Blending ratio: this controls the amount of blending that takes place between the input color
and the blending color. The higher the value, the more the blending color affects the input
color.

Color mask: if this option is selected, the color is applied in replacement of the input color.
When the blending ratio is set to 0%, the color is applied as a mask. When set at 100% the color
completely replaces the bitmap. If this option is not selected, the blending color is applied in
product (as a filter).

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Texture Map Nodes

Mapping Nodes
The following nodes allow to incorporate image data into the plant or material graph.

Importing images
Each node has an load icon that allows to select a picture file. It will open the internal browser
to select something.

During loading, the software may ask for map type information, in addition to the information
present in the file. The current node connections define the subset you can choose from, as-
suming you load something that is suited to those connections. If only one connection is found,
its type is used, and nothing asked.

The map type can also be recognized from the file name, see Texture File Tag Editor. In that
case nothing is asked. You may get a warning if it does not match the node connections.

See also Metadata for more information on image metadata.

Common parameters
Tiling mode
Texture maps are mapped onto objects using UV coordinates. The image area is associated by
default to the [0; 1]x[0; 1] UV range. But that can change when using texture scaling or if the
objects have UV outside that range.

To define what is happening outside of the texture area, we have to use the tiling mode. There
is a distinct mode for X and Y axis.
• Repeat: this is the default. The image is repeated periodically along this axis.
• Mirror: in this mode, the image is also repeated indefinitely, however, it is mirrored each
time so that the repetitions join seamlessly.
• Once: the image is displayed only once along this axis, the outside value will be zero
(means black if there is no alpha, or transparent otherwise)
• Extend : the image is displayed only once along this axis, but the outside value will use
the nearest pixel.

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Interpolation mode
When the material is seen from very close, you may see pixels due to the limited resolution of
the picture. To reduce this effect, choose a method from:
• None : pixels will appear flat, with hard edges between them.
• Bi-linear : Bi-linear interpolation between pixels.
• Bi-cubic : Bi-cubic interpolation between pixels (continuous derivative).
• Normalized : Deprecated mode, will be replaced by Bi-cubic on use.

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Texture Map
The Texture Map node is used to map a picture onto objects. Its input is a texture coordinate,
and the texture map node returns the color of the pixel in the texture map that is at the point
indicated by the texture coordinate.

When you create a Texture Map node, the application automatically creates a “UV Coordinates”
node and connects it to the node’s input. You can use the “UV Coordinates” node to define how
the picture is mapped onto the object (see below for details on the “UV Coordinates” node).

Texture map nodes can be made to output any of the following values:
• Color output: the color of the pixel in the texture map that is at the point indicated by
the texture coordinates.
• Grayscale output: the color of the pixel converted to a grayscale value.
• Alpha output: the alpha value corresponding to that pixel (if the point is inside the image,
or 0 if it is outside the image).
When you connect a node to the output, a popup menu will appear so that you can select the
desired type of output.

Image: double-click on the image preview to load a new picture to be used as texture map. You

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can rotate the picture by increments of 90° using the and buttons. If you need to invert
the values, you can do so by pressing the button.

Image offset: the image can be positioned precisely by using these parameters. These will shift
the image around the origin (in pixel units).

Tiling mode X/Y: See Tiling mode.

Interpolation type: See Interpolation mode.

Note:

images mapped using the Texture map node are not mip-mapped. If you would like to enable
mip-mapping for this map, you should use the Projected Texture Map node instead.

Projected Texture Map

The Projected Texture Map node is used to map a picture onto objects. It uses the coordinates of
the current point to determine the color of the pixel in the texture map at that point. This node
effectively combines the features of the Texture Map node (see above) and the UV Coordinates
node (see here). Please refer to these nodes for a description of the settings available in the
Projected Texture Map node. One additional setting is specific to the Projected Texture Map
node: the “Allow mip-mapping” option.

Allow mip-mapping: mip-mapping is a process whereby the software automatically gener-

ates lower resolution versions of the image and uses them instead of the full-blown image as
soon as it is seen from a distance. While the results produced using mip-mapping are generally
smoother, certain images may actually look better without mip-mapping. This option is here
so that you can forbid mip-mapping for a specific image, should you need to (just uncheck the
option).

Note:

You can control the level of mip-mapping for the entire scene using the “Texture filtering” op-
tion in the Anti-Aliasing Options dialog (see here).

Images mapped using the Projected Texture Map node will be mip-mapped according to global
scene settings and the “Allow mip-mapping” option.

Layer Index: this setting allows to define which UV laver will be used in case the object has
several UV layers defined.

Mapping position mode: This settings defines in which space the position used to compute
the 2D texture map coordinates is defined. The modes are: Automatic, World-Standard, World-
Parametric, Object-Standard and Object-Parametric.

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For Projected Texture Maps, a Texture Placement Editor is available for manipulation of the
texture directly on the object. For more information about this Texture Placement Editor, please
refer here.

Animation Map
The Animation Map node is used to map an animated texture onto objects. Its input is a texture
coordinate and a time, and the animation map node returns the color of the pixel in the current
frame of the animated texture map that is at the point indicated by the texture coordinate.

When you create an Animation Map node, the application automatically creates a “UV Coordi-
nates” node and connects it to the node’s input. You can use the “UV Coordinates” node to
define how the animation is mapped onto the object (see below for details on the “UV Coordi-
nates” node).

Texture map nodes can be made to output any of the following values:
• Color output: the color of the pixel in the texture map that is at the point indicated by
the texture coordinate.
• Grayscale output: the color of the pixel converted to a grayscale value.
• Alpha output: the alpha value corresponding to that pixel (if the point is inside the image,
or 0 if it is outside the image).
When you connect a node to the output, a popup menu will appear so that you can select the
desired type of output.

Image sequence: this is the list of pictures to use in the animation. You can add new pictures
by clicking the Load icon ( ). You can replace pictures in the list by selecting them and then
pressing Load. To remove images from the list, select them and then press the Remove icon
( ).

Frame rate: this defines the playback rate of the pictures on the list. Ideally, this should at least
be equal to the global animation frame rate.

Interpolate frames: when this option is selected, in-between frames are interpolated by grad-
ually blending the previous and the next frames. This ensures smooth playback and will avoid
any jumps in the animated texture.

Animation filter: use this filter to change the flow of time in the animated texture. Double-click
on the filter to load a filter, or select Edit from the filter’s popup menu to edit the filter.

Phase: use this to adjust the start frame in the animation sequence. The value has to be set in
seconds.

Image offset, Mirror X & Y are identical to the settings in the Color tab of the Advanced Material
Editor (see here).

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Tiling mode X/Y: See Tiling mode.

Interpolation type: See Interpolation mode.

Warning: if several frames of the animation are required to render the texture correctly at a
given time (e.g. after connecting the phase to a noise), memory requirements may increase
and rendering may slow down significantly.

The Animation Map node doesn’t support mip-mapping. If you would like your animation map
to be mip-mapped, please use the Projected Animation Map node below instead.

Projected Animation Map Node

The Projected Animation Map node is used to map an animation onto objects. It uses the coordi-
nates of the current point and the time input to determine the color of the corresponding pixel
in the appropriate frame of the texture map. This node effectively combines the features of the
Animation Map node (see above) and the UV Coordinates node (see here). Please refer to these
nodes for a description of the settings available in the Projected Animation Map node. One
additional setting is specific to the Projected Animation Map node: the “Allow mip-mapping”
option.

Allow mip-mapping: mip-mapping is a process whereby the software automatically gener-

ates lower resolution versions of the image and uses them instead of the full-blown image as
soon as it is seen from a distance. While the results produced using mip-mapping are generally
smoother, certain images may actually look better without mip-mapping. This option is here
so that you can forbid mip-mapping for a specific image, should you need to (just uncheck the
option).

Note:

You can control the level of mip-mapping for the entire scene using the “Texture filtering” op-
tion in the Anti-Aliasing Options dialog (see here).

Images mapped using the Projected Animation Map node will be mip-mapped according to
global scene settings and the “Allow mip-mapping” option.

Layer Index: this setting allows to define which UV laver will be used in case the object has
several UV layers defined.

Mapping position mode: This settings defines in which space the position used to compute the
2D texture map coordinates is defined. The modes are: Automatic, World – Standard, World –
Parametric, Object – Standard and Object – Parametric.

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Blended Image Node

This node is similar to the Texture Map Node, except that it blends the image into an existing
color input, using a smooth blending strip. Outside the image, the input color remains unaf-
fected. Inside the image, the input color is replaced by the image. If the image defines an alpha
channel, this value will be used in the blending ratio.

This node outputs the following values:

• Color output: the color of the pixel in the texture map that is at the point indicated by
the texture coordinate.
• Grayscale output: the color of the pixel converted to a grayscale value.
• Alpha output: the alpha value corresponding to that pixel (if the point is inside the image,
or 0 if it is outside the image).
• Blend ratio: the proportion of the input color that was replaced by the image according
to the blend profile and position in the image (not taking into account the image’s alpha
value).
The settings available for this node are the following:

Image offset is identical to the settings in the Texture Map node.

Interpolation type: See Interpolation mode.

Smooth blending strip lets you define how gradual the blending is. A value of 0 means that the
image replaces the input color as soon as the point is inside the image. A value of 100% means
that the image fully replaces the input color solely at the exact center of the image.

Blend profile: this setting controls how the blending is done. Possible values are:
• Square: the blend ratio is defined according to the distance to the nearest edge of the
image.
• Round: the blend ratio is defined according to the distance from the center of the image.

Blended Grayscale Image Node

This node is identical to the “Blended Image” node, with the difference that it acts on a number
instead of a color (the input value is a number instead of a color). This number is replaced by
the grayscale value of the image at the current point, according to the same rules as with the
“Blended Image” node. This is particularly useful when designing procedural terrain functions,
and you want to add real-world data at some point: simply use a “Blended Grayscale Image”
node to replace the procedural altitudes with a DEM file at the desired location. Thanks to the
smooth blending strip, the procedural altitudes will automatically blend into the DEM altitudes.

On top of the “Blended Image” node parameters, this node defines the following additional
parameters:

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Gain: this is a gain factor that is applied to the grayscale values in the image (in order to adapt
to the range of input values the range of values defined by the image).

Offset: this is an offset that is applied to the grayscale values in the image.

Unlike the “Blended Image” node, this node does not define a “Color” output.

Image Sample and Multi­Image Sample Nodes

These texture map nodes are used with the Image Combiner node to create different texture
effects. These need to be processed through the Image Combiner node or the transparency
information won’t be processed correctly.

Each image sample node has the following settings, reflecting similar settings in the Material
Editor. The image and pathname are displayed and various types of UV Coordinates can be
selected:
• Automatic
• Flat (vertical)
• Faces
• Cylindrical
• Spherical
• Torical
• Conical
• Automatic UV
You can position the picture precisely on the object by using the Image offset commands. This
will move the picture around by increments of one pixel.

When the material is seen from very close, you may see pixels, due to the limited resolution of
the picture. To reduce this effect, choose an Interpolation type method:
• None: No over sampling.
• Bi-linear: Bi-linear interpolation between pixels.
• Normalized: Values proportional to the distance to the corners of the pixel.
• Bi-cubic: Bi-cubic interpolation between pixels (continuous derivative).
Density controls how many times the image is repeated.

In the Rotation section, you can select to rotate image samples in range and set the range using
the slider.

You can also opt to Flip the image horizontally and/or vertically.

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In the Scale section, you can indicate the Global Sample Scale of the picture along the X and
Y axes with options to scale certain ranges on the X, Y axes. There is also an option to Keep
proportions with scaling.

Use the Image Sample node to create even more special effects with image-based textures.

Ptex node
This node allows to extract two channels for a ptx file. Alpha channel (flagged inside the ptx file
if present) can be retrieve with the alpha output. The three first other channel are merge into a
color output.

Note:

For this node to work properly, the underlying geometry of the material should match exactly
the geometry exported with the ptx file.

Substance
The Substance node is basically a Texture Map node, but rather than directly using a picture,
it reads a Substance archive file (.sbsar) to extract all included texture maps, which can then
be connected to the matching outputs.
Its input still is a texture coordinate, but the Substance node returns several pieces of informa-
tion about the pixel that is at the point indicated by the texture coordinate in the supported
texture maps.
So far the handled texture maps are base color/diffuse, metallic/specular, roughness/glossiness
(depending on the used PBR Workflow), bump, ambient occlusion, normal, height, and emis-
sive.

Note:

VUE does not directly support the diffuse, specular, glossiness and emissive maps.
It uses the information within them to build, with the help of the PBR Workflow Converter and
Emissive to Luminous Converter nodes, the base color, metallic, roughness and luminous
maps which it handles natively.
In particular, when loading Substance materials, please be aware that:
– the building of the base color map, at a given position, follows this priority order:
- pixel from the emissive map if not black
- pixel from the specular map if the one in diffuse map is strictly below (30, 30, 30) grey
(meaning all three red, green and blue components are strictly below 30 on a [0; 255] range)
- pixel from the diffuse map
– the metallic map is white wherever the diffuse map is strictly below (30, 30, 30), and black
everywhere else
– the roughness map is the inverted glossiness map (white becomes black and vice versa)
– the luminous map is white wherever the emissive map is not black, and black everywhere

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else

Also, VUE does not allow displacement and bump to be applied at the same time, so height
map will be used over bump map, were both of those to be included within the Substance.

The automatic creation of a UV Coordinates node is the same with a Substance node as with a
Texture Map node.

The parameters related to the Substance itself are displayed and you can tweak them inside
VUE like you would from Substance Player.
However, please be aware that so far not all parameters may be supported.
The look and feel in VUE try, but will not exactly match the graphical interface of Substance
Player either.

Preset: as soon as you change a Substance parameter, this will be set to Custom.
In addition to the loaded Substance potential presets, this select box includes Default, which
lets you revert to default values.

Tiling mode X/Y: See Tiling mode.

Interpolation type: See Interpolation mode.

When you load a Substance archive file (.sbsar) as a material, the node will be created and all
supported texture maps will be fed to the matching outputs.
If you create a Substance node from the function graph, you will have to give a .sbsar file path
first.
Even then, the connection between the different texture maps and outputs is left up to you.
Creating a Substance node from scratch is much more complicated than loading the .sbsar file
as a material, for many texture maps require conversion nodes before they can be connected
to the function graph outputs.

Note:

mip-mapping with Substance node is not supported yet.

OpenVDB
Note:

This node is still under development, it will be improved further

This node allows to extract values from a vdb file. You can choose a vdb file as a parameter for
this node. For each grid in the chosen vdb file, an output will be created. VUE supports vector
and scalar grids but not point grids.

You have now 4 mapping modes :

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• World Position: old mapping mode, the entry must be the world position. The range is
defined as inside the vdb.
• [0; 1] Range: the mapping maps the bottom left point to 0,0,0 and the top right point to
1,1,1.
• Object Local: the vdb is made to match the object so that the bottom left point of the
object in space is the bottom left point of the grid. It also take into account the transfor-
mation( rotation/scaling ) of the object
• Fit to world box: same as above but it ignore the rotation of the object.
We also added a Repeat check box that makes the entry loops if it is outside of its intended
range ( otherwise, everything outside values 0 )

UV Coordinates Node
This node converts the current position into a texture coordinate. It is automatically created
when you create a texture or animation map node.
• Scale: defines the overall size of the texture map along its two axes.
• Origin: defines the point of origin of the projection – e.g., when mapping in spherical
coordinates, defines the center of the sphere.
• Mapping mode: this setting defines the method used by the node to convert 3D coordi-
nates into the 2D texture map coordinates. There are several mapping modes available,
each of them better suited for some types of objects. If you don’t know which to use, se-
lect Automatic. For details on the different mapping modes, please refer to the Material
Editor section about material colors being mapped from a picture (see here).
• Layer Index: This setting allows to define which UV laver will be used in case the object
has several UV layers defined.
• Mapping position mode: This settings defines in which space the position used to com-
pute the 2D texture map coordinates is defined. The modes are: Automatic, World – Stan-
dard, World – Parametric, Object – Standard and Object – Parametric.

Filter Nodes

Environment Sensitive Filters

Environment sensitive filters are able to adapt their response according to the local altitude,
slope and orientation.

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Altitude
The Altitude filter modulates its response according to altitude. For points at low altitudes, the
filter output will 0.

Influence: this setting controls the percentage of the input signal that is modulated according
to altitude.

Min effect altitude: this setting controls the altitude below which the response of the filter is
uniformly 0.

Max effect altitude: this setting controls the altitude above which the filter’s output is identi-
cal to the input. In between the two altitudes, the response of the filter is a blend of the two
outputs.

If the two altitudes are inverted (i.e. max effect is actually lower than min effect), the behavior
of the filter will be inverted (i.e. the filter will output 0 at all altitudes greater than min effect).

Slope
The Slope filter modulates its response according to slope. For points at low altitudes, the filter
output will 0.

Influence: this setting controls the percentage of the input signal that is modulated according
to slope.

Min effect slope: this setting controls the slope below which the response of the filter is uni-
formly 0.

Max effect slope: this setting controls the slope above which the filter’s output is identical to
the input. In between the two slopes, the response of the filter is a blend of the two outputs.

If the two slopes are inverted (i.e. max effect is actually lower than min effect), the behavior of
the filter will be inverted (i.e. the filter will output 0 at all slopes greater than min effect).

Altitude and Slope

This filter is a combination of the two above filters. It modulates its response according to the
altitude and the slope.

The Min and Max effect settings are identical to the two previous filters. The Altitude and Slope
filter also lets you adjust the relative influence of altitude and slope on the filter’s response
through the use of the Importance settings. The higher the importance of altitude, the stronger
the influence the altitude will have on the filter’s output. Ditto for slope.

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Orientation
The Orientation filter modulates its response according to orientation of the surface on which
the function is being computed. For points of the surface aiming in the opposite direction to
the favored azimuth, the filter output will 0.

Favored azimuth: this parameter controls the azimuth of the direction in which the response
of the filter will be unmodified. As the surface points away from this favored direction, the
response of the filter gradually decreases until it reaches 0.

Tightness: this parameter controls the angular tolerance around the favored azimuth. If the
tightness is 0, all points that are less than 90° away from the favored azimuth will get some
filter response. Points that look in the opposite direction will get 0 response.

Transition speed: this parameter controls the speed at which the filter transitions from no
response to full response as the surface points more towards the favored azimuth.

Environment
The environment filter is a combination of the orientation filter and the altitude and slope filter.

The parameters in the Environment filter are identical to those of these two filters (see above
for a description of these parameters).

Patches
The Patches filter is a very special filter that automatically creates uniform patches on horizon-
tal surfaces. The filter can output two values:
• Patch value: this is the standard filter’s output,
• Presence on patch: this output is 1 if the current point is in a patch, and 0 otherwise.
When you connect a link to the filter’s output, a menu will appear to let you select the desired
output.

Altitude and slope settings: all the settings in the Altitude and Slope groups are identical to
those in the Altitude and Slope filter.

Patch size: this parameter controls the average size of the patches.

Patch height: this parameter controls the average difference in height between areas that are
on the patches, and areas that are outside the patches.

Noisiness: this parameter controls how uniform the edges of the patches are. Higher values
mean that the patch edges are defined according to the variations in the underlying signal.

Transition speed: this parameter controls the speed at which the filter transitions from outside
onto the inside of a patch. It affects the steepness of the patch edges.

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Surface noise: this parameter controls the amount of underlying noise that remains at the
surface of the patches.

Recursive Nodes

Diagram – Strata node parameters

The Recursive strata filters generate steps of a given size and orientation. The node is applied
recursively until the setting limits are reached, exactly like a fractal.

The filter uses a pattern, repeated as many times as needed, spanning the whole (potentially
tilted) Z axis in the standard Strata filter or restricted to the confining range for the Confined
Strata filter. At each iteration, the filter is applied on the result of the previous iteration, with
all distance parameters halved (i.e. spacing and thickness).

Though the parameter names are semantically related to the concept of rock strata in a terrain,
the filter can, of course, be applied to any kind of scalar input to generate a complex banded
pattern. Once could also stratify a positions’ coordinates before calling a fractal, to have a result
along the x and/or y axis similar to what is obtained along the vertical axis when this filter is
applied after a fractal’s input.

The pattern is made of original input (marked (1) on diagram):

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A rock layer, itself separated in two parts (marked (2) on diagram):

• Step from bottom to top of the layer (marked (3) on diagram)
• Plateau from the top of the layer to the invariant layer (marked (4) on the diagram)
An invariant layer, on which the filter does nothing.

Strata Processing Data Parameters

Processing strength: This indicates how much of the effect is actually taken into account in
the output result. For example, if the value in this field is equal to .5, the output is half the input
and half the stratified altitude.

Rock layer hardness (marked s on the diagram): The harder the layer, the steeper the filter’s
step between the bottom and the top of each rock layer.

Rock layer thickness (marked H on the diagram): The thickness can be smaller than the spac-
ing between layers. Values higher then layer spacing are clipped.

Layer spacing: This is the distance between the repetition of two filtering patterns (marked SP
on the diagram).

Plateau filling (marked f on the diagram): This option controls the slope of the plateau. At 0,
the plateau is parallel to the underlying planes, whereas as the value rises, the plateau is raised,
taking over more and more in the invariant range, which is correspondingly reduced.

Smooth edges (marked e on the diagram): This is the range which the filtered input is smoothed
to avoid too sharp edges on the output result. To avoid cluttering, the figure only shows smooth-
ing on the transition -> plateau edge (2) to (3), but the other two edges are smoothed as well
(3) to (4), i.e. plateau -> unchanged range, and (4) to (2), unchanged range -> transition.

Smallest feature: This parameter tells how fine grained the filtering needs to be, i.e. how many
iterations will occur.

These parameters are not measured directly on the input noise since the strata can be tilted.
Rather, they are measured along the axis perpendicular to the potentially tilted strata planes.

Strata Positioning Features

Strata can be viewed as planes cutting through the terrain (or any other object). Parameters
are:

Tilt heading (degrees): This defines the orientation of the axis around which the strata/planes
will be tilted. In the diagram, this is represented in a vertical plane perpendicular to this axis.

Tilt angle (degrees): This defines the angle of rotation of the strata/planes.

Offset: This is an offset between the bottom of the “first” rock layer and the origin. Not shown

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on the diagram, this value would offset the point at which the strata crosses the origin R alone
one the axis perpendicular to the strata, like the one marked (5). It means the whole pattern of
stratification (iterations included) is offset. Simulating strata deformation is then possible, by
having the offset depend on X and Y.

2nd Output: Detect Rough Areas

Like a fractal, this recursive filter is capable of outputting some measure of the variation in-
duced on the input noise. The output will vary roughly in [-1:1]. Here is the meaning of the
value output when only one octave is considered:

At -1, the input was not affected at all by the stratification process (range (4) on the diagram, or
outside the confinement area, in the case of confined stratification).

At 0, the input landed on a plateau (range (3) on the diagram).

At 1, the input landed on a transition (range (2) on the diagram).

When several octaves of stratification are included in the second output computation, the val-
ues at each octave are summed, with coefficients for each octave depending on the value of
the parameters.

Confined Strata
The Confined Strata filter requires another set of parameters for stratification altitude.

Don’t stratify below: This is the bottom of the stratification range.

Don’t stratify above: This is the top of the stratification range.

Fade in/fade out height: This is the distance along which the stratification area is faded in/out
inside the stratification range. This smoothes the transition with the unfiltered range.

Origin is also added to Strata positioning, replacing the Offset parameter of the Strata func-
tion. With Confined Strata, a 3D offset is more practical. For example, when the strata is tilted,
the confined range will only cross the input range in a specific area. To allow for precise control
of this area’s positioning, the origin must be fully customizable.

3D Stratification
This node uses as input a vector (like a position), and the result on the output position will be
the same as applying a “Strata” filter node on each of the coordinates of the vector. It is easier
to use because no composer/decomposer node is required, and the parameters for all three
strata filters are gathered in a single, compact interface.

Since it filters a full 3D vector, a good place to insert it in a graph is between the input position
and the fractal or noise node on which the effect is desired.

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Input Filters
These filters are designed to modify the profile of the input values according to a simple filtering
rule.

Filter
This filter uses a standard Filter control to determine the output profile.

Filter: this is the filter that is used to determine the output profile. Double-click on the filter
control to load a new filter, or select Edit from the popup menu to edit the filter. Please turn
here for details on editing filters.

Partial Filter
This is similar to the previous filter, except that you can modulate the amount of the signal that
is actually filtered through the filter.

Filter: see above.

Filter ratio: this parameter controls the level of filtering of the signal. If set to 0, the output is
unfiltered. If set to 1, the output is identical to the above Filter node. If set to 0.5, half of the
signal will be filtered, and the other half will remain unfiltered.

Offset (X + a)
This is a very simple filter that adds an offset to the input signal.

Offset: this parameter controls the amount that is added to the filter’s input.

Opposite (−X)
This filter simply returns the opposite of the input signal.

Multiply (aX)
This filter simply multiplies the input signal by a value.

Multiply by: this parameter controls the amount by which the input signal is multiplied.

Divide (X/a)
This filter simply divides the input signal by a value.

Divide by: this parameter controls the amount by which the input signal is divided.

Note: the equivalent Divide node in the Math category can be used to get the remainder of the
division, as well as the standalone Remainder node also located there.

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Brightness­Contrast (aX + b)
This filter combines the effects of the Offset and Multiply filters into a single, convenient filter.

Brightness: this parameter controls the amount that is added to the input signal (in effect, this
acts as a brightness setting).

Contrast: this parameter controls the amount by which the input signal is multiplied (in effect,
this acts as a contrast setting).

Parabolic (aX 2 + bX + c)
This is a slightly more complex filter that creates a parabolic output profile.

a, b and c: represent the different terms used in the parabolic equation aX 2 + bX + c.

Absolute
This filter simply mirrors the input value around the threshold value.

Contrast: this parameter controls the amount by which the input signal is multiplied (in effect,
this acts as a contrast setting).

Threshold: this parameter controls the value at which the input is reversed. As a result, the
output value can never drop beneath this threshold.

Gamma
This filter applies a gamma correction to the input signal.

Gamma: this parameter controls the gamma correction applied to the input signal.

Bias
This filter applies a bias correction to the input signal.

Bias: this parameter controls the bias correction applied to the input signal.

Gain
This filter applies a gain to the input signal.

Gain: this parameter controls the gain applied to the input signal.

Power
This filter calculates the difference between the input value and a lower clip value, and raises it
to a given exponent.

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Exponent: this parameter controls the exponent applied to the input value.

Lower clip: this parameter controls the value below which the filter’s output is uniformly 0.
Above this value, the filter’s output is the difference between the input value and this value,
raised to the power of the exponent.

Gaussian
This filter passes the input signal through a Gaussian curve, in effect producing a response sim-
ilar to a smoother version of the Absolute filter described above.

Contrast: this parameter controls the amount of contrast in the resulting output.

Threshold: this parameter controls the lower limit around which the signal is “mirrored” by
the Gaussian profile.

Floor
This filter clamps any value below the Floor value to that value.

Ceiling
This filter clamps any value over the Ceiling value to that value.

Clamp
This filter lets you clamp the input signal to a given range.

Lower clip: this parameter controls the lower limit of the range to which the signal is clamped.
Any input below this value will result in an output equal to this value.

Upper clip: this parameter controls the upper limit of the range to which the signal is clamped.
Any input above this value will result in an output equal to this value.

Clip
The Clip filter combines the effects of the Brightness-Contrast filter with the effect of the Clamp
filter.

Contrast and Brightness: identical to the Brightness-Contrast filter settings.

Lower and Upper clip: identical to the Clamp filter.

Smooth Clip
The Smooth Clip filter is identical to the Clip filter described above, except that the output val-
ues are smoothed around the extremes, in order to avoid sharp variations in slope near the

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lower or upper clip values. In effect, this filter produces a slightly more contrasted result as the
standard clip.

Map
The Map filter maps a given input range of values to a given output range. When connecting a
parameter to another node, this filter is particularly useful to adapt the range of the signal to
the range of values expected by the parameter.

Lower input value: this parameter controls the lower limit of the expected input range.

Upper input value: this parameter controls the upper limit of the expected input range.

Lower output value: this parameter controls the lower output value. This value is achieved
when the input value is equal to the lower input value.

Upper output value: this parameter controls the upper output value. This value is achieved
when the input value is equal to the upper input value.

Clip out of range values: if this option is selected, values that are out of the input range will be
clipped to the input range (similar in effect to applying a clamp filter on this filter’s input).

If the upper output value is less than the lower output value, the signal will be inverted.

Smooth Map
The Smooth Map filter is identical to the Map filter described above, except that the output
values are smoothed around the extremes, in order to avoid sharp variations in slope near the
lower or upper input values. In effect, this filter produces a slightly more contrasted result as
the standard map. Values that are beyond the input range are automatically clipped to the
input range.

Quantize
The Quantize filter converts the input into a range of discrete values.

Steps: this parameter controls the number of different values that the filter can output. For
instance, if set to 5, the output will be quantized to 5 different possible values.

Contrast and Brightness: these settings are the same as those of the Brightness-Contrast filter
described above.

Saw Wave
The Saw Wave filter is equivalent to the fractional part of the input signal in the range of -1
through 1. When the signal reaches 1, it jumps back down to -1, creating a saw teeth like pattern.

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Contrast and Brightness: these settings are the same as those of the Brightness-Contrast filter
described above. Whenever the result of the brightness-contrast transformation exceeds 1, it
jumps back down to -1.

Absolute Wave
The Absolute Wave filter is very similar to the Saw Wave filter, with the exception that the parts
of the signal that are out f range are mirrored back instead of jumping back down. As a result,
the Absolute Wave filter creates both up and down slopes, whereas the Saw Wave never inverts
the slopes.

Contrast and Brightness: these settings are the same as those of the Brightness-Contrast filter
described above. Whenever the result of the brightness-contrast transformation exceeds 1, it
is mirrored back down.

Sine Wave
In effect, very similar to the Absolute Wave filter, except that this filter avoids the sharp changes
in slope around the upper and lower limits. This version is usually preferred when the output
is used to generate bumps.

Contrast and Brightness: these settings are the same as those of the Brightness-Contrast filter
described above. Whenever the result of the brightness-contrast transformation exceeds 1, it
is mirrored back down.

Threshold
This filter switches between two values depending on the input: if the input is less than Thresh-
old, the node outputs the Low value. If it is greater, the node outputs the High value. You can
even decide what happens when the input is strictly equal to the threshold using the corre-
sponding parameter.

Smooth Threshold
This is similar to the Threshold filter, with the addition of a smooth transition strip, defined by
the Transition parameter. Inside the transition strip, the node outputs a blend of both the Low
and High values.

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Constant Nodes

Constant nodes do not take any inputs. They output the value that is defined by the node.

Constant Number
Value: use this setting to define the number that is output by the constant node.

Constant Color
Color: use this setting to define the color that is output by the constant node. Double-click on
the color to edit it.

Constant Coordinates
Value: use this setting to define the texture map coordinates that are output by the constant
node.

Constant Vector
Value: use this setting to define the vector that is output by the constant node.

Random Constant Number

Value: use this to create a random seed for things like procedural materials.

Value From List

This node defines a list of elements as a combo box.

When the list is defined, the return value of the node is the index of the selected item (starting
at 0).

This node can be very useful in the context of published parameters.

Enter your list: use this to define the different items of your list. Items must be defined as
following: item1; item2; ... .

Save: the combo box underneath will be updated with the defined list of items.

Lock: the list of items will be not editable anymore. To publish the parameter, the combo box
must be locked.

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Connectable Constant
Connectable constants are identical to regular constants, except that their value can be ex-
tracted. What is the point of extracting the value of a constant, you may ask? Indeed, in stan-
dard graphs, there is no point in doing so. However, connectable constants are very useful in
the context of published MetaNode parameters, where a “published” connectable constant can
be connected to other nodes at the higher MetaNode interface level (read more about it here).

Note:

Connectable constants can also be used to add a “name label” to intermediate values inside a
graph, so as to improve overall readability of the graph.

Turbulence Nodes

Turbulence nodes are very similar to fractal nodes, with the main difference being that turbu-
lence nodes work in 3 dimensions to create vector displacements, whereas fractal nodes only
work in one dimension.

Although turbulence nodes should be applied to the Origin of noises or fractals in order to
produce the expected results, you can achieve interesting results by using turbulence on other
parameters.

Turbulence will add interesting details to your functions, but this is at the expense of long pro-
cessing times: in order to generate the turbulence, VUE has to compute several iterations of
the noise along the 3 different axes, resulting in the long computation times.

Simple Turbulence
The simple turbulence node uses a Perlin style noise to generate a 3D perturbation. The follow-
ing settings are available:

Wavelength, Origin, and Largest feature: these settings are the same as with the standard
fractal nodes. Please turn here for details on the fractal nodes.

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Largest feature = 0.1

Largest feature = 1

Largest feature = 5

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Largest feature = 10

Amplitude: this parameter defines the amplitude of the perturbation created by the turbu-
lence node. The stronger the setting, the more perturbed the signal to which is applied this
turbulence.

Amplitude = 0.5

Amplitude = 1

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Amplitude = 2

Amplitude = 5

Repeat count: this parameter defines the number of iterations of the base noise that are com-
puted to generate the turbulence. Higher repeat counts will create more detailed turbulence,
only at the expense of longer render times.

Repeat count = 1

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Repeat count = 2

Repeat count = 4

Repeat count = 10

Scaling: this setting controls the frequency at which the noise varies relative to the current
position.

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Scaling = 0.5

Scaling = 1

Scaling = 2

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Scaling = 5

Harmonics: this setting controls the way the noise is scaled each time an new iteration is added
in: for each new addition, scale and amplitude are multiplied by the Harmonics parameter. If
the “Repeat count” is equal to 1, this parameter has no influence. You should avoid values close
to 1 as they tend to reduce the influence of additional iterations.

Harmonics = 0.25

Harmonics = 0.5

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Harmonics = 0.9

Harmonics = 2

Combination mode: this drop-down list box lets you select how the successive noise iterations
will be combined. For full details on combination modes, refer to the “Basic Repeater” fractal
node (see here).

Combination mode = Add/Blend

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Combination mode = Variable roughness

Combination mode = Variable roughness (abs)

Combination mode = Max

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Combination mode = Max (abs)

Combination mode = Min

Combination mode = Min (abs)

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Combination mode = Multiply

Misc Style Turbulence

This turbulence node is provided for compatibility with previous versions of VUE. It provides
you with more control over the look of the turbulence but usually doesn’t produce such nice
results…

On top of the settings already defined by the Simple Turbulence node, this node lets you select
the base Noise used to compute the turbulence.

Perlin – Gradient (default)

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Perlin – Value

Perlin – Linear

Distributed – Round Samples

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Cellular – Chipped

Cellular – Crystals

Cellular – Drought

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Cellular – Pebble Noise

Line Patterns – Lines

Line Patterns – Sparse Cracks

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Other – Granite

Other – Water Rough

Squares – Random Altitudes

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Squares – Blobs

Squares – Stones Round

Squares – Stones Square

Advanced Turbulence
On top of the settings already defined by the other turbulence nodes, this node defines the
following:

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Roughness: this is similar to the standard fractal “Roughness” parameter.

Roughness = 0.25

Roughness = 0.5

Roughness = 0.75

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Roughness = 1

With vortices: check this option if you want the turbulence to exhibit vortices.

Without vortices

With vortices

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Without vortices

With vortices

Combiner Nodes

The combiner nodes take several inputs and combine them together into a single output. Most
combiner nodes accept any type of input, with the exception of the Color combiner that only
operates on colors, and the Combiner that only operates on numbers.

Combiner nodes that accept any type of data must receive the same type of data on all their
inputs. This is why setting the first input locks the data type for other inputs.

Blender
The Blender node accepts two inputs and combines them together according to the combina-
tion mode and the ratio.

Ratio: this parameter controls the relative importance of each one of the inputs in the final
node’s output. Small values will favor the first input, whereas larger values will favor the second
input.

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Combination mode: this drop-down list defines the method used to combine the two inputs
together. In the formulas, a and b denote the two inputs of the node, and r is the ratio:
• Blend: values are averaged => output = (1 - r) * a + r * b
• Add: values are added together => output = a + r * b
• Max: the value farthest from -1 is retained.
– Warning: accounting for the ratio makes for a counter-intuitive formula, which can
yields spatial discontinuities in the output. Thus using this mode is discouraged,
although it needs to be kept for compatibility with legacy graphs. For the regular
Max formula, use the Combiner node instead.
– If (1 + a) >= r * (1 + b), then output = a
– If (1 + a) < r * (1 + b), then output = r * b, not r * (1 + b)!
– Note: for vectors, comparison is made on the length of both input vectors (whatever
their respective directions). For colors, comparison is made on the luminosity.
• Min: read warning and formula about the Max mode above. Same formulas for Min, with
comparisons swapped.
• Subtract: the value of the second input is subtracted from the first input => output = a - r * b
• Multiply: the values are multiplied together, but accounting for the graph’s base value of
-1, the chosen formula is => output = a * ((1 - r) + r * b)
– Compare with the Multiply formula of the Combiner node.
– For a strict input multiplication, use nodes from the Mathematical category.

Combiner
The combiner node can only operate on numbers. It can however combine an unlimited num-
ber of inputs. By default, the combiner node is created with 2 inputs, but as soon as you connect
all inputs, a new input is added.

The combiner node combines inputs according to the overall combination mode as well as “per
input” settings. The Node Details area displays settings that are relative each one of the inputs.
If more inputs are added, new settings are added accordingly.

Combination mode: this drop-down list box lets you select how the different inputs will be
combined. The different combination modes are similar to those of the Blender node above
(notable exceptions for Max and Min), with the addition of Variable roughness modes that
work like the corresponding Basic Repeater fractal combination modes. See below for the com-
bination formulas.

Amplitude: this parameter controls the relative amplitude of each one of the inputs. The in-
put is multiplied by the value of this amplitude parameter and offset according to the offset

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parameter below before being combined with the other inputs.

Offset: this parameter controls the relative offset of each one of the inputs. It is used together
with the amplitude setting before the input is combined with the other inputs.

Combination formula: it is applied iteratively for each input plugged to the node. For each it-
eration, the formulas below use a to denote the result of the previous iterations so far (initial
value of 0, except for the four different min/max modes), and b to denote the new input consid-
ered at the current iteration, already multiplied and offset by its specific Amplitude and Offset
parameters. The symbol := means “becomes”.
• Add simply sums the successive values: a~:= a + b
• Blend does the same as Add, except that the amplitudes you set as parameters on each
input are normalized behind the scenes, ie. VUE makes sure that their sum is always 1. For
example, if you have two inputs with amplitudes 1 and 2, when computing the output, the
first amplitude will actually be 1/3 and the second amplitude 2/3.
• Max keeps the largest value: a~:= max(a, b)
• Absolute Max keeps the (raw) value which is largest in absolute: if abs(b) > abs(a)
, then a~:= b, otherwise a is untouched
• Min keeps the lowest value (not the closest to zero): a~:= min(a, b)
• Absolute Min keeps the (raw) value which is smallest in absolute, ie. the one closest to
zero: if abs(b) < abs(a), then a~:= b, otherwise a is untouched
• Multiply: the values are multiplied together, but accounting for the graph’s base value of
-1, the chosen formula is a~:= (1 + a) * (1 + b) - 1

Color Combiner
The color combiner node only works with colors. It is capable of combining an unlimited num-
ber of colors according to a combination mode.
• Combination mode: this drop-down list box lets you select the way the input colors will
be combined:
– Blend: the colors are mixed in equal proportions.
– Add: the colors from different inputs are added together. The resulting color is nec-
essarily brighter than the each one of the input colors.
– Subtract: successive input colors are subtracted from the first color, and clipped to
black. The resulting color is necessarily darker than each one of the input colors.
– Multiply all: all colors are multiplied together. The dark areas in each one of the
inputs will be dark in the final color, and white areas will be the same as the other
colors.
– Divide: successive colors are divided. Results can be unexpected…

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– Min: the final color is the minimum of each color component, and thus necessarily
darker than any one of the inputs.
– Soft min: this is the same as minimum, except that the color values are blended
when they are close.
– Max: the final color is the maximum of each color component, and thus necessarily
brighter than any one of the inputs.
– Soft max: this is the same as maximum, except that the values are blended when
they are close.
– Red filter: the first input color is multiplied by the red component of all successive
inputs.
– Green filter: the first input color is multiplied by the green component of all succes-
sive inputs.
– Blue filter: the first input color is multiplied by the blue component of all successive
inputs.
– Luminosity value: the first input color is multiplied by the luminosity of the succes-
sive colors.
– Hue blend: the hues of the different colors are blended. The saturation and lumi-
nosity of the first input color are retained in the final output.
– Luminosity blend: the luminosity values of the different colors are blended. The
saturation and hue of the first input color are retained in the final output.
– Saturation blend: the saturation value of the different colors are blended. The hue
and luminosity of the first input color are retained in the final output.
– Hue shift: the hue value of the first input color is shifted by the hue values of the
successive colors. The saturation and luminosity of the first color are retained in the
final output. Zero shifting occurs when the successive colors are Cyan (Hue=128).
– Luminosity shift: the luminosity value of the first input color is shifted by the lumi-
nosity values of the successive colors. The saturation and hue of the first color are
retained in the final output. Zero shifting occurs when the successive colors have a
luminosity value of 128.
– Saturation shift: the saturation value of the first input color is shifted by the satu-
ration values of the successive colors. The luminosity and hue of the first color are
retained in the final output. Zero shifting occurs when the successive colors have a
saturation value of 128.
– Slope blend: the input colors are mixed in a proportion that depends on the local
slope. The successive colors replaces the first color on vertical surface.

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Add
This combiner node outputs the sum of all its inputs.

Subtract
This combiner node subtracts from the first input all subsequent inputs.

Multiply
This combiner node outputs the product of all its inputs.

Divide
This combiner node divides the first input by all subsequent inputs.

Input Selector Node

The Input Selector node returns the value of one of its inputs (except the first one) depending
on the value of the first input, Selector.

The Selector input values needs to be in the range [0,1[ and the inputs selection is evenly dis-
tibuted on this range.

Ex: 4 connected inputs:

Input selection depending on Selector value

Image Combiner Node

The Image combiner node allows you to add bitmap images together, usually Image Sample
Nodes, for a combined effect. An example would be a sand texture with rocks added. It takes
the main (background) texture color as the first input, and then an arbitrary number of images,
or image nodes in combination.

PBR Workflow Converter

This combiner node takes inputs assumed for the PBR Specular/Glossiness workflow and con-
verts them into outputs for the PBR Metallic/Roughness workflow.

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• The base color output value is the specular input value if the diffuse input value is strictly
below (30, 30, 30)*, or the diffuse input value otherwise.
• The metallic output value is 1 (white) if the diffuse input value is strictly below (30, 30,
30)*, or -1 (black) otherwise.
• The roughness output value is the opposite of the glossiness input value (1/white be-
comes -1/black and vice versa).
* Strictly below (30, 30, 30) meaning all of the triplet’s red, green and blue (RGB) components
are stricly below 30.

Note:

Specular information for non-metallic (dielectric) areas, i.e. where diffuse input value is (30, 30,
30) or above**, is lost.
The F0 (Fresnel/specular reflectivity factor at normal incidence) for dielectric materials con-
stant value is then used for all three RGB components. The default value is 4%, but it can be
modified for PBR materials through the material editor’s reflection tab’s specular level slider).
* (30, 30, 30) or above meaning any of the triplet’s RGB components is 30 or above.

Emissive to Luminous Converter

This combiner node takes base color and emissive inputs and converts them into base color
and luminous outputs.
• The base color output value is the base color input value if the emissive input value is
(0, 0, 0) black, or the emissive input value otherwise.
• The luminous output value is -1 (black) if the emissive input value is (0, 0, 0) black, or 1
(white) otherwise.

Dynamics Nodes

The dynamics nodes provide a selection of nodes typically used for controlling the relationships
between object properties. For instance, dynamics nodes are used to create loose link and track
relationships between your objects (see here).

Note:

Dynamics nodes will only work in the context of Object Graphs.

Link Relationship
This node is used whenever a link relationship needs to be implemented between objects.

Offset: this setting controls the position offset between the input object position and the out-

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put position. In the case of linked objects, the offset is automatically updated when you move
the linked object in the interface.

Link orientation, Link size and Link position: these settings replicate the linked object op-
tions available in the Forward Dynamics Options dialog.

Track Relationship
This node is used whenever a track relationship needs to be implemented between objects.

What it basically does is calculate the required orientation based on the difference between the
two input positions.

Orientation offset: this setting controls the orientation offset with the tracked object. In the
case of tracked objects, the offset is automatically updated when you rotate the tracking object
in the interface.

Derivative
This node calculates the derivative over time of the input (for instance, the derivative of posi-
tion over time is speed). The type of input and output is automatically defined as soon as you
connect the node.

Integral
This node calculates the integral over time of the input. The type of input and output is auto-
matically defined as soon as you connect the node.

Delay
This introduces a delay in the evaluation of the input. The value that is output by the node is the
value of the input “delay-time” earlier. The type of input and output is automatically defined
as soon as you connect the node.

Delay: the number of seconds by which the input value is delayed.

PID Controller
A PID controller is a standard type of automation controller that is used to try and achieve as
best possible a desired value with an imperfectly responding system. PID stands for ’Propor-
tional, Integral, Derivative’.

The PID controller compares the current value of a parameter with a desired value and gener-
ates an output value based on the difference between them (the error), knowing that the out-
put may not be exactly realized because what is being controlled is not a perfect mechanical
system.

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For instance, if a camera-man is tracking an object that suddenly moves out of sight, it will take
a little time for him to re-track the object. This is caused by the time it takes for the camera-man
to realize that the object has moved, the time it takes for his brain to send a signal to the arm,
and then the time it takes for the arm to move. During this time, the tracked object may have
moved again.

The PID controller takes two inputs:

• Current: this is the current value of the parameter being controlled.
• Target: this is the desired value that the parameter should have.
The PID controller uses the three following settings of standard automation controllers:
• Proportional: this setting determines the reaction to the difference between the the de-
sired value and the current value (error),
• Integral: this setting determines the reaction based on the accumulation of recent errors,
and
• Derivative: this setting determines the reaction to the rate of change of the error.
It can be tricky to find the right settings for a PID controller, especially if the system being con-
trolled exhibits non-linear responses.

For an in-depth understanding of how PID controllers work, we recommend that you refer to
the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller.

Distance Constraint
This node constrains the distance between the input value and a reference point to a certain
range, so that, e.g. the position of an object cannot get closer or move further than a certain
distance:

Center: this is the reference point.

Min distance: the minimum distance between the input value and the center (the “collision”
size).

Max distance: the maximum distance between the input value and the center (the length of
the leash).

Axis Constraint
This node constrains the input value to a given axis, defined by two points:

Point 1 and Point 2: these are the two points defining the axis to which the input value is con-
strained.

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Grid Constraint
This node constrains the input value to a grid, the resolution of which is definable:

Grid size: the resolution of the grid.

Acceleration Limiter
This node calculates the double-derivative of the input (acceleration) at the current time and
limits it to the indicated value.

Max acceleration: the maximum value allowed for acceleration. Speed changes will be con-
strained by this value.

Speed Limiter
This node calculates the derivative of the input (speed) at the current time and limits it to the
indicated value.

Max speed: the maximum value allowed for the speed. Value changes will be constrained by
this setting.

Low Pass Filter

This node averages the current input value with values at previous frames, thus eliminating any
high-frequency variations.

Decay time: the delay between the occurrence of a value and the time when this value con-
tributes exactly 50% of the output.

Layout Nodes

This category contains nodes used to lay out the output depending on its spatial relationship
with an oval or rectangle area, a spline, a volume, or even other objects of the scene.

Area Demarcation Node

This node works with simple geometrical shapes, which can be a circle/oval or a square/rectangle
(optionally with rounded corners).

The single input is a 3D vector, usually the position. Two output values can be configured for
input positions falling inside or outside the shape, and the node smoothly interpolates between
the two values in a transition area.

Note also that a node of this type is created when using the zone extraction feature in the Terrain

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Editor for Procedural terrains. You can thus edit the node parameters to configure the way the
hole looks.

Example of an Area Demarcation (using “Rounded square” shape) driving a fractal’s roughness in
a terrain

Available parameters
• Area shape: Select one of Circular, Rounded square, Rounded square (sharper) and Square.
• Area center: Location of the area’s center in the input space.
• Area width: Width of the area.
• Area height: Height of the area.
• Demarcation smoothness: Controls the speed of transition between the interior and ex-
terior values.
• Interior value: Output value when fully inside the area.
• Exterior value: Output value when fully outside the area.

Spline Proximity Node

The Spline Proximity output is based on the proximity of a position to the closest point on
a spline curve: its goal is to drive terrains or materials based on a spline’s shape. Because the
most intuitive usage is to model mountain ranges following a spline ridge, by default the node’s
output decreases when going farther from the curve (instead of increasing, as would the pure

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distance).

The spline can be selected from the scene’s object list, or it created directly from the node’s
interface, using a custom Spline Editor in the Function Graph. The Spline Editor lets you create
a spline curve in world coordinates, by displaying the top view while placing the control points.

Editing a spline
To use a spline from the scene, select it from the Spline menu. You can either use Copy to
Internal to duplicate and edit the scene spline in the Function Graph, or use VUE’s usual spline
edition tools to edit the spline in the scene.

To create an edit an Internal Spline curve, click on the Edit button in the parameters area: this
opens the Function Graph ’s Spline Editor.

Spline Editor

Inside the spline editor, you should see the current scene’s top view. To create the spline you
want, you have four edition modes at your disposal:

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• Add way point: When in this mode, left clicking on the view creates a new control point.
• Edit way point: This mode lets you move around control points that are already placed,
by dragging them with the mouse on left click.
• Insert way point: When this mode is selected, you can insert control points directly on
the curve. This means that the curve will have the same shape as before, but with one
more control point.
• Delete way point: This mode lets you remove control points by left clicking on them.
You can also choose whether the spline should be closed or not, by checking the checkbox
“Closed spline”. This adds or removes the link between the first and last control points, to make
the spline cyclic or acyclic.

Note:

The terrain is not automatically updated when the spline is changed in the scene until some
other modification triggers the graph calculation.

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Example: Using a spline as a valley

Configuring the node

Besides the spline edition widgets, the node has two parameters:
• Invert Output: when unchecked, the spline curve will be a “ridge” in the output height-
field, ie. the points on the spline are actually the highest values of the output. When
Invert is checked, the spline curve will instead the lowest values in the heightfield, like
the bottom of a valley.
• Invert Slope Inside Spline: when the spline is closed (“cyclic”), it is possible to identify
its interior, which can be useful for some terrain or material effects. Depending on your
purpose, you may want to distinguish the values inside the spline from the values outside,
by using a different output range. This also alters the shape of the output, hence the

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parameter name. For example, with a circular spline, you can check this parameter in
order to have a volcano-shaped output (the spline would be the crater’s rim).

Node outputs
The node has three possible outputs:
• 2D Distance: similar to the full 3D Distance output below, but only accounts for the hori-
zontal distance (ie. the spline is projected on the terrain plane). This is the most intuitive
output for this node.
– When using a 2D distance, the spline itself will remain on a level line in the node’s
output and, when Invert Output is checked, this level line will be the zero level.
• Distance: this is simply the distance between each point at the base of the terrain and the
closest position lying on the 2D or 3D spline.
– Note that the ridge is smoothed by this output’s algorithm.
– When using a 3D spline, the output will also follow the spline’s altitude profile, which
you can alter by leaving the terrain editor and moving the spline’s control points in-
side the scene, using the gizmos available in VUE’s four 3D views. Then go back to
the terrain editor and recompute the terrain as the node output will not update au-
tomatically.
• Altitude Profile: altitude of the closest spline position. Discontinuities may need to be
blurred with a Blur node (for Heightfields only) in order to make use of this output.
The renders below are colored by their altitude, to better show the pattern: on the first three
examples, the green stripe matches the spline curve.

A terrain based on a 2D Distance to a closed spline, with no slope inversion for the spline’s inte-
rior:

Same terrain, with slope inversion for the spline’s interior:

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A terrain based on a (3D) Distance to a closed spline, with slope inversion for the spline’s interior:

A Heightfield terrain based on a spline’s Altitude Profile, with minor blur applied:

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Scene Objects Mask Node

This node creates a heightfield which can be used as a mask to locate “foreign” objects lying
over the terrain the heightfield represents. This is a powerful tool to create effects on the terrain
easily, without having to design complex graphs. Examples of usage include:
• Digging the terrain to represent how it subsides slightly under the weight of objects.
• Proxy objects (not visible at render time) can be used to drive terrain effects, where sev-
eral nodes would have been necessary using a traditional approach.
• Erosion or other effects can also be made to work around scene objects thanks to this
node.

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Bounding Volume

Torus distances driving an Ecosystem population’s density

This node outputs a distance field, ie. a function that is positive inside a specified primitive or
Metablob/Hyperblob, and negative outside of it, with a smooth transition in between (no sharp

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edges).

It can be used with a threshold to isolate a volume in space, for example to define a standalone
cloud shape inside a cloud layer. It is also useful to interactively distribute an Ecosystem popu-
lation by placing any number of primitives in the scene and defining the Density function using
them and this node.

Alternatively, an ”abstract’ primitive shape (sphere, cube, etc. not present as an object in the
scene) can also be used, scaled, rotated and twisted directly using the node’s interface:

Shape Settings
• Shape: Choose here whether to use an object from the scene, or an abstract shape con-
figured with the transformation parameters.
• Scene Object: When using a scene object, select it here: note that it can only be a primi-
tive, a Metablob or a Hyperblob (other objects do not define a distance function).
• Torus thickness: When using an abstract torus shape, configure here the radius of the
torus rim.
Shape Transformations and Position input: These settings are only available for abstract
shapes, so that you can locate, scale, rotate and twist them to suit your needs. The Position in-
put allows you to select the base in which to work, allowing you to configure the shape in World
or Object space, with or without Parametric coordinates. A default connection is made to the
graph’s default Position input, which will typically depend on the material mapping mode. You
can add a Position Options input node to the graph to select another coordinate system.
• Offset: When using Object coordinates, use this to offset the shape with respect to the
origin of the object to which the edited graph relates. With World coordinates, this offset
will be the absolute coordinates of the shape from the scene’s origin.
• Scale: The scales you need to use also depend on the type of coordinates the Position
input is connected to (Parametric or Standard).
• Rotation, Twists: Both rotations and twists are angles, which interpretation depends on
the other settings below.
• Order of rotations: This lets you select to order of axes around which the rotations are
made. All six permutations of X/Y/Z axes are possible.
• Angle Unit: This lets you select the unit of the angular parameters: see Math_Nodes#Rotation_and_Twis
(Documentation/The_Editors/Function_Graph) for the available options.
Invert output: Check this to invert the output values, ie. negative values inside, positive out-
side, which means the node will output a regular distance rather than a distance field.

Tip: When configuring some effect with a Bounding Volume node, it can be useful to first con-
nect a material’s Color output to a colorful map to visualize the output of a Bounding Volume
node for a given Metablob. This way, you can more quickly move and scale the Metablob’s com-
ponents, as well as play with the Metablob’s Envelope Distance parameter to define exactly the

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density you want before actually applying the effect (rendering a cloud layer, populating the
Ecosystem, etc.).

A simple preview trick

Math Nodes

The math nodes offer utility operations that may not be used in everyday graphs but can be
essential to realize some physically-based constructs.

Common Math Operations

These mathematical operations can be applied on any kind of input, be it a scalar, a 2D or 3D
vector, or even a color. For operations with a single input, the operation is applied on each
component separately. For operations with two inputs, there are three distinct situations:
1. The first input is a scalar: the second input can only be a scalar, too.
2. The first input is a 2D/3D vector or a color: the second input can either be a scalar and
will be used to operate on each of the input’s components, or it can be a vector (or color)
of the same type (and dimension), and the operation will be applied component-wise.
3. The first input is a color: similarly to case 2., the second input can be either a scalar or a
color, but also a 3D vector, for commodity.
List of supported operations:
• Add: returns the sum of its inputs.
• Subtract: returns the first input minus the second input.
• Multiply Inputs: returns the product of its two inputs.
• Multiply by a Constant: returns the product of its input by the constant parameter.
• Divide: returns the division of the first input by the second input. As a convenience, the
secondary output of the node returns the remainder of this division.
• Remainder: returns the remainder of the division of the first input by the second input.
• Invert: returns one divided by the input (1/x), not to be confused with Opposite. Special
value: Returns 0 when input is 0.
• Opposite: returns minus the input(-x), not to be confused with Invert.
• Absolute value: returns the input when positive, minus the input when negative, ie. the
output is always positive.

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• Floor: returns the round number that is just below the input number.
• Ceil: returns the round number that is just above the input number.
• Round: returns the round number that is closest to the input number. If the input is
exactly something point five (0.5, 1.5, 2.5, etc.), the value just above is returned (as if using
Ceil).
• Fractional Part: this is the part of the number after the dot. It’s equal to the number less
the Floor of the input number.
• Power: returns the first input raised to the power of the second input. Special cases are
not handled (negative input with non integral exponent).
• Square Root: returns the square root of any positive input number. Special values: neg-
ative inputs are handled by returning the square root of their absolute value.
• Exponential: returns the exponential of base e of the input, ie. the mathematical con-
stant e (around 2.71828) raised to the power of the input number.

Conversions
Vector To RGB
This node receives a vector and outputs a color where the red component is equal to the value
of the vector along the X axis, the green component is equal to the value of the vector along the
Y axis, and the blue component is equal to the value of the vector along the Z axis.

RGB To Vector
This node receives a color and outputs a vector where the value of the vector along the X axis is
equal to the red component of the input color, the value of the vector along the Y axis is equal
to the green component of the input color, and the value of the vector along the Z axis is equal
to the blue component of the input color.

RGB To HLS
This node is useful to convert colors from the Red-Green-Blue paradigm to the Hue-Luminosity-
Saturation paradigm. It receives a color and outputs a vector where the value of the vector
along the X axis is equal to the hue of the input color, the value of the vector along the Y axis is
equal to the luminosity of the input color, and the value of the vector along the Z axis is equal
to the saturation of the input color.

HLS To RGB
This node does the exact opposite of the previous one. It converts colors from the Hue-Luminosity-
Saturation paradigm to the Red-Green-Blue paradigm. It receives a vector containing the HLS
data and outputs a color based on that HLS data.

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Color To Brightness
This simple converter node returns the brightness of the input color.

Vector Composition
The composition nodes are used to work on individual axes of vectors, typically when you need
to compose or extract scalar values into or out of 2D or 3D vectors, or change the axes arrange-
ment of a vector.

Decomposer
The Decomposer node takes a vector as input and outputs a number. It splits the input vec-
tor into 2 or 3 possible outputs that correspond to each one of the input vector’s components.
When you attempt to connect to a Decomposer node, a popup menu will appear so that you
can select the desired component.

Composer
The Composer node does just the opposite of the Decomposer node: it takes 2 or 3 numbers as
inputs and outputs a vector constructed from these inputs.

Axis Permutation
This node takes a 3D vector as input and ouputs another 3D vector using some or all axes of the
input vector, rearranged to suit your needs. Any combination of input axes is possible, including
repeating one input axis into several output axes.

Vector 2 to Vector 3
Useful to convert UVs to 3D vectors, this node will compose an output 3D vector from a 2D input
and a Complementary Z Value supplied as a parameter. Since the parameter can be extracted,
this node can also be used to compose a 2D vector with any scalar connection of the graph to
produce the 3D output.

The node also offers several outputs so that connecting to the node will pop-up the list of most
common output axes arrangements (XY.Z, Z.XY, X.Z.Y, YX.Z, Z.YX): X and Y denote the axes of
the input 2D vector, while Z denotes the complementary value specified or connected to the
node.

Vector 3 to Vector 2
This node extracts two of the three axes of an input vector and outputs them as a 2D vector.

Nine outputs are offered so that connecting to the node will pop-up the list of all possible axes
arrangements: XY, XZ, YZ, YX, ZX, ZY, XX, YY and ZZ.

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Vector Operations
Offset
This node simply adds an offset to each of the input vector’s coordinates. Two versions of this
node exist, so that you can use either a single vector as parameter, or three separate scalar
values. This makes it easier to extract and connect the parameters to other parts of the graph.

Offset (or X, Y and Z in the Separate Parameters formulation of the node): defines the vector
components that will be added to the input vector.

XYZ Product
This node simply multiplies each of the input vector’s coordinates by a value. Two versions of
this node exist, so that you can use either a single vector as parameter, or three separate scalar
values. This makes it easier to extract and connect the parameters to other parts of the graph.

Multiply by (or X, Y and Z in the Separate Parameters formulation of the node): defines the
vector components by which the input vector coordinates will be multiplied.

Distance between Points

Computes the distance between the two input points given by their X/Y/Z coordinates.

Angle between vectors

Computes the angle in 3D space between the two input vectors given by their X/Y/Z coordinates.
The angle is thus non-oriented, and the result (when expressed in radians) is in the range [0;π]
(ie. [0; 180] in degrees).

Angle unit: this lets you select the unit of the output angles among these options:
• Radians,
• Degrees,
• [0; 1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] into [0; 1],
• [-1;1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] into [-1;1].

Rotation and Twist

This node applies rotations and twists transformations (in that order) to the input vector. See
also the Axis Orientation Transformer node for a way to define a vector rotation (with a single
angle).

Rotations and Twists: choose rotation angles around each of the world axes, as well as twisting
angles of these axes one towards another.

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Rotation Order: this lets you select to order of axes around which the rotations are made. All
six permutations of X/Y/Z axes are possible.

Angle unit: this lets you select the unit of the angles (both rotations and twists) among these
options:
• Radians,
• Degrees,
• [0; 1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] (ie. [-180;+180] in degrees) into [0; 1],
• [-1;1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] into [-1;1].

Orientation Rotation
This node transforms an orientation in 3D space by applying rotations and twists to it (in that
order). The input orientation is defined by three rotation angles packed into a 3D vector, ie. the
input “vector” is rather to be understood as a rotation matrix made from the three angles. After
transformations, the resulting orientation is output likewise as three angles.

Input: three rotation angles making up the input orientation to be transformed.

Output: angles defining the resulting orientation after transformations.

Rotation Order: this lets you select to order of axes around which the rotations are made. All
six permutations of X/Y/Z axes are possible.

Angle unit: this lets you select the unit of all angles (input, output, but also rotations and twists
parameters) among these options:
• Radians,
• Degrees,
• [0; 1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] (ie. [-180;+180] in degrees) into [0; 1],
• [-1;1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] into [-1;1].

Orientation to Direction
Input: a 3D vector containing three orientation angles (not a position in space!).

Output: the result of transforming the Z vector (0, 0, 1) by the rotation matrix corresponding to
the input rotation angles.

All angles are in degrees, as a legacy limitation.

Direction to Orientation
Like Orientation to Direction, but the other way round.

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Input: Z vector of a rotated base.

Output: three angles which can constitute a rotation matrix transforming the Z vector (0, 0, 1)
into the input vector.

All angles are in degrees, as a legacy limitation.

Axis Orientation Transformer

Transforms a vector by a rotation around the parameter axis. Direction and Angle can be con-
nected anywhere in the graph to use the node as a generic vector rotation node.

Direction: vector to be transformed.

Axis: axis around which to rotate.

Angle: angle of rotation, expressed in various units depending on the Angle Unit parameter.

Angle Unit: choose here among four options to define the angle’s unit, either Radians, Degrees,
or a normalized value in the range [0; 1] or [-1;1].

X/Y/Z to Polar coordinates

This node transforms the input “Cartesian” vector (X/Y/Z coordinates) into the requested polar
coordinate system.

Projection type: this drop-down list box lets you select the projection type of the node:
• Cylindrical: the input vector will be converted to the cylindrical coordinate system. The
result is output as a vector with the three components (ρ, φ, z) = (radius, angle, elevation)
ordered as per the mathematical convention as shown on the schematic. The angle φ is
output in the range [-π;π] (converted into the chosen Angle unit).
• Spherical (Geo.): the input vector will be converted to the spherical coordinate system.
The result is output as a vector with the three components (λ, φ, r), matching the com-
monplace geographical coordinates (latitude, longitude, radius). The angle λ is output
in the range [-π;π], while φ is output in [-π/2;π/2] (both converted into the chosen Angle
unit).
• Spherical (Math.): The result is output as a vector with the three components (r, φ, θ)
= (radius, azimuth, elevation), as per a common mathematical convention, with θ mea-
sured from the polar axis Z and not from the X/Y plane like in the geographical convention.
The angle φ is output in the range [-π;π], while θ is output in [0;π] (both converted into
the chosen Angle unit).
Angle unit: this lets you select the unit of the output angles among these options:
• Radians,
• Degrees,

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• [0; 1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] (ie. [-180;+180] in degrees) into [0; 1],
• [-1;1] normalized: the angle is mapped from [-π;π] into [-1;1].

Available polar coordinate systems

Polar coordinates to X/Y/Z

This node transforms back into Cartesian (X/Y/Z) coordinates a set of polar coordinates like
those output from the X/Y/Z to Polar coordinates node, where you can read the description of
the Projection type and Angle unit parameters.

Projection to Plane
This node outputs a 3D vector giving the coordinates of the orthogonal projection of the 3D
input point onto a given plane. In other words, the output point will be the point lying on the
plane that is closest to the input point.

The plane includes the point (0, 0, 0) and thus is only defined using its normal vector (a, b, c).
To move the plane’s “origin” to a new point, simply subtract this point offset from the input vec-
tor.

Note: using a normal (a, b, c) is equivalent to stating that the plane’s equation is aX + bY + cZ = 0.

Matrix Transformation
This node lets you apply a user transformation matrix to the input vector.

Line 1..3: these 3 vector parameters are the rows of the transformation matrix that will be ap-
plied to the input vector.

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Length
This simple node takes a vector as input and returns a number representing the length of the
vector.

Normalize
This node takes a vector as input and returns a vector pointing in the same direction, but with
a length of exactly 1.

Dot Product
This node takes two vectors as inputs and returns a number corresponding to the dot product
of both vectors. If the two vectors are normalized, the dot product is equal to the cosine of
the angle between the two vectors. If the vectors point in exactly the same direction, the dot
product is equal to 1, if they point in exactly opposing directions, it is -1, and if the two vectors
are at right angles one with the other, it is 0.

Vector Product
This node takes two vectors as input and returns a vector that is the result of the vector product
of the two input vectors. The result of the vector product is a vector that is at right angles with
both of the input vectors.

Vector Quantization
Vector Quantization is a process where an input 3D vector is transformed into another one by
choosing among a discrete subset of 3D space.

This is implemented by partitioning the input space in “cells”, choosing a privileged point in
each cell, and always returning this specific point instead of the input vector when the input
falls inside the cell.

To allow for a wider range of effects, this node implements a kind of smoothing of the resulting
vector for some subset of parameters (see detailed description below) for which the input vec-
tor will not be fully “snapped” to the privileged point, but only attracted by it to some extent.

Two cell partitions are currently implemented. Not all parameters shown apply to both parti-
tions. Unavailable parameters are grayed out so as to avoid confusion.

Origin: this parameter acts as an offset on the cell pattern applied on the input space. Only
the pattern is affected; the output vector is not itself offset and will always be close to the input
value (closeness depending only on cell sizes).

Scaling: this parameter acts on the size of cells along each of the X, Y, Z axis. Higher values
mean bigger cells.

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Quantization shape
• Regular cells: these cells have a shape ranging from circular (influence = 0) to square
(influence = 1), with all intermediate “rounded square” shapes in between. Smoothing is
always applicable, even with an influence of 1.
• Voronoi cells: these cells have an irregular polygonal shape and very different sizes. In-
fluence defines the thickness of a border between cells, in which only partial attraction
applies on the input vector. Smoothing only applies inside this border, ie. there can be
no smoothing with an influence of 1.
Influence: this parameter defines how a cell’s privileged point attracts the input vectors falling
inside the cell. Its exact meaning depends on the cell pattern used.

Smooth transition: this parameter defines how smooth is the transition between the invariant
and attracted areas.

Number of cells to consider: this parameter only applies to Voronoi cells. It can be used to aug-
ment variety of the cellular partitioning by considering overlaps of 2 or more cells as distinct
cells in themselves. On the other hand, influence and smoothing cannot apply when consider-
ing cell overlaps.

By blending the result with a non-quantized version of the same fractal, one can localize the
effect following some pattern, eg. by driving the blending with another noise.

By adding a turbulence to the input vector, the cell pattern will also be affected, which means
it is very easy to obtain irregular cell borders, which is even more interesting than a simple
quantized-input fractal.

Trigonometry
Sine, Cosine, Tangent
Computes the sine, cosine or tangent of the input number.

Input as degrees: if checked, this option indicates that the input value is in degrees rather than
radians.

Arc Sine, Arc Cosine, Arc Tangent (of X,Y)

Computes the inverse trigonometric functions of the input number. The node clamps its input
to the range [-1,+1].

The Arc Tangent is available in two versions: the first computes an angle in the range [- /2,+ /2]
(ie. [-90;+90] in degrees) from a single number, while the second takes two coordinates X and
Y to be able to determine the angle’s quadrant, thus returning a value in the range [- ,+ ] (ie.
[-180;+180] in degrees).

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Output as degrees: if checked, this option specifies that the node should compute its output
in degrees rather than radians.

Hyperbolic functions (Public domain illustration – Wikipedia)

Hyperbolic functions
Hyperbolic trigonometric functions and their inverse functions (called Area hyperbolic tan-
gent/sine/cosine) are also supplied for completeness. The Hyperbolic tangent can typically
be used to smoothly remap a value to the [-1,+1] range.

MetaNodes

MetaNodes are a special type of node that encapsulates a graph, or part of a graph.

You could think of them as the ability to group several nodes of a graph, but the concept behind
MetaNodes is in reality a lot more powerful. Because MetaNodes can be saved and retrieved for
future use, and because they give you the ability to easily create a simple user interface around
them, you should rather think of them as a building block for more complex graphs.

Creating a MetaNode
To create a new MetaNode, simply select several nodes in a graph and click the Group selection
as MetaNode icon ( ). The selected items are replaced by the metanode, and all connections
to the items you selected are automatically re-connected to the MetaNode.

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To remove the MetaNode and re-expose its content in the graph, simply click the Ungroup
MetaNode icon ( ). The nodes that had been moved into the MetaNode will re-appear in
the graph.

Editing a MetaNode
You can edit the content of a MetaNode by double-clicking on the MetaNode, or by clicking the
Graph button in the MetaNode properties.

When you edit the content of the MetaNode, a new instance of the Function Graph will appear,
displaying the MetaNode graph. You can edit this graph in the usual way.

Building a MetaNode Interface

While editing the MetaNode graph, you will notice that some of the parameters of the nodes
inside the MetaNode show as underlined when the cursor passes over the field name. This indi-
cates that the parameter can be published which makes the corresponding parameter directly
accessible from the top-level MetaNode details panel (at the bottom of the Function Graph,
when you select the MetaNode in the graph where the MetaNode is located).

When you click the parameter, a little dialog will popup, prompting you to enter the name under
which you wish to see the parameter appear in the MetaNode options. Enter a name and click
OK. Now, if you close the MetaNode graph and select the MetaNode in the main graph, you will
see that your parameter appears with the name you provided.

Using this ability, you can very easily create a simple interface to your MetaNode, by exposing
only those parameters that are really useful for controlling the functionality of the MetaNode.

Note:

MetaNode parameters are listed on the MetaNode options panel in the order in which they were
published. There is no way to subsequently change this order.

Saving and Re­using MetaNodes

You can save a MetaNode for future use with one of two ways:
• Click the Save button in the MetaNode details panel (at the bottom of the Function Graph,
when the MetaNode is selected), or

• Click the Save icon ( ) at the lower right corner of the Function Graph when editing the
MetaNode graph.
When you save the MetaNode, a Standard File Browser will appear, letting you select the file
under which to save the MetaNode. By default, the browser opens on the MetaNodes folder,
where you will see a set of sub-folders corresponding to the different types of nodes. If, for
instance, you save your MetaNode in the Filters sub-folder, the MetaNode will subsequently

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appear in the Filter node menu, for easy access.

Using this feature, you can rapidly create and enrich your collection of ready-to-use MetaNodes,
and thus rapidly create extremely elaborate function graphs.

Of course, you can also save MetaNodes into your own folder, and retrieve them using the Load
button on the MetaNode details panel, or in the MetaNode Function Graph.

Example Use
In this example, we will use a preset MetaNode that acts as a filter to create a zero output around
the origin of the world. This is particularly useful to create a flat area around the camera in a
procedural terrain.

Create a standard procedural terrain. Connect a Fractal node to the Altitude output. Now, add
a filter node behind the Fractal node output, and, in the display panel, browse to the MetaN-
odes category, and select the Flat area at origin MetaNode. This zeroes the altitudes of the
procedural terrain around the origin. Notice that a single parameter is published, that lets you
control the size of the flat area.

If you double-click on the MetaNode, you will access the MetaNode graph. You will notice how
the MetaNode calculates the distance to the world’s origin, and applies this to the input value,
to zero the value around the origin.

Here, a MetaNode was used to create a new type of filter. Despite a high level of inherent com-
plexity, it is incredibly easy to use this new “filter”, because that complexity is hidden away
behind the MetaNode interface.

Locking MetaNode Content

You can prevent other users from viewing or editing the content of your MetaNodes by pressing
the Lock button on the MetaNode details panel. Beware, however, that once a MetaNode has
been locked it is impossible to unlock it.

Heightfield Nodes

These nodes are for use in the graphs of Heightfield Terrains only. They create effects that can-
not be achieved procedurally, because by essence they need to know the entire input terrain
to be able to compute the effect. The most straightforward example is fluvial erosion: without
knowledge of the relief around a given point, it is not possible to know how much rain will flow
and thus how deep the terrain should erode at this point.

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Erosion nodes
These nodes simulate hydrological and thermal erosions of a landscape. Several pre-configured
erosion presets are supplied as distinct nodes, and a fully customizable Erosion node is also
available when it is necessary to precisely adjust all parameters. All nodes expose the same
outputs, which are all described below, and some of the parameters, but only the customiz-
able node exposes the full parameter set.

The Erosion nodes in the Function Graph’s contextual menu.

Presets and Parameters

For a full description of the available presets and of the parameters available in the Custom
Erosion node, please read the detailed chapter about Erosion Presets and Parameters.

Available ouputs
Several outputs are available, some more useful like the actual terrain altitude, while others
are more suited to control material distributions or even to apply a 2D perturbation to some
other nodes in the function graph.
• Altitude: ground altitude after the simulation.
• Flow Surface: when using this output, the terrain is “filled” to show the depth of the
flow running over it. The flow surface is not horizontal because the flow simulation never
really reaches an equilibrium.

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• Flow Speed: this output shows the flow speed over the terrain at the end of the simula-
tion.
• Flow Vector: similar to Flow Speed, but a 2D vector is output which direction and strength
represent the actual flow over the terrain at the end of the simulation.
• Flow Depth: this output shows the flow depth (or humidity factor) over the terrain at the
end of the simulation.
• Transported Sediment: this output shows the amount of sediment currently transported
by the flow at the end of the simulation.
• Displaced Soil: this output shows the total amount of displaced soil at the end of the
simulation.

Slope node
This node computes the mean slope of the heightfield. The parameter “Account for larger fea-
tures” hints at the prominent scale at which the heightfield slope is computed. Close to 0, the
slope is computed by mostly considering small-scale detail, ie. using the full resolution of the
heightfield. Closer to 1, the smaller-scale perturbation is smoothed out to leave only the overall
slope of the heightfield.

Convexity node
This node computes the convexity of the terrain.

The parameter “Account for larger features” hints at the prominent scale at which the height-
field convexity is computed: close to 0, the convexity is computed by mostly considering small-
scale detail, ie. using the full resolution of the heightfield. Closer to 1, the smaller-scale pertur-
bation is smoothed out to leave only the overall convexity of the heightfield.

Blur node
This node smooths out the heightfield depending on a radius.

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Terraces node

Levelled terraces

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Irregular terraces

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Rounded terraces

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Square-ish terraces

This node uses an advanced algorithm to create customizable terraces on a heightfield terrain.

In addition to the usual altitude input, the node can take a special “Locate Terraces” input into
which can be fed a noise which prominent features will influence the shape of the terraces. For
example, a round noise will yield round terraces, a Voronoi noise will tend to yield Voronoi-cell
shaped terraces, etc. which opens a lot of possibilities for customization.

The other parameters controlling the terraces are:

• Strength: overall strength of the terracing effect.
• Smooth contours: how much to try and smooth the terraces contours.
– Note: using a high smoothing value will noticeably raise the node’s computing times.
• Slope Width: terraces are linked to each other by sloped areas, in order to avoid abrupt
altitude changes. This parameter is the width a these slopes: the narrower the slopes are,
the steeper they get.
• Max. Size: limits the dimensions of the terraces, to avoid having terraces spanning the
whole terrain (depending on the “Locate Terraces” input).

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• Max. Height: limits the altitude difference between two adjacent terraces.
This node has a secondary output named Slope which will typically allow you to apply different
effects on the terraces’ flatter areas than on the slopes between distinct terraces.

Auto­mapping node
This node will linearly map the input range of the heightfield being fed into it into the desired
output range. This is a real helper since thanks to it you no longer need to worry about the
output range of a set of nodes (even noises and fractals, which are notably hard to predict).
Whatever it is, you just have to insert an auto-mapping node to “normalize” the range to suit
your needs.

For example, if you want to use the output of a node as a weighing factor, you will set your
auto-mapper to output in the [0 ; 1] range. Or if you need to output to a custom dependency
for later reuse in a material graph, you will auto-map to [-1 ; 1] in order to exploit the full range
of values and no longer need to adjust the material graph filters each time you make changes
in the terrain graph.

Compare to a similar situation in a procedural graph, where such a node is not available: you
would have to evaluate yourself the range of values at a given node in the graph and manually
tweak various filters to adjust the range to suit your needs, which usually takes some trial and
error.

Apart from the output range parameters, the node takes an additional parameter named “Input
Range Rounding”: this prevents the mapping from changing by a slight factor when the input
range varies slightly. For example, if you set “0.1” in this parameter, the mapping factor will be
the same whether the input range is for example [0.02 ; 0.98] or [0.0 ; 1.0].

This can be useful to maintain some stability in the output of a graph, for example to compare
the overall effect of slightly different parameters in some other nodes. On the other hand, using
a non-zero value here means the output range may not be exactly matched.

Wetness Index
The Topographic Wetness Index (or Compound Topographic Index) is defined by the Wikipedia
as a function of both the slope and the upstream contributing area per unit width orthogonal to
the flow direction. The upstream contributing area, or drainage area, simply represents how
much rain passes around a given point of a terrain, in case of a constant and homogeneous
precipitation over the whole terrain.

The Wetness Index node in VUE only accounts for the drainage area, so that it mostly shows
how far downstream a point is on a terrain. If needed, the slope can be accounted for using a
dedicated node in the graph.

The node is usually connected so as to receive the same values as the Altitude output of the

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Heightfield function graph. A straightforward way to use the node is to drive the blending of
material layers with it, using a Custom Dependency node in the Altitude graph, and an External
Dependency node in the material graph where it will be used, for example the Alpha function
(to drive the blending of material layers), or the Distribution function (in the case of a Mixed
material).

One could also use the node inside the Altitude graph itself, for example to carve out the “wettest”
areas of the terrain in order to emulate rainfall erosion without resorting to the much slower
fluid simulations used in the actual Erosion nodes.

A very simple Wetness Index-driven material.

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Connection of the Wetness Index node in the Terrain Altitude graph.

Connection of the External Dependency in the Terrain’s Material graph.

Erosion Presets and Parameters

Presets
The Erosion algorithm uses an extensive set of parameters in order to achieve a wide range of
possible results. As a consequence, configuring the node has a somewhat steep learning curve.
Presets help apprehending the roles and interactions of the parameters by supplying sets of

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parameters that work well together and produce distinctive results. You can either use the pre-
configured Erosion nodes corresponding to each preset, or use a fully customizable Erosion
node and apply the preset on it.

Note that when applying a preset in the fully customized Erosion node, almost all parameters
of the node are changed to match the preset parameters, overriding any changes you may have
made since the last preset applied! You can then tweak the parameters as you like as long as
you do not apply another preset.

Note:

“Vertical Scale”, “Quality Boost” and “Evaporation Amount” are not modified by a change of
preset.

Note:

A message will warn you when the node parameters are about to be overwritten by a change of
preset.

Here are examples of the presets, applied on the following generic mountain flank with basic
fractal detail:

Non-eroded terrain

Mountains: This preset leaves peaks and distinctly rougher areas on the terrain.

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Mountain erosion

Old Mountains: Simulates how mountains are eroded after the passing of geological times.

Old mountains

Scattered Rock: This preset yields isolated rocks in the middle of smooth hill slopes made of
sand/soil.

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Scattered rocks

Generic: This generic preset applies to a wide range of terrains.

Generic Erosion

Rivers: More contrasted, this preset digs rivers into a terrain made of soil and rocks.

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River-like Erosion

Gorges: Much more contrasted, this preset digs deeply into a terrain made of harder rocks.

Gorges-like Erosion

Very Eroded: This preset applies a heavy erosion on the terrain, erasing most of the rougher
parts.

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Very eroded terrain

Flow Channels: This preset applies moderate erosion and can also be used to determine where
water would flow over the terrain.

Erosion channels

Furrows: A variant of “Flow Channels” where the erosion is allowed to apply more thoroughly,
so that the terrain is more eroded along the water channels.

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Furrows

Global Parameters
• Vertical Scale (meters): this parameter is expressed in physical units. The erosion pro-
cesses simulate actual laws of physics, which rely among other physical quantities on
the altitude variations over the heightfield. Obviously, the resulting terrain height can-
not be automatically determined and used, since it itself depends on the result of this
node. This is why the height of the simulated heightfield can be configured.
It is also a way to tweak the effect of the simulation without changing the height of the
resulting terrain in the scene.
The horizontal dimensions are also an important physical quantity on which the simula-
tion depends. They are automatically determined by using the actual terrain dimensions
in the scene, so take care to first scale your terrain before tweaking the erosion parame-
ters.
• Timescale: this is a measure of the duration of the simulation. Raising or lowering this
parameter will greatly change the aspect of the resulting terrain, but will also impact the
duration of the computations proportionately.
• Smallest Feature (meters): this parameter is also expressed in physical units in order
to be comparable with the Vertical Scale parameter. It is used to prevent the simulation
process from caring about small details on the input heightfield. This parameter is im-
portant when you want to use the Erosion node on very high-resolution heightfields but
you don’t need to erode pixel-level details. With a low Smallest Feature parameter, the
simulation will run on a grid the same resolution as your heightfield, which can lead to
very long computing times.

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• Favor Larger Features: this parameter has no particular unit. It influences the simula-
tion algorithm in order to apply the erosion processes more at larger scales when the
parameter value is higher. At or below a value of 1., on the other hand, smaller scale de-
tails are privileged.
• Quality Boost: as with all physical simulations, artifacts can appear because of the performance-
realism trade-off taken in the algorithm. This parameter is a way to boost the quality of
the simulation, by using values higher than 0., or on the contrary to speed-up the compu-
tation by using values lower than 0., when the simulation quality is not a limiting factor.

Terrain Properties
The hydrological part of the algorithm simulates dissolution, transport and deposition of soil
along the water flow over the terrain. These parameters control the physical properties of the
terrain.
• Rock Hardness: harder rocks are less eroded then softer ones.
• Sediment Deposition: this parameter is a way to control how fast soil is actually de-
posited while it is being transported over the terrain, ie. it is a way to tweak the actual
physical process at work.
• Erosion Strength: this is another non-realistic parameter to influence the speed of ero-
sion. This can lead to unwanted artifacts though, so keep in mind that another way to
erode your terrain more is to raise the Timescale parameter, at the expense of longer
computing times.

Flow Parameters
The hydrological simulation is a compromise between physical realism and computation times.
Simulating actual rain and the whole water cycle over the terrain is of course impossible, so the
parameters below tweak the simulation using intuitive concepts:
• Flow Level: this is a measure of the minimum amount of water present over the terrain.
• Channeling Threshold: this parameter controls at which water level the terrain will be-
gin to be affected by thermal and bank weathering (see Weathering Parameters below),
digging river beds into the terrain. Though it can be seen as a weathering parameter more
than a flow parameter, the effect of the Channeling Threshold value is closely linked to
the value of the Flow Level. See how the various presets set up those two values to create
different effects on the terrain.
• Flow Depth Limit: as a consequence of the performance-quality compromise, the simu-
lation sometimes digs unrealistically deep into the terrain, as if an infinite height of soil
was available to transport. This parameter can limit the digging depth and should be set
up in relation with the Vertical Scale of your terrain.
• Dampen Flow, Clamp Flow: these non-realistic parameters are used to slow down the
simulated flows in order to produce various effects on the terrain. Dampen Flow slows

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down the flows continually over the whole simulation, while Clamp Flow is an upper limit
to the flow speed. See how the various presets set up those two values to create different
effects on the terrain.
• Erosion Emphasis: this non-realistic parameter can be used to emphasize the effect of
the hydrological erosion process without resorting to a longer Timescale.
• Emphasis Threshold: this parameter is used to adjust the shape of the Erosion Emphasis
effect. Close to 0., the emphasized features are more spiky while at higher values the
features are more rounded.

Weathering Parameters
• Thermal Weathering: some amount of thermal weathering can be added to the simula-
tion. Thermal weathering is a physical process due to the alternating periods of colder
and warmer weather. It erodes the steeper slopes by detaching little bits of rocks which
roll down and accumulate to form conical talus. The actual amount of thermal weather-
ing effective on your terrain will greatly depend on the steepness of its slopes and hence,
on the ratio of its Vertical Scale to its horizontal dimensions.
• Bank Erosion: when streams and rivers form over a terrain, its bank tends to erode quite
fast because of the forces exerted by the running flows. This is a prominent effect in our
simulation in order to create actual valleys on the terrain, whereas hydrological erosion
alone would tend to create gorges instead.
• Bank Transition: this parameter blurs the boundary between the drier areas of the ter-
rains and those affected by Bank Erosion.
• Preserve Roughness: this parameter can be used to preserve part of the roughness of
the input terrain even over eroded areas. Less eroded areas will still preserve more rough-
ness than more eroded ones.

Flow Surface Output

• Evaporation Amount: when using the Flow Surface output, this parameter can be used
to adjust water depth considered by the algorithm to compute the output.

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Nodes Used in Graph

This panel, located in the top-left corner of the Function Graph in the default workspace, lists all
the nodes used in the graph, sorted by name and category. When you click on one of the items
in the list, this automatically selects and highlights all the matching nodes in the Graph View,
allowing you to easily see where they are used. You can also rename all the matching nodes
through a single operation, directly from this list.

For a faster selection, there is a search box to find easily the node you are looking for.

Node Selector

The node selector is very similar to the Node Toolbar. It is used to add or replace nodes in the
Function Graph. In order to make the creation of elaborate functions an easier process, the
items in the node selector will either add new nodes, or replace existing nodes, depending on
the context.

For a faster selection, there is a search box to find easily the node you are looking for. The layout
could also be switched from one column to 2 columns.

Function Output Preview

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Material output

Terrain output

Function Output Observer

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This panel is accessed by pressing the Function Output Observer icon ( ) in the top toolbar
of the Function Graph (see here).

If this icon is orange, this panel will appear automatically each time you open the Function
Graph. This panel can be resized by its edges. By resizing the panel, you can enlarge the preview
area.

The Function Output Observer is a simple panel that displays a view of the function’s output.
The nature of the view depends on the function’s context:
• If you are editing a function that is part of the definition of a material, the panel shows a
preview of the material.
• If you are editing the function that defines the altitudes of a procedural terrain, the panel
displays a preview of the procedural terrain. You can rotate, pan and zoom the terrain
preview like in the Terrain Editor (see here).

Output Observer for a Material

You can change the scale of the previewed object with the small combo box in the top-left cor-
ner of the preview (from 1mm up to 1000km, as in all material previews in the other places).

Solo Preview Mode

When a node is selected in a material graph, you can press the button to emphasize the
role of the selected node in the final contribution: this will render the material preview (in the
output observer) as if the node was directly connected to the color output, ignoring all interme-
diate nodes. By default, the channel used for the solo mode is the color channel, but you can
choose another channel by right-clicking the solo preview icon.

Output Observer for Terrain Altitudes

Scale: use this setting to zoom in or out of the preview. Press the and buttons to respec-
tively reduce/increase the scale of the preview.

Origin: use this to enter the origin of the function observation. This point is the one at the
center of the previews (center of the sphere if you are viewing a material on a sphere, center
of the plane if you are viewing a material on a plane, center of the terrain if you are viewing a
terrain).

Auto Fit and Fit Now allow you to get a reliable feedback on the modifications performed on
the function (the Fit Vertically option displays the output values in a range that fits the dialog,

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but, the updated terrain can be quite different from the preview because of the difference in
the final range). By using Fit Now, the user can see the evolution of the function more easily.

Node Properties

The node/link Properties panel is the area of the Function Graph that sits below theFunction
Graph in the default workspace. As its name indicates, this area displays details on the currently
selected node or link.

Node Properties

When a node is selected, the node type appears as the title of the details area. Alongside this
title, one or several drop-down list boxes will let you change the type of node in that category
(e.g. when a Noise node is selected, two drop-down list boxes let you select the noise type used
in that node).

If the selected node has options, these options will appear to the right of the node preview. The
nature and type of these options depends on each node, and will be discussed further down.

You can add titles and descriptions to your nodes using the Title and Description fields. This
is useful when designing complex functions that should be used by other parties.

To edit the node title, click it in the node directly. Otherwise to edit the node description, use
the right click contextual menu of the node. By default the node title is the node type (or the
constant value for constant nodes). The description will appear as a tooltip when you float the
mouse over the node in the graph.

Searching for Parameters

Use the Search for parameters field to find a given parameter by its name (this can be useful for
complex nodes with many parameters, such as certain fractal nodes).

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Extracting Constant Values

If the selected node has options, some of these options exhibit an Extract parameter button
( ). If you click this button, the node parameter will be extracted: a new constant node will
be created and this node will be connected to the right hand side of the initial node (parame-
ter connection). When you extract a parameter, the extracted parameter node is automatically
selected.

The value held by this newly created constant value node is the same as that of the parameter
before it was extracted. At this point, the output of the node is not affected by this extraction.
But now that the parameter is extracted, you may replace it with any type of node (e.g. a noise
node!).

If you go back to the initial node, you will notice that the Extract parameter button ( ) has
been replaced by the Disconnect parameter button ( ), and instead of displaying input con-
trols, an indication that the node is “connected” appears. If you click the disconnect parameter
button, or if you destroy the parameter’s link, the parameter will be reintegrated into the node
and restored to its initial constant value.

The underlying power of this simple feature is truly amazing! For instance, most noise nodes
have an origin (which is the origin of the noise wave). If you extract this origin, and then click the
Turbulence node icon ( ), the origin will be replaced by a turbulent value. Or if you extract
and connect the scale parameter of a noise node to the slope input, the scale of the noise will
vary automatically according to slope! Please turn here for a few simple examples of how to
use this feature.

Note:

if you clicked the Show parameter connections icon ( ), small links appear to the right of
the node on the graph. Each one of these links corresponds to a parameter. You can extract a
parameter directly by grabbing the corresponding handle and connecting it to another node.

Published Parameters

The Published Parameters feature copies specific settings from the Function Graph that you
may need to change often and places them in a more convenient location for easier access. If
you have accessed the Terrain Editor from the Function Graph, the selected parameters will ap-
pear on a special tab in the Terrain Editor. If you accessed the Function Graph from the Material
Editor, a special tab will appear in the Advanced Material Editor.

To select a parameter for publishing, just click the underlined field name of the parameter. A

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parameter name is supplied and a group name is asked to improve the display of the published
parameter.

Multi­edition of nodes

If you select several nodes, parameters of the first selected node will be displayed. Edit one
parameter: value of this parameter will be applied on all selected node (if selected node has
the same parameter).

Link Properties

When a link is selected, a preview of the two nodes that are connected by the link is displayed in
the Link Details area, together with two small arrows that let you go to either one of the nodes.
Click the left arrow button ( ) to go to the upper node, and click the right arrow ( ) to go to
the lower node.

Function Node Preview

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Function Node Preview

This panel is accessed by pressing the Function Node Preview icon ( ) in the top toolbar of
the Function Graph (see here).

If this icon is orange, this panel will appear automatically each time you open the Function
Graph. This panel can be resized by its edges. By resizing the panel, you can enlarge the preview
area.

The Function Node Preview displays a preview of the output of the currently selected node as a
set of curves or colors. If the selected node outputs a number, the panel will display 3 curves
showing a section of the node’s output along each one of the 3 axes. If the selected node out-
puts a color, the panel will display 3 colored bands showing the output of the node along each
one of the 3 axes. If the selected node outputs a vector or a texture, the panel displays nothing.

You can change the origin of the observation using the X, Y and Z input fields. The origin of the
observation is the point at the exact center of the 3 curves/bands. Under each curve/band is
an indication of the relative offset from the origin of observation.

Use the Scale setting to adjust the portion of the outputs that is displayed in the curves/bands
– that is the size of the observation window along the axes that is viewed on each curve/band.
Press the and buttons to respectively reduce/increase the scale of the preview.

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You can also change the origin of the observation by dragging the curves/bands: click on one
of the curves/bands and drag the mouse to move the observation window. To change the scale
of observation, press the Control key and drag the mouse up/down to zoom in/out.

Curves and Extension

When the selected node outputs a number, the Function Node Preview displays output values
as 3 curves. A ruler indicating the amplitude of the output will be displayed on the left edge of
each curve. These values are controlled through the Extension parameter.

Automatic extension: select this option if you want the Function Node Preview to automati-
cally select the appropriate extension so that all output values fit in the curves. This setting is
only available when the output of the currently selected node is a number. The corresponding
extension is displayed in the Extension field. When Automatic extension is selected, this field is
disabled.

Extension: use this to control the minimum and maximum values displayed on the curves. This
setting is only available when the output of the currently selected node is a number, and the
Automatic extension option is deselected.

Examples

Creating Turbulence

In order to add turbulence to a noise, you need to Extract the Origin parameter (by clicking
on the button alongside the Origin parameter) and replace the constant node with a Tur-
bulence node. You can adjust the look of turbulence by using the turbulence node parameters
(see here).

Slope Dependent Scale

Create a noise node (e.g. a Value Perlin noise). Extract the Scale parameter and connect it
to the Slope input. The scale of the noise now varies according to slope. However, if you are
previewing the function on a sphere, you may notice that lower parts of the sphere are uniform.
That’s because scale is limited to positive values, and the slope varies between -1 and 1. So all
parts of the sphere with a negative slope have a scale that is clamped to 0.

Select the link that connects the slope to the scale parameter, and click Filter. Change the type

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of the filter to “Absolute”. Now the scale of the noise bounces back up on the lower parts of the
sphere and only reduces on vertical slopes.

If you want the scale of the noise to increase on vertical slopes instead of horizontal surfaces,
you will need to invert the slope. To do this, select the “Absolute” filter node and click Filter
again. This adds a second filter behind the absolute filter node. Change the type of that new
filter node to “Brightness-Contrast” and indicate a Contrast of -1 and a Brightness of 1. The
output of that node is now 0 on flat surfaces and 1 on steep slopes, hence smaller scale on flat
surfaces.

You can also modulate the scale of the noise according to the altitude rather than the slope:
simply plug the scale parameter into the Altitude input. However, altitudes vary significantly
over the surface of the object, so you may want to reduce the amplitude of these variations, for
instance by inserting a “Multiply” filter in between the Altitude input and the scale parameter,
in order to tone down the variations of altitude (e.g. multiply by 0.1 the Altitude input).

You could also plug another noise into the scale parameter. Create a new noise node and con-
nect the scale parameter to that new noise node. If you enter 0 wavelength along the X and Y
axes of this new node, you will create horizontal stripes resulting in horizontal stripes of varying
scale. You can add the “Absolute” filter node to avoid negative values, and you can even con-
trol the influence of the horizontal stripes on the noise by adjusting the contrast and threshold
(threshold will set the minimum scale, whereas contrast will control the variation in scale along
the stripes).

Variable Color­Texture Mapping

You can easily blend the color of an object with a texture map according to the value of slope:

Edit the Color production function of a Simple Material. Select the color output and create a
Color node. Make it a “Linear Interpolation 2” type of node. Plug the input of the node into the
Slope input.

Note:

The color node’s output has automatically been plugged into the Color channel.

If you check the material, you will see that the color of the material varies according to slope.
Now, in the color node, extract the “Color 2” parameter. Replace the constant color node with
a Texture Map node and load a texture. The material is now solid color on flat surfaces, but
mapped with a texture on vertical parts.

Of course, if you change the color node’s input from the slope to a noise, you can control the
mapping with that noise.

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Published Parameter Editor

The Published Parameters Editor allows to customize the user interface of the published param-
eters of a graph. Not only can you easily create groups and reorder both groups and parameters
through drag and drop, but you can exactly configure which UI element should be used for a
published setting, how it should look and whether it should be greyed out based on dependen-
cies with other parameters.

Element to edit

You can select if you want to edit the current graph that you are working in or the currently
selected metanode / component (this allows you to change the interface of a metanode / com-
ponent without having to enter the graph of the metanode, something that was not possible
in the past). Usually, current graph (if you are not currently in a metanode graph) refers to the
top-level published interface for the material editor or the presets tab of the plant.

Edition Mode

The editor operates in two modes: Parameter interface and Display conditions, accessible in
the top right corner. Start building your published Parameter interface first and then add any
Display conditions to the final interface.

Every interface you create is independent from any previous metanode graphs. For example,
if you created a metanode interface, including display conditions, these conditions will not be
carried through to any higher interfaces you create. You will have to setup the rules again for
each new interface. If they were inherited, this would create risks for unwanted loops and un-
expected behaviors.

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Edition mode: Parameter interface

Publishing and unpublishing groups and parameters

The left column lists all nodes in your graph / selected metanode. You can search for a node
with the search field. A parameter search might be added in a later build. Drag and drop a
parameter, a group of parameters or even a whole node from the left column into the middle
column to publish it. Any already published parameter will be greyed out in the left column.
Thus, the middle column represents your published interface structure.

Parameters in the middle column can be reordered and assigned to a different group through
drag and drop. You can create new groups with the New icon above the column. Nested groups
are not supported, so you cannot drag a group under another group.

To delete a group, select it and press DELETE on the keyboard or use the trash can icon above
the column. This will only delete the group but keep the parameters.

To unpublish a parameter, do the same (DELETE or trash can icon). You can also unpublish
through right clicking on the greyed out parameter in the left column.

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Configuring a published parameter

Select the published parameter or group in the middle column. You can then configure its prop-
erties in the right column, rename it and add a tooltip description.

Depending on the parameter type (number, vector, color, texture map), the available settings
for configuring the look and feel of the parameter will differ.

The right column also shows a preview of what the parameter will look like with the current
settings in the interface. Important notice for legacy scenes

Every numerical or vector parameter from this version onward is automatically connectable in
the graph (connectable means that the node parameter can be controlled by another node).
There are no more non-connectable parameters. Consequently, all nodes available in the Con-
stant node category (constant number etc.) are now connectable versions. The old non-connectable
versions have been removed. If you load an older scene with non-connectable nodes, they will
be silently replaced with connectable nodes during loading, because only connectable nodes
can be configured in the new editor. Non-connectable nodes will not have any editing options.
Important: The replacement of non-connectable nodes during loading with connectable ones
is true for material graphs & VUE-specific graphs such as terrains, but not for PlantFactory plant
graphs due to the preset system, which makes automatic replacement very difficult. Here, you
will have to manually replace non-connectable nodes in older scenes with connectable ones in
order to be able to edit their interfaces in the new editor.

Parameter properties
Numbers
First, select the kind of number value type to use: Number, Boolean, Enumeration
• Number: The default value type
– A number can be displayed as
* Numerical field
* Constant slider (the default slider used everywhere across VUE interface with
a linear distribution of the values across the slider range)

* Logarithmic slider (same as constant, just with a non-linear distribution of the

values across the slider range)

* Expandable slider which adapt its display range to the current value
– Common properties for numbers
* Mapping mode:
· Standard: Will output exactly the value that is entered with no change
· Percentage: Will output the value divided by 100; for example, you can cre-
ate a percentage slider which goes from [0; 100] in the UI, but which still

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outputs values between [0; 1] internally.

· Inverted: Mostly useful for sliders in the range from [0; 1]. The value is in-
terpreted in an “inverted” way with the formula 1/x.

* Unit: This is a pure display option for the UI. Changing the unit does not change
the computation of the node at all. You can add a unit display and choose be-
tween :
· None
· Degree
· Percent
· Quality (+/-)
· Scene unit: units taken from the preferences of the VUE
· Custom: enter your own custom string.

* Integer: Check this box to allow only whole numbers to be displayed.

* Clamped value: The controls allow you to clamp the output of the UI element
to min and max ranges, so that lower or higher numbers cannot be entered by
the user.

* Slider range: For sliders, this defines the display range of the slider in the UI.
This is independent of the clamped value, so that you can configure a default
display range for the slider, but still allow the user to enter lower or higher num-
bers manually (until min & max clamp values are exceeded). The clamped value
settings adapt automatically to the slider range to be of at least the same range,
in case they were at a lower range before.
• Boolean:: This will turn the parameter into a checkbox. You can configure the values that
will be output for true and false (when the checkbox is checked or unchecked).
– If the parameter is part of a group in the published parameter interface, you can
choose Merge with group to add a checkbox to the group in the published UI for
enabling / disabling the whole group of settings. This is a pure UI feature. You still
need to build the action of enabling / disabling a group of settings into the graph
yourself.
• Enumeration: This option turns the parameter into a list of numerical values which can
be displayed either as a dropdown menu or as a list of radio buttons. You can add new
list entries with the plus button, rename them and assign a value to each item. Items can
be reordered with the arrow icons to the right of the name and deleted with the trash can
icon.

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Vectors 2 & 3
You can choose between two display types: Standard and Custom.
• Standard: the vector will be displayed with the usual numerical fields for X, Y and Z.
• Custom: you can create a separate numerical UI element for each component. These nu-
merical elements can be configured just like the regular numbers and can be turned into
lists, checkboxes, sliders etc.; please refer to the section about numbers for an explana-
tion of the available settings.

Bool
If the parameter is part of a group in the published parameter interface, you can choose Merge
with group to add a checkbox to the group in the published UI for enabling / disabling the whole
group of settings. This is a pure UI feature.

Others
No additional properties defined.

Edition mode: Display conditions

Once you’ve setup your published interface, you can introduce rules / dependencies to grey out
parameters in the interface when certain conditions are met (or not). Rules can only be created
for numbers, not for vectors, colors or texture maps.

Creating a display rule

In this mode, the published parameter interface that you created is displayed in the left column.
Select a parameter and drag it into the middle column (or press the New icon above the middle
column when the parameter is selected) to create a new rule based on this parameter.

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Configuring a display rule

The rule is configured in the right column. Here, you can set the conditions for the rule:
• Is equal to
• Is not equal to
• Is equal or bigger than
• Is bigger than
• Is equal or smaller than
• Is smaller than
• Is true / is false (for Boolean numbers)
Then set the value against which to check the rule.

You can also setup multiple rules for the same parameter. For example, you could setup two
rules for a checkbox – one rule for enabling parameters when the checkbox is checked and one
for enabling (other) parameters when the checkbox is unchecked.

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Assigning parameters that should be controlled by the

rule
Once you have setup your rule in the middle column, drag and drop any parameter that you
want to depend on this rule as a child onto the rule.

When a parameter has been assigned as a child to the rule, it will only be accessible in the UI if
the rule condition is met. If not, it will be greyed out.

Combining multiple rules for a parameter

If you want a parameter to depend on more than one rule, drag and drop it as a child onto as
many rules as you want.

If a parameter depends on multiple rules, select the parameter in the middle or left column to
see a list of all the rules on the right that the parameter depends on.

On the right, you can select how the rules for the currently selected parameter should be com-
bined. You can choose between two conditional operators: AND and OR.

With AND, all rule conditions must be met for the parameter to be accessible. If just a single one
is not met, the parameter will remain greyed out.

With OR, it is enough if one of the conditions is met, even if the other conditions are not met.

The right column also shows a preview of the whole published interface so that you can try
the interface interactively and see if the rules you created work as intended. Playing with the
parameters here has no influence on the graph. The values will not be changed for the graph,
they are here for preview and testing purposes only.

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Scene Graph Approach

The Scene Graph approach is a way of viewing your scene, from a graph-based point of view.
This approach lets you define custom relationships between all the objects, terrains and mate-
rials of your scene, by visually connecting their properties using a set of nodes.

This is a powerful concept that lets you create incredibly elaborate scripts to control object,
terrain or material properties based on other items.

For instance, control the distribution of rocks on terrains according to local roughness, assem-
ble automatic piston rigs, make objects turn red when other objects grow large, turn lights on
when doors open, etc.

You can even design scripts that will make objects interact dynamically with procedural terrains,
to recreate, for example, the deep impact effect of an asteroid hitting a terrain

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Object Graphs

Each object can now be controlled using a graph. This graph is unique to the object, and is
accessed by selecting the menu option Object | Edit Graph, or by clicking on the Edit object
graph button ( ) at the bottom of the World Browser (see here).

The object graph features the different properties of the object both as input and output. The
input value of an object property contains the current value of that property. For instance, the
Position input contains the current position of the object.

If you connect something to one of the output properties, you are forcing the value of that prop-
erty, and it will no longer be possible to change it in the user interface. For instance, if you con-
nect the Size output directly to the Position input, you are forcing the size of the object to be
exactly equal to its position (obviously not very useful, but this is just an example).

Now, if you close the Object Graph, you will notice that the size of the object is related to its
position, and you are unable to change the size of the object. If you were to animate the position
of the object, you would see its size vary according to its position, despite the fact that no size
animation is defined. Actually, if you look at the Properties Timeline, you will notice that the
Size property is marked as being --connected--.

The Edit object graph button of objects that have a graph attached to them appears toggled
down ( ) at the bottom of the World Browser.

To remove an Object Graph completely, simply delete all nodes and connections in the graph.

Connecting Graphs
The Object Graph is very useful to customize the behavior of a single object. However, it’s true
power comes in the ability to connect different graphs together, so that you can cause some
objects to react to other object’s properties. You can also connect different types of graphs
together. For instance, you can connect a material graph to an object’s graph, or to the altitude
production function of a procedural terrain.

Creating relationships between objects, materials or procedural terrains is done by import-

ing/exporting parameters between graphs.

External Dependencies
The External Dependency input is the type of input that will let you import the value of a prop-
erty of another object into a particular graph.

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In the object graph, select Add Input Node | External Dependency from the popup menu. This
adds an External dependency input to the graph. With this input selected, look at the node
details. You will see a Dependency drop-down menu, where you can select which property of
which object you want to import into the graph.

For instance, create a cylinder and a sphere. Select the cylinder, and edit its graph. In the
cylinder graph, add an External Dependency input node on the sphere’s position. Connect
the cylinder size output to the sphere position dependency node, and close the graph. Now,
notice how the size of the cylinder changes as you move the sphere around.
• Dependency: select the item for the dependency relationship from the drop-list. De-
pending on the item selected, Size may be available as a qualifier. If you then select
True dimensions, you can specify the size in VUE units, Display units, or specific units
such as meters or feet.
• Relative to parent: if the object is part of a group, a Boolean operation or a Metablob,
selecting this option will express the dependency in coordinates that are relative to the
group.
Note:

The relationship between the objects will be preserved, even if you group them together. Using
this capability, you can, for instance, very easily create complex mechanical components such
as the piston rig

You can also refer to object properties from inside a material graph, or a procedural terrain
altitude graph.

Recall Dependency
The Recall Dependency type of node is incredibly powerful, as it behaves like the External
Dependency node, but will actually remember the value of the dependency for the indicated
time.

To create such a node, select the Add Input Node | Recall Dependency command from the
popup menu.
• Delay: this parameter controls the amount of time by which the value of the dependency
is delayed, so that the value that is returned by the node is actually the value that the
dependency had “Delay time” before.
• Dependency: select the item for the dependency relationship from the drop-list. De-
pending on the item selected, Size may be available as a qualifier. If you then select
True dimensions, you can specify the size in VUE units, Display units, or specific units
such as meters or feet.
Note:

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the Recall Dependency nodes only work in the context of Object Graphs.

Exporting Values
In the previous section, we saw how we can easily connect several object graphs together by
referring to the properties of other objects. However, there may be cases where you wish to
refer to something else than a property of an object. For instance, you could want to connect
to an intermediate value that is calculated in another graph.

This can be done by exporting values. To do this, select Add Output Node | Custom Depen-
dency from the popup menu. This creates a Custom Dependency output node. You can con-
nect this node to whatever you wish to refer to in another graph.

You could use this feature to distribute materials on a procedural terrain according to terrain
roughness. Let’s create a new procedural terrain and edit the terrain altitude graph. Create a
Terrain Fractal node and connect that to the Altitude output. Now, create a Custom Depen-
dency output node in the terrain altitude graph, and connect this node to the Terrain Fractal
node. Notice that, at the time of connecting, you are asked to select between two types of out-
puts (Altitude and Rough areas). Connect the dependency output to the Rough areas output
of the Terrain Fractal node and close the graph. Now edit the material that is assigned to the
terrain, and create a mixed material (see here). Edit the Distribution function, and, in the func-
tion graph, create an External Dependency input node. From the Dependency drop-down
menu, select the Custom Dependency option of the procedural terrain, and connect this to
the Distribution output. Close the graph. If you render the terrain, you will see that the distri-
bution of materials now depends on the roughness of the terrain.

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Spline Editor
Spline objects can be created and edited in VUE, or imported from files. They cover a wide range
of use cases, from meshes to materials and EcoSystems, thanks to several effects to be applied
following the spline’s shape:
• Material/EcoSystem effects, like masking a material layer along the spline’s path, or pop-
ulating along or inside a contour,
• Spline Cross-Section, which is a kind of extrusion and produces a mesh in your scene,
• Affect Terrains, which can raise or carve into a terrain following the spline’s path, typically
to simulate a road.
A VUE spline is easily edited using two types of handles:
• Control points: they define the main passing points of the curve.
• Tangents handles: there is always one pair for each control point.
– By varying the distance to its control point, you can control the curve’s shape.
– When “free” (unaligned), the angle between the two tangents will make an inflec-
tion in the curve at the control point.

Spline Editor – Top Toolbar

Creation and Edition

A spline is presented like a group; thus you need to Ctrl-click on one of its points or tangents
to select it individually, instead of the whole spline. Since a spline’s control and tangent points
are all listed in the World Browser under the spline itself, you can also use the World Browser to
select one or several of them for combined operations.

The Spline Editor opens when creating a spline from scratch, or to edit an existing one.

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The Add/Edit point ( ) button is the first to understand: toggle it on to add new points
to the spline, or off to edit the existing points of the spline (actual “control” points or tangent
points). A keyboard shortcut (default: E) allows to do that painlessly while editing the spline in
the viewports.

When creating from scratch, the editor opens up in Add mode, otherwise it will open in Edit
mode.
• When you have added more than two points to a new spline, you can click OK to finalize
the spline. Cancelling before that will simply remove the empty curve from the scene.
• You can activate the various effects by using each editor frame’s checkbox, and continue
editing your spline while previewing the effects settings in the 3D viewports and in the
rendered scene preview.
When the Add point button is toggled on, clicking in any viewport will add a new control point
over the first scene object found below the mouse cursor. The default is to append points at
the end of the spline, unless the first control point is selected: in that case, new points are
prepended at the beginning of the spline.
• You can also insert new points at specific locations on the spline by pressing and hold-
ing the Shift key when hovering the mouse near the spline: when the cursor changes to
indicate proximity with the spline, clicking will insert the new point.
• While in Add point mode, you can still Ctrl+click on another point to select it, delete it,
but not move it.
• When adding a point exactly over the starting point of a spline, VUE will offer to close the
spline for you.
You need to switch to Edit mode to select one or more existing points (or tangents) and manip-
ulate them.
• Note that the Drop (Shift+D) and Drop on Top (Shift+Alt+D) actions are especially useful
in this context to drop a control point onto objects below or above it.
• You can define a manual roll on individual control points using their local rotation gizmo,
useful for customizing the ribbon or cross-section’s shape.

Spline Editor – Tangent modes

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Free / Locked tangent modes: when moving the tangent point on one side of a control point,
by default the opposite tangent moves symmetrically, by which it is meant that both tangents
distance to the control points are equal, and the angle formed by the two tangent segments
is preserved as the tangents are moved. This means the curve’s shape will be smooth around
the control point, with no visible break of curvature. To customize the way the curve behaves
around a control point, either or both the tangents’ length and the tangents’ angle can be un-
locked, hence the four different tangent moving modes, from left to right in the icon’s submenu:
• Both length and angle are locked (default).
• Free angle but locked tangents’ lengths.
• Free lengths but locked tangent angle.
• Both length and angle are free to be modified independently on each side of the control
point.

Closed spline ( ): Use to join the first and last points of the spline to close the spline.

Use the Halve ( ) and Double quality ( ) to adjust the quality of the spline’s subdi-
vision, both for previews in the 3D viewports but also for the application of the various spline
effects, and for rendering.

Import spline ( ) allows to import a spline from a file. Supported formats are:
• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG file extension)
– Note that the full extent of the SVG format is not supported, but it is the preferred
exchange format for basic curves. Quadratic and cubic Bezier curves as well as el-
liptical and rectilinear paths are supported.
• Legacy formats: support for these legacy and/or proprietary formats is provided “as-is”:
– PostScript files (PS file extension)
– Encapsulated PostScript files (EPS file extension)
– Adobe Illustrator (up to 3.2) files (AI file extension)

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Additional Spline Tools

Path finding ( ): Use to find the best path for the spline. Used for creating paths or roads
through hilly terrains, for example.

Resample spline ( ): this creates new points for the spline, while keeping its shape. As it
is done for path finding, new points are dropped on the underlying terrain.

Material Summary

Spline Editor – Materials Summary

This frame shows the various materials used by the various effects enabled for the current
spline, so that they can be edited easily once the other effects’ options are set up.

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Material/EcoSystem Effects

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Spline Editor – EcoSystem effect

This frame’s settings allows you to apply materials and to populate EcoSystems along the spline
and in the area defined by the spline, as well as cutting out other EcoSystems existing under the
spline.

Width settings
Preview effect width in viewports: shows the spline as a ribbon in the 3D viewports, but the
ribbon doesn’t render.

Maximum width: you can define the width of the effect at any point along the spline, using this
value and a profile (as a Filter) to specify how the width varies between zero and its maximum
along the spline’s path.

Project/populate material along spline

The specified material (see the Spline Editor’s Material Summary) will be applied on objects
located directly above and below it in the scene, over an shape defined by the curve path and
the width settings explained in the previous section.
• Mapping the material can be done using the influenced object’s mapping mode and UVs,
but also using the UVs of the spline’s path itself. Read UV Mapping along a Spline for
more details and examples.
• Note that the material is applied by blending with the underlying object’s material, it does
not replace it. This can be important if the spline’s material is not fully opaque: you will
see the underlying object’s material through the projected material, even if the effect
strength is 100%.
• Only “flat” material effects (Color, Alpha, Bump, etc.) can be applied: effects that alter the
underlying geometry or normals in any way (like Displacement mapping, Normal map-
ping, Subsurface scattering) cannot be applied, for performance reasons.
Project only the EcoSystem: only the EcoSystem layers of the material will be considered, the
shading aspect of the material will be fully ignored. This is equivalent to disabling the Visibility
of all non-EcoSystem layers of the material, a useful shortcut as using a spline to drive only an
EcoSystem population is a very frequent use case.

Populate EcoSystem...:
• ...by projecting onto objects: when selected, the instances are populated onto the scene’s
objects below the spline.
• ...along the spline itself: in this mode, the EcoSystem instances are populated inside
the extruded shape defined by the spline, the width and the width profile. This mode
allows for two different types of extrusion:
– Ribbon: the populated zone is a 2D surface following the path, i.e. the same one
that can be visualized using the option Preview effect width in viewports (see previ-

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ous section).
– Tube: the populated zone is a 3D volume obtained by extruding along the spline’s
path.
Align instances along spline: EcoSystem instances can be aligned along the spline’s direction
using these settings.
• Angle: base angle by which to rotate the instances, useful as a quick way to rotate objects
so that they properly “face” the desired spline’s direction.
• Variability: add some randomness to the base angle of rotation.
Custom instance spacing: these settings allow customization on the population of evenly
spaced instances, by configuring either a fixed number of instances for the whole spline, or
a fixed distance between each instance along the spline. The Phase setting, as a percentage
of the even distance between instances, sets the point on the spline at which the first instance
will be placed.

Project/populate material inside enclosed area

The specified material layer (configured in the Spline Editor’s Material Summary as explained
earlier) will be applied on objects located directly above and below it in the scene.
• Note that, like for projection of a material along the spline, the material is applied by
blending with the underlying object’s material, it does not replace it. This can be im-
portant if the material is not fully opaque: you will see the underlying object’s material
through the projected layer, even if the effect strength is 100%.
Apply only EcoSystem: with this option, only the EcoSystem layers of the material will be con-
sidered, the shading aspect of the material will be fully ignored.

Cut out other EcoSystems

• ...along the spline: cuts out areas of existing EcoSystems, for example to create a path
through a field.
• ...in the enclosed area: cuts out areas of existing EcoSystems, this time using the interior
of the spline as the affected area, instead of the path along the spline.
For performance reasons, the cut-out is applied independently each time the corresponding
Apply button is pressed. To restart from the initial population, you will have to repopulate the
underlying object from its EcoSystem layer’s own material editor. This means that pressing
Apply for a cut-out ratio of “50%” twice in a row (see the cut-out ratio in the next section) is
equivalent to cutting-out by 25% once.

Objects influenced by projection and cut­out

These settings allow you to precisely determine which objects (and EcoSystems) will be af-
fected by the material projection/population (respectively cut-out), and how much they will
be affected.

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• When applying a spline’s material layer over other objects, the influence ratio will drive
the blending of the spline’s material with the object’s other material layers.
• When populating an EcoSystem layer, the influence ratio will weigh the EcoSystem den-
sity.
• When cutting out underlying EcoSystems, the percentage tells by how much the existing
population density is reduced (see the Apply buttons explanation in the previous sec-
tion).
When Project on all objects / Cut-out all Eco. are checked, you can specify a global influence
ratio as a percentage. Uncheck them to set the Projection influence (respectively Population)
ratio on a per-object basis in the list of objects underneath.
• In the case of “composite” objects (Group, Metaball, Boolean objects, etc.), the parent
object’s influence ratio is multiplied by the individual component’s ratio, but there are
limitations to the extent to which VUE will be able to use these combined ratios.
• For material blending, Metaball and HyperBlob objects cannot account for the individual
components’ ratio.
• For Ecosystem population, the specific ratio at each nesting level of a Group will be prop-
erly used, but for all other “composite” objects, only the overall object’s ratio can be ex-
ploited.
Apply on all/selected: the 0%, 100%, and Invert buttons are shortcut for common actions on
a selection of objects in the list box. Note that multi-selection is possible and edition of the
ratio of a selection of items will edit the influence percentage of all selected items, whether
concerning Projection/Population or Cut-out.

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Spline Cross­Section

Spline Editor – Spline Cross-Section

This effect extrudes a geometric shape along the spline, defined by these properties:

Maximum Width: you can define the width of the extruded shape along the axis perpendicular
to the spline. The profile allows to vary this width along the spline.

Height: Set a custom height value to define an asymetrical extrusion. When Locked, the width
value is always reused.

Offset z: vertical offset between the extrusion and the spline path.

Profile: defined as a VUE Filter spanning from the first point (X = 0) and the last point (X = 1, or
the first point again when the curve is closed), it will specify how the width, height and offset
all vary along the spline’s path.

Available geometric Types are:

• Tube
• Road
• Cobble (a square tube)

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• Ribbon
Twist: There are two types of twist available – Frenet twist and the Z twist. These affect how
geometries are created around each control point. A Z twist generates normal paths/roads that
go up, down, left and right following the underlying surface but they stay strictly horizontal on
the surface. A Frenet twist generates paths/roads that follow the surface of the underlying
structure. An example of this type of twist would be the tilted surface of tight curves of racing
courses.

You can also add a manual roll by selecting any of the spline points and using the local rotation
gizmo.

Limit: This defines a limit of the twist effect. Changing this value can help remove twisting arti-
facts in the geometry, especially when the spline follows “unexpected” trajectories (like vertical
segments).

Caps: select to create covered ends on the geometry.

Use the material preview from this editor’s Material Summary to assign materials to the ex-
truded geometric shape.

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Affect Terrains

Spline Editor – Terrain effect

This effect relies on the filter or combination of filters to make an impact on the terrain. For

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example, you can cut grooves in a terrain. Or, when used in conjunction with the road spline, it
can be used to create a road bed.

Maximum Width: you can define the width of the spline’s influence over the terrains, and a
profile (using a filter) to specify how the width varies between zero and its maximum along the
spline.

Amplitude: used to control the vertical amplitude of the terrains’ deformations along the spline
path. It should be understood as a “target” distance between the terrain and the spline’s rib-
bon. Changing can be equivalent to moving the spline vertically, but it offers a different kind
of commodity for tweaking the terrain aspect more easily or accurately.

If the spline’s control points are located exactly on the terrain surface (using the Drop tools for
example), you can set it to zero to force the terrain to match the spline ribbon’s surface: thus,
even a zero amplitude will affect the terrain!
• Using a positive amplitude means the terrain’s affected surface will be moved above the
spline, like for a wall, a dam, a roller coaster, etc..
• Using a negative amplitude means the terrain will likely be dug out, like for a road making
its way through hills or mountains.
Shape: defines the shape of the terrains’ deformations across the spline path.

UV Mapping along a Spline

When applying a Material Effect using a VUE Spline, the material layer is projected onto objects
lying directly above or below the spline. Those are called “influenced objects”: sometimes it
is perfectly fine to map the projected material as if it were a layer of the influenced object’s
material. This is very useful to use the spline effects as a way to easily create material layer
masks.

But sometimes you want the projected material to curve along the spline path itself, for exam-
ple to imprint a vehicles’ tires tracks onto a dirt path. To do that, you need to use a special input
node instead of the default material graph’s Position or UV input nodes.

Named Spline Effect UVs and located near the middle of the long list of Input nodes, this spe-
cial node will supply the UV coordinates from the projected spline at the impact point.

Note:

This node only works when used in the graph of the material used for the Spline material effect
along the spline, not for the projection of a material inside the enclosed area (nor for any other

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object material!). Sharing such a material layer with other objects will not propagate the UV
information either.

Here’s a typical setup using this node to map a picture along the spline effect:

Spline Effect UVs Input Node

Two parameters influence the way the U coordinate is computed along the spline:
• Mapping Mode along Spline:
– Uniform: the U values along the spline grow (roughly) proportionally to the dis-
tance to the start of the spline, independently from the number and position of con-
trol points. This is the default and recommended setting when the control points
have not been placed with a specific purpose in mind.
– Stretched: the U values are not affected so much by the distance to the start of the
spline than by the number of control points that have been “passed” so far. This
means that the mapped pattern or picture will be “compressed” in areas where the
control points are more numerous, and “extended” where they are few and far be-
tween.
• Preserve Aspect Ratio along Spline: by default, the range of U coordinates on an ob-
ject is expected to be [-1..1], as is the convention of parametric functions in VUE. Along a
spline effect of a reasonable width, this often means the mapped picture or pattern will
be stretched far more along the U axis (along the spline) than along the V axis (across the
spline). To facilitate material mapping, this option is enabled by default and will actu-
ally extend the range of U values automatically, depending on the spline’s length and its
effect’s configured maximum width.
The example below shows the differences between the various combinations:
• (1.) Effect applied without Spline Effect UVs
• (2.) With Spline Effect UVs: Uniform + Preserve Aspect Ratio along Spline
• (3.) With Spline Effect UVs: Uniform + Do NOT Preserve Aspect Ratio along Spline
• (4.) With Spline Effect UVs: Stretched + Preserve Aspect Ratio along Spline

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• (5.) With Spline Effect UVs: Stretched + Do NOT Preserve Aspect Ratio along Spline

Rendering with various options of the node

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Editing Filters
Filters are used to modify profiles. The Filter Editor can be accessed in the Terrain Editor to
modify the profile of a mountain by filtering the altitudes or from the Material Editor to modify
certain aspects of the material, such as the transparency or bump definition.

The tools you use to modify filters are very similar to the ones you use to edit Time Splines.

Description

Filter Editor – Profile tab

Filters enable you to transform a number in the input range (-1 to 1 by default) into another
number in the output range (-1 to 1 by default), following a curve that you define. The value
returned by the filter at a given position on the horizontal ruler can be read on the vertical ruler
of the curve.

To open the Filter Editor, either click on the filter with the Control key pressed, or select Edit
Filter from the filter’s popup menu.

Some filters can be influenced by the environment and will have additional parameters.

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Bounds (profile tab)

The bounds (or definition domain) depends on the use of the filter. They are by default [-1,1] to
[-1,1], but you can change it depend on what is the use of the filter.

Clamping (profile tab)

Clamping defines how to produce the output value of the filter when the input value is not in
the input domain (defined by Bounds X min and X max).

The clamping effect can be seen on the filter when disabling the “Show filter on defined domain
only” option:

There are two clamping options: Upper for input values greater than the max X bound, Lower
for input values smaller than the min X bound.

Each has four possible types :

• Clamp: values smaller than -1 will be forced to -1 for lower, and values larger than 1 will
be forced to 1 for upper.
• Continue: values will be extrapolated from the inner curve (for instance, for linear filters,
it is as if the line continued outside input range).
• Mirror: input value is transformed to simulate a mirrored repetition of the inner curve.
• Repeat: input value is cyclic. It’s always shifted to fall back into [-1, 1].

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Filter interpolation

VUE offers three types of interpolation between key points: linear, smooth, and bezier.

Linear filters are generated using segments. Smooth filters and bezier filters are generated
from cubic curves. They differ by the way the tangent handles control the curve slope. Smooth
filters is the usual slope definition for one dimensional function. Bezier filters provide a con-
trol similar to 2D bezier curves, whereas we only can define a 1D curve here.

You can switch the filter type by right clicking the first icon in the toolbar.

With smooth and bezier filters, you can change the slope of the curve around the key points
using the tangent handles that appear around key points.

To modify the slope around a key point, select the key point by clicking on its handle. The
Slopes boxes now indicate the slopes to the left and to the right of the key point. Type in new
slope values, or drag the tangent handles.

Enabling the Smooth joint icon will ensure that the slope is the same on either side of the key
point (the default). If you want to have a different slope on either side of the key point (e.g. to
create a crease in the curve), you must disable this option. Then you can modify left and right
slopes independently.

Toolbar

The Filter Editor’s toolbar is the collection of icons at the top of the editor. The meaning of these
icons is as follows:

• Linear curve: The filter will be built using segment. Click on the icon to change the
type of filter.

• Smooth curve: The filter will be built using curves, with slope control. Click on the
icon to change the type of filter.

• Bezier curve: The filter will be built using curves, with bezier style control. Click on
the icon to change the type of filter.

• Auto-tangents: this is also a toggle icon; it is only available when the filter is smooth.
If the icon is toggled, the tangents at newly added key points will be computed automat-
ically in order to modify as little as possible the overall shape of the curve. If you drag
a key point when this mode is active, the tangents will be modified dynamically so as to

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minimize the deformation of the curve.

• Smooth joint: this is also a toggle icon; it is only available when the filter is smooth
and a key point is selected. If the icon is toggled, the slope on either side of the key point
will be the same, ensuring that the resulting curve doesn’t exhibit any sudden changes
in slope around that key point. If you deselect this option, the slope on either side of the
key point can be modified independently, resulting in a crease in the curve.

• Show grid: this is a toggle icon. When it is orange (enabled) a grid will be displayed
on top of the curve. This grid can be used for reference when building a filter.

• Snap to grid: this is a toggle icon, available only when the grid is displayed. When
snapping is on (the icon is orange), key points will be automatically “attracted” to the
grid when you approach the mouse cursor from the grid. This is useful for setting up
filters with “rounded” values.

• Zoom in: click this icon to display a zoomed view of the filter. This lets you edit
detailed portions of the filter.

• Zoom out: click this icon to zoom out of the view of the filter. This lets you visualize
a larger portion of the filter.

• Reset pan/zoom: click this icon to reset the view of the filter so that the filter fills
up the entire graph exactly.

• Flip Vertical Axis/Flip Horizontal Axis: this flips the axis of the graph either hori-
zontally or vertically.

• Show filter on defined domain only: Check this if you want to actually see the
clamping effect of the filter. When checked, the filter curve will only be displayed in the
range (x and y) where the filter is defined. For example when editing a bump filter (in
the Material Editor), x is only defined within [-1, 1] and same for y. So when the box is
checked, and the user uses the right mouse button to “scroll” the curve, the curve will
not be displayed outside this range. It’s like a clipping rectangle.

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Buttons

New will reset the filter to the identity filter.

Load will open the filter browser to load one of the provided filters or one you saved.

Save will save the current filter in a stand-alone file, for later reuse.

Saved filters will appear in the Visual Filter Browser like any other of the predefined filters. By
default, filters are placed in the Filters subfolder. This means that they will appear in the Per-
sonal collection inside the Visual Filter Browser.

The curve area

The filter curve defines how input values are converted into output values. The curve is built
from Key Points, joined together by straight lines or interpolation curves. You can modify a
filter by adding, moving and deleting key points. The key points are figured by small handles
( ) on the curve. All filters start from (0,0) and have a key point on the right edge (the corre-
sponding handle can only be moved vertically).

Navigation

Inside the curve area, you can zoom in and out, and pan the view using standard commands:
• Right mouse drag to pan
• Right mouse drag + Ctrl or mouse wheel to zoom
You can resize this Editor if you need a more detailed view of the filter.

When a point is selected, you can jump to the next one by pressing Tab (or the previous using
Shift Tab).

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Adding Key Points

To create a new key point, you can either:

• double-click in the area where the curve is drawn. The new key point is created at the
point you clicked.
• click on the curve where you want the new key point; the coordinates of the clicked point
appear in the Position boxes; you can edit them if required. Then press the Add key point
button.
• type the coordinates of the new key point in the Position boxes, then press the Add key
point button.
You can’t create two key points at the same horizontal position.

Modifying Key Points

To modify a key point, click on the key point’s handle to select it. The Position indicated is now
the position of the key point. You can then:
• Drag the handle. If you press Control as you drag the cursor, the movement will be con-
strained to the closest axis.
• Modify the position of the key point by using the Up/Down and Left/Right arrow keys.
• Type the new position of the key point.
Each key point must stay between the previous one and the next one. When you select a key
point, you can jump to the next one by pressing Tab (Shift Tab jumps to the previous).

Deleting Key Points

To delete a key point, select it first by a click on its handle, then press the Delete key point
button.

Or alternatively double clic it, that will also remove it.

You cannot delete the right-most key point.

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Influences Tab

Filter Editor – Environment tab

This tab is only available for filters that can be influenced by the environment (e.g. filters that
are part of materials). If no tab is visible in the Filter Editor, then the controls that are displayed
in the editor pertain to the Profile tab, and Influence of Environment controls are not avail-
able.

Influence of Environment works more or less like its equivalent in the Mixed Material Editor
(see here). The filter can be influenced by the environment in three different ways: dependency
to altitude, to slope and to orientation.

Note:

The notion of “environment” only has a sense when the filter is part of a material.

Dependent of Altitude

Check this option if you want the values of the filter to be influenced by altitude. The slider
position indicates the importance of the effect. If the value is 0, altitude has no influence. If
the value is 100%, the filter will always return 0 (whatever its profile) when the altitude is below
Min altitude; it will always return 1 when the altitude is above Max altitude.

If this option is selected, the values returned by the filter will be saturated by altitude. This
means that, if the altitude is close to the Min altitude, values will be lowered, but, as altitude
increases, the values will be less and less lowered, and eventually start being raised as altitude
gets nearer to the Max altitude (values will always stay clipped to 0-1).

Min altitude and Max altitude: these settings indicate the range of altitudes where the filter is

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influenced by altitude. Outside this range, the influence will be constant.

Dependent of Slope

Check this option if you want the values of the filter to be influenced by slope. The slider posi-
tion indicates the importance of the effect. If the value is 0, slope has no influence. If the value
is 100%, the filter will always return 0 (whatever its profile) when the surface is horizontal, and
it will always return 1 when the surface is vertical.

Dependent of Orientation

Check this option if you want the values of the filter to be influenced by orientation. The slider
position indicates the importance of the effect. If the value is 0, orientation has no influence. If
the value is 100%, the filter will always return 0 (whatever its profile) when the surface points in
the opposite direction to the value indicated by the Azimuth , and it will always return 1 when
the surface points in the direction of the Azimuth.

Azimuth: use this setting to indicate the preferred orientation. When the orientation gets closer
to this setting, the filter will return higher values. 0° corresponds to positive values on the X axis,
90° to positive values on the Y axis, 180° to negative values on the X axis, and 270° to negative
values on the Y axis.

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Editing Color Maps

Description

Color Map Editor

Color maps are used to produce variable colors and opacity (alpha).

Basically, they associate a color and an opacity to each of the values in the range of 0 to 1, fol-
lowing a gradation defined by the user.

To open the Color Map Editor, either click on the color map with the Control key pressed, or
select Edit Color Map from the color maps contextual menu. This window is resizable.

In the editor, the color gradation displays the colors that will be returned by the color map for
each value on the horizontal ruler. The black and white gradation above displays the alpha
value that will be returned for these points.

Color maps are built from Key Colors and Key Opacities. Key colors define the color of the
map at given positions. Key opacities define the opacity of the color map at given positions.
VUE automatically generates a gradation to smoothly join the key values. You can modify a
color map by adding, moving or deleting key colors and key opacities.

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Key values are figured by handles ( ) on the horizontal rulers around the color gradation. Key
colors appear under the color gradation, whereas key opacities appear above it.

Adding Key Colors

To add a new key color, you can either:

• Double-click in the central area where the color map is drawn; a dialog box pops up letting
you choose the new color that will appear at the point you clicked. Select the color and
click OK. The color map is redrawn to include the new color.
• Click in the central area where the color map is drawn; the position of the point you
clicked appears in the Position box. To create the key color, press Add key color or
double-click on the Current color square in the middle of the editor; a dialog box pops
up letting you choose the new color that will appear at the point you clicked. Select the
color and click OK. The color map is redrawn to include the new color.
• Type the position of the new key color in the Position box then press Add key color or
click on the Current color square in the middle of the editor; a dialog box pops up letting
you choose the new color that will appear at the point you clicked. Select the color and
click OK. The color map is redrawn to include the new color.
You can’t create two key colors with the same horizontal position, but you can drag a key color
up to another one in order to superpose them and create a sudden change in color.

Adding Key Opacities

To add a new key opacity, you can either:

• Double-click on the black & white gradation above the color map; a new opacity key is
added. This newly added key will not change the overall opacity of the color map.
• Click on the black & white gradation above the color map; the position of the point you
clicked appears in the Position box. To create the key opacity, press Add key opacity or
modify the Current opacity.
• Type the position of the new key opacity in the Position box then press Add key opacity
or modify the Current opacity to create the key opacity.
You can’t create two key opacities with the same horizontal position, but you can drag a key
opacity up to another one in order to superpose them and create a sudden change in opacity.

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Modifying Key Colors & Opacities

To move a key value, click the key’s handle ( ) and drag it with the mouse button pressed.
Each key value is constrained by other keys on either side.

To modify the color of a key color, you can either:

• double-click the handle ( ) of the key you want to modify; a dialog box opens letting
you select a new color for the key color. Select the color and click OK. The color map is
redrawn to include the new color. When you select a key color, you can jump to the next
one by pressing Tab (Shift Tab jumps to the previous). You can also modify the position
of the key colors by using the Left and Right arrow keys.
• click the handle ( ) of the key you want to modify. The handle becomes black, and the
Position indicated is now that of the key color. Double-click on the Current color square
in the middle of the editor; a dialog box opens letting you select a new color for the key
color. Select the color and click OK. The color map is redrawn to include the new color.
To modify the opacity value of a key opacity, click the handle ( ) of the key you want to modify.
The handle becomes black, and the Position indicated is now that of the key opacity. Use the
Current opacity setting to adjust the opacity of the key.

Manipulating Multiple Key Colors

You can manipulate several key colors simultaneously. To select multiple key colors, press the
Ctrl key and then click on each key color you want to select. You can also select a key color,
then press the Shift key and select another key color, which results in the selection of all key
colors between the two selected. Once several keys are selected, it is then possible to:
• Move them together by moving any of the selected keys.
• Delete them by pressing the Delete key.
• Copy them by pressing Ctrl+C.
• Paste the copied key colors (at the current cursor position) by pressing Ctrl+V.
• Change the color’s values (hue, luminosity and saturation) by using the appropriate up/down
buttons in the editor.
You can also flip the entire color map by clicking on the icon in the lower right under the color
map itself.

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Deleting Keys

To delete a key, click on the handle ( ) of the key you want to delete, or type its horizontal Po-
sition in the corresponding box, then press the Delete key color or Delete key opacity button
When you have selected a key, you can jump to the next key by pressing Tab (Shift Tab jumps
to the previous key).

Advanced Opacity Control

If you want to control the opacity of your color map precisely, right-click or control-click on the
black & white opacity gradation above the color gradation, or click on the Edit opacity filter
button ( ) to the right of the opacity gradation. This will open the Opacity Filter Editor, letting
you accurately control the profile of the opacity of your color map.

New, Load, Save

Pressing New will reset the color map to a fully opaque, black-to-white gradation.

Press Load to load one of the sample color maps using the Color Map Browser.

Press Save to save the current color map in a stand-alone file, for use in future scenes. Saved
color maps will appear in the Color Map Browser. By default, color maps are placed in the Color
maps subfolder. This means that they will appear in the Personal collection inside the Color
Map Browser.

Selecting Colors

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Quick Color Selection

Quick Color Selector

When you click on a color swatch, the Quick Color Selector appears. This panel is designed to
let you select a color in just one mouse click. Simply drag the mouse cursor to the desired color
and release it to select the color. If you release the mouse button without moving the mouse,
the Quick Color Selector will be replaced with the Color Selection dialog (see below).

The panel displays 4 blocks of colors and a series of color swatches. The 4 blocks represent an
approximation of the complete color space. Each block displays all possible values of luminos-
ity and hue for a given color saturation. The top block represents 100% saturated colors, the
second, 50% saturation, the third, 25% saturation, and the lower block, is 0% saturation (a gray
strip).

The series of color swatches to the left of these color blocks are your “favorite” colors. They
can be edited via the Color Selection dialog (see below). To select one of your favorite colors,
just drag the mouse cursor above that color and release the mouse button. The favorite colors
won’t appear if you disabled this option in the Color Selection dialog.

At the bottom of this panel, you will find a display of the current color, together with the cor-
responding Hue, Luminosity, Saturation, Red, Green and Blue values. If you drag your mouse
over another color, the color display will be split in two, the left half showing the original color,
and the right half showing the new color.

If you don’t want to use the Quick Color Selector, disable the Use quick color selection tool
option in the Color Selection dialog (see below).

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Color Selection Dialog

Color Selection dialog

This dialog lets you select a color precisely. To display this dialog, you can:
• Control-click, Shift-click or double-click on a color swatch, or
• Click on a color swatch and release the mouse button without moving the mouse.
If you have disabled the Use quick color selection tool option, this dialog will appear with a
simple click on a color swatch.

The large square palette at the center of the dialog represents all possible hue and saturation
values for a given luminosity. To the right of this palette is the luminosity slider. Above the
palette is the hue slider, and to the left, the saturation slider. When you use one of these sliders,
the palette automatically displays all possible variations of colors around the value you just
set. For instance, if you set a saturation using the saturation slider to the left of the palette,
the palette will display all combinations of hue and luminosity for the saturation value you just
indicated. Likewise, if you set a hue using the top slider, the palette will represent all saturation
and luminosity possibilities for this hue.

At the bottom left of the dialog are three icons:

Show favorite colors: when this option is selected, the favorite color swatches are dis-
played on the left of the color palette.

Use quick color selection tool: when this option is selected, the Quick Color Selector
appears when you click on a color swatch. Uncheck this option if you don’t want to use the
Quick Color Selector.

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Contextual palette: when this option is selected, the color palette automatically adjusts
to the values selected in the sliders. If you uncheck this option, the palette will always remain
the same, whatever the selections made in the saturation, hue and luminosity sliders.

At the bottom-right of the dialog, you will find a display of the current color, together with the
corresponding Hue, Luminosity, Saturation, Red, Green and Blue values. You can set each one
of these values manually. If you select another color, the color display will be split in two, the
left half showing the original color, and the right half showing the new color.

You can resize the dialog in order to display a larger selection of favorite colors and bigger color
selection tools.

Enable natural color selection: Checking this option allocates more space to the medium sat-
urated colors which are the most natural hues to use.

Favorite Colors
To the left of the dialog is a set of color slots that you can customize to store colors you use
frequently. Simply drag a color and drop into one of the slots to set a favorite color. The favorite
color selection is saved in between VUE sessions.

You can also edit the selection of favorite colors by clicking the Edit favorites button. Using
the favorite color editor, you can set the number of columns of favorite colors that appear in
the Color Selection dialog.

You can also save and retrieve your selection of favorite colors using the Load and Save buttons.

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Summary of Materials

The Material Summary dialog displays materials currently used in the scene

The Summary of Materials dialog is a dialog that can stay open on screen without restricting
access to other parts of the software. It displays a list of all the materials used in the scene at a
given time. It does not, however, display materials used for clouds. It is displayed by selecting
the menu command Display | Display Material Summary.

This summary of materials lets you approach your scene in a different way: clicking on a ma-
terial selects all the objects of your scene that use this material (this feature can be turned off
using the Options dialog). This is a powerful and supplementary method for navigating inside
scenes. You may rapidly modify a material (e.g. change its scale), without worrying about all
objects that use the material being updated.

And you can drag from one material onto another to make all the objects that used the old
material use the new one (notice how the old material, having now become useless, disappears
from the list).

The title bar of this dialog indicates how many materials are currently used in the scene. You
may navigate through the list using the scrollbar at the bottom of the dialog.

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Loading, Editing and Scaling Materials

Like anywhere, materials can be loaded, edited or scaled using the material summary. The
display of materials on the Summary of Materials dialog can be resized by zooming. Use the
Zoom In/Out icons at the bottom of the dialog.

The Options icon displays the Preview Options dialog. This dialog enables you to select which
object should be used to preview materials. Sphere is the fastest, and Cloud should only be
used for cloud materials. XY Plane displays a 2D representation of the material in perspective,
whereas 2D Plane presents the material on a plane seen from above. This option also lets you
choose a background type for the preview (Uniform or Checker), as well as the Background
color by modifying the color map (double-click on the map). Check Local light to use a local
light rather than a directional light.

The Edit material icon opens the Material Editor for the selected material.

The Load material icon opens the Materials Browser so that you can replace the selected ma-
terial.

You can change the Scale of the selected material as well.

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Interface Colors
This dialog lets you customize the look of the VUE interface.

Flat Interface Colors

Interface Color Editor

When the Flat interface style is selected, you can modify the colors of the different interface
items as follows:
• Gradated background: Check this setting for a two-toned background, lighter to darker.
• Dialog background: this is the background color of dialogs.
• Text: this is the color of the dialog text.
• View background: this is the color of the background of the 3D Views. This setting is the
same as that in the Options dialog.
• Selection wireframe: this is the color of a selected item’s wireframe view.
• Wireframe highlight: if part of a selected wireframe item is selected, this color is used.
• Rigged mesh bone: this is the color of the bone of a rigged mesh.
• Rigged mesh bone helper: this is the color of a bone helper of a rigged mesh.
• View caption (active): this is the background color of the active view’s title bar. Inactive
view title bars have the same background color as the rest of the interface.
• View caption text (active): this is the color of the text in the active view’s title bar.

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• View caption text (inactive): this is the color of the text in inactive view title bars.
• Caption (active): this is the background color of active dialog title bars.
• Caption (inactive): this is the background color of inactive dialog title bars.
• Caption text (active): this is the color of the title text in active dialog title bars.
• Caption text (inactive): this is the color of the title text in inactive dialog title bars.
• Radio/check text (checked): this is the color of the text of all radio and checkboxes when
the control is selected.
• Radio/check text (default): this is the color of the text of all radio and checkboxes when
the control is not selected.
• Tab (active): this is the color of the background of the current tab (usually the same as
the background color).
• Tab (inactive): this is the color of the background of the non-current tabs.
• Tab text (active): this is the color of the text of the current tab.
• Tab text (inactive): this is the color of the text of the non-current tabs.
• Edit field text: the color of text in edit fields.
• Edit field text highlighting: this is the color of selected text in the edit fields.
• Edit field back (active): this is the color of the background of active edit fields.
• Edit field back (inactive): this is the color of the background of inactive edit fields.
• Button text: this is the color of the text of buttons.
• Button back: this is the color of the back of buttons.
• Button back (highlight): this is the color of the back of buttons when the mouse is above
the button.
• Button back (toggled): this is the color of the back of buttons when the button is toggled.
• List item text: this is the color of text in list boxes.
• List item text (selected): this is the color of selected text in list boxes.
• List back (active): this is the color of the background of active list boxes.
• List back (inactive): this is the color of the background of inactive list boxes.
• List selected item back: this is the color of the background of selected text in list boxes.
• List column title: this is the color of the background of the column titles in multi-column
list boxes.
• Curve (line): this is the color of the lines in curve displays (filters and time splines).

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• Curve (below): this is the fill color below lines in curve displays (filters and time splines).
• Curve (above): this is the fill color below lines in curve displays (filters and time splines).
• Menu text: this is the color of the text of menu items.
• Menu text (selected item): this is the color of the text of selected menu items.
• Menu back: this is the color of the menu background.
• Menu back (selected item): this is the color of the background of selected menu items.
Changes are previewed interactively in the Interface Colors dialog. If you want to preview color
changes in the entire interface, click the Apply button.

New, Load, Save

Press the New icon to reset the interface colors to the default gray interface.

Click Load to load a preset interface color scheme. A Standard File Browser will appear letting
you load the desired color scheme. Interface color schemes have the .ics extension.

Click Save to save the current settings for future use. A Standard File Browser will appear letting
you set the name of the color scheme. Interface color schemes have the .ics extension.

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Macros
Ever wished there was a way to automate repetitive tasks in VUE without having to delve into
the intricacies of Python scripting? VUE’s Macro recording and playback system is the easy so-
lution!

Recording Macros

Record Macro: use the Automation | Record Macro menu command to start recording a set
of operations, and save it to disk as a macro. use the Automation | Stop Recording menu
command to stop recording. This will bring up the standard Save dialog where you can enter a
title and a description for your macro.

Playing Macros

To play a macro, use the Automation | Play Macro menu command. A Standard File Browser
will appear letting you select the macro file that you want to playback.

Recently used macros are listed in the Automation | Recent Macros menu.

Macro QuickLaunch

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Macro QuickLaunch Editor

You can setup the Automation | Macro QuickLaunch menu to list frequently used macros using
the Macro QuickLaunch Editor. The macros listed in this menu can be assigned to keyboard
shortcuts (see here).

To open the Macro QuickLaunch Editor, select the menu command Automation | Macro Quick-
Launch | Edit.

Click Add to add a macro to the QuickLaunch menu. A Standard File Browser appears letting
you select the macro you wish to add to the list.

To remove a macro from the QuickLaunch menu, select the macro on the list and press Re-
move.

You can replace an existing macro with a new one by selecting the macro to be replaced on
the list and pressing Replace. The Standard File Browser will appear, letting you select the new
file. Replacing macros is particularly useful if you have assigned keyboard shortcuts and do not
wish to lose this assignation.

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Section 5
EcoSystems

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EcoSystem™ is the name of e-on software’s revolutionary set of patented technologies to dis-
tribute, manage and render millions of instances of plants or objects in your scenes. With this
technology, you are able to recreate the millions of plants, trees and rocks that are required to
create convincing environments.

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Painting EcoSystems
The EcoSystem Generation IV technology lets you paint EcoSystem populations directly onto el-
ements of your scenes and tweak your EcoSystems manually for unprecedented control. Paint
from any angle, switch to Side view, or spin around the object to paint from the other side.

Thanks to this new technology, you can add, remove and modify EcoSystem instances interac-
tively.

EcoSystem Painter

Global EcoSystems are a way to create EcoSystem populations which do not lie on any specific
underlying object. Instead, instances are populated over any object in the scene.

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EcoSystem Painting Interface

The EcoSystem Painter is the general interface that controls the painting and selecting of EcoSys-
tem instances. The EcoSystem Painter is a tool to act on a subset of an EcoSystem’s instances
to change some of their properties (position, orientations, scale, color) in powerful ways:
• Any number of effects can be combined together, configured and applied by painting in
any of the OpenGL previews of the scene (orthogonal or perspective).

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• Painting can be restricted to only specific instances depending on their specimen, mate-
rial layer or underlying object,
• The EcoSystem Instance Selector and its instance selection stack have been merged with
the EcoSystem Painter, with the added ability that eco-painting can also be optionally
applied only on the current selection of instances.
• Configured brushes can be saved in your own collection of EcoBrushes.
You can display this panel in one of two ways:
• Click on the Paint EcoSystem icon ( ) in the Top Toolbar or select the menu command
Edit | Paint EcoSystem: this lets you paint using the Global EcoSystem, or
• Click the Paint button inside the Material Editor when editing an EcoSystem material.
This lets you modify a specific EcoSystem material (and only that EcoSystem).
The EcoSystem Painter offers different tools to let you paint instances, as well as ways of con-
trolling what is being painted. Painting can be done in any view.

When a view is active, a circle appears around the mouse pointer to indicate the area where the
painting will take place (if no items are selected in the EcoSystem population, a black cross will
appear instead).

When using the EcoSystem Painter, EcoSystem instances are depicted using a small representa-
tion of an object, a rock, or a plant. This representation always appears, even if the billboard
preview of the instance is not displayed. The color of the instance indicates the overall color
of the item being painted. These representations disappear when you close the EcoSystem
Painter.

You can edit the EcoSystem population using the Material Editor to further define your EcoSys-
tem. After adding the objects, plants and/or rocks to your EcoSystem population, just click to
select the Use EcoSystem population rules and click on the Edit button next to this field. The
Material Editor opens and you have all of the EcoSystem definition criteria at your disposal to
use in defining this global EcoSystem.

EcoSystem Painter Tools

At the top of the EcoSystem Painter panel, you can see a series of buttons:

• Painting mode on/off: left-click this icon to toggle painting mode. By default, this
is turned on.

• Select EcoSystem instances: this allows you to select certain EcoSystem instances
to act upon. The EcoSystem Painter screen displays only the settings for the selection
of instances. Click the Painting mode icon to return to the regular EcoSystem Painter

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dialog.
This is in addition to the Selections section.

• Restrict to selected objects: click this icon to prevent the EcoSystem from being
painted on anything other than the objects currently selected in the World Browser.

• Restrict to selected instances: when this icon is selected, the brush selects certain
instances to act upon.

• Hide from Render: click this icon to hide the selected items in the EcoSystem from
render.

• Display Options: this icon is only available when editing a Global EcoSystem. It
displays the Display Options dialog. Here you can select the display quality of the EcoSys-
tem elements and whether you want to display full quality near camera. If you select that
option, you can set the radius limit for full quality.

• Clear: click this icon to remove all painted instances from the EcoSystem.

• Show brush editor: click this icon to automatically open the Brush Editor when
that brush preset is selected. If unchecked, you can use this icon to display (or close) the
Brush Editor as needed.
Fold/unfold the dialog: Click the Minimize button in the upper right corner next to the Close
button to toggle the screen folding. The screen folds to keep it out of your way while painting.
Another click restores the screen.

In addition, each section of the EcoSystem Painter dialog and the Brush Editor can be collapsed,
reducing the size of the overall dialog. Just click on the downward arrow to the left of the title
of each section to close the section. To reopen the section, click the right-facing arrow.

Painting With Brushes

These tools or brushes add instances, delete instances and act upon selected existing EcoSys-
tem instances.

Building the EcoSystem Population

One group of tools is used to build the EcoSystem population. These are the effectors probably
used the most in the EcoPainter and can only be used alone and not in combination with the

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other effectors.

• Populate: this effector will spawn many instances randomly in the brushed area.

• Erase: this effector is used alone and is used to delete EcoSystem instances.

• Single instance: this effector, previously available as the “single instance painting
mode” prior to VUE 11, can only be used alone. It is used to add or remove instances one
by one.

Influencing the EcoSystem Population

These brushes are used to change or influence the current EcoSystem population.

• Color: this shifts instances’ color closer to the chosen color.

• Scale: this lets you change the size of the instances

• Lean: bends an instance so that its “up” (Z) axis aligns with the reference axis.

• Drag: this drags the instances under the brush along with the brush movement.

• Move: this moves a group of instances that are under the brush

• Jitter Position: this randomizes instances’ position.

• Jitter Orientation: this randomizes instances’ orientation

• Attract: this attracts instances towards the center of the brush.

• Magnet: aligns an instance’s X axis along the reference axis.

• Grid Align: this aligns instances in a grid pattern to the base’s X and Y vectors.

• Rake: aligns instances along lines parallel to the reference axis

• Ripple: aligns instances in widening circular lines

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• Lower: this lowers instances in relation to the underlying object.

• Raise: this raises instances in relation to the underlying object

• Tornado: this moves instances upwards and in a spiral around the brush center.

• Color & Scale: this combines the features of the Color and Scale brushes into one
brush.
• Save brush preset: if you have made changes to a brush preset, click this icon to save
your changes to that brush if you wish.

• Add brush to presets: if you have made changes to a brush preset, but don’t want
to change the brush preset, you can save your changes by creating a new brush. Use this
icon to save and create a new brush preset.

• Remove brush from presets: use this icon to delete any brushes.

Global Settings
• Airbrush style: when this option is selected, the number of instances added to a given
area is proportional to the time spent painting on that area.
• Invert: Not available for all tools. When activated, it inverts the action taken on the in-
stances.
• Brush radius: this setting controls the area around the mouse cursor onto which instances
are randomly distributed. If you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, you can connect
this setting to the tablet pressure by clicking the Drive with pressure icon ( ). This will
result in instances being scattered around further from the mouse when you press harder
on the tablet.
• Brush flow: this setting controls the number of instances added to the EcoSystem per
unit of time (this setting is only available if you are using the airbrush style of brush). If you
are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, you can connect this setting to the tablet pressure
by clicking the Drive with pressure icon ( ). This will result in instances being added
more rapidly when you press harder on the tablet.
• Falloff: this is the rate of diminishing effect moving away from the center of the brush.
This can also be defined on the Brush Editor for this brush using a Falloff Filter.
• Selections: This allows you to select EcoSystem instances for manipulation. Selection
is done in all views. When the view is active, a circle appears around the mouse pointer
to indicate the area where the selection will take place. When using the Selection Tools,

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selected EcoSystem instances are depicted using a red dot. This dot always appears, even
if the billboard preview of the instance is not displayed. The dots disappear when you
close the Selection Tools.
Click Select all to select all EcoSystem instances and Deselect all to deselect all selected EcoSys-
tem instances.

EcoSystem Population

The EcoSystem population lists all the items that can be painted using the EcoSystem Painter.

To add a new item, either press the Add Item button below the list or right-click in the list. It
opens a menu listing the type of item that can be added. This menu is described here: Add Item
menu.

Item settings ( ): to the right of the EcoSystem item you will see an icon that lets you edit the
item’s quality and previewing option in a popup dialog. This dialog is described here: EcoSys-
tem Item Options.

Preview Color ( ): the rightmost icon of the EcoSystem item line lets you change the average
preview color of the item’s instances in the OpenGL views, as described here: Preview Color.

You can remove items from the list by selecting them and pressing Remove. If some instances
of this item are already in the scene, they will be removed together.

Paint What?
When using the EcoSystem Painter tools, you can either act upon all items of the EcoSystem
population, or on only a subset of these items. This is controlled using the Paint what? options:
• A bit of everything: when this option is selected, all items in the population of the EcoSys-
tem will be affected. If you use the “Brush” or “Single instance” tools, the instances
added will be randomly picked from the entire population. Likewise, the “Eraser” and
‘Color/Scaling’ tools will erase or modify all the types of elements in the EcoSystem.
• Only selected items: when this option is selected, only the items that are selected on
the EcoSystem population list will be used when painting. For instance, the “Brush” and
“Single instance” tools will only add instances of the selected type. The “Eraser” and
‘Color/Scaling’ tools will erase or modify only the types of elements that are selected on
the list. This way, you could have an EcoSystem of rocks and trees, and decide to erase
only the trees in some areas.
Once you have set up the EcoSystem Painter, you can reduce the screen size clicking the Mini-
mize button to keep it out of the way while painting.

If you want to paint, be sure to turn Painting mode on.

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Global EcoSystem Object

When you have painted the first instance of a Global EcoSystem, be it a single instance or using
the brush, a Global EcoSystem object appears in the list of objects in the World Browser.

These objects have some of the options available that regular objects do, such as Hide from
render, Replace by, and layer manipulation (Hide Current Layer, Lock Current Layer, and so
on).

This object can be deleted, which will delete all instances of the Global EcoSystem as well. When
this object is selected, all instances of the Global EcoSystems are selected and can be manipu-
lated (only when the EcoSystem Painter and manipulate dialogs are not open).

If all instances of the Global EcoSystem are deleted from within the EcoSystem Painter dialog,
the Global EcoSystem object is removed from the object list.

This Global EcoSystem can also be rendered like a mask in the Multi-Pass rendering option. To
do so, you must enable the Global EcoSystem object mask in Object masks.

Multiple Global EcoSystem Objects

Two Global EcoSystems

You can now create multiple Global EcoSystems in your scene. If you have already created a
global EcoSystem in the EcoPainter, from the VUE menu, select Object>Create>Global EcoSys-
tem. This will open the EcoPainter with no EcoSystem population. While other EcoSystems you
have created still exist and show up in the World Browser and in renders, you have a chance to

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create a new one.

Add the objects you need for your EcoSystem, and the first time you paint with it you will see
another entry in the World Browser for that new Global EcoSystem.

Each EcoSystem can be manipulated separately. You can see the contents of each EcoSystem
listed in the browser.

Using the Paint Function to Modify EcoSys­

tem Materials

You can use the EcoPaint function to modify an EcoSystem Material. This is typically used when
you have populated an EcoSystem material, but would like to touch up the way it was popu-
lated.

To modify an EcoSystem material, click the Paint button inside the Material Editor while you
are editing the EcoSystem material. The EcoSystem Painter panel will appear.

Any modifications made to the EcoSystem population will be limited to instances that belong
to that EcoSystem. This way, you do not risk to affect other EcoSystem populations. Modified
EcoSystem populations are still bound to the object they are attached to. Moving that object
will move the instances along with it.

You can constrain the painting to the object that the EcoSystem is attached to, using the Re-
strict to underlying object option. This avoids adding instances “outside” of the object they
are attached to.

If you click on the Use EcoSystem population rules, what you paint will correspond to the
settings you made for the original EcoSystem.

If the painted EcoSystem is part of a complex material hierarchy (materials with layers, mixed
materials), the individual density of the EcoSystem’s layer is computed so that the EcoSystem
Painter behaves like the Populate button. You can easily restrict your EcoSystem painting to a
given area by creating a material layer and editing the alpha or by using mixed materials and
editing their distribution.

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EcoSystem Display Options

Because EcoSystem instances can easily become numerous in a scene, you need to be careful
about how they are previewed in the OpenGL displays. On the other hand, if the instances are
displayed too crudely, you may have difficulties adjusting your scene.

In order to let you find the optimal balance between display quality and previewing speed, you
can adjust the way EcoSystem instances are displayed on a per-EcoSystem basis.
• If you want to adjust the preview quality of an EcoSystem material, go to the General tab
in the EcoSystem Material Editor and use the Display options group.
• If you want to adjust the preview quality of the Global EcoSystem, click on the Display
options button in the EcoSystem Painter. The EcoSystem Display Options dialog will ap-
pear. The controls in this dialog are identical to the EcoSystem material display options
found in the Material Editor, except for the option Hide EcoSystem from render. When
this option is selected, the global EcoSystem will be hidden from the render.

Brush Editor

Every brush has a corresponding Brush Editor dialog that provides more parameters for the tool.
Not all parameters are available for each brush. These will change depending on the function.

Each section of the Brush Editor can be collapsed, reducing the size of the overall dialog. Just
click on the downward arrow to the left of the title of each section to close the section. To
reopen the section, click the right-facing arrow.

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General Tab

Brush Editor – General tab

• Effectors: An effector is an elementary operator which will be applied on all instances
found in the brushed area. Its effect will be weighted by a ratio depending on the brush’s
shape, fall-off, environmental influence, etc. Several effectors can be combined in a sin-
gle brush to create an unlimited variety of effects. The parameters displayed under the
list of effectors change with the effector. If you have several effectors in the list, highlight
the effector to display the fields.

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• Flow: sets the movement of the brush. Its use may vary between the different brushes.
• Scale: sets the size of the instances being painted.
• Color: shifts instances’ color closer to the chosen color.
• Direction from surface: this slider lets you indicate how the EcoSystem instances grow
from the surface. If the slider is set to 0%, the instances will always grow vertically, what-
ever the slope of the underlying terrain is. A value of 100% means that the instances will
always grow from the surface (perpendicular to that surface).
• Use EcoSystem population rules: this setting allows you to use any of the EcoSystem
settings found in the Material Editor to define this Global EcoSystem.
• Edit: clicking this button opens the Material Editor for this Global EcoSystem so that you
can set, for example, Density, Scaling and Orientation, Color and Environment. Items
must already be selected in the EcoSystem population for this to be effective.
• Max. stacked instances: you can define how many instances can be stacked.
• Rotate around: this lets you define limited rotations of objects. This option is not avail-
able for Area Population.
• Up axis only: select this option if you want the rotation to only take place along the Z axis
(vertical). This is typically the case for objects that grow from the surface, such as trees.
• All axes: if this option is selected, a random rotation will be applied to all axes of the
instances. This is best used for objects that do not grow from the surface (e.g. rocks).
• Maximum Rotation: This lets you limit the random rotation that is applied to the in-
stances in the EcoSystem population.
• Limit Density: this option lets you impose a limit to the density of instances. If it is
enabled, instances will be added by the brush until the maximum allowed density is
reached. If the Grow over max density icon ( ) is selected, the instances under the
brush will begin to swell if you keep painting when maximum density is achieved. This
option is not available for Single Instance placement.
Note:

Any of these parameters can be moved to the main EcoPainter screen to make access easier
or if you don’t want to keep the brush screen open. Just click on the arrow icon to the left
of the parameter and this parameter will display in an Additional parameters section on the
EcoPainter screen directly under the Global settings section. Uncheck the parameter on the
Brush Editor screen to delete it from the EcoPainter screen.
• Hug underlying object: Some effectors will move instances above or below the EcoSys-
tem’s underlying object. It is sometimes the case by design, but it can also be a side-effect
of the brushing process. Therefore, there is an option to relocate instances on top of the
underlying object. Since it can take some to time to make these adjustments for all influ-

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enced instances, you have an option to handle in real-time or at the end of each stroke.
Check Interactively move instances while painting to make changes in real-time.
• Falloff Filter: Fall-off curve is defined by a filter and tells how the influence (usually) de-
creases when the instance’s distance to the brush center increases. The Filter Browser
opens when you click on the filter image. Right-click on the filter to edit.
• Mask: You can assign a bitmap mask to this brush. It can be either stretched to exactly fill
the brush area, or tiled over the whole underlying object (with custom Offset and Scales
applying). This image can be inverted or rotated.
• Forced settings: These can differ from the global settings on the EcoPainter dialog.
• Style: Airbrush or Paintbrush
• Brush Radius: this is the brush size. Defines the area of influence.
• Brush Flow: sets the amount of effect applied by the brush. Its setting and use may vary
between the different brushes.
• Falloff: this parameter (in the [0; 1] range) is the radius ratio above which the fall-off is
actually applied. For example, with a radius of 100 pixels, a fall-off of 0.0 means that the
filter will be mapped from 0 to 100 pixels, while at 1.0, there is no fall-off at all. At 0.6,
for example, the fall-off filter is mapped from a distance of 60 pixels to the maximum
influenced distance of 100 pixels.

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Environment Tab

Brush Editor – Environment tab

The settings on this tab define Altitude, Slope and Orientation constraints, restricting the
brush’s effective area. Environment information like altitude/height, slope or orientation of
the underlying object’s geometry under each instance can be used to weight the brushing pro-

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cess’s application.
• Altitude constraint: This group lets you control how altitude influences the presence of
instances:
– Altitude range: this dual slider lets you define the range of altitudes where the in-
stances appear.
– Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the instances pres-
ence are made in response to altitude. High values mean that the instances appear
very gradually in its altitude range, whereas low values will result in the instances
appearing as a solid strip.
• Slope constraint: This group lets you control how the local slope influences the presence
of instances:
– Slope range: this dual slider lets you define the ranges of slopes in which the in-
stances appear. The instances will not appear outside this range. Values to the right
end of the slider indicate flat surfaces, and values to the left indicate upside-down
surfaces. Intermediate values indicate vertical surfaces. Slope values can range
from -180 to +180 degrees.
– Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the instances pres-
ence are made in response to slope. High values mean that the instances appear
very gradually in its slope range, whereas low values will result in the instances ap-
pearing as a solid strip on areas of appropriate slope.
• Orientation constraint: This group lets you control how the local orientation influences
the presence of instances:
– Preferred orientation: this setting controls the orientation of the surface that is the
most favorable to the presence of instances.
– Orientation tightness: this setting controls the influence of orientation on the pres-
ence of instances.
– Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the instance pres-
ence are made in response to orientation. High values mean that instances appear
very gradually on surfaces of the preferred orientation, whereas low values will re-
sult in the instances appearing as a solid strip on areas of preferred orientation.

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Creating an EcoSystem Content Brush

Two global EcoSystems

Once you have created a Global Ecosystem in the EcoPainter, you can now save it as a brush,
complete with all contents, to be reused as you wish. Click on the Save Brush Preset icon.

It will then show in the World Browser as a Global EcoSystem. The contents of the EcoSystem
will be displayed as well.

To create another Global EcoSystem, from the menu select Object>Create>Global EcoSystem.
This will either clear the Population area of the EcoPainter window if you have it open, or it will
open the EcoPainter dialog.

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Selecting EcoSystem Instances

Selection Tools

The Selections section provides more options to manipulate EcoSystem instances. Selection
can be done in all views. When the view is active, a circle appears around the mouse pointer to

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indicate the area where the selection will take place.

This feature becomes active by selecting the Select EcoSystem Instances icon ( ) at top of
the EcoSystem Painter dialog. Selection can be done in all views. When the view is active, a
circle appears around the mouse pointer to indicate the area where the selection will take place.

Selected EcoSystem instances are depicted using a red dot. This dot always appears on selected
instances, even if the billboard preview of the instance is not displayed. The dots disappear
when you close the Selection Tools.

You can invert the selection by selecting the Inverse sel button. This will deselect the current
selected items and will select all the other items.

To return to the full EcoPainter dialog, just select the Painting mode icon ( ) in the upper left
of the EcoPainter dialog.

Note:

the Selection Tools make no distinction between the “origin” of EcoSystem instances (meaning
that it will indistinctively select instances from all EcoSystem materials and the Global EcoSys-
tem).

Selecting EcoSystem Instances

To select EcoSystem instances, choose the Select EcoSystem Instances icon ( ) at the top
of the EcoPainter screen. The brush will select all instances under the brush (depicted by a red
circle in the view). Simply hold the mouse button down while you drag the brush over instances
to select them, or click on individual instances. Conversely, checking the Deselect button will
deselect all of the instances that the brush clicks on or brushes over.

Brush radius: this setting controls the area around the mouse cursor where instances are se-
lected or deselected. If you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, you can connect this setting
to the tablet pressure by clicking the Drive with pressure icon ( ). This will result in instances
being selected further away from the mouse when you press harder on the tablet.

In the Selections section, there are several buttons:

• Select none: click to deselect all instances in this EcoSystem.
• Select all: click to select all instances in this EcoSystem.
• Save: when you have selected some instances, you can select the Save button to store
your current selection in that selection slot (and create a new slot).
• Discard: deletes the previously saved instances in this slot, but doesn’t remove them
from the actual EcoSystem.

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Note:

selections are saved together with the scene. However, if you modify the EcoSystems in the
scene, the selection may no longer correspond to the items originally selected.

Manipulating Selected Instances

Once you have selected some EcoSystem instances, the Manipulate tool becomes available. If
you select this tool, you will be able to manipulate the selected instances as if they were stan-
dard objects. The standard manipulation tools will appear in the 3D Views, so that you can
move, rotate or resize the selected instances. You can also use the Numerics tab of the Object
Properties panel.

Alongside the Manipulate option, the EcoSystem operations button displays a popup menu
with a list of operations that can be made on EcoSystem instances.

Convert to Objects
If you select this option the selected instances will be converted into standard objects and will
appear in the World Browser alongside other objects in the scene. When an EcoSystem instance
has been converted into a standard object, you can edit it like any other object. In the 3D View
popup menu, when such converted objects are selected, you will have the option to put them
back into the EcoSystem they belonged to, using the Revert to Instances command that ap-
pears at the top of the 3D View popup menu. Using this pair of commands, you can move in-
stances in and out of EcoSystems – e.g. when you need an accurate display for a given EcoSys-
tem instance.

Moving Instances to another EcoSystem

The next command on the popup menu lets you move instances to another EcoSystem.

Some EcoSystem instances belong to the Global EcoSystem (see here) while others belong to
an EcoSystem material, and are attached to specific objects in the scene. This command lets
you change the EcoSystem to which the instances belong. For instance, if you placed some
rocks on top of a terrain using the Global EcoSystem, but later find out that you would like to
move the terrain, you will find out that the rocks don’t follow when you move the terrain. To fix
this problem, you can assign an EcoSystem material to the terrain and move the instances to
that EcoSystem using this menu command. Now, when you move the terrain, the rocks follow.
The popup menu lists all the different EcoSystems materials used in the scene, together with
the name of each object that uses said EcoSystem material.

Changing the Type of EcoSystem Instances

The last command on the popup menu lets you change the type of the instances.

This command lets you change the type of the selected instance into any other item in any

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EcoSystem population throughout the entire scene. For instance, if you have an EcoSystem of
trees, and another EcoSystem of rocks, you could select some of the trees and convert them
into rocks! This is an extremely powerful command to touch up the automatic distribution of
he different items in the population of an EcoSystem material.

Using the Brush Tools on Selected Instances

Once you have selected instances and saved them, you can now use any of the Brush presets
on those instances, leaving unselected instances untouched.

The Selections frame is also available in Painting mode to make it easier to use that feature:
• make several selections you will want to paint on and save them,
• switch to Painting mode,

• select the Restrict to selected instances icon ( ) at the top of the EcoSystem Painter
dialog,
• choose a selection from the list of saved selections,
• paint on it with some brush,
• choose another selection,
• paint on it with some other brush.

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The VUE EcoParticle System

Material Editor – EcoParticles

VUE’s EcoParticle system is based on our EcoSystem Technology. While you find some settings
of the EcoParticle system in various areas of the user interface, most of the creation and setup
of the EcoParticle system is done in the Material Editor.

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Setting up an EcoParticle System

EcoParticle systems use many of the same settings as other EcoSystems and you can refer to
the EcoSystems section for any field definitions that you need, but there are certain fields for
EcoParticle systems only.

General Tab of the Material Editor

Most of the settings for EcoParticle systems are found on this tab.

First of all, under EcoSystem population, when you add an EcoParticle, you have to check the
Particle motion box. If the box isn’t checked, then the EcoParticle is considered a regular
EcoSystem instance. You have your setting for Presence just as a regular EcoSystem, but you
now have a setting for Velocity of the EcoParticle. This can be connected to a function ( )
created in the Function Graph.

You also have the Instance Previewing mode. For EcoParticles, this is set to Billboard for time
and resources considerations. The Full Quality Near Camera mode is available as well.

Below the EcoSystem population box, the Edit material icon ( ) is also available for Eco-
Particles. The fourth icon from the left is the Edit specimen icon ( ). Clicking this opens the
Particle Characteristics dialog.

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Particle Characteristics Dialog

Particle Characteristics dialog

This dialog defines the characteristics of the individual EcoParticle.

Note:

Many of the fields on these tabs can be connected to functions that can be refined in the Func-
tion Graph. Also many of the fields have two fields for data entry. The first field is the base value.
The second field allows for slight variation, for example a value of 2s in the first box and 0.1 in
the second would mean a time of 2 seconds, plus or minus 0.1 second.

Properties Tab
The Properties tab contains a preview of the rock, plant or object currently selected in the
EcoSystem population list. To replace this specimen with another, click the Replace icon ( )
under the preview. There is also an Edit material icon ( ) to open the Material Editor for any
changes you might wish to make in the material of the EcoParticle.

The Mean size and Mean density of the EcoParticle are also displayed under the preview.

The following fields can be connected to a function in the Function Graph. The value in the
second column is the “plus or minus” factor for the value in the first column allowing for slight
variation.
• Scale: the size of the EcoParticle
• Mass: the weight of the EcoParticle

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• Drag coefficient: defines how easily the EcoParticle will penetrate into a medium (0.5 for
a sphere, 1 for a cube, 0.04 for a plane wing, for example). This value cannot be 0.
• Adhesion coeff: this shows the extent of adhesion variability in relation to the adhesion
of the mean of the population.
• Elasticity: indicates whether the EcoParticle has the property of elasticity
• Attachment force: indicates the force to unstick an EcoParticle from another one
• Inherit emitter velocity: velocity will be determined by the value set in the emitter.
• Always face camera: If the particle is not a spherical-type object, for example, a billboard,
check this to always keep it facing forward.

Evolution Tab
• Life size variation: linear size variation during EcoParticle’s life
• Grow by: amount of growth throughout EcoParticle’s life
• Altitude Size variation: linear size variation based on altitude
• Grow by: amount of growth
• Every: the distance the altitude change is to take place
• Opacity variation: used for EcoParticles that are dependent on an alpha channel for ef-
fect, for example, smoke and fire. Usually EcoParticles will be more dense at the bottom
and more transparent at the top.
• Final opacity: amount of opacity at the end of the EcoParticle’s life
• Relative to size variation: check if this change is dependent on size variation of the Eco-
Particle
• Delete particle if opacity <: If you wish to delete the EcoParticle as it becomes more
invisible, indicate the percentage of opacity where it should be deleted.
• Color variation: used for size variation as EcoParticle changes from one color to another.
The initial color is found in the Material Editor. Select the final color using the color field
on this tab.

Periodic Emission Tab

• Specimen: select a specimen to be periodically emitted
• Velocity: local emission starting velocity.
• Flow: this is the frequency of new EcoParticle creation. For example, a value of 5 plus/minus
2 means that between 3 and 7 new EcoParticles are created each second.

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Collision Tab
• Die on collision: if the EcoParticle should die on collision, check this option. If not, select
the change in the EcoParticle.
• Specimen: select a specimen created after collision
• Velocity: this is the velocity of the EcoParticle after collision
• Count: this is the count of new EcoParticles after collision

Death Tab
• Life duration: enter the life duration of the EcoParticle in seconds.
• Upon death clone into: if you want the EcoParticle to change into another format, check
this and select what you want the EcoParticle to change into
• On instance end emit:
• Specimen
• select a specimen created after death: Velocity
• this is the velocity of the EcoParticle after cloning: Count
• this is the count of new EcoParticles after cloning.:

Bake Particle Motion Dialog

Back on the General tab of the Material Editor, for EcoParticle systems the next field is Particle
motion. There are two buttons under Particle motion:

Bake Particle Motion dialog

• Bake: click on this button to bake the physics of the EcoParticle system. While this is time
consuming when selected, it will save time later during the animation phase. This opens
the Physics bake dialog which has the following parameters:
– Start time: set the start time for baking

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– End time: set the end time for baking

– Frames per second: set the rate of frames per second.
• Edit: clicking on this button displays the Global Particle Configuration dialog. This sets
the general configuration for the actual EcoParticle.

Global Particle Configuration Dialog

General

Global Particle Configuration dialog

• Animation range: Automatic is checked by default. If unchecked, the default values are
from 0 to 10.
• Domain Length: the defined area where the EcoParticle system will work.
• Simulation rate: this value is used to control strange or unstable behavior of the EcoPar-
ticle system. Raising the value will increase frequency of calculations and stablize the

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EcoParticle system.
• OpenGL preview quality: the higher the quality, the longer the preview times
• Don’t update preview when scrubbing: this allows you to render out a preview without
all of the physics calculations which speeds up your EcoParticles preview.

Collision
• With objects: this is collision with other objects in the scene that have collision enabled.
• Tolerance: the maximum amount of interpenetration; the precision of the collisions
• Collisions with transparent surface: defines the amount of collision with transparent
objects
• Collisions with displacement in OpenGL: when colliding with an object, takes into ac-
count any displacement of the object.
• Collisions with static EcoSystems: allows collisions with EcoSystem instances in a scene.
This only applies to static EcoSystems. Collisions are not available for dynamic and Eco-
Particle systems.
• With other particles: defines the amount of collision among the EcoParticles themselves
• Tolerance: the amount of interpenetration
• Collision grid: this is a world 3D grid encompassing the scene, storing collision density
• Resolution: the size of the individual cells in the grid
• Fade rate: the amount of gradual loss of intensity
• Maximum impact: this is the maximum force of an EcoParticle collision.
• Store impact energies: when selected, the collision grid will store energy instead of col-
lision count. For energy, the more the particle is fast and heavy, the more energy will be
stored at collision.
• Smooth: the smoothness of EcoParticle motion

Forces
• Gravity: the amount of gravity affecting the EcoParticles. -9.81 is the default value
• Drag force: the amount of drag on the EcoParticles. Default is 1.2
• Turbulence: the amount of turbulence applied to the forces of gravity and drag.
• Ventilators influence: the amount of influence the ventilators have. Directional ventila-
tors are set from the icon ( ) on the left toolbar.
• Influenced by effectors: check to have influence from effectors. Particle effectors are set

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from the icon ( ) on the left toolbar in the user interface. Once selected, the Particle
Effector appears in the World Browser. When you click on it, it displays the Effector Editor,
discussed a bit later in this section.

Rendering
• Motion Blur: check to enable motion blur.
• Blur amount: set the amount of blur.
• Minimum pixel size: the smallest an EcoParticle can be
• Render as metablob: used for effects such as flowing water
• Threshold: this is used to inflate or deflate the surface that is being rendered by “blob-
bing” the EcoParticles together. This smoothing allows more control on the final shape.
The higher the threshold, the less transition between the individual spheres inside the
blob.
• Tolerance: you can increase this value to speed up render but may cause errors.
• Smoothness: the smoothness of EcoParticle motion.

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Density Tab of the Material Editor

Density tab – Particles

The first field on this tab is for EcoParticle systems.

• Emission flow: this setting increases or decreases the amount of EcoParticles, setting
from Sparse to Dense. There are two icons to the left of this field:

• Populate once only: ( ): the EcoParticles are only populated once when checked, not
continuously flowing.
• Drive with a function: ( ): click to open the Function Graph and set up a function to
control emission flow.
These fields are basic EcoSystem fields, but have special considerations for EcoParticle sys-
tems.
• Decay near foreign objects: while this works for EcoParticle systems the same as it would
for other EcoSystems, it is a good idea to turn this off for EcoParticle systems as it will
speed up the population of the EcoParticles. Of course if it’s necessary for an effect, it

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can be used.

Scaling & Orientation Tab of the Material Ed­

itor

• Direction from surface: to get a correct orientation on instances, one should set this to
100% perpendicular to the surface (vertical gives strange, unrealistic results).
• Maximum rotation: with EcoParticle systems, it’s a good idea to set this to zero. This
speeds up rendering for simple EcoParticle geometries.
For information on any other EcoSystem fields, please refer to the EcoSystems section of the
Material Editor beginning here.

The Particles Effector

The Particles Effector quite simply effects EcoParticles. It is not necessary to use it but by
choosing different effects or combinations of effects, you can force your EcoParticles to behave
quite differently. If you do use the Effector, be sure to click that option in the Global Particle
Configuration dialog.

The Particle Effector is created by clicking on its icon ( ) in the left toolbar of the user in-
terface. This creates an invisible proxy object in your scene and an entry in the World Browser.
Click on either to display the Effector Editor.

Effector Editor

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Effector Editor
• Effects: use the Add a new effector... icon ( ) on the right side of this dialog to display
the list of available effectors. Each effector has its own parameters.
• Fall-off: check for fall-off of the effector influence.
• Threshold: use the slider to set the amount of fall-off.
• Profile: right-click to open the Filter Editor to change the look of the fall-off. Left-click to
open the Filter Browser to select a particular filter.

Animating an EcoParticle System

Animating a EcoParticle system is really no different than creating other animations, except for
the computations.

On the Global Particle Configuration dialog, be sure to check the Don’t update preview when
scrubbing field. This will prevent physics calculations being made during the preview which
will save a lot of time. However, it also makes the Recompute button unavailable. So if you
want to make changes to your EcoParticle system, untick this box so the population can be
recomputed.

If rendering another preview, check that box again. Leave in unchecked for final renders.

Limitations of the EcoParticle System

The following are limitations of the current EcoParticle system:
• Physical attributes are computed on the EcoParticle center (no way to rotate an EcoPar-
ticle at collision time) and collision takes only the spherical radius into account.
• There is no mesh triangle collision.
• There is no spring system for cloth simulation.
• There is no fluid simulation for realistic smoke or fluid movement computation.

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EcoSystems in the Material

Editor

Material Editor – EcoSystem Materials

EcoSystem materials are used to scatter instances of an EcoSystem population at the surface of
objects. EcoSystem materials behave as standard materials. They can be mixed together using
the Mixed Materials option, and will react to the environment just as other materials would (see
VUE’s EcoSystem technology).

EcoSystems can be layered like simple materials, and you can define the affinity between the
different EcoSystem layers.

When you create an EcoSystem material, it will always appear as a multi-layer material, with
the underlying material being the lowest layer on the stack, and the EcoSystem immediately
above.

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Just above the tab control, there are three buttons that are used to populate, paint or clear the
EcoSystem population. The Populate and Clear buttons will also appear on mixed materials,
if one or several materials in the material hierarchy is an EcoSystem:
• Populate: press this button to generate the instances of the EcoSystem population ac-
cording to the EcoSystem material settings and the geometry of the underlying object.
This button displays as Preview if the Dynamic population option is checked.
• Clear: press this button to remove all EcoSystem population instances.
• Paint: press this button to display the EcoSystem Painter tool. You can now use the Paint
tool to apply the EcoSystem, or selected items from the EcoSystem, to the selected sur-
faces.
• Dynamic population: when you select the Dynamic population box, VUE will generate a
few instances to let you preview the population close to the camera. Dynamic population
actually takes place at render time. But it can be previewed at any time by selecting the
Preview button next to the Dynamic population checkbox. The maximum number of
instances and the minimum size in pixels previewed can be set in the Display tab of the
Options panel. This option is extremely useful if you want to populate vast expanses of
land (or even infinite planes). VUE features a number of very elaborate algorithms to
automatically distribute a potentially infinite number of instances only on the areas that
are really “seen” by the camera. This is an extremely efficient technique for handling very
large EcoSystem populations.
Alongside these buttons is an indication of the current number of instances in the population.

Note:

Populating an EcoSystem usually involves a fair amount of randomness. This “randomness” is

controlled in such a way as to avoid radical changes in the placement of the EcoSystem popula-
tion after small changes in the material settings: pressing Populate after slight changes in the
material settings will only cause slight changes in the actual population. If you are not happy
with the way the EcoSystem population is distributed and would like to see another distribu-
tion for that EcoSystem, press Clear followed by Populate. This “new” population will still
follow the rules of the EcoSystem material, but with a different distribution of the EcoSystem
population.

EcoSystem materials are controlled through 6 tabs:

• General: this tab is used to define the EcoSystem population (objects that are placed at
the surface of the underlying object), as well as the aspect of the surface of the underlying
object.
• Density: this tab controls how the EcoSystem population is distributed at the surface of
the object.
• Scaling & Orientation: this tab controls the size of the EcoSystem population and how
this population is oriented relative to the underlying object’s geometry.

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• Color: this tab is used to define the variations in color of the EcoSystem population.
• Presence: this tab lets you control how the environment affects the presence of the cur-
rent layer.
• Animation: this tab has setting to allow you to control the phasing of animated EcoSys-
tem instances.

Temporary Global Settings for Quality

Display of EcoSystems

If you notice a slowdown when further editing your scene, you can quickly uncheck the option
to Allow Full Quality Near Camera which will override all settings made in the EcoSystems
used in this scene. This clears all OpenGL data for the EcoSystems and reduce the scene over-
head while you are working. This setting is available from the menu, Display | EcoSystem Pre-
view.

Temporary limitations can also be set for the Global Quality Limit, overriding the settings
made in the EcoSystems used in this scene, also available from the menu Display | EcoSystem
Preview. You can choose to:
• Limit to None
• Limit to Flat Billboards
• Limit to Shaded Billboards (only available with the OpenGL Shader settings)
If you need to go back and work more on the individual EcoSystems, you can always uncheck
these global options to return to the settings in the individual EcoSystems.

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General Tab

EcoSystem Population

General tab – EcoSystem Materials

The large list in this tab is used to indicate what the EcoSystem population is made of. You can
add as many objects, plants or rocks to this list as you want. When you populate the EcoSystem,
VUE will select items from this list and add them to the surface of the underlying object.

If you are creating an EcoParticles system, many of the regular EcoSystem settings will apply.
Some fields, however, are EcoParticle specific.

To add a new item, either press the Add Item button or right-click in the list. It opens a menu
with these commands:
• Add Rock...: select this option to add rocks to the EcoSystem population. The Rock Tem-
plate Browser will appear, letting you select the type of rock you want using drag and
drop to add it to the EcoSystem population list. The browser will remain open for you to
select a rock. Click OK in the Rock Template Browser when finished adding rocks. When
you populate the EcoSystem, variations of each type of rock will be created.
• Add Plant...: select this option to add a new plant species to the EcoSystem population.
The Visual Plant Browser will appear, letting you select the desired plant species. You can
use drag and drop to select a plant from the browser and place it in the EcoSystem popu-
lation area. The browser will remain open for you to select another plant. Click OK in the
Visual Plant Browser when finished adding plants. When you populate the EcoSystem,

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SolidGrowth will automatically create variations of the desired plant species, to avoid
duplicated plants appearing in the EcoSystem.
• Add Object from File...: select this option to add a new object to the EcoSystem popu-
lation. The Visual Object Browser will appear, letting you select the desired object. You
can use drag and drop to select an object from the browser and place it in the EcoSystem
population area. The browser will remain open for you to select another object. Click
OK in the Visual Object Browser when finished adding objects. You can also import 3D
objects from other applications for use directly inside the EcoSystem population.
• Add Object from VUE Scene...: select this option to add a new object from the current
scene to the Ecosystem population. A list of all objects will appear. You can either double
click on an object, or use a simple click then validate with the OK button. To add several
objects at once, press the Ctrl button while clicking on objects. You can also select objects
inside groups.
• Add Object from [host] Scene...: this option is only available in the integration plugins.
A list of all objects in the host application will appear. You can either double click on an
object, or use a simple click then validate with the OK button. To add several objects at
once, press the Ctrl button while clicking on objects. You can also select objects inside
groups.
• Add Proxy...: this option is only available in the integration plugins for 3ds Max and Maya.
It opens a file browser where you can select a proxy file for V-Ray (.vrmesh), depending
on the selected renderer in the host application.
If you have created a .vob file of a VUE rock or tree, you can use these in EcoSystems and VUE will
create variations of that rock or tree automatically. For plants, you must have created a .vob
file of a VUE tree. You can use these in EcoSystems and VUE will create variations of the tree
automatically. You must have the original .veg plant that this .vob was created from however.

When the new item is loaded/prepared for use in the EcoSystem, it appears on the list. If you
want to remove some items from the EcoSystem population, select them and press Remove.

Note:

Only regular 3D objects like plants, meshes, CSG or Metablobs can be used as EcoSystem items.
Others like terrains, lights, splines, clouds etc. will be rejected or filtered out of the object list
to select from.

Note:

If you want to create EcoSystems that use rocks with different materials, you first need to create
VUE objects from those rocks: create a rock, map it with the desired material and save it as a
VUE object (.vob) (Add Object from VUE Scene... will not work for this purpose!). When you
load this rock object file into an EcoSystem, VUE will automatically detect the rock, and create
variations of it using the desired material.

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Note:

If the object you load (either from a .vob file or by selecting an object in the scene) is a group
of static meshes, VUE will offer to weld the group into a single mesh object, to speed up the
rendering drastically. This does not change the rendering. The only case where you could prefer
keeping the original hierarchy is if you plan to paint only a few instances with the EcoSystem
brush tools, and then revert the instances to individual objects.

Among the icons found under the EcoSystem population list is the Edit Material icon. Highlight
the item in the list you wish to edit and click on the icon to open the Material Editor for that item.
If the item you have placed in the EcoSystem consists of several materials, right click on the item
to select the material you wish to modify.

If this is an EcoParticle system, highlight the EcoParticle and the Edit Specimen icon becomes
available.

Items are displayed on the list as a preview image, the name of the item, its overall scale and
it’s presence in the EcoSystem population.

Use the Scale setting to adjust the average size of instances of a given item in the EcoSystem
population. This is particularly useful to adjust the relative sizes of different items on the list.
The overall size of the entire population can also be controlled using the Overall scaling pa-
rameter in the Scaling & Orientation tab.

The Presence setting lets you adjust how “often” the item is present in the final EcoSystem
population. If you increase this setting, you will see this item more often in the population.

The Quality setting is included for Tree Factory plants. Since these plants can be more complex,
this setting allows you set the quality for inclusion in an EcoSystem.

Note:

Because the presence setting is relative to the other items on the EcoSystem population list,
increasing the presence of all items on the list does not increase the number of instances in the
EcoSystem population.

If this is an EcoParticle system, there is also a field for Velocity.

If the Distribution is driven by a function instead of being random, the Presence setting indicates
the output interval in which the item is present (see below).

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EcoSystem Item Options

EcoSystem Item Options

EcoSystem Item Options – Animated Mesh

• Instance Previewing Quality: Use the combo-box to select the preview quality for this
particular item in the EcoSystem. This overrides the Default quality set up in the Display
options explained below. If you are not running in OpenGL Shader mode, the Shaded

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Billboard option will be grayed out.

• Full Quality Near Camera: ( ) This can be used to override

the option set up in the Display options, detailed below.
For PlantFactory items, there are 3 additional settings available:
• Quality mode: 3 modes are available:
– Static mesh: this is the most efficient settings to render still images, both in terms
of rendering speed and memory footprint. However, with this setting, some proce-
dural materials may render slightly differently. Switch to “Procedural” if this is an
issue.
– Animated mesh: this is the most efficient settings to render animations (with the
same limitations regarding some procedural materials as for “Static mesh”).
* In this mode, you can define the Duration and Frame rate of the plant anima-
tion. The animation is always baked in a cyclic way, so that it remains seamless
if the total duration of the animation you render is longer than the duration you
choose for the plant in this dialog. However, in case you have for example a
close-up shot with a still camera, you may start to see repetitions of the loop,
therefore you may need to bake a longer duration by re-opening this dialog.
– Procedural: this corresponds to the best quality (the same as if you render indi-
vidual plants), but it consumes more memory and can be take much more time to
render.
• Variations: use this setting to control the number of different variations you will get in
your population (up to 10 distinct geometries). The more variations you have, the more
rich and realistic your population will be. But beware each individual geometry will con-
sume memory and request additional render preparation time.
• Quality boost: use this setting to control the quality of the EcoSystem specimens. The
quality boost ranges from -4 to 4, the higher the quality value the more detailed the spec-
imens.
• Animation options: see the Animated mesh quality mode above.

Preview Color

Preview Color

On the right of each population line, you can see a little square filled with the average color of
the population. You can edit this color to highlight the corresponding instances in the OpenGL

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views. This won’t affect the rendering: it is just a productive tool to let you visualize the current
distribution of your EcoSystems.

Note:

The colorization will affect all display modes, except Wireframe, Flat Shaded and Smooth Shaded.
Due to limitations in the fixed pipeline OpenGL engine, legacy billboards won’t be affected ei-
ther

Underlying Material
This is the material that appears at the surface of the underlying object. For instance, if you pop-
ulate a terrain with plants, you would probably have the underlying material set to some kind of
soil material. In the Material Hierarchy, the underlying material appears as a layer underneath
the EcoSystem.

If you switch from another type of material to an EcoSystem, the underlying material will be the
same as the material before switching.

Double click on the material preview to edit the underlying material, or press the Load material
button ( ) to load an existing material. You can adjust the scale of the material using the Scale
setting below the material.

Fast Population Mode

This is a simplified (and much faster) population mode.

When this mode is activated, VUE can refresh the EcoSystem population interactively. The pop-
ulation is updated as soon as you change a value in the Material Editor, for example, when you
change a value or change a parameter.

To activate, just check the option Fast population mode on the General tab of the EcoSystem
Material Editor.

By default, the population is interactive, but you can disable it by clicking on the Interactive
Population icon ( ). You might want to disable this if the population takes too long. This
could happen if you populate a huge terrain and connect the density to a very complex fractal.

When you are satisfied with the current population, press the Accurately reposition on surface
icon ( ) to reposition the instances accurately. This does not change the count of instances,
but it adjusts the altitude of the instances so that they match exactly the surface of the popu-
lated object.

If using this mode, some features will not be available because of time considerations. These
unavailable features are:
• EcoSystem stacking

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• Population over displaced objects

• Avoid overlapping instances
• Affinity/Repulsion with/from EcoSystem layer

Display Options
This group of controls let you select how the instances of this EcoSystem are displayed in the
3D Views.

Note:

the display options only affect the way the instances are displayed in the 3D Views. They do not
affect the way the instances are rendered in the final image.
• Default quality: this controls the default display quality of the instances in the EcoSys-
tem. The drop-down list offers the following options:
– None: the instances in the EcoSystem are not displayed in the 3D Views.
– Billboard: the instances are displayed using 3 billboards aligned along each one of
the axes – this is the default method for displaying EcoSystem instances. This is the
preferred setting for EcoParticle systems
– Shaded Billboard: the instances are displayed in OpenGL as billboards with full pre-
view lighting including shadows. This option is only available if you are using the
OpenGL 2.1 (shader 4) display quality setting Options | Display Tab.
– Wireframe Box: the instances are displayed as wireframe boxes.
– Filled Box: the instances are displayed as solid boxes.
– Wireframe: the instances are displayed with their full 3D geometry, as a wireframe.
– Flat Shaded: the instances are displayed with their full, flat shaded 3D geometry.
– Smooth Shaded: the instances are displayed with their full, smooth shaded 3D ge-
ometry. This is the best possible display quality.
• Allow full quality near camera: when this option is selected, the instances of the EcoSys-
tem that are close to the camera may be displayed in full, smooth shaded 3D geometry.
You can adjust the radius around the camera in which instances are displayed at full qual-
ity, using the Radius setting. Avoid using a large radius setting, as this will slow the pre-
view down significantly.
If all of the instances are displayed in this quality, this might result in very slow refresh
rates. You can selectively choose those items in your EcoSystem to preview in higher
quality by selecting the first icon to the right of the item which is the Instances Preview
Quality ( ). Right-click on this icon to choose the display quality of the item. Click the
second icon to turn on Full Quality near Camera ( ).

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Keep in mind that these quality settings can be resources heavy. Constant calculations
are made to determine which instances are in the quality set range and to actually create
the quality display. This is not recommended for large EcoSystems and may slow down
your system.
• Edit Alpha: This button allows you to access the alpha channel of the EcoSystem layer,
which can be used to drive the presence of instances over the material. If some alpha is
indeed defined, this button is toggled. Clicking this button will open the Function Graph
to edit the alpha output.

Distribution
The distribution parameters control the way the items on the EcoSystem population list are
selected when populating the EcoSystem, and how they are placed relative to items in other
EcoSystem layers.

By default, the distribution algorithm is set to Random, indicating that the items on the list are
selected randomly.

If you click the Drive with a function icon ( ), you can control the way items on the list are
selected using a function. See here for further details on driving material parameters with func-
tions. When the distribution is controlled by a function, the Presence setting on the EcoSys-
tem population list indicates an interval for each item. To decide which item should be placed
where, the EcoSystem populator evaluates the result of the function at the current point and
finds the interval that contains the function output. The corresponding item is created. Values
outside the valid range of [-1;1] are clamped.

Connecting the distribution parameter to a function is one of the rare cases that immediately
affects the way the material behaves: by default, the function outputs 0, so only the item whose
presence range contains 0 will appear in the population.

Effects of Affinity and Repulsion settings – left: positive affinity/positive repulsion – center: nega-
tive affinity/negative repulsion – right: positive affinity and repulsion/negative affinity and repul-
sion
• Affinity with layer: this setting controls how strongly instances from this layer are “at-
tracted” to instances from other EcoSystems below it on the layer stack. For instance, if
you have a layer of trees and want to have primroses around the trees, you’d add a layer
of primroses on top of the tree layer, and enter a positive value for affinity. Higher values

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will make the primroses stick closer to the trees, and not appear anywhere else than near
the trees. If you enter a negative value, the primroses will appear everywhere except near
the trees. This setting is only available if there is another EcoSystem below this one on
the layer stack.
• Repulsion from layer: this setting controls how close new instances can be added to
instances from underlying EcoSystems. The effect of repulsion is a lot more “sudden”
than that of affinity. For instance, if you have a layer of trees and want to have grass
everywhere except around the trees, you’d add a layer of grass on top of the tree layer,
and add some repulsion. Higher values will make the grass stay further away from the
trees. If you enter a negative value for repulsion, you will have grass only near the trees.
By using affinity and repulsion simultaneously, you could, for instance, have the grass
appear near the trees, but not underneath them. This setting is only available if there is
another EcoSystem below this one on the layer stack.

Density Tab

Overall Density

Density tab – EcoSystem Materials

Use the slider in the Overall Density frame to adjust the overall number of instances per unit
of surface of the EcoSystem population throughout the entire EcoSystem. Higher values will
mean more instances in the EcoSystem.

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• Emission flow: (for EcoParticle systems) Click for the flow of emission for an EcoParticle
system. Select the first icon ( ) to enable a one time EcoParticle flow. Click the second
icon ( ) to control flow with a function.
• Avoid overlapping instances: select this option if you would like to avoid having in-
stances of the EcoSystem population that overlap each other. Please note that enabling
this option will limit the maximum density of the EcoSystem population, and does not
mean that you will never have any overlapping instances. It does however minimize the
number of occurrences of such overlaps. Reducing the overall density is another way to
avoid overlapping instances.

Placement
• Force regular alignment of instances: select this option to remove the randomness in
the placement of the EcoSystem population.
• 360° population: this allows population of an EcoSystem to completely populate a mate-
rial even though it covers sides and bottom of an object. For example, you can completely
cover a sphere.
• Allow stacking: check this option to stack instances in an EcoSystem. If the density of
EcoSystem population is high enough, VUE will stack instances instead of adding them at
the same level. It works with layered EcoSystems too (i.e. instances of a top EcoSystem
layer can now be added onto instances of the lower layers). </br> It is compatible with
dynamic population, with just a restriction of the maximum number of instances which
can be stacked.
• Max stacked instances: this controls the number of instances you can stack in an EcoSys-
tem.
• Sampling quality: this parameter controls the accuracy of the EcoSystem sampling pro-
cess. If you need to closely follow a density profile (e.g. when using a bitmap to create
an EcoSystem logo), you may need to increase this setting. Higher values will produce an
EcoSystem population that follows the density profile more accurately, but population
will be slower.

Offset from Surface

This frame lets you control how the EcoSystem population is placed relative to the surface of
the underlying object.

Use the slider to adjust the offset between the base of the EcoSystem instances and the surface
of the underlying object. A value of 0 (the default) will place the EcoSystem instances so that
they rest on the surface of the underlying geometry. Positive values will make the EcoSystem
instances “fly” above the surface, while negative values will sink the instances into the ground.
This parameter can be driven by a function (thus letting you vary the altitude of the instances

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relative to the surface) by pressing the Drive with a function icons ( ). See here for further
details on driving material parameters with functions.

The actual value of the offset from the surface depends on the options below:
• Absolute offset from surface: when this option is selected, the slider indicates the dis-
tance between the surface of the underlying object and the base of the instances in VUE
units. All instances will be placed at the exact same distance from the surface (except if
you drive the distance setting with a function).
• Proportional to size of instance: when this option is selected, the distance between the
surface of the underlying object and the base of each instance is proportional to the size
of the instance. A value of -50% will hence bury each instance halfway under the surface
of the underlying object.

Slope Influence
• Slope influence: adjusts the influence that slope has on the distribution of instances. A
value of 100% indicates that instances will automatically appear more sparsely on steeper
slopes (like in VUE 6), whereas a value of 0% will indicate that the density of instances
should be the same, whatever the slope.

Clumping
Check this option to group like species together, often as they appear in nature.
• Amount: use the slider or key in the amount of clumping in the EcoSystem (0% = no
clumping, 100%=maximum intensity).
• Size: Use the slider or key in the size of the clumps.

Variable Density
Select this option to vary the density of the EcoSystem population over the surface of the un-
derlying object.

VUE generates variable density using a function and a filter that indicates the local density de-
pending on the value of the function. This is the way it works: for each point where density is
evaluated, the function generates a number in the range of -1 to 1 (-1 is black on the preview of
the function and 1 is white). This number is then transformed by the filter into a density. The
maximum variable density is equal to the overall density. When you activate variable density,
the default function returns a mid-range gray value, and the filter has no effect. This results in
a final density that is exactly half of what it was before enabling the option.

To change the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Function
Visual Browser. Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

You can adjust the density according to the output of the function using the filter.

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Decay near Foreign Objects

This is a very interesting feature that automatically adjusts the density of the EcoSystem popu-
lation around objects that are placed on the underlying EcoSystem object. For instance, if you
place a large rock in the middle of a terrain covered with vegetation, the density of the vegeta-
tion will automatically be reduced around the rock. Any object that is made of another material
than the EcoSystem material will be considered a “foreign object”, unless the Ignore object(s)
when populating EcoSystems option is selected for that object.

Because objects that are hidden from render still have an influence on the EcoSystem density,
you can use such objects to locally modify the EcoSystem.

Population below foreign object

• Influence: this parameter controls the influence of the foreign objects on the EcoSystem
density. The higher the value, the larger the void around the foreign objects.
• Falloff: this parameter controls the profile of the decay around the foreign object. A value
of 0 will create a linear decay profile allowing a smooth transition in the EcoSystem den-
sity around the foreign objects, while positive values will seemingly increase the void
around the foreign objects while making that void much more sudden.
Both these parameters can be driven by a function by pressing the corresponding Drive with a
function icons ( ). See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.
• Populate below foreign objects as possible: this option works in conjunction with the
“Decay near foreign objects” option (see below). Foreign objects create a void around
them in the EcoSystem population. If this option is selected, and if the foreign object
is above the EcoSystem surface, VUE will attempt to place instances of the EcoSystem
population under the foreign object (see illustration).

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Scaling & Orientation Tab

Overall Scaling

Scaling & Orientation tab – EcoSystem Materials

This setting lets you control the overall size of the instances in the EcoSystem population. A
value of 1 leaves the size of the instances untouched, while a value of 2 will double the size of
the instances of the EcoSystem population.

This setting works in combination with the Scale factor on the list of items in the EcoSystem
Population.

Maximum Size Variation

The controls in this frame let you indicate how the size of the instances in the EcoSystem pop-
ulation varies along each axis. The mathematics behind this variation are a little complex, but
suffice to say that a value of 1 will create instances that are between one half and twice the size
of the original item, that a value of 0 means no variation in size, and that the greater the value,
the stronger the variation in size throughout the EcoSystem population. These settings along
the 3 axes are also influenced by the “Keep proportions” setting detailed below. If the “Keep
proportions” setting is at its maximum value of 100%, the size variation only needs a single
value, the value for the other axes is simply ignored (hence only the X value can be set, the Y
and Z controls are greyed-out).
• Keep proportions: this setting controls how stretched or squashed the instances of the

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EcoSystem population will be. A value of 100% indicates that the proportions of the
EcoSystem items are untouched (which doesn’t mean the objects won’t be resized), whereas
a value of 0% indicates that the scaling along the 3 axes is not correlated, resulting in ob-
jects that can be strongly stretched or squashed.

Direction from Surface

This slider lets you indicate how the EcoSystem instances “grow” from the surface. If the slider
is set to 0%, the instances will always grow vertically, whatever the slope of the underlying
“terrain”. A value of 100% means that the instances will always grow from the surface (perpen-
dicular to that surface).

This parameter can be driven by a function by pressing the Drive with a function icon ( ). See
here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Rotation
This frame lets you define the random rotation that is applied to the instances in the EcoSystem
population.
• Maximum angle: this setting controls the maximum angle of the random rotation ap-
plied to the instances in the EcoSystem population. By limiting the angle of rotation, you
can preserve the directionality of certain animation effects (for instance, if you wanted
to apply wind effects to an entire forest, you could limit this angle of rotation so that all
trees face in roughly the same direction). On the other hand, a larger angle of rotation
means that the items in the EcoSystem population will be viewed under a greater variety
of angles, resulting in a seemingly more diverse population.
If you click the Drive with a function icon ( ) for the “Maximum angle” setting, you can
control the exact angle of rotation that is applied to each instance in the EcoSystem pop-
ulation. When this parameter is connected, there is no more randomness in the angle of
rotation. Expected values are in between -1 (-180°) and +1 (+180°).
Connecting the “Maximum angle” parameter to a function is one of the rare cases that
immediately affects the way the material behaves: by default, the function outputs 0, so
the entire population will be oriented the same.
• Up axis only: select this option if you want the rotation to only take place along the Up
axis (vertical). This is typically the case for objects that “grow” from the surface, such as
trees.
• All axes: if this option is selected, a random rotation will be applied to all axes of the
instances. This is best used for objects that do not grow from the surface (e.g. rocks).

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Variable Scaling
Select this option to control the scaling of the EcoSystem instances using a function.

VUE generates variable scaling using a function and two filters that indicate the local scale and
size variations depending on the value of the function. This is the way it works: for each point
where scaling is evaluated, the function generates a number in the range of -1 to 1 (-1 is black on
the preview of the function and 1 is white). This number is then transformed by the filters into
a scaling and size variation. The maximum scaling ratio is equal to the overall scaling setting,
and the maximum variation is equal to the Maximum size variation setting. The actual size of
the instance along the 3 axes is determined randomly based on the size variation value and the
“Keep proportions” setting.

When you activate variable scaling, the default function returns a mid-range gray value, and the
filters have no effect. This results in a final scaling and size variation that is exactly half of what
it was before enabling the option.

To change the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Function
Graph. Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

You can adjust the scaling and size variations according to the output of the function using the
corresponding filters.

Shrink at Low Densities

When this option is selected, the size of the instances in the EcoSystem population will automat-
ically be reduced when the density of the EcoSystem population is low. This could, for instance,
be used in combination with the Decay near foreign objects option in the Density tab to au-
tomatically reduce the number and size of instances around a foreign object. You can also use
this in combination with the Decay color at low densities option in the Color tab to simulate
adverse growing conditions.
• Influence: this setting controls the amount of reduction in size of the instances as the
density becomes low. If you enter a negative value, the size of the instances will increase
at low densities.
• Radius: this setting controls the density value under which the density is considered to be
low and hence have effects on the size of the instances. If the density function is gradual,
this translates visually to a strip of influence on the edges of the EcoSystem population
(although the relationship between radius and actual width of the strip is not straightfor-
ward).
• Falloff: this parameter controls the profile of the size reduction as the density becomes
low. A value of 0 will create a linear size reduction profile, allowing for a smooth transition
in the size of the EcoSystem instances around low density areas, while positive values will
seemingly increase the strip around the low density areas by making the size reduction
much more sudden.

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These 3 parameters can be driven by a function by pressing the corresponding Drive with a
function icons ( ). See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Lean Out at Low Density

When this option is selected, EcoSystem instances lean out in the zones where density is lower,
simulating plants trying to get as much light as possible.
• Influence: Use the slider to set the intensity of the effect or click the Drive with a Func-
tion icon ( ) to use the Function Graph to connect this to any parameter in the graph.

Color Tab

Color Correction

Color tab – EcoSystem Materials

• Overall color: this setting controls the overall color of the instances in the EcoSystem
population. It represents the average color of all the items in the EcoSystem population.
Because the color of these items can be very different, the overall color is often quite dull.
By modifying this overall color, you will modify the colors of all the instances in the EcoSystem
population. For instance, if you make the overall color brighter, all the instances will become
brighter.

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Color at Low Densities

The “Color at low density” option works in a similar way to the “Shrink at low densities” option
in the Scaling & Orientation tab. What it does is automatically alter the colors of the EcoSys-
tem population when the density of the EcoSystem becomes low. Using this option, you could
easily make the plants in your EcoSystem look pale and yellow where the density is low, thus
simulating adverse growing conditions. This works particularly well in combination with the
Shrink at low densities option described above.
• Decay color: this is the overall color of the EcoSystem population at low densities. It is
not the actual color of the instances, because each instance can have differing colors, but
think of it as the average color, in the same sense as the Overall color setting described
above.
• Influence: this setting controls how strongly the colors of the instances are affected by
the decay color.
• Radius: this setting controls the density value under which the density is considered to
be low and hence have effects on the color of the instances. If the density function is
gradual, this translates visually to a strip of influence on the edges of the EcoSystem pop-
ulation (although the relationship between radius and actual width of the strip is not
straightforward).
• Falloff: this parameter controls the profile of the color changes as the density becomes
low. A value of 0 will create a linear color change, allowing for a smooth transition in the
EcoSystem colors around low density areas, while positive values will seemingly increase
the strip around the low density areas by making the color change much more sudden.
These 4 parameters can be driven by a function by pressing the corresponding Drive with a
function icons ( ). See here for further details on driving material parameters with functions.

Variable Color
Select this option to control the color of the EcoSystem instances using a function.

VUE generates variable colors using a function, a filter and a color map that indicate the local
“average” color depending on the value of the function and the filter. This is the way it works:
for each point where color is evaluated, the function generates a number in the range of -1 to
1 (-1 is black on the preview of the function and 1 is white). This number is then transformed
by the filter and the color map into a color. This color is not the actual color of the EcoSystem
instance at that point, but rather the average color that many instances would have if they were
all placed at that location.

When you activate variable colors, the default function, filter and color map will yield the same
color as the current overall color. Any changes that you make to the “Overall color” will be re-
flected in the color map. Likewise, any changes that you make to the color map will be reflected
in the Overall color.

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To change the function, double-click on the picture of the function. This will open the Function
Visual Browser. Use the scaling controls to scale the function along the X, Y and Z axes.

Generally speaking, it is unwise to load a color map into the variable color slot, as this will
result in dramatic (and usually unexpected) changes in the colors of the EcoSystem population.
You will be better off editing the color map by hand to introduce very slight changes.

An intensity slider allows you to adjust the sensitivity to color variations in your EcoSystem
population. Like other parameters, it can be driven by a function.

Presence Tab

Presence tab – EcoSystem Materials

This tab lets you control how the environment affects the presence of the current layer. The
behavior of this tab is identical to that of the Presence tab of Simple materials.

Altitude Constraint
This group lets you control how altitude influences the presence of the layer:
• Altitude range: this dual slider lets you define the range of altitudes in which the cur-
rent layer appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear
outside this range.

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• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to altitude. High values mean that the layer appears very gradually in
its altitude range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip.
• Range of altitudes: this lets you define in what coordinates the altitude range is defined:
• By object: in this mode, the range is relative to each object to which the material is ap-
plied.
• By material: in this mode, the range is relative to all the objects that use this material.
• Absolute: in this mode, the range of altitudes is expressed in global coordinates.
• Relative to sea: the altitude is computed from the sea level and not from zero.

Slope Constraint
This group lets you control how the local slope influences the presence of the layer:
• Slope range: this dual slider lets you define the range of slopes in which the current layer
appears (provided it is not transparent at this point). The layer will not appear outside
this range.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to slope. High values mean that the layer appears very gradually in its
slope range, whereas low values will result in the layer appearing as a solid strip on areas
of appropriate slope.

Influence of Orientation
This group lets you control how the local orientation influences the presence of the layer:
• Preferred orientation: this setting controls the orientation of the surface that is the most
favorable to the presence of the layer.
• Orientation influence: this setting controls the influence of orientation on the presence
of the layer.
• Fuzziness: this setting controls how “suddenly” the changes to the layer presence are
made in response to orientation. High values mean that the layer appears very gradu-
ally on surfaces of the preferred orientation, whereas low values will result in the layer
appearing as a solid strip on areas of preferred orientation.

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Animation Tab

Animation tab – EcoSystem Materials

This tab has setting to allow you to control the phasing of animated EcoSystem instances. The
tab appears when at least one of the EcoSystem specimens contains animation. You can then
animate the EcoSystem instances at different phases of the animation. This is useful for creat-
ing realistic animated populations, for example, a crowd rather than a marching army.
• Variable time offset: check this to enable the phasing features.
• Random: for better control of the phasing, you can use a function. Click to open the
Function Graph and set further parameters for Time Offset.
• Time Offset Range: Adjust the slider to set the range of allowed phase shift. For instance,
a range of [0; 1] means that each instance created will have a random phase shift of 0 to 1
second.
• Loop animation phasing: check to loop the animation phasing.

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Converting Objects To EcoSys­

tem Instances
You can convert all references matching a given master object to EcoSystem instances. These
instances are added to an existing Global EcoSystem or you can create a new EcoSystem.

There are two ways to access the feature:

Select Master Object

From World Browser: select a Master Object (in Library Tab), right-click to open the menu, and
choose Convert to EcoSystem instances

By drag and drop: drag one reference object from the Objects Tab of the World Browser to
the EcoSystem Painter Population section.

This only works with Global EcoSystems.

If you are creating a new EcoSystem, once you have painted with it, you will see an entry for the
EcoSystem in the Objects Tab of the World Browser.

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EcoSystem Export
If the object you have selected for export has EcoSystem instances, the EcoSystem will be ex-
ported with the object, provided you export it in Alembic, USD, C4D or FBX format. Materials
are included with the USD, C4D or FBX export.

Export Options

By default, EcoSystem instances are exported with global export options, but you can config-
ure how EcoSystem specimens are exported by right-clicking on them in the World Browser /
Classes tab.

For EcoSystem instances, export can only be previewed at render time (in main render or render
scene preview), and not in real-time views.

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Section 6
Animating Scenes

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Animating from Scratch

In this section you will learn how to create a simple animation starting from a still scene. As you
will see, VUE offers a powerful set of tools that turns part of the art of animation into a child’s
game.

Animation Properties Tab

Before you create an animation, you must first decide what objects in the scene will be ani-
mated. Let’s say you want to animate a sphere. All you need to do is select that sphere, switch
to the Animation tab, and select a type of Motion other than Not animated (which is the de-
fault). You will find further down a detailed list of all the available types of motion.

By selecting a motion type, you are turning animation on for the selected object (i.e. the sphere).
However, no animation has been defined for that object yet.

To define an animation for the object you can use any of two following methods:
• use the Animation Wizard that was designed to help you setup your animations easily (see
here for details), or
• use the Timeline.

Types of Motion

VUE features a set of elaborate algorithms called Dynamic Motion Reaction™ that simulate the
dynamic reactions of a number of predefined vehicles. They are called types of motion. By
selecting one of these types of motion you instantly define major aspects of your object ani-
mation (e.g. airplanes bank as they turn). It highly simplifies the achievement of convincing
animations by automating what can be a considerably tedious and time consuming process if
done by hand.

VUE offers 10 different types of preset motions. Some of these can be further customized using
the Motion Options dialog.

Some types of motion (i.e. vehicles) are airborne. They can vary their altitude relative to the
ground beneath them. Others are grounded and will follow the surface of the ground they move
on.

The available preset motion types are:

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• Standard: the object moves from way point to way point with a near constant velocity.
There may be sudden changes in object velocity when passing way points. Motion has
no effect on object position or orientation. This type of animation is found in most 3D
applications.
• Smoothed: basically the same as standard, except that the velocity of the animated ob-
ject is automatically processed to ensure smooth acceleration/deceleration between way
points. This type of animation is also available in some 3D applications. This sets the
Smoothed Velocity property.
• Look ahead: the animated object is oriented in such a way that its main axis always
points in the direction of travel. You can set which axis will be pointing in the direction
of travel using the Animation Wizard (see below), or using the Animation Properties tab.
Like in Smoothed motion type, velocity is processed to ensure smooth motion. This mo-
tion sets the Look Ahead properties. This type of animation is also available in a few other
3D applications.
• Airplane: now we get to the juicy ones! Airplane adds automatic banking to the Look
ahead motion. What this means is that animated objects with an airplane motion type
will bank automatically as they enter a bend, proportionately to the tightness of the curve!
There’s some complex physics going on behind to produce mechanically accurate bank-
ing... You can adjust the sensitivity to bend tightness using the Motion Options dialog.
• Helicopter: like with Airplane, objects animated with this type of motion will bank (slightly)
as they turn. But they will also dip down as they accelerate! You can adjust the sensitivity
to bend tightness and acceleration using the Motion Options dialog.
• Missile: basically the same as Airplane, except that objects with this type of motion will
bank almost 90° as soon as they turn. You can adjust the sensitivity to bend tightness
using the Motion Options dialog.
• Automobile: this is the first “grounded” type of motion. Objects animated with this type
of motion will closely follow the ground they move on. The orientation of the objects is
at all times given by that of the ground they are moving on.
• Motorcycle: also follows the surface of the ground, only banking as it turns, and look-
ing up when accelerating. The bike eventually lifts on its rear wheel as acceleration gets
strong enough! You can adjust the sensitivity to bend tightness and acceleration using
the Motion Options dialog.
• Pedestrian: with this type of motion, the object also follows the surface of the ground.
But it always looks straight ahead (in the direction of travel), whatever the slope of the
ground it moves on.
• Speedboat: the object follows the surface of the water (or the ground). It banks slightly
as it turns, and looks up as it accelerates. You can adjust the sensitivity to bend tightness
and acceleration using the Motion Options dialog.

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To produce realistic motion, VUE uses accurate dynamic algorithms. This is your assurance of
always obtaining realistic motion. Unfortunately, the drawback is that motion is dependent on
scale: the larger the scale, the greater the speed of the object traveling from one way point to
another. And the greater the accelerations it withstands, thus the greater the banking.

What this means is that if you feel your object is over-banking (or not banking enough) you may
have to adjust its sensitivity to accelerations. This is done using the Motion Options dialog.

Animation Wizard

The Animation Wizard, step 1: Introduction

The Animation Wizard was designed to help you easily setup simple animations of your objects.
All you need to do is follow each step of the Wizard, selecting any required options, and leaving
others to their default values.

To display the Animation Wizard, do any of the following:

• Click on the Timeline icon ( ), or select the menu command Display | Display Timeline
if it is not already displayed; the Timeline will be displayed after you are done with the
Wizard (see here for an introduction to the Timeline),
• Select a new type of motion using the Animation Properties tab; the Timeline will also be
displayed when you are done with the Wizard,

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• Activate the alternate action (see here for details) of the Timeline icon ( ) or select the
menu command Animation | Animation Wizard; the Timeline will not be displayed after
you are done with the Wizard, or
• Press the Animation Wizard button in the Animation Toolbox.
The name of the object that is currently being handled by the Wizard is displayed in the Wiz-
ard title. It is the object that was selected when you called the Wizard. If several objects were
selected, then the Wizard looks for the first animated object in the selection. If no animated
objects are selected, it picks the first object that was selected. If no objects were selected at all,
it will operate on the camera.

The Animation Wizard comprises 8 steps. Press the Next > button to move to the next step of
the Wizard, and press < Back to return to the previous step.

Step 1: Introduction

This step merely displays information on operating the Wizard. It also gives you the opportunity
to prevent the Wizard from appearing each time you create a new object animation (uncheck
the Display this Wizard when creating a new object animation to prevent this from happen-
ing).

Step 2: Selecting a Motion

The Animation Wizard, step 2: Selecting a Motion

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In this step you decide what type of Dynamic Motion Reaction the animated object will have.
You will find a complete description of the different types of motion available in the section on
Types of Motion.

Click on the button corresponding to the type of motion you want to assign to the animated
object.

If you have already defined a type of motion for the object, the corresponding button is selected.
So you don’t need to select it again.

If necessary, you can customize the sensitivity of the object to its motion using the Motion Op-
tions dialog (see here for details). Press the Options button to display this dialog.

Step 3: Global Animation Settings

The Animation Wizard, step 3: Global Animation Settings

In this step you choose settings that will affect the entire animation of your object, that is the
Repeat mode, Main axis and Speed modes.

Repeat Mode
The repeat mode indicates how the object behaves when its animation is complete. By default,
it simply stops, but you can instruct it to repeat the sequence in one of several ways:
• Once: this is the default setting: the object stops when its animation sequence is com-
plete.

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• Repeat: when the animation sequence is complete, it starts playing back from the begin-
ning again.
• Loop: like repeat, except VUE does some extra processing to ensure that the first frame
always corresponds to the last, thus ensuring a perfectly smooth and undetectable jump
as it loops back to the start of the sequence. VUE will automatically add keyframes to
ensure a smooth loop.
• Pendular: when the animation sequence is complete, it reverses, playing back until it
reaches the start, and then starts playing normally again.
If you select a repeat mode other than Once, the animation repeats indefinitely. You can start
a repeating animation anytime in the animation of the scene by dragging the first keyframe to
the requested starting time

Note:

Although the repeat mode applies to all object properties, repeating is done on a “per animated
property” basis, which means that you can have an object with orientation being repeated
faster than position!

You can also change the Repeat mode of your object using the Animation Toolbox.

Main Axis
The Main axis setting is only available if you have selected a type of motion that makes the
animated object look in the direction of travel (i.e. has the Look ahead property set). Standard
and Smoothed motion types don’t give you access to the Main axis setting (because the setting
isn’t applicable).

This setting lets you select which axis of your object will be pointing in the direction of travel (or
which axis of the object will be pointing at the tracked object if the object is tracking another
one).

The axes correspond to that of the object in the Top 3D View when all object rotations have
been zeroed (you can do this using the Numerics tab of the Object Properties panel, see here
for details). So if in this view your object points to the right, then its main axis is +X; if it points
to the left, it is –X. If it points upwards it is +Y, and if it points downwards, it is –Y. Finally, if it
points out of the screen, it is +Z, and if it points into the screen, it is –Z.

The Animation Wizard displays a small preview of your object sitting on a large red arrow that
indicates the direction of movement. This preview should help you decide which is the main
axis of your object. If for some reason, none of the available axis seems to be right for your
object, you might want to read the Look Ahead Objects troubleshoot.

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You can also change the Main axis of your object using the Animation tab of the Object Prop-
erties panel (see here).

Speed Mode
This setting is not available if your object doesn’t have the Smoothed Velocity property. All
motion types except Standard have this property set.

The speed mode is a powerful feature that automatically processes the path followed by your
object (you will define this in the following step) so that the object either moves at a constant
velocity, or stands still at the beginning and at the end of the animation sequence:
• Constant velocity: way points will be automatically moved in time so that the object
travels at a near constant velocity,
• Ease in – Ease out: the animation sequence will start with the object standing still, then
it will accelerate smoothly until it reaches its maximum velocity half-way through; it will
then gradually slow down until it reaches a stop at the end of the animation sequence.
This option sets a Time spline (see here for the position property.

Step 4: Advanced Effects

The Animation Wizard, step 4: Configuring Spin and Vibration

This step lets you enable and configure advanced automatic animation effects such as Spin and
Vibration. By default, both effects are disabled.

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Spin
The Spin effect lets you easily make any object spin precisely around one of it’s axes, however
complex be the path followed by the object. Using Spin, you can also easily and precisely ani-
mate the speed at which the object spins around its axis.

This effect, combined with the various types of motions available in Dynamic Motion Reaction,
can create very complex movements.

If you want to apply spin to your object, select the Spin checkbox. The corresponding configu-
ration controls will become active:

Overall revolving speed controls the number of degrees the object spins by each second. The
default is 180 degrees per second, which means the object performs a complete revolution ev-
ery 2 seconds. Increase the value if you want the object to spin faster. Enter a negative value if
you want to reverse the direction of spin.

The Variation of revolution over time graph is a filter that indicates the variation of the angle
of the object over time. The steeper the slope, the faster the object will spin with time. By
default, the filter exhibits a straight line meaning that the speed at which the object spins is
constant. You can modify the filter by double-clicking or selecting Edit from the popup menu.

The range of time covered by the filter starts at the first position keyframe, and ends at the last
position keyframe. If no position keyframes are defined, the range starts at time 0 and ends at
the end of the animation.

Loading a Power 2 filter from the Other Filters collection will result in the object gradually spin-
ning faster and faster as time passes.

The Revolution axis lets you select the axis around which the revolution will take place. These
buttons are exclusive because you can only spin around one axis at a time. If the object has an
advanced type of motion, the axes will be contextual to the general movement of the object.

The small display to the right shows a preview of the Spin effect as applied to your object. The
total duration of an animation cycle in the preview is 5 seconds (useful for calibrating the vari-
ation of revolution speed).

Note on Spin and Pivots

If you define a pivot position that is different from the position of the object, spinning the object
will be done relative to the pivot point. You cannot however modify the pivot point once an
animation is defined for the object, so you need to do so before applying Spin to the object.

Do not rotate and spin such an object simultaneously, as its path would become enormous.

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Vibrate
Vibration is an extremely difficult and time consuming effect to achieve by hand. It can however
lead to much more realistic movies than a perfectly stable motion. Vibration is to motion what
texturing is to surfaces. Without it, they appear way too perfect.

Without the Vibrate effect, creating vibration requires the addition of numerous keyframes that
are not only tedious to setup, but also a real nightmare to edit after hand.

Thanks to the Vibrate effect, you can automatically apply vibration to any given object, however
complex its motion. You can also indicate on what axes of the object the vibration takes place,
and this vibration will follow the object’s orientation as it banks around a tight turn. Using the
Vibrate effect, you can also easily and precisely animate the intensity of the vibration of the
object.

An important thing to understand about vibration is that the effect of the vibration depends
on the type of motion selected. If the animated object doesn’t have the Look Ahead property
set, the vibration will cause a small displacement of the object around its trajectory, without
affecting the direction in which the object points.

If the “Look ahead” property is set, the vibration will also cause small variations in the orienta-
tion of the animated object, resulting in an effect relevant of turbulence.

If you want to apply vibration to your animated object, select the Vibrate checkbox. The corre-
sponding configuration controls will become active:

Vibration frequency controls the frequency of the vibration. Lower values will result in the
object wandering randomly around its position, whereas high values will result in very quick
and jerky movements of the object.

The Overall vibration intensity setting controls the amount of vibration that takes place. Lower
values mean little vibration, whereas high values mean strong vibration.

The Variation of vibration intensity over time graph is a filter that lets you animate the amount
of vibration over time. The higher the value of the filter, the stronger the vibration. By default,
the filter exhibits a flat line meaning that the intensity of the vibration is constant over time. You
can modify the filter by double-clicking or selecting Edit from the popup menu. Please read the
section on Editing Filters for full details.

The range of time covered by the filter starts at the first position keyframe, and ends at the last
position keyframe. If no position keyframes are defined, the range starts at time 0 and ends at
the end of the animation.

Loading a Tooth 10 filter from the Other Filters collection will result in the object suddenly
vibrating around the middle of the animation, and not vibrating the rest of the time.

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The Vibration axes let you select around which axes the vibration will take place. Vibration
can occur on any and all axes. These axes will follow the orientation of the object, including
orientation caused by Dynamic Motion Reaction.

Note:

Applying vibration to the main axis of a Look ahead object can lead to unexpected effects...

The small display to the right shows a preview of the Vibrate effect as applied to your object.
The total duration of an animation cycle in the preview is 5 seconds (useful for calibrating the
variation of vibration intensity).

Step 5: Object Path

The Animation Wizard, step 5: Defining the Object Path

This is the fun part. In this step, you plot on a Top view of your scene the path that will be
followed by your object.

Adding Way Points

This mode is active when the Add way point button is selected (the default).

Initially, there is no path defined for your object. All you see is a tiny black diamond that marks
the initial position of your object. However, each time you click on the left mouse button, a
new way point is added to the path. A way point is a point through which the animated object
will necessarily pass. What happens in between way points is managed by the program. Way

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points are connected with a solid red line that indicates the path followed by the object. The
path is automatically curved to produce the smoothest possible motion.

Note:

The way points are appended to the end of the path. If you need to add a way point somewhere
in the path, you will need to use the Insert tool (see below).

At this time, you have no control over the altitude of the object at the way point.

Editing Way Points

If you need to modify the position of a way point, click the Edit way point button. When you
move the mouse cursor over a way point, the cursor will change to the edit shape. Just click
and drag the way point to its new position, then release the mouse button.

This tool lets you touch up the path followed by the object.

Inserting Way Points

If you need to add a way point somewhere in the middle of the path, select the Insert way
point button. The cursor changes to the insert shape. Click on the path where you want to
add the way point. If you move the mouse before releasing the mouse button, the newly in-
serted way point will follow. In this way you can locally adjust the shape of the path to fit your
requirements.

Deleting Way Points

To delete any unwanted way points, select the Delete way point button. The mouse cursor
changes to the delete shape. Just click on a way point to delete it. The shape of the path is
automatically redrawn to fit the newly defined path.

Scrolling/Zooming the View

You can move around in the view using the standard controls used in the 3D Views (right/Ctrl
mouse drag, or Space + drag; read here). You can also zoom into or out of the view using the
standard controls (Ctrl/Cmd + right/Ctrl mouse drag, or Ctrl + and Ctrl -).

Restrictions
Using the aforementioned tools, you can easily draw the path that will be followed by your
object. However, due to the fact that you have no control over the altitude of the object as it
passes the way point, there are some effects that cannot be achieved solely with the Wizard.
You will need to touch up the path in the 3D Views, when you are done with the Wizard. Please
read section on Editing Paths in 3D Views for details on how to modify way points in the 3D
Views.

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It is important to understand at this time how the Wizard expands the 2 dimensional path you
have just drawn into a full 3D motion. Basically, it looks for the highest object encountered at
each way point, and positions the animated object at the same altitude above that object as its
altitude at the initial position. Some more processing is done later to avoid hitting any objects.

The Tunnel Case

This is typically an effect that cannot be achieved solely with the Wizard. To fly an object through
a tunnel, or under an arch, you will have to modify the path manually in the 3D Views. This is
because the Wizard will detect the ceiling of the tunnel, and automatically position your ani-
mated object on top of that ceiling. You will have to drag the way points down, back into the
tunnel.

Note:

Other animated objects don’t move in this Top view, which can make path edition a matter of
trial and error if you want to animate an object relative to another one. You’d probably better
off doing this directly in the 3D Views.

Step 6: Animation Setup

The Animation Wizard, step 6: Animation Setup

In this step the Wizard processes the path you have defined, attempting to maintain the same
altitude above the ground as the initial altitude of the animated object (read details about this
process in the preceding section). It also attempts to avoid hitting any objects lying in the way
of the animated object. This is an iterative process that results in a path that more or less main-

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tains the same altitude relative to the ground, but can get closer or farther in some areas.

Processing can take some amount of time. When it is finished, a plot of the animated object
altitudes compared to “ground” altitudes is shown. You cannot act upon this plot at this time.
You will have to do it in the 3D Views.

To complete this step, just enter the total duration of your objects animation. The Wizard will
automatically resample your path so that it completes in the requested time. Obviously, the
longer the animation, the longer it will take to render…

Step 7: Animation Preview

The Animation Wizard, step 7: Animation Preview

All you have to do in this step is watch your object animation and decide whether it is satisfac-
tory. If not, you can switch back to the previous steps, and modify the animation path.

Note:

the animation is played as seen from the camera point of view. For some reason, your object
may not be visible at this time. You can always play back the animation later, inside the 3D
Views.

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Step 8: Conclusion

This is the last step of the Wizard. You have nothing to do here (apart from reading the summary
information on using the Timeline).

When you close the Wizard, the Timeline appears on the screen (if it was not already there). Use
the Timeline to fine tune your animation. You will find details on how to do this in the next
section.

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Animating with the Timeline

The complete Timeline (Properties and Preview Timelines unfolded

To display the animation Timeline, select the menu command Display | Display Timeline or
click the Display Timeline icon ( ). This displays the Timeline together with the Animation
Wizard (you can disable this feature). The Animation Wizard helps you easily setup an animation
of your scene.

As explained in the Interface Overview section the Timeline is subdivided in 3 sections: the Main
Timeline, the Properties Timeline and the Animation Preview.

In this section, you will learn in detail how to use the Main Timeline and the Properties Timeline.
For greater clarity we will consider that the Properties Timeline has been expanded.

The Timeline can be either docked at the bottom of the interface, or placed in a floating panel.
To dock or undock the Timeline, select the menu ommand Display | Dock Timeline.

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Navigating Inside the Animation

Use the navigation controls ( ) to easily find your way through the animation.

• Start of animation: moves the current time to the start of the animation sequence
(as defined by the slider).

• Previous keyframe: moves the current time to the first previous keyframe available.
If there is no keyframe before the current time, the speaker will beep.

• Stop: press this button to stop playing the animation.

• Play animation: press this to start playing a 3D preview of your animation in the 3D
Views. The Animation Preview is also played (if it is visible). The button has an alter-
nate action ( ) that plays only the Animation Preview. This ensures smooth playback,
since the program doesn’t have to redraw all the 3D Views.

• Next keyframe: moves the current time to the first following keyframe available. If
there is no keyframe after the current time, the speaker will beep.

• End of animation: moves the current time to the end of the animation sequence (as
defined by the last keyframe in the scene or by the slider, whichever is encountered
first).

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Keyframes

Keyframes indicate a change in one or more object properties (position, orientation, size...) at a
given time. VUE automatically interpolates the property to ensure smooth animation between
the keyframes.

Past the last keyframe, the property stays identical to what it was at the last keyframe (unless
you have defined a Repeat mode other than Once; read here).

Only the keyframes belonging to the currently selected objects are displayed in the main Time-
line. If no objects are selected, the keyframes of all objects, materials and atmosphere in the
scene appear.

The time lapse between keyframes indicates the time that the object property will take to evolve
from its state at the current keyframe to its state at the following keyframe. For instance, if you
consider the object position property, the time lapse between the keyframes indicates the time
that the object will need to travel from the current way point to the next way point.

By varying the time lapse between keyframes, you can make the object accelerate or slow down
by dragging the keyframes to the left or to the right.

The Animation Wizard includes very elaborate algorithms to produce constant velocity motion.
So if you have defined the animation path of your object using the Wizard, keyframes will have
been automatically positioned in time to produce the smoothest possible motion. You can also
achieve this effect by using the Animation Toolbox dialog (press the Make constant velocitymo-
tion button.

Animation Properties

An animation property is a property of an object that can be animated. Each type of object
has different animation properties. The following is a list of these properties, and how they are
processed.

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Standard Primitive, Polygon Mesh, Group, Boolean

Object, and Metablob and Plant

• Position: position keyframes define the position of the object at the keyframe time. They
are interpolated using splines (the mathematical implementation that ensures the smoothest
possible movement).
• Orientation: orientation keyframes define the rotation of an object at the keyframe time.
They are interpolated using quaternion arithmetic to produce the best rotation paths pos-
sible, and support multi-spins (read here).
• Size: size keyframes define the size of the object at the keyframe time. They are interpo-
lated linearly.
• Twist: twist keyframes define the twist of the object at the keyframe time. Twist anima-
tion can produce strange results…
• Pivot position: pivot position keyframes define the position of the object at the keyframe
time. They are also interpolated using splines.
• Material: material keyframes are not directly linked to the object itself, but rather to the
material that the object is made out of. If you add a keyframe to a material, all objects that
use this material will display the new keyframe automatically. You can move or delete ma-
terial keyframes here. If necessary, a new material will automatically be created by VUE
for that object. Animated materials are displayed at the bottom of the list of animated
objects.
Underneath their own properties, Groups and Boolean objects display a list of their members.

Torus

• Position, Orientation, Size, Twist, Pivot position, and Material: as above.

• Thickness: thickness keyframes define the thickness of the rim (also known as the outer
diameter) of the torus at the keyframe time. They are interpolated linearly. Read more
about animating the thickness of a torus here.

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Terrain

• Position, Orientation, Size, Twist, Pivot position, and Material: as above.

• Geometry: geometry keyframes define the map of altitudes of the terrain at the keyframe
time. Use this amazing feature to morph the shape of the terrain!

Plant

• Position, Orientation, Size, Twist, Pivot position, and Material: as above.

• Wind: wind keyframes define the strength and direction of the wind at the keyframe time.
Wind can be animated to create sudden gusts of wind on a given plant (values are inter-
polated linearly between keyframes).
• Geometry: geometry keyframes define the overall shape of the plant at the keyframe
time. Use this amazing feature to morph the shapes of plants, thus simulating plant
growth or transformation! Read more about animating plant geometry here.

Directional Light

• Orientation: as above. Position, Size, Twist, Pivot position, and Material: are not
relevant for Directional lights (position is linked to orientation).
• Color: color keyframes define the color of the light at the keyframe time. They are inter-
polated linearly to produce smooth changes.
• Softness: softness keyframes define the softness of the shadows cast by the light at the
keyframe time. Yes, you can even animate this property!

Point Light and Quadratic Point Light

• Position, Color, Softness and Pivot position: as above. Orientation, Size, Twist and
Material are not relevant for these types of lights (they cast light in all directions).
• Power: power keyframes define the power of the light at the keyframe time. They are
interpolated linearly.

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Spot Light and Quadratic Spot Light

• Position, Orientation, Color, Softness and Pivot position: as above. Size, Twist and
Material are not relevant for Spot lights.
• Spread: spread keyframes define the angle of the cone of light spread at the keyframe
time. They are interpolated linearly.

Ventilators

• Position, Orientation and Pivot position: as above. Size, Twist and Material are not
relevant for ventilators.
• Intensity: intensity keyframes define the intensity of the wind generated by the ventila-
tor at the keyframe time. Intensity keyframes are interpolated linearly.
• Cut-off: cut-off keyframes define the cut-off distance at which the ventilator ceases to
affect plants. Cut-off keyframes are interpolated linearly.
• Spread: spread keyframes define the angle of the cone in which wind is blown at the
keyframe time. They are interpolated linearly.
• Falloff: falloff keyframes define the rate at which wind intensity drops near the edges of
the spread cone at the keyframe time. They are interpolated linearly.

Camera

• Position, Orientation and Pivot position: as above. Size, Twist and Material are not
relevant for cameras.
• Focal: focal keyframes define the focal length (or angle of view) of the camera at the
keyframe time. Focal keyframes are interpolated exponentially to produce the zooming
effect the eye is used to seeing.
• Blur: blur keyframes define the amount of blur at the keyframe time. High blur settings
mean that the depth of field is reduced. Blur keyframes are interpolated linearly.
• Focus point: the focus point distance defines the distance from the camera at which ob-
jects are seen in focus at the keyframe time. The distance ahead and behind that point
where objects are still in focus depends on the blur (depth of field) setting. Focus point
keyframes are interpolated exponentially to reproduce the effect that the eye is used to
seeing.
• Exposure: exposure keyframes define the exposure setting of the camera at the keyframe

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time. Exposure is adjusted either using the Object Properties panel when the camera is
selected, or inside the Atmosphere Editor. Exposure keyframes are interpolated linearly.
• Motion blur length: motion blur length keyframes define the amount of motion blur (as
a ratio of the shutter opening time over the duration of a frame) at the keyframe time.
Motion blur length is adjusted using the Camera Options dialog (see here for details on
animating motion blur length). Motion blur length keyframes are interpolated linearly.
• Post processing: post processing keyframes define the post processing settings applied
to the camera at the current time. Post processing is set using the Camera Options dialog.
Post processing keyframes can be defined for each camera independently, or can apply
to all cameras simultaneously.
Key frames for material, atmosphere and post-processing settings also appear in the list of an-
imated properties.

Animating Objects

In this section you will learn how to build object animations using the Timeline.

You don’t have to use the Animation Wizard to create an animation of your objects. In fact, there
are many effects that cannot be achieved using the Wizard. This is why it is important to under-
stand how to build animations without the help of the Wizard.

Creating the Animation

To create an animation in the Timeline you must modify a property of the object at a different
time than the time the object was created at. That is, if you create your object when the Current
time slider points to 1 second, you will have to modify it at some other time than 1 second to
animate it. The object “remembers” the time it was created at (its date of birth?).

The cool thing about creation time is that you can freely modify an object at its creation time
without it becoming animated. Great. So what happens if you forget what time you created
your object at? And do you have to keep changing the current time each time you want to
modify an object without it becoming animated? No, of course! If the current time is 0, all
modifications will be considered done for the object at the time of creation.

If you want an object to never become animated, click the Forbid animation icon ( ) in the
Animation tab of the Object Properties panel (see ).

Say you want to create a movement for a sphere: create the sphere, then drag the time slider

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up 1 second. Now drag the sphere to a new location. The sphere gets automatically animated,
and will move from the first position to the second in a 1 second time lapse. You can check this
by pressing the play button ( ). By default, the object gets the Standard type of motion (see
here). You can change this using the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel.

This works for all properties, including orientation. Better still: you can rotate an object relative
to its direction of travel (Look ahead objects), so that you can animate an airplane that looks
down 30° all the way. You can even animate this relative rotation (make your airplane look up
30° at the beginning of the animation, and down 30° at the end)!

Published Parameters for Animated Objects

If you have a published parameter for an object and the value of that parameter has changed
when time is other than zero, this parameter will appear on the timeline and a keyframe will be
added.

During animation, the parameter is interpolated, working the same as an object position ani-
mation, for example. You can change the spline describing the evolution of the parameter in
the Timeline. Refer here for more information about object published parameters.

Published Parameters for Animated Textures

When you use published parameters for animated textures, VUE will do an interpolation of the
texture which will achieve better animation results.

Working with Keyframes

Keyframe Types
The shape of a keyframe indicates the type of interpolation on both sides of the keyframe (see
Keyframe Tangents for details).

If the type of interpolation is different on both sides of the keyframe, the shape of the keyframe
will be different on both sides in order to reflect the difference in interpolation.

Selecting Keyframes
To select a keyframe, click on it in the Timeline rulers.

To deselect all keyframes, click on an empty part of the rulers.

If you want to select multiple keyframes at the same time, click on an empty part of the ruler,
and drag a marquee rectangle to encompass all the required keyframes. You can extend a selec-
tion of keyframes by pressing Control at the same time as you click on the new keyframe. If you

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Control select an already selected keyframe, the said keyframe will be deselected. By pressing
Shift instead of Control, you will also select all keyframes situated in the interval between the
last selected keyframe and this new one.

You can also select a property by positioning the Current time slider at the time of the keyframe,
and clicking on the property of the object you want to select the keyframe for.

To select all keyframes of a given animation property, double-click on the said property.

Moving Keyframes
To move a keyframe, click on it then drag it with the mouse button down. Release the mouse
button at the desired location.

To move a set of keyframes, select the keyframes (as explained above), then click on one of the
selected keyframes and drag it with the mouse button down. All other selected keyframes will
move with it.

If you press Control as you drag a keyframe, all the keyframe that follow will be dragged with
it.

Adding Keyframes
When auto-keyframing is enabled (the default), keyframes are automatically added each time
you modify an object property at a time where no keyframe is defined for that property. To add
a keyframe, position the Current time slider at the requested keyframe time, and modify the
object. The new keyframe is automatically created for the property that was modified (e.g. if
you move the object, you will create a new Position keyframe).

If auto-keyframing is disabled, click the Add Keyframe icon ( ) to manually add a keyframe
at the current time. You can access further options by long-clicking this icon. Please turn here
for a discussion on auto-keyframing versus manual keyframing.

You can also select the menu command Add Keyframe from the Timeline popup menu (click on
the right/Ctrl mouse button to display this). Keyframes will be created for all object properties
(except material, which is handled somewhat differently).

Keyframes can also be added by clicking on the appropriate spot on the Property Timeline or
in the Animation curves.

Copy­Pasting Keyframes
You can copy keyframes in the Timeline by selecting one or several keyframes and pressing Ctrl
+ C, or selecting Copy Keyframe from the Timeline menu.

If you drag the Current Time slider to a new time and press Ctrl + V, or select Paste Keyframe

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from the Timeline menu, the keyframes that you copied to the clipboard will be pasted at the
current time. If you selected several keyframes that are not all at the same time, they will be
pasted with the first keyframe being placed at the current time, and others being placed subse-
quently, with the original difference in time.

Deleting Keyframes
To delete a keyframe, select the keyframe and then press Delete.

You can also delete the keyframe by positioning the Current time slider at the keyframe time,
selecting the required property and then choosing the menu command Delete keyframe from
the Timeline popup menu (click on the right/Ctrl mouse button to display this).

Modifying the Value of a Keyframe

To modify a property at a keyframe, first move the current time to that of the keyframe (use the
time slider, or better still, use the and controls to jump directly to the keyframe). Now
set the object property to the new value. The keyframe is automatically modified.

For instance, to modify the path of an object, move to the required position keyframe, then
drag the object to a new location in the 3D Views.

Keyframe Tangents
When a keyframe is selected, the tangent to the curve at this point will be displayed in the Ani-
mation Graph. You can drag the end of the tangent to change the shape of the curve around the
keyframe. If you press Control while dragging the end of a tangent, only that half of the tangent
will be modified. A “break” in the curve will be created around the keyframe.

On top of changing the orientation of the keyframe (which modifies the curve “velocity” around
the keyframe), you can also change its length. This controls how close the curve sticks to the
tangent around the keyframe, and is known as the “tension”. The longer the tangent, the closer
to the tangent the curve stays.

Note:

You can also modify position keyframes and tangents in the 3D Views.

Keyframes can be of a number of predefined types. These types basically control how the tan-
gents around the keyframe are constructed. You can change the type of keyframe using the
Keyframe Options menu. The different types of keyframes are identified by the following pic-
tograms:

• Smooth (Constant): in this mode, the tangent to the keyframe is created in such
a way as to minimize the deformation to the curve. Subsequent modifications of the
keyframe will not affect the tangents.

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• Smooth (Weighted): in this mode, the tangent to the keyframe is created in such
a way as to minimize the deformation to the curve. If you modify the keyframe, the tan-
gents will be recomputed to keep the deformation of the curve minimal.

• Ease In/Ease Out: in this mode, the tangents are always flat. This avoids “jolts” in
the animation and results in slow transitions around keyframes, with smoother overall
animation.

• Linear: in this mode, the tangents are created to ensure linear keyframe interpola-
tion. The tangents on both sides of the keyframe are usually different, resulting in a break
in the animation curve.

• Step: in this mode, the value of the animation property is constant in between
keyframes. The value remains equal to that of the keyframe until the next keyframe is
reached.

• Custom: in this mode, the tangents are user defined. This becomes the active mode
as soon as you modify a tangent manually.
You can define a different tangent mode on either side of the keyframe. In such a case, the
pictogram identifying the keyframe is different on both sides of the keyframe. This is done using
the other options on the Keyframe Options menu:

• Smooth In (Constant): this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Smooth
(Constant) on the left side of the keyframe only.

• Smooth In (Weighted): this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Smooth
(Weighted) on the left side of the keyframe only.

• Ease In: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Ease In/Ease Out on
the left side of the keyframe only.

• Linear In: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Linear on the left
side of the keyframe only.

• Custom In: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Custom on the left
side of the keyframe only.

• Smooth Out (Constant): this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Smooth
(Constant) on the right side of the keyframe only.

• Smooth Out (Weighted): this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Smooth

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(Weighted) on the right side of the keyframe only.

• Ease Out: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Ease In/Ease Out on
the right side of the keyframe only.

• Linear Out: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Linear on the right
side of the keyframe only.

• Custom Out: this makes the current keyframe mode the same as Custom on the
right side of the keyframe only.
Note:

By default, tangents are created as Smooth (Constant).

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Keyframe Values

Keyframe Values Editor

When a keyframe is selected, you can edit the keyframe parameters using the popup menu
command Numerical Input. This opens the Keyframe Values editor, letting you input precise
numerical values for all meaningful keyframe parameters (time, value, velocity and tension).

Quaternion vs. Euler Rotations

By default, VUE handles orientation animation is processed using quaternion arithmetic. Thanks
to quaternion arithmetics, you can easily create animations that smoothly interpolate orienta-
tion keyframes.

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Quaternions are both easy to use, and produce smooth results. The downside of quaternions,
however, is that you cannot break-up their components into anything intelligible. So you can-
not control quaternion animation as precisely as other animation properties.

In order to gain precise control over the orientation animation, you need to change the under-
lying orientation animation model to Euler orientation.

Euler orientation is based on combining rotations around the 3 different axes. These rotations
are applied in a specific order (you can set this order using Default rotation order in the Options
dialog – see here).

To switch to Euler orientation, simply expand the orientation property by clicking on the /
symbol in front of the property name. A message will appear, informing you that the orientation
model is about to change. VUE will compute the Euler angles that correspond to the quaternion
orientation keyframes, but interpolation of the keyframes will be affected by the change – the
animation will look different. Orientation properties that use the Euler model are followed by
‘(XYZ)’ in the list of animation properties.

Note:

Once you have switched from Quaternion to Euler orientation model, you cannot switch back.

Editing Paths in 3D Views

The case of the position property is slightly different from other properties. The reason for this is
that position is very often animated. So some extra tools are supplied to make the modification
of paths easier and faster.

Selecting Way Points

In the active 3D View (see here), position keyframes (i.e. way points) are depicted by tiny red
dots on the object’s path. If you drag the mouse over one of these dots, the cursor will change
to the Move way point cursor.

Clicking over one of these dots makes it turn white. It is now selected. Notice how it also be-
comes selected in the Timeline.

You can select multiple way points using the standard Control and Shift commands (Control
extends the selection, Shift extends the selection, selecting all way points between the current
way point and the last one selected). You can even select way points that belong to different
objects!

Double-clicking on a way point will select all the way points of the object.

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Gray Way Points

Some way points are depicted in gray instead of red. They cannot be selected. As you will notice,
these are the way points that are close to the object itself. This is to avoid confusion between
the object and its way points.

To access a gray way point, first select a red way point. All the way points of the object now
become selectable (and consequently turn red). You can now select the desired way point by
clicking on it.

Moving Way Points

To move a way point, just click on it and drag it to a new location. The path is automatically
processed to smoothly travel through the way point.

Editing Way Points

The power of the way point editor really turns on when you select several way points. All the
standard object modification controls become available!

So you can Rotate a whole group of way points using the and rotation handles (it’s so
easy to modify the global orientation of the path using this feature)! You can Resize groups
of way points using the standard object size controls too (the black dots on the corners of the
group of way points)! You can use the flip tools, the alignment tools, and you can use the Drop
command to drop whole groups of keyframes (also works for single way points)!

Changing Rigged Mesh Motion

When you double-click on a rigged mesh, the Skeleton Editor becomes active (see here). Click
on the Open button to select an alternate Motion file.

Multi­Spins

Although VUE always attempts to find the shortest possible rotation path when interpolating
orientation keyframes, it is possible to create a rotation of several revolutions. This is called a
multi-spin.

To create a multi-spin drag the current time slider to the time of the end of the multi-spin, and
start rotating the object using one of the two rotation handles ( and ). You will notice that
an indication of the angle of rotation and the number of rotations is displayed in the Status
Bar. If you keep rotating the object past the full turn, the revolution counter will indicate one
revolution. Keep “winding” the object for as many revolutions as required, and release the

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mouse button when you are done. Playing back the animation will show the object rotating for
the required number of revolutions.

However, you cannot “add” revolutions to an existing rotation. When you modify the orienta-
tion property, the counter for the number of revolutions is reset. You need to get this right in
one go (you can always start again, but you will have to “wind” the object all the way). Also,
you cannot create a multi-spin by typing the rotation angle in the Numerics tab of the Object
Properties panel.

Animating Plants

On top of the standard animation possibilities, there are three other ways of animating plants:
• Breeze: each plant that you create is automatically subject to the global breeze. Global
breeze is adjusted using the Atmosphere Editor (turn here to for details).
• Wind: you can define a per-plant wind level, and animate it.
• Geometry: you can also animate the geometry of plants. Please read below for details.

Breeze
You don’t need to do anything for a plant to move in the breeze; the plant doesn’t even need
to be explicitly animated! Simply create a plant and render an animation of it, and you will see
that it moves in the breeze (provided that breeze is enabled).

Note:

You cannot create strong wind effects with breeze alone. For such effects, you will have to use
wind.

Animating Wind
On top of the default breeze animation, you can also animate the wind that is applied to the
plant. To animate the wind property, drag the current time slider to the time where you want
to create the new keyframe, and simply modify the intensity or the direction of the wind using
the wind control in the Top View (see here for details on setting wind intensity and direction).

The plant automatically becomes animated, and, if you look at the Timeline, you will notice that
a keyframe has been added to the Wind property of the plant.

Note:

The movement of the plant subject to wind animation does not stop on the last wind keyframe
(even if no wind is defined). This is due to the complex relaxation model used in VUE to model
the effects of the wind. In this model, plants subjected to varying wind intensities will “spring

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back” when the wind stops varying.

Animating Plant Geometry

Plants, like Terrains are special in the sense that you can animate their shape (i.e. their geome-
try).

To animate the geometry (or shape) of a plant, move the current time slider to the time where
you want to create the new geometry keyframe, and open the Plant Editor (read here for details
on the Plant Editor). Modify the shape of the plant using the controls in the Plant Editor, then
press OK. A message will appear asking whether you want to animate the geometry or not. Click
Yes. The plant becomes animated, and you can check in the Timeline that a new Geometry
keyframe has been added at the current time. Changing current time will modify the geometry
of the plant as it is interpolated between the previous keyframe and the next one.

If you refuse to animate the geometry of the plant (by answering No to the above prompt), the
Forbid animation option will be activated for that plant (read here). If you decide later that
you would like to animate the geometry after all, you will have to remove the Forbid animation
option first (using the icon in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel, see here).

You can also animate the materials used by the plant, either directly in the Aspect tab of the
Object Properties panel, or by editing the materials inside the Plant Editor.

Amazing effects can be achieved using this plant geometry animation feature.

Animating Torus Thickness

The torus has an extra animation property than standard primitives like spheres, cubes, etc.
This property is the thickness of the torus rim (AKA outer diameter). To animate this property,
drag the current time slider to the time where you want to create the new keyframe, and open
the Torus Options dialog (read here for details on this). Select a new rim thickness and press
OK.

The torus automatically becomes animated, and, if you look at the Timeline, you will notice that
a keyframe has been added to the Thickness property of the torus.

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Camera Switching

Sample animation with camera switching

VUE’s animation system lets you change the live camera (that is the camera that is used to view
the scene) at any point during an animation. This is known as camera switching. Camera switch-
ing provides an interesting way to enhance the dynamism of video clips; it is also essential if
you want to create storyboards.

Switching cameras is very straight-forward: simply drag the Current Time slider to a new posi-
tion in the Timeline, and select another camera (for instance using the Previous and Next Cam-
era icons in the Camera Control Center – see here). A new item will automatically be added to
the Timeline. This item, known as the Camera Switcher (see opposite), contains all the cameras
that are used throughout the animation. If a camera was already displayed in the list, it will be
replaced by the camera switcher. By unfolding the camera switcher, you can gain access to the
independent cameras, and adjust all their animation properties independently.

The camera switcher displays a blue line alongside each camera, indicating the period of time
during which each camera is live. A keyframe at the end of each line indicates the time at which
the switching occurs, and a thin line leads to the new live camera. You can modify the time
at which the switching occurs by dragging the corresponding keyframe. The last camera will
remain live until the end of the animation, or for 1 second after switching, whichever ends last.

You can prevent camera switching from taking place by making a camera “unswitchable”. This
is done by selecting the Non switchable camera option ( ) in the Aspect tab of the camera’s
Object Properties panel (see here). When this option is set, activating this camera will not make
it the live camera for rendering, and it will not create a camera switching keyframe. This is
particularly useful if you have setup a camera to view your scene from a different point of view
(like a director’s camera), and you don’t want to create a camera switch each time you use that
camera.

Cameras don’t have to be animated in order to be live, and making them live will also not make
them animated. But you can definitely use animated cameras for camera switching. However,
because a given camera is not accessible outside its “live” time span, you cannot edit the cam-
era animation by simply dragging the Current Time slider and modifying the camera settings
(because this camera may no longer be the live camera at this new time). To be able to modify
camera animation outside the camera’s “live” time span, you first need to select that camera
in the camera switcher (unfold the camera switcher’s content and click on the camera to edit).

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When this is done, the camera will remain active even at times where it isn’t live, thus letting
you edit the camera settings at any point in time. Cameras that are selected this way will remain
active until they are deselected.

Another interesting aspect of camera switching is that you can easily create cameras that have
different post processing settings (see here). This way, you can easily have one camera film the
scene in black and white, while another one films it from another point of view, this time in full
color.

Animated Post Processing and Motion­Blur

Length

The post processing and motion-blur settings in the Camera Options dialog (see here) can be
animated. When you edit these settings at a new time, new post processing and motion blur
length keyframes will be automatically added to the Timeline.

Animating Post Processing

To animate post processing, simply drag the Current Time slider to a new time and double-click
on the active camera to display the Camera Options dialog. Adjust the post processing settings
and click OK. A message will appear asking whether you want to animate the post processing
settings. Click Yes to animate the post processing. A new post processing keyframe will be
added.

If post processing is common to all cameras (the Post processing applies to all cameras option
is selected in the Camera Options dialog), post processing keyframes will appear in the global
post processing property (identified by the pictogram). If post processing is on a per-camera
basis, they will appear in the post-processing property that is added to the end of the list of
camera animation properties.

You can edit post processing keyframes like any other keyframe, but you have to keep in mind
that enabling or disabling post processing options in the Camera Options dialog enables or
disables these options throughout the entire post processing animation. For instance, if you
uncheck the Post processing option to remove post processing at a given time, this will remove
all post processing in the entire animation.

Animating Motion Blur Length

To animate motion blur length, simply drag the Current Time slider to a new time and double-
click on the active camera to display the Camera Options dialog. Adjust motion blur length and
click OK. A new motion blur length keyframe will be added.

Motion blur length keyframes can be edited like any other keyframe.

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Animating Materials

Although there is a material animation property for most objects, material animation is not
done in the 3D Views. It is done directly in the Material Editor (read everything about the Material
Editor here).

If you want to animate the material of an object, you will first need to open the Material Editor;
double-click on the material preview in the Aspect tab of the Object Properties panel (see here).

There are 4 different ways of animating materials (by order of complexity):

• Material Surface Animation,
• Material Velocity Animation,
• Complete Material Animation, and
• Material Graph Animation.
These different types of material animation will now be presented in detail.

Material Surface Animation

This is the simplest method of animating a material. All you have to do is select the Animate
material surface option in the Material Editor. The Time Dependent Material notice becomes
visible in the caption of the Material Editor. Also, if you check the Timeline, you will notice that
the material is now listed at the bottom of the list of animated objects. Animated materials
always appear at the bottom of the list. No keyframes are available for that material, because
it is the same material that is being modified by time (turn to Complete Material Animation to
find out how material keyframes are created).

What this does is replace by the current time the Z component of the position at which the
material is being computed. Strange idea? Not quite: since all the procedural noises used in the
construction of a Function are defined in three dimensions, replacing one of these dimensions
by the time means that these procedural noises will become animated (you can read the section
on the Function Graph if you don’t understand this). You’ll have undulating waves appear at the
surface of water, clouds that change shape over time, moving underwater caustics, and many,
many more exciting effects…

The drawback of this type of animation is that it works best on horizontal, flat surfaces. It will
look stretched on vertical parts of objects. However, it works perfectly with horizontal planes,
so it does a great job of animating the surface of a water plane, or the shape of clouds.

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Material Velocity Animation

The second type of material animation is very similar to the first. It offers you the possibility of
moving the origin of the material in time. That way, you can not only create waves that undulate,
but also give an overall movement to the waves, like if they were approaching a shore. Creating
a material velocity also adds the Time Dependent Material notice to the caption of the Material
Editor. Also, if you check the Timeline, you will notice that the material is now listed at the
bottom of the list of animated objects. Animated materials always appear at the bottom of the
list. No keyframes are available for that material, because it is the same material that is being
modified by time (read below to find out how material keyframes are created).

To create a material velocity, switch to the Effects tab of the Material Editor, and enter the X, Y
and Z components of the Velocity of the material origin. Alternately, you can drag the current
time slider to a new time, and enter X, Y and Z components into the Origin of material fields.
VUE will automatically compute the corresponding origin velocity.

Note:

Material velocity settings override Material Surface animations. To maintain the effects of Mate-
rial Surface animation, you should enter 1 as the Z velocity component. Consequently, defining
a velocity of (0, 0, 1) is strictly equivalent to doing a Material Surface animation.

If you do a complete material animation (see below), you can also change the material velocity
with time…

Complete Material Animation

Using this type of animation, you can define material keyframes that will be interpolated by
VUE to produce smooth blending from one material keyframe to the next.

Creating a complete material animation adds the Animated Material notice to the caption of
the Material Editor.

To create a complete material animation, drag the current time slider to the time of the new
material keyframe and modify the material. A message will appear giving you the option to
animate the material. Click Yes. The material is now animated. If you check the Timeline, you
will notice that the material is now listed at the bottom of the list of animated objects, and that
the new keyframe has been added at the current time (animated materials always appear at
the bottom of the list). The keyframe is also added to the material property of the animated
objects that use the material.

If you move the current time slider, you will notice that the preview of the material is re-rendered
to display an updated preview of the material at the current time. The settings in the Material

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Editor are updated to display the settings of the keyframe immediately before the current time.

You can select, move and delete material keyframes just the same as with other object property
keyframes.

Material graph animation

This is the most complex type of material animation – and also the most powerful. It involves
diving into the details of material creation, and driving one or several material parameters us-
ing functions that depend on time. That way, you can achieve extremely advanced material
animations that could not be achieved using other types of animation. For instance, you could
animate the density function of a volumetric material to create swelling smoke effects using
the Function Graph.

This type of animation can also be combined with the other types of material animation for
totally amazing visual effects.

Published Parameters for Animated Materi­

als

If you have selected to publish certain parameters for the animated materials, they also appear
in the Timeline as well as the Material Editor (see here for more information about Published
Parameters for Materials).

This is particularly useful to animate an EcoSystem population. If you publish origin of a greyscale
map and connect to the density, the EcoSystem will be animated correctly.

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Animated EcoSystem Population

Dynamic EcoSystems can now vary with time. You can create an animation in a scene using a
Dynamic EcoSystem (over a terrain, for instance), and make one or several distribution settings
depend on time. If one or several parameters (density, overall color, overall scaling, for exam-
ple) of the EcoSystem material depend on time, the dynamic population will be recomputed at
each frame of the animation, which will give a new kind of animation for EcoSystems.

This can be achieved by editing the corresponding functions in the Function Graph – for example
by loading an animation map and using it as density, or by editing the material at a non-zero
time and answering Yes to the question about animating a material. The population will then
be recomputed at each frame.

It should be noted that animated EcoSystems will not work well if the density varies smoothly.
Instead, the density needs to vary in steps, since flickering may occur due to the fact that plants
are being added and removed randomly which could cause some jumping of the population.

Overall color of instances can become animated in the same way.

Animating the Atmosphere

You can animate every aspect of a scene in VUE, and that includes the atmosphere. In this
section you will find out how this is done.

Basically, there are three different aspects of an atmosphere that can be animated: the atmo-
sphere itself (including sky dome colors, fog and haze, lighting conditions, etc.), the clouds in
the sky, and the sun.

Atmosphere Keyframes

Atmospheres are animated by interpolating standard atmosphere settings. That includes all
the settings that are not directly connected to cloud materials or to the sun. Please read the
section on Atmospheres for complete details on these settings.

To animate the atmosphere, drag the current time slider to the time where you want to create
the new keyframe, and open the Atmosphere Editor.

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Now modify the atmosphere as required. The atmosphere automatically becomes animated,
and the Atmosphere keyword appears at the bottom of the list of animated items of the Time-
line. This keyword always stays at the bottom of the list, so that it can be located easily. An
atmosphere keyframe is also added at the current time.

Atmosphere keyframes can be selected, moved and deleted just as other animated object prop-
erty keyframes.

VUE automatically interpolates the settings in the atmosphere keyframes to produce smooth
transitions from one keyframe to the next.

You will find ready-made animated atmospheres in the Animated collection of atmospheres of
the Visual Atmosphere Browser.

Animating Clouds

Besides animating the atmosphere itself, you can also animate the clouds to produce amaz-
ing effects such as clouds drifting in the wind, slowly changing shape, or growing increasingly
thicker with time!

This is done by animating the cloud material. Using the Clouds tab of the Atmosphere Editor,
select the appropriate cloud layer, then double-click on the cloud material preview to open the
Material Editor. Use any of the material animation method described in the preceding section
about Animating Materials.

When you animate clouds, the Atmosphere keyword in the list of animated items becomes a
folder. Animated clouds are automatically appended to this folder.

Other useful parameters used to animate clouds are contained in the Cloud animation group.

Using Direction and Velocity controls, you can make your clouds drift in the wind! The Rate
of change control is used to set the evolution rate of the cloud layer (whether the shape of the
clouds changes slowly or rapidly).

Note:

Those settings remain constant during the animation and can only be set for the first keyframe.

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Animating the Sun

The sun is animated as any other animated object in the scene. You can animate the direction
of the light, the color of the light and the softness of the shadows cast by the sun.

To animate the sun, use any of the tools described in the section on Animating Objects.

The animation of the sun is done independently from the animation of the atmosphere. The
sun will be listed among other animated objects in the scene.

You can also animate the color of the light, and the balance of the light, using atmosphere
keyframes (see above).

Working with Animations

Pasting Animation

Pasting animation is a convenient way of applying to one object the animation settings of an-
other object. A typical use could be to copy the animation path of one object onto another
one.

To use this command, select an animated object and copy it using the Edit | Copy command in
the main menu. Then, select the object to which you want to apply the animation settings, and
select the command Edit | Paste Animation from the same menu. Animation is pasted in such
a way that the position, size and orientation of the object at the current time are preserved.

Note:

The Paste Animation command attempts to preserve as much of the original animation as
possible. For instance, if you paste the animation of a plant onto a sphere, only path, orienta-
tion and size will be pasted. But if you paste it onto another plant, wind animation will also be
pasted!

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Destroying Item Animation

Destroying Object Animation

To destroy the animation of an object, you can either:
• press delete after having selected the object in the list of animated items of the Timeline,
or
• select Not animated from the motion type drop-down list in the Animation tab of the
Object Properties panel (see here).
The object is removed from the list of animated items of the Timeline.

Destroying Material Animation

To destroy the animation of a material, you must:
• If the material is a complete animation, select all keyframes of that material, and delete
them.
• If the material is a surface animation, open the Material Editor for that material and uncheck
the Animate material surface box.
• If the material is a velocity animation, open the Material Editor for that material and reset
all velocity values.
The material disappears from the list of animated items. If the material is a combination of
different types of animation, you will have to destroy all these animations before it is removed
from the list. Read here for details on the different types of material animation.

Destroying Atmosphere Animation

To destroy the animation of the atmosphere, you must select all keyframes of the atmosphere
using the Timeline, and delete them.

The atmosphere keyword disappears from the list of animated items.

If the atmosphere comprises animated clouds, you will have to destroy the animation of the
clouds using one of the aforementioned methods before the Atmosphere folder is removed
from the list.

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Shifting the Start of an Animation

You can make the animation of a property begin anytime you like by moving the corresponding
keyframes. It doesn’t have to start at null time.

To do that, select all the keyframes of the property animation you want to shift in time, and drag
the keyframes (or Control drag the first keyframe). You can drag the first keyframe to a positive
time, or even to a negative time.

The cool thing about this is that you can start a repeating animation when you like. Once it
has started, the animation will repeat indefinitely. This is a good way of dephasing identical
animations so that they don’t look identical.

Changing the Duration of an Animation

You can change the duration of the entire animation using the menu command Scale Anima-
tion… and inputting the new duration of the animation. The animation of individual objects
will be automatically scaled to match the requested duration.

You can also change the duration of animation of individual objects using the Animation Tool-
box.

Using Time Splines

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Time Spline Editor

Time splines are an incredibly powerful tool for whoever wants to gain full control over the
animation.

Basically, what time splines do is allow you to control precisely the flow of time. Thus, you can
accelerate or slow down events to meet your wildest requirements. You can even invert the
flow of time and make your animation play backwards!

For instance, by successively inverting the flow of time, you can make an animation repeat with-
out having to use the Repeat modes. This lets you control how many times an animation re-
peats, as well as the exact way it repeats…

You will find a set of interesting time splines in the Time splines collection of the Visual Filter
Browser.

Time Splines are modified using the Time Spline Editor. To edit a Time Spline, simply select
Edit Time Spline from the popup menu that appears on top of the Time Spline view inside the
Timeline (or Control click on it). The Time Spline Editor appears.

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Editing Time Splines

The tools you use to modify time splines are very similar to the ones you use to edit filters (see
here). The file format for saving time splines is actually the same as that of filters, and data is in-
terchangeable between both. This is why the preset time splines are placed in the Filters/Time
Splines collection together with other filter presets.

To open the Time Spline Editor, either click on the time spline with the Control key pressed,
or select Edit time spline from the time spline’s popup menu. The Time Spline Editor can be
resized if you need a more detailed view of a given part of the time spline.

On top of the grid (if it is displayed) you will notice thin lines. These lines indicate the position
in time of the keyframes of the animated property, and can be used for reference. The solid
vertical line indicates the Current Time.

The range of time covered by the time spline always starts at the first keyframe of the property’s
animation, and ends at its last keyframe.

Standard time flow is achieved with a slope of 1. If you increase that slope, you are making
time flow faster, so you are actually accelerating the animation. If the slope is less than 1, you
are making time flow more slowly, so the animation will be slowed down. If the slope becomes
negative, time flow is inverted, and the animation will play backwards.

The Curve
The curve is the large area that sits in the middle of the editor, just below the toolbar. This area
displays a curve representing the profile of the time spline. You can zoom in and out, and pan
the view using standard commands (Right mouse drag to pan, Ctrl + Right mouse drag to zoom).

Time splines are built from Key Points, joined together by straight lines or curves. You can
modify a Time Spline by adding, moving or deleting key points. The key points are figured by
small round handles ( ) on the curve. These handles appear as soon as the mouse cursor is
placed above the curve. All time splines have a key point on the right edge (the corresponding
handle can only be moved vertically).

Keyframes can also be added by clicking on the animation curve at the appropriate spot.

Smooth Time Splines

VUE offers two types of time splines: standard (linear) and smooth.

Linear time splines are generated from segments while smooth time splines are generated from
cubic curves.

You can switch from linear to smooth time splines, by clicking the Smooth curve icon in the

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toolbar.

The behavior of a smooth time splines is identical to that of a linear time splines except that you
can change the slope of the curve around the key points, yielding a smoother -round- profile.

To modify the slope around a key point, select the key point by clicking on its handle ( ), or
by typing its horizontal position in the Position X box. The Slope boxes now indicate the slope
to the left and to the right of the key point. Type in new slope values. If you selected the handle
by clicking on it, the tangents to the curve will appear. You can drag the ends of the tangents
to modify the slope.

Selecting the Smooth joint icon will ensure that the slope is the same on either side of the key
point (the default). If you want to have a different slope on either side of the key point (e.g. to
create a crease in the curve), you must deselect this option and then modify the slope.

Toolbar
The Time Spline Editor’s toolbar is the collection of icons at the top of the editor. The meaning
of these icons is as follows:

• Smooth curve: this is a toggle icon. If the icon is blue, the time spline is built from
straight lines; if it is orange, the time spline will be built from curves. Click on the icon to
change the type of time spline.

• Auto-tangents: this is also a toggle icon; it is only available when the time spline is
smooth. If the icon is toggled, the tangents at newly added key points will be computed
automatically in order to modify as little as possible the overall shape of the curve. If you
drag a key point when this mode is active, the tangents will be modified dynamically so
as to minimize the deformation of the curve.

• Smooth joint: this is also a toggle icon; it is only available when the time spline is
smooth and a key point is selected. If the icon is toggled, the slope on either side of the
key point will be the same, ensuring that the resulting curve doesn’t exhibit any sudden
changes in slope around that key point. If you click the icon, it will become blue, meaning
that the slope on either side of the key point can be modified independently, resulting in
a crease in the curve.

• Show grid: this is a toggle icon. When it is orange (enabled) a grid will be displayed
on top of the curve. This grid can be used for reference when building a time spline.

• Snap to grid: this is a toggle icon. When snapping is on (the icon is toggled), key
points will be automatically “attracted” to the grid or nearby keyframes when you ap-

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proach the mouse cursor from the grid/keyframe. This is useful for setting up time splines
with “rounded” values.

• Zoom in: click this icon to display a zoomed view of the time spline. This lets you
edit detailed portions of the time spline.

• Zoom out: click this icon to zoom out of the view of the time spline. This lets you
visualize a larger portion of the time spline.

• Reset pan/zoom: click this icon to reset the view of the time spline so that the time
spline fills up the entire graph exactly.

• Flip Vertical Axis/Flip Horizontal Axis: this flips the axis of the graph either hori-
zontally or vertically.

New, Load, Save

Pressing New will reset the time spline by deleting all key points.

Press Load to load one of the sample time splines using the Visual Filter Browser.

Press Save to save the current time spline in a stand-alone file, for use in future scenes. Saved
time splines will appear in the Visual Filter Browser like any other of the predefined time splines.
By default, time splines are placed in the Filters subfolder. This means that they will appear in
the Personal collection inside the Visual Filter Browser.

Adding Key Points

To create a new key point, you can either:
• double-click in the area where the curve is drawn. The new key point is created at the
point you clicked. The curve is redrawn to use the new key point.
• click on the curve where you want the new key point; the coordinates of the clicked point
appear in the Position boxes; you can edit them if required. To create the new key point,
press the Add key point button. The curve is redrawn.
• type the coordinates of the new key point in the Position boxes, then press the Add key
point button. The curve is redrawn.
You can’t create two key points at the same horizontal position.

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Modifying Key Points

To modify a key point, you can either:
• click on the key point’s handle ( ) and drag it with the mouse button pressed. If you
press Control as you drag the cursor, the movement will be constrained to the closest
axis. Each key point must stay between the previous one and the next one. When you
select a key point, you can jump to the next one by pressing Tab (Shift Tab jumps to the
previous). The selected key point becomes black. You can also modify the position of the
key point by using the Up/Down and Left/Right arrow keys.

• click the handle ( ) of the key point you want to modify. The handle becomes black,
and the Position indicated is now the position of the key point. Type the new position of
the key point.
• type the horizontal position of the key point you want to modify in the Position X box,
then indicate the new vertical position of the key point.
Note:
You can’t move the horizontal key point position using this method.

Deleting Key Points

To delete a key point, click on the handle ( ) of the key point you want to delete, or type its
horizontal Position in the box X, then press the Delete key point button When you select a
key point, you can jump to the next one by pressing Tab (Shift Tab jumps to the previous). You
cannot delete the right-most key point.

Animation Toolbox

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The Animation Toolbox

The Animation Toolbox provides a convenient set of tools to process the animation of your ob-
jects. It operates on all the animation properties of an object.

To open the Animation Toolbox, you can either:

• Click on the button in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel (read here). If
several objects are selected at the time you press the button, the Toolbox will oper-
ate on all of these objects. If all the selected objects don’t have identical settings, these
settings will be left blank.
• Select the menu command Object | Animation Toolbox. If several objects are selected,
the Toolbox will operate on all of these objects. If all the selected objects don’t have
identical settings, these settings will be left blank.
• Click on the button of the object you want to open the Animation Toolbox for, in the
Properties Timeline. The Animation Toolbox will only operate on the corresponding ob-
ject.

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The Selected motion drop-down list lets you select a motion type.

Press the Options button to display the Motion Options dialog and customize the sensitivity of
your object to its motion.

The last two controls in the Selected motion group set the Look ahead and Smoothed velocity
properties. These checkboxes are automatically set or reset when you change the type of mo-
tion of an object. By overriding these settings you can increase the variety of types of motion
available. You can read more about these properties below.

Use the Repeat mode group to select the type of Repeat mode for the object. The default is
Once.

The Make constant velocity motion and Make Ease in – ease out motion buttons automat-
ically reorganize the keyframes of the position property of your object to produce a constant
velocity motion, or an ease in – ease out motion respectively. The effect of these buttons is
identical to setting these options in the Animation Wizard.

The Path display options group is a mirror of the path options available in the Properties Time-
line (the toggle-buttons). The effect of each of these options is explained in the section
about the Timeline.

Press the Animation Wizard button to display the Wizard.

Look Ahead
The Look ahead property is a neat property that makes objects always point in the direction
in which they are traveling. You can modify the direction in which the object points relative to
that Look ahead direction using the standard rotation tools. You can even animate this relative
rotation.

Smoothed Velocity
When this property is set, the velocity of the animated object is automatically processed to
ensure smooth acceleration/deceleration between way points. This ensures perfectly smooth
motion, and, better still, smooth accelerations!

However, there are some cases when it is not possible to smooth the acceleration of the object,
because of very sudden changes in velocity. When this happens, VUE displays a straight line
heading away from the path. To correct the problem, you should make the velocities on either
side of the faulty way point closer one to the other.

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Changing the Duration of an Animation

The Object animation length control automatically repositions the keyframes of your object
so that the total duration of the object’s animation is the time that you indicate (the time lapse
between the first keyframe encountered in one of the object’s properties, and the last keyframe
encountered).

When you create or move a keyframe, its position in time always corresponds precisely to that
of a frame of the animation. However, when you resample keyframes using this tool, they may
no longer occur at the precise time of a frame of the animation. This is done to maintain a strict
equivalence between the initial animation, and the animation with the new duration. If you
move a keyframe, it will snap back to the time of a frame.

Note:

You can change the duration of the entire animation by using the Scale Animation… com-
mand.

Spin and Vibrate

The settings to control the amount of spin and vibration in the animation of the object are iden-
tical to those found in the Animation Wizard. Please turn here for details on these effects and
the way they are adjusted.

Motion Options Dialog

The Motion Options dialog Airplane Motion

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This dialog lets you customize the sensitivity to motion of your animated objects. It is accessed
by pressing the Options button in the Animation Toolbox.

If your objects tend to “over-react” or not react sufficiently to motion (this happens when you
build scenes at unusual scales), this dialog can help solve the problem (you may like to read
the troubleshoot entitled Objects Overreact to Motion for a discussion on this topic).

The default Roll sensitivity is 1. To reduce the amount of Roll in an object animation, reduce
the corresponding sensitivity by dragging the slider to the left. To boost Roll, drag the cursor to
the right. You can revert the effect of roll by changing the sign of the value (e.g. use a negative
value where the value was positive).

The default Acceleration sensitivity is 1. To reduce the amount of dipping (e.g. Helicopter
motion) or rising (e.g. Motorcycle motion) in an object animation, reduce the corresponding
sensitivity by dragging the slider to the left. To boost it, drag the cursor to the right. You can
revert the effect of acceleration by changing the sign of the value (e.g. use a negative value
where the value was positive).

You can vary sensitivities up to a factor of 10. Although this should cover most requirements,
there may be special cases when this is not enough. You can go over this limitation by entering
a value directly in the edit fields.

Anticipation: this setting controls the amount of anticipation in the reaction to motion. In
reality, an aircraft will start to bank before the turning actually takes place. This setting lets
you control this effect. Bigger anticipation values will produce smoother reaction to motion,
whereas short anticipation will result in jolty reaction to motion. Keep in mind that an aircraft,
for instance, rarely banks completely in half a second!

Ignore time spline for dynamic motion reaction: when this option is checked, the time spline
won’t be taken into account when processing the motion of your objects. This is useful, for
instance, when defining a pendular motion time spline with the look ahead property set, and
you don’t want your object to turn around before it moves back.

Influence of Acceleration on Pitch

The settings in this group let you control the sudden surge that can take place in reaction to
acceleration on certain types of motions (typically Motorbike). With this type of motion, when
the acceleration goes beyond a threshold, the motorbike looks up suddenly as if it were raising
on its rear wheel.

Pitch up with acceleration: this controls how strong the effect is.

Pitch up start: this controls the acceleration level that starts triggering the pitch-up effect.

Full pitch up: this controls the acceleration level at which full pitch up is achieved.

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Linking and Tracking

Linked Hierarchies
VUE supports a type of hierarchical animation entitled forward dynamics. Forward dynamics
is a feature that greatly simplifies the animation of complex structures. It lets you build a hier-
archy of objects by linking some objects to others (the link parents). When an object is linked,
modifying the link parent automatically modifies the linked object.

To set links, you use the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel.

You can link cascading objects to create complex hierarchical structures.

Once you have created a link, you can modify the relative position, orientation and size of the
linked object in a standard way. However, if you modify the link parent, the linked object will
be affected in some way.

You can link objects to a member of a group, but you cannot link a member of a group to any-
thing else than the group itself. This has an inconvenience: if you want to manipulate a whole
hierarchical structure, you will have to manipulate only the topmost parent. All other objects
linked to that parent will follow.

If you try to link objects to other objects that depend (directly or indirectly) on that object, you
will create a deadlock in the hierarchical structure. VUE detects this situation and displays a
warning before it destroys the bad links.

You can animate the relative position, orientation and size of linked objects. This animation
will be based on the current conformation of the parent object.

You can even create links to objects that have the Look ahead property (see here), however, it
is not possible to create partial links to such objects (see below).

To break an existing link, either:

• select “No link” in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel, or

• click on no object (or on an empty part of a toolbar) after having pressed the button
in the Animation tab.

Tracking Objects
Using the automatic tracking tool (read here for instructions on activating this), you can instruct
an object to always point in the direction of another object (the track parent). The tracking
object points directly at the center of the tracked object.

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Once the tracking has been activated, moving the track parent will modify the tracking object
so that it keeps pointing at the track parent. Just the same, moving the tracking object will also
modify its orientation so that it keeps pointing at the track parent.

You can decide which axis of the object will be pointing at the tracked parent by using the con-
trols in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel.

You can also rotate the tracking object relative to the direction of tracking. This relative rotation
will be maintained if you move the tracked object or the tracking object. However, you cannot
animate the relative rotation. Since the tracking object points at the center of the tracked par-
ent, rotating the tracked parent does not affect the tracking object (unless you have defined a
pivot for the tracked parent).

To break an existing track relation, either:

• select “No track” in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel, or

• click on no object (or on an empty part of a toolbar) after having pressed the button
in the Animation tab.

Loose Linking and Tracking

Loose linking and tracking is the ability for VUE to simulate the approximate reactions of a real-
world response, and thus avoid the stiff, automatic, and usually jolty effects of linking and track-
ing in animations.

Note:

Because loose dynamics need to take into account the globality of the animation, you will not
see their effect in the interface.

Use the Response slider to control the quality of the linking or tracking. Setting the slider to
roughly ¼ of the range corresponds to a typical human reaction time.

You can also customize this response using the Forward Dynamic Options dialog (see below).

Note:

loose dynamics only act on linked object position and tracking orientation. If you want other
object properties to be “loosely related”, you will have to customize the object’s graph.

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Forward Dynamics Options

The Forward Dynamics Options dialog lets you control the linking between objects, as well as
customize the accuracy of the response in case you are using loose dynamics.

To access the Forward Dynamics Options dialog, select the menu option Object | Forward Dy-
namics Options or long-click/right click on the Pick link object or Pick tracked object icons
(resp. and ).

Use the Tracked object and Link to drop-down list boxes to select the tracked and link objects.

Partial Links
You can decide how the linked object will be affected by modifications made to the link parent
by checking or unchecking the link options boxes of the Animation tab in the Object Properties
panel.

If you uncheck one of the linking options, the corresponding attribute will not be inherited from
the link parent. This type of link is known as a Partial Link
• Position: if you uncheck this linking option, the linked object will no longer move with
the link parent, but it will keep rotating and changing size as the link parent does.
• Rotation: if you uncheck this linking option, the linked object will no longer rotate with
the link parent, but it will keep moving and changing size as the link parent does.
• Size: if you uncheck this linking option, the linked object will no longer be resized with
the link parent, but it will keep moving and rotating as the link parent does.
• Join: this is a neat linking option that disables the joining of the linked object’s center to
that of the link parent if it is unchecked. This means, for instance, that instead of rotating
around the link parent’s center, the linked object will rotate around its own center (while
still moving with the parent, if the parent moves…). The same happens with size.
There are two conditions when the use of partial links is not possible:
• You cannot disable one or more linking options for an object that is linked to a parent
object having the Look ahead property (see here for details). However, you can disable
the linking options prior to declaring the link.
• It is not possible to define a partial link to an object that is itself tracking another one
(read further for details on tracking objects).
VUE will issue a warning and cancel the operation.

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Loose Dynamics
The Response slider replicates the same slider on the Animation tab of the Object Properties
panel (see here), which lets you control the accuracy of link and track response. A value of 0%
indicates that the response of the forward dynamics engine is “perfect”, meaning that there is
no error introduced by loose dynamics. Increasing the value gradually “slackens” the accuracy
of response to make it more realistic.

You can customize this response by ticking the Custom response checkbox. When this option
is selected, the following custom response settings become available:
• Delay: this settings controls the typical reaction time between a change of the “master”
object (the tracked or link object) and the object attached to it. This is similar to the
response delay caused by human reflexes (0.2 seconds).
• The three following settings (Proportional, Integral, Derivative) are the three parame-
ters of a standard PID Controller.

Object Graph
As soon as you activate the loose dynamics engine by selecting a non-perfect response in the
Animation tab of the Object Properties panel, an Object Graph is automatically created for that
object (see here). If you edit the graph, you will notice that VUE automatically adds the required
nodes to calculate the position, orientation and size of the attached object, based on the prop-
erties of the master object.

By editing this graph, you can easily create more elaborate types of linking and tracking.

Note:

Object graph-based linking and tracking may not yield exactly the same results as standard
forward dynamics, even when Response is set to be perfect. The only way to revert to standard
forward dynamics after activating loose dynamics is to destroy the link or track relationship and
re-create it.

Camera Mapping

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Function Graph – Camera Projection node

Camera mapping projects a bitmap through a given camera over some geometry. When ren-
dering an animation where camera movements are of limited amplitude, it can be worth ren-
dering a single high quality static image of a subset of your scene (generally background parts
that don’t change much through the animation), then removing all corresponding components
from your scene, and project this render over a simplified underlying geometry to accelerate
subsequent frames rendering. The projection would be done through a secondary static cam-
era that matches the one used to perform the initial render. As long as the viewing camera
doesn’t shift too much from its original position, the projected render can efficiently replace
corresponding complex geometry.

Camera mapping is available through a dedicated projection node in the Function Graph. It is
therefore material-specific, and should be used to control the color output of the correspond-
ing material:

Edit the material of the object(s) over which your bitmap should be projected
• Open its color production Function Graph
• Create a standard “Texture Map” node where you can load your bitmap
• Connect the texture map node output to the color output
• Replace the default “UV coordinates” input node with a “Camera projection” node
• Select camera through which projection should be performed
• Set the aspect ratio to be the same as your bitmap (the camera needs this information to
compute the proper projection)
When performing a reference render that is to be projected via camera mapping, a few rules
should be followed to allow for a proper integration without perspective and/or color shifts:
• Always disable all post render effects like natural film response, automatic exposure, lens
glare or post processing. These effects should only be applied to the “final” render that
uses your reference render via camera mapping (or these would be applied twice!)
• The camera used for the reference render should be stored as is, used as the camera map-
ping projector, and remain static. So if your viewing camera is animated, it shouldn’t be
used as the projector since your reference render is only valid for a given viewpoint.
• Don’t forget to match the Camera projection node aspect ratio to your reference render
picture, so the projected render aspect is preserved.
• Use the new Ignore lighting ( ) and Ignore atmosphere ( ) buttons to disable any
external influence over your camera mapping material, as these effects are already in-
cluded in the reference render.

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Rendering the Animation

Animation Render Options dialog

To render an animation, open the Timeline and press the Render animation icon ( ). The

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Animation Render Options dialog pops-up. If you activate the alternate action of this icon ( ),
the Advanced Animation Options dialog will appear instead. See below for a description of these
dialogs.

Animation Render Options

This dialog lets you control the rendering of your animation.

The Preset Render Quality group lets you select a Preset Render Settings.

Note:

Motion Blur is only rendered with Broadcast or higher render settings. If you select User set-
tings, you can fully customize the render engine by pressing the Edit button.

Use the Frame resolution group to indicate the resolution of the frames in the animation (Hor-
izontal x Vertical). The horizontal and vertical resolutions are linked by the aspect ratio of the
scene.

The Animation limits group lets you indicate the part of the animation that you want to render.

Render complete animation: if this option is selected, the complete animation will be ren-
dered, starting at the beginning of the active part, and ending at the end of the active part (by
default, this is the entire animation sequence, starting at 0 and ending at the last keyframe).

Render sequence: if this option is selected, you can enter manually the limits of the anima-
tion. You can either enter the limits using Frame numbers, or using Time. The time or frame
counterpart is automatically updated. The values in these fields are initialized with the values
of the start and end of the active animation part, as defined by the yellow line in the Timeline
duration bar.

Frame increment: this setting lets you skip frames in an animation to reduce render time with-
out affecting the frame rate. By default, the Frame increment is one, which means that all the
frames in the animation are rendered. Entering 2 will render every other second frame; enter-
ing 5 will skip 4 frames after each frame rendered (rendered frames will thus be: 0, 5, 10, 15,
20…).

Channel Files
VUE can generate and save the three channels (Color, Alpha and Depth) of an animation. Using
channels, you can easily composite VUE animations with other animations using an external
compositing application. You can also generate full G-Buffer information for each frame, for
maximum compositing information.

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The Channel files group of controls let you select the destination files for the channel anima-
tions. By default, only the Color channel is saved (Alpha, Depth, G-Buffer and Multi-Pass chan-
nel files are disabled).

Animation File Formats

Use the Browse buttons to select you want to save the channel animations to, or to change the
selected file format. VUE supports the following animation file formats:
• AVI: Audio Video Interleaved file format, compressed or uncompressed. Press the File
format options button to display a standard Codec selection dialog. Using this dialog,
you can control how the AVI animation file is compressed.
• M1V: Mpeg 1 file format, compressed. Press the File format options icon to display a
standard options dialog. Using this dialog, you can control how the Mpeg 1 animation
file is compressed.
• M2V: Mpeg 2 file format, compressed. Press the File format options button to display
a standard options dialog. Using this dialog, you can control how the Mpeg 2 animation
file is compressed.
• BMP, PICT, JPG, GIF, PNG, TGA or TIFF: set of stand alone pictures of the indicated file
formats.
• IFF, PCX, EXR, EPX, PSD: set of stand alone pictures of the indicated file formats.
• RLA, RPF: set of stand alone Run-Length Encoded (RLA) or Rich Picture Format (RPF) files
that contain all the channels of information stored in the G-Buffer (you need to enable G-
Buffer rendering to use this option).
Press the File format options button to display the standard VUE Picture Format Options dia-
log. The frames of the animation are named after the filename you indicate, with the number of
the frame appended to it (e.g. if you save to file Anim.bmp, frames will be named Anim_000000.bmp,
Anim_000001.bmp, Anim_000002.bmp, etc.).

Frame padding: click this button to bring up the Frame Name Options dialog. Using this dialog,
you can change the zero-padding of the frame file names.

G-Buffer / Multi-pass: click this button to configure the creation and gathering of G-Buffer and
Multi-pass rendering information while rendering the animation. This option is only available
when the Optimize last render pass option in the Render Options dialog is deselected (see
here). If you click this button, the Multi-Pass Options (G-Buffer ) dialog will appear, letting you
select which rendering components and masks to render.

Note:

Selecting this option doesn’t mean the G-Buffer or Multi-Pass information will be saved in the
animation file. You need to select the RLA or RPF file formats (for G-Buffer information), or
multi-layer PSD file format (for Multi-Pass information) for this to happen.

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Frame Rate
This group controls the number of frames that will be rendered for every second of animation.
The higher this number, the more smoothly the animation will play back. But the longer it will
take to render (and the larger the resulting file).

Bear in mind that the human eye is unable to isolate more than 24 frames per second. So there
is no real point in rendering more than 24 frames per second (unless you are rendering for TV
video, where there are synchronization concerns requiring and increased frame rate).

The default is 15 frames per second, and produces reasonable smoothness at a reasonable ex-
pense.

Frame Resolution
This provides a list of typical animation frame resolutions as well as the ability to define custom
frame sizes. If the Other frame resolution option is selected, entering a resolution in one of the
fields will automatically recompute the corresponding resolution for the other field (according
to picture aspect ratio, provided that this aspect ratio hasn’t been set to Free (user defined)). If
you want to change the aspect ratio of your frames, press the Edit button in the Preset Render
Quality frame to access the Render Options dialog.

Timecode

Timecode Marking Options dialog

The Show timecode on frames option will automatically add the frame’s timecode on the ren-
dered animation frames. If you are saving the frames as multi-layer PSD files, the timecode will
be placed on a separate layer, so that it can be hidden in post work. The format of the timecode
will be the same as the way the frames are identified in the Timeline. This can be changed by
using the Timeline menu (Show Time As menu options).

Whenever this option is selected, the Edit button becomes active. Clicking on this button will
display the Timecode Marking Options dialog, letting you configure the color and location of the

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timecode on the frames.

Use the Text frame of the Timecode Marking Options dialog to select the size and color of the
text that displays the timecode. Available text sizes are:
• Small: very small text, approximately 10 pixels high.
• Medium: this is the same as the typical text used in the application’s interface. Approxi-
mately 13 pixels high.
• Large: this is bold text (the same as the dialog captions in the application interface). Ap-
proximately 14 pixels high.
• Extra-Large: this is very large text. Approximately 20 pixels high.
Double-click on the color control to change the color of the timecode text.

Use the Background controls to configure the background of the timecode text. You can adjust
the opacity and the color of the background. This is useful to ensure that the timecode text is
readable, whatever the frame colors.

Finally, use the Position on frame buttons to select the placement of the timecode text on the
frame.

Disable automatically for Final or better render modes: when this option is checked, the
timecode will be automatically removed when performing the final rendering (Final or better
render quality). This can avoid wasting an entire final-render batch just because you forgot to
remove the timecodes.

If you have this setting checked, the Timecode fields will be grayed out and unavailable when
you select a render setting of Final or higher. If you wish to make changes to the Timecode
stamp settings, perhaps have it render on a Final or higher quality render, switch your render
mode back to Preview or OpenGL to enable the Timecode stamp, then the Show timecode on
frames field becomes available so that you can edit it.

Renderer
This option lets you select the renderer to be used for rendering the image or animation:
• Internal renderer: select this option to use VUE’s internal renderer. This is the best for
quick renders that require interactive feedback (e.g. when rendering a quick preview).
• External renderer: when this option is selected, VUE will invoke a standalone render-
ing application that is installed together with VUE. This application will take care of the
rendering. Because it is a separate application that is entirely dedicated to rendering, it
doesn’t have to deal with all the overhead of a graphical interface, and can consequently
dedicate more memory to the actual rendering process. The caveat is that the scene has
to be sent over to the standalone renderer so the time it takes to actually start rendering
is longer than when using the internal renderer, and also, because rendering is done by

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a separate application, you do not see the picture appear gradually on screen as it ren-
ders. You can configure the external renderer to either render on your computer, or on a
network of RenderCows. This option is particularly useful to speed up the rendering
of very large pictures because it splits the render load across all available nodes on your
network.
Note:
Network rendering is only available when you render to screen or to disk.
• RenderNode network: select this option to use a separate render farm administration
tool and split the render load across a network of RenderNodes. Please turn here for de-
tails on the difference between RenderCows and RenderNodes and the Network Rendering
Options dialog.
If you configured your external renderer to use network rendering, the picture will automati-
cally be chopped up into tiny fragments. The HyperVUE™ Network Rendering Manager will then
assign each fragment to a RenderCow™. The network manager collects the resulting picture
fragments and reassembles them into the final picture. When you press OK to begin rendering,
the scene is added to the list of queued jobs. If it is the first time you render across a network,
the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager will appear, letting you configure network render-
ing.

Note:

Avoid using network rendering for quick renders, because the overhead of managing the render
nodes and communicating over the network may actually result in longer render times.

Miscellaneous
Auto-play animation when done: select this option to automatically begin playing the anima-
tion in an external player when the rendering completes. This option is only available when
rendering to an AVI file on Windows systems, and to a QuickTime MOV file on Macintosh.

Resume rendering animation: if this button is active, press it to resume rendering an anima-
tion that was stopped before it completed. VUE restarts rendering from the exact point where
it was stopped (thus avoiding any loss of render time) and appends the new frames to the pre-
vious animation files (with the exception of compressed AVI files, because AVI doesn’t support
appending frames to a compressed video stream; the animation will be saved as Part2). To re-
sume rendering an animation, you must use the same filenames as the ones used during the
interrupted render. All render options are stored in the resume enabler files, so you don’t need
to worry about them.

Advanced Animation Options: press this button to display the Advanced Animation Options
dialog (see below).

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Closing the Dialog

Click OK to accept the changes and close the dialog. Click Cancel to cancel the changes.

To accept the changes and render the animation with the new settings, click the Render ani-
mation button.

If you have interrupted a render, the Resume rendering animation button will be active. Click
on this button to resume rendering the animation.

Note:

Any changes to the render quality will make resuming a render impossible.

Advanced Animation Options

Advanced Animation Options dialog

Using this dialog you can control advanced animation settings, such as flicker reduction, inter-
lacing, pixel aspect ratios as well as illumination baking.

Flicker Reduction
The options in this group let you activate special algorithms to attempt to reduce the dreaded
flickering that is so typical of computer graphics animations. While the ultimate solution to
eliminate flickering is simply to increase anti-aliasing settings sufficiently, this has a tremen-
dous impact on render times. The methods described below are hacks that will attempt to

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reduce flickering without having such a dramatic impact on render times:

Deterministic anti-aliasing: when this option is enabled (the default), anti-aliasing rays are
cast in random patterns that are repeatable from one frame to the next. This almost totally
eliminates static noise, but may, under certain very specific circumstances, create patterns that
would be noticeable to the eye. However, the impact on image quality is, at worst, barely no-
ticeable. This is why it is recommended that you leave this option on by default.

Multi-frame anti-aliasing: when this option is enabled, VUE will compare the current frame
to the previous and the next frame, and try to detect areas of strong flickering to concentrate
more rendering samples specifically on those areas. This option requires that the last 3 frames
be cached before actual completion of each new frame, and hence only works when rendering
an animation. It may also produce a slight blurring of the frames.

Field Interlacing

Field Interlacing turned on for a sphere rapidly moving left to right

Turn this option on to activate field interlacing. Field interlacing will render every other half of
a frame, twice as often. This is due to the way video is played back on TV where the screen is
refreshed by halves 60 times per second (50 times for PAL). Use this option to ensure perfect
playback on TV – and only when rendering for TV. You can select which field will be the first
using the Upper field first or Lower field first options. Do not use this setting if you are not
rendering for playback on TV. Default is off.

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Pixel Aspect Ratio

Unlike computer monitors, digital edition systems don’t always work with square pixels. You
can modify the pixel aspect ratio to render animations that will be compatible with these sys-
tems. When played back on a computer monitor, the animation will look squashed or stretched.
• Square pixels: this is the default setting, e.g. for computer monitors.
• D1 NTSC pixels: select this option if you are rendering for D1 NTSC media.
• D1 PAL pixels: select this option if you are rendering for D1 PAL media.
• Other aspect ratio: use this option to select an alternate pixel aspect ratio. Enter the
desired x/y pixel ratio in the corresponding field.

Automatic Illumination Baking

Select this option to automatically bake the indirect lighting of all the meshes in the scene prior
to rendering the animation. Turn here for details on the concept of illumination baking.

When this option is selected, all meshes that have not forbidden illumination baking will be
baked (according to the options of this group and the per-object baking options – see here)
before rendering the animation. This usually results in dramatic reductions of render times, at
the expense of potentially very long preparation times.

You can adjust the way automatic illumination baking is handled using the options in this group:

Bake every time: when this option is selected, the illumination will be baked again each time
you begin rendering the animation – whatever the current baking status.

Smart baking: when this option is selected, VUE will check the baking quality of all the meshes
in the scene and compare them to the desired rendering quality of the animation. If the current
baking quality is greater than required, and if the lighting conditions have not changed, the
illumination is not baked for that mesh. If the current baking quality is insufficient, or if VUE
determines that lighting conditions have changed, a message will appear asking whether you
wish to recompute illumination baking before starting the animation rendering.

Force baking this time: this option is only available when the Smart baking option above is
selected. If you check this option, the illumination of all the meshes in the scene will be recom-
puted this time (the check is automatically removed after completing the baking).

Map resolution boost: this setting controls the overall quality of the baking process. The
higher the resolution of the illumination maps, the greater the quality of the baking, and the
more detailed the illumination. You can define a base illumination map resolution for each
mesh in the scene. This base resolution should be such that, at any time during the anima-
tion, the illumination map’s resolution will be sufficient to avoid visible artifacts. This setting
“boosts” the resolution of the illumination maps of all the objects in the scene by a given boost
ratio. This is particularly useful if you decide to increase the output resolution of your anima-

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tion, because all you have to do is increase the boost factor accordingly. The boost factor works
along the principle of octaves (+1 means double resolution, -1 means half resolution).

Animation Preview Options

Animation Preview Options

This dialog lets you customize the quality of the animation preview that is rendered when you
press the icon in the Timeline.

To open this dialog you must activate the alternate action of the aforementioned icon .

Use the Preset render quality group to select the render setting that will be used to render the
preview (read here for details). Bear in mind that a preview render should be something fast,
so you might want to avoid using high quality settings such as Broadcast or Ultra. The default
is Preview.

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Select the Preview frame rate of the animation preview. Default is 5 frames per second, but
you may need to increase it to get smoother playback.

Select the Preview size which can be 1x, 2x or 4x.

You can loop the preview if you check the Loop animation preview box. When this is checked,
the animation preview will start again at time 0 at the end of the preview. Stop the preview by
using the Stop button in the animation control bar.

Press the Discard current preview button to get rid of the current preview without having to
render another one.

Recovering TMP Files from an Aborted Ren­

der

If you are rendering an animation to individual frames and it is interrupted for any reason leav-
ing .tmp files in your target directory, there is a way to recover these files. VUE now generates
a recovery.cfg file containing the necessary information for the recovery.

Just start VUE from the Run dialog in Windows or the terminal window on the Mac using this
command line:

[PathnameofVUEProgram] -t"[path to the tmp files folder]"

Examples:

Windows:

c:\ProgramFiles\e-on software\VUE\VUE.exe -t"c:\MyDocuments\e-on software\

VUE\Pictures"

Mac:

/Applications/VUE/VUE.app –t"/myusername/Documents/e-on software/VUE/Pictures"

This will convert any .tmp files to the finished format you intended. Once finished, VUE will
continue to startup as normal.

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Technical Notes

Rotating Look Ahead and Track Objects

When you rotate (either manually or using the Numerics panel) an object that has the Look
ahead property, or that tracks another object, you must understand that this rotation is always
considered to be relative to the orientation of the object as dictated by motion (for Look ahead
object) or by the track parent object (for tracking objects).

This is why, when no relative rotation has been defined, 0° rotation angles appear in the Nu-
merics rotation fields, although the object is not oriented that way.

The relative rotation will be maintained along the path of the object (for Look ahead objects) or
if you move the track parent (for tracking objects). You can also animate this relative rotation
to achieve really cool effects.

Morphing Clouds

Morph Cloud Options

This editor allows you to morph between two clouds.

You will find it inside VUE’s Animation menu.

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Cloud Selection

• MetaCloud #1: the MetaCloud that represents the cloud at the beginning of the anima-
tion.
• MetaCloud #2: the MetaCloud that represents the cloud at the end of the animation.
– Note: you can choose the same cloud twice in order to move it between these two
times.
• Starting time: the time where you want to start the animation.
• End time : the time where you want to end the animation.

Morph Clouds

This setting allows to morph one cloud into another. This creates a new cloud that makes the
transition. In pratice, the position of each sphere of MetaCloud #1 is moved to the position of
MetaCloud #2. Each such position is related to the center of the MetaCloud.

Each time you use the editor, a new cloud animation is created, so that you can compare the
result of various settings. The two original clouds are kept in the scene but hidden from ren-
der. You can delete them if you no longer need them: the resulting cloud animation is fully
independent from the original MetaClouds.

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Synchronizing Cameras and Lights

VUE offers a powerful synchronization feature in order to make camera, light (or object) anima-
tion data exactly match the animation of a scene created in another professional 3D application.
Through the use of specific plug-ins, you will have the ability to export animation data from
this other application. This data will subsequently be retrieved and used by VUE to synchro-
nize specific components of your VUE scenes. This automatic synchronization feature lets you
easily produce animations in VUE and composite them precisely with their counterpart created
in your other 3D applications.

VUE offers other Import/Export options as well for your tracking information and animation.

Import Synchronization Data

You can import synchronization data using .fbx and Nuke Channel format (.chan) as well as
VUESynch data (.dat). These options are found using the Animation | Import Synchronization
Data menu command. You can also import the camera in .abc (Alembic format).

After choosing which objects (among cameras and lights only) should have their animation data
exported to VUE, use this function to import them. Camera path is imported as well.

If synchronization data contains animation data for a camera, VUE’s main camera will automat-
ically be synchronized with it. If you save your scene, the animation data will be saved with it,
in order to be reused later.

Note:

If you refuse to retrieve synchronization data, this data will be destroyed. You will have to gen-
erate it again when you want to synchronize your scene.

If you find that only one keyframe is generated for the synch, check your Render settings in the
application and be sure the first keyframe starts at 1 and not 0. Then all of the keyframes should
be included.

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VueSynch

VUESynch ships with VUE. It includes plug-ins to synchronize animation data with the following
applications: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max, NewTek LightWave and Maxon Cinema 4D.

Installing Plug­Ins
The Synchonization tool is now integrated in VUE plug-ins. Once you have installed the VUE
plugin in your host application, you can access it from the VUE | File | Export Synchronization
Data... menu command. See Integration Plugins section for more details on how to install the
plugins.

VUE Synchronization in Maya

Generating Synchronization Data

From your favorite supported 3D application, you will use the corresponding synchronization
plug-in to choose which objects (among cameras and lights only) should have their animation
data exported to VUE. When you are done generating synchronization data, switch to (or launch)
VUE. The existence of new synchronization data will be automatically detected and VUE will ask
if you want to retrieve it. If you click Yes, the synchronization data will be loaded into VUE and
used for synchronized objects. This flexible approach lets you touch up the animation in your

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other application, and then re-synchronize VUE at the touch of a button.

Alternatively, if you want to use the synchronization data on another system, you can save the
synchronization data to file for later use. To load a synchronization data file, use the Animation
| Import Synchronization Data menu command.

Note:

If synchronization data contains animation data for a camera, VUE’s main camera will automat-
ically be synchronized with it. If you save your scene, the animation data will be saved with it,
in order to be reused later.

Note:

If you refuse to retrieve synchronization data, this data will be destroyed. You will have to gen-
erate it again when you want to synchronize your scene.

If you find that only one keyframe is generated for the synch, check your Render settings in the
application and be sure the first keyframe starts at 1 and not 0. Then all of the keyframes should
be included.

Synchronizing Objects
Once synchronization data has been retrieved, you can synchronize objects from your VUE
scene using this data:
• Select the object you want to synchronize,
• Go to the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel,
• Choose Synchronized motion type in the Motion type list box,
• Select the name of the source object in the Synchronize with list box. This will instruct
VUE to use that source object’s animation data for the currently selected object,
• Adjust the Scale factor that will be applied to original synchronization position values.
This Scale factor is the same for every synchronized object in order to ensure homoge-
neous synchronization.
This is it! Your object is synchronized according to the animation data of the original scene.
You can observe the results by moving the current time cursor in the Timeline and see your
objects follow the same animation paths as in the original scene. If you want to de-synchronize
a specific object, just change its Motion type.

Note:

The animation path and orientation of synchronized objects cannot be modified. You can still
modify the animation of other animated parameters. For camera objects, not only position and
rotation are synchronized, but also focal length and motion blur amount. Therefore, you won’t

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be able to modify these parameters for a synchronized camera.

Once you have completed rendering of both animations (the original one and the one in VUE),
you will be able to composite items rendered in VUE with your original animation very easily
and precisely.

Keep in mind that VUESynch was designed to bring synchronized data from an application into
VUE, not from VUE to another application. The conversion of animated VUE cameras into the
host application through Integration Plugin does not take all parameters into account (the ani-
mation of focal, for instance). It is much more effective to use the original native camera instead
since the VUE camera synchs to it anyway.

Actually, if you use VUESynch to bring the host camera into VUE, then reimport this scene with
animated cameras, it will add a lot of keyframes to match the VUE animation so it is not recom-
mended.

Importing Vertex Keyframe Amimation

VUE can also import Vertex Keyframe Animation (.mdd) files. Animation in the .mdd format
is represented by a sequence of baked meshes. Since the .mdd file itself contains only lists
of baked vertex coordinates for each frame and no information about mesh structure, such as
faces, it must always be used with the particular mesh it was created from.

When importing a mesh, VUE detects if there is an .mdd file with the same name and tries to
load it. Since order and/or number of vertices can be changed by VUE at the object import
phase, the correspondence between the mesh vertices and those listed in the .mdd file need
to remain the same. This is set from their 3D coordinates; vertex coordinates for Frame 1 in the
.mdd file always correspond to the initial undeformed object. If these coordinates somehow
differ, the .mdd file will be considered incompatible with the mesh. Therefore, it is important
not to scale or deform the mesh before the .mdd animation has been loaded.

Later, an .mdd file for a given mesh can be loaded or changed in the Animated Mesh Options
of the Polygon Mesh Options dialog. See here for more information about the Polygon Mesh
Options dialog.

It is possible to load animations with splitting or exploding objects but the option Maintain
vertex order must be checked. If this option isn’t checked for this type of animation, a warning
displays. If this warning appears when loading a simple animation without splitting, it should
be simply ignored.

If the animation has no splitting then be sure the Maintain vertex order option is unchecked.

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Exporting Animation

You can export camera animation/path using the option on the Animation menu. Select the
camera (the path is included) and click the option in the menu. Camera animation can be ex-
ported in the following formats:
• Maya ASCII script file (.ma)
• VUE Synchronization Data file (.dat)
• Alembic format (.abc)
• FBX format object (.fbx)
• Universal Scene Description (.usd)
• Nuke .chan file (.chan)

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Section 7
Appendices

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Mouse and Keyboard Opera­

tions
The following is a summary of all mouse and keyboard operations.

You can modify the default shortcuts using the Operations tab of the Options dialog. If you
changed the default interface in the User Interface Presets dialog, these shortcuts may not ap-
ply.

Mouse Operations

Note that the primary and secondary buttons are usually respectively the left and right but-
tons, and will often be referred as such throughout this documentation, but the actual button
mapping may depend on your operating system configuration.

: this symbol identifies the primary mouse button on mice with two or more buttons, or the
single button on single-button mice.

: this symbol identifies the secondary mouse button on mice with two or more buttons. You
can emulate the secondary button using the Ctrl key pressed while using the primary button by
enabling the option Enable 2nd mouse button using Ctrl+First mouse button in the Operations
panel.

: this symbol identifies the middle mouse button on mice where the middle wheel is clickable,
or on other types of mice with three or more buttons. Lacking a middle button, there is no way
to emulate it in VUE. In that case, we recommend to change the few default mappings that use
it to another button and key combination.

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Inside any dialog and editor

click in an empty space of a scrollable zone (instead of using the scrollbar). A “hand” cursor
appears when the mouse is in a scrollable zone

Inside the 2D/3D Views

click in inactive view: activate view.

click + Release without moving: display popup menu.

VUE navigation triggers

This variant is selected using the Legacy button in the User Interface Preset dialog or below the
shortcuts list in the Operations options panel.

Shift + click + Drag: move (a.k.a. “pan”) the camera or viewpoint along the view axes.

click + Drag: rotate the camera or viewpoint around the selected object(s) (a.k.a. “orbit”).

Ctrl + click + Drag: change the zoom factor (ie. view extent) in a 2D view, or zoom into or out
of a 3D view.

See also the Mouse Wheel Operations section for the effect of using the mouse wheel or scrolling
with a multi-touch device like a trackpad in all 2D and 3D views.

The following triggers are common to both the Legacy VUE navigation triggers and the Industry-
standard navigation triggers described below.

click + Drag: rotate camera in a 3D view (as a convenience, this trigger has the same effect
as the pan trigger in a 2D view).

Ctrl + Shift + click + Drag: change camera focal.

Shift + click + Drag: roll camera.

Shift + Alt + : Frame the selected area in the current view.

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Industry­standard navigation triggers

This variant is selected using the Industry-standard button in the User Interface Preset dialog
or below the shortcuts list in the Operations options panel.

The three following operations use different triggers than the legacy VUE variant, which are
more widely used in other softwares of the Computer Graphics industry:

Alt + click + Drag: move (a.k.a. “pan”) the camera or viewpoint along the view axes.

Alt + click + Drag: change the zoom factor (ie. view extent) in a 2D view, or zoom into or out
of a 3D view.

Alt + click + Drag: rotate the camera or viewpoint around the selected object(s) (a.k.a. “or-
bit”).

The other navigation actions use the same triggers as the VUE navigation triggers described
above.

Selecting and Dragging Objects

click: select objects under cursor / deselect all if no objects under cursor.

Shift + click: extend selection.

Ctrl + click: select object inside group.

U+ click: select all objects below the mouse cursor, not only the foreground object.

B + click: select the first object behind a selected object below the mouse cursor (useful in
dense areas of a scene).

click + Drag inside objects: move objects.

click + Drag outside objects: select all objects with center in drag rectangle.

Choosing transformation axes

There are several ways to restrict the transformations of an object or the camera to one or two
of the three world axes.

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3D Gizmos (left to right): translation mode, rotation mode, resizing mode

The 3D Gizmos are the red/green/blue manipulation handles that appear centered on the se-
lected object: their are shown as arrows when in translation mode, circles when in rotation
mode, and segments with cube handles when in scaling mode. These Gizmos allow you to eas-
ily translate, rotate or resize an object along only one or two of the three axes.

The trigger modifier Constrain to Axis (default mapping: X) allows to constrain movement along
one axis when moving objects in a 2D (a.k.a. “orthographic”) view. The trigger Translate Camera
Constrained to Axis allows to pan the active camera along one axis in a 3D (a.k.a. “perspective”)
view. Both follow the convention described in Moving the Perspective Camera.

Finally, when the 3D Gizmos are disabled (by unchecking the menu entry Display > Gizmos >
Show Gizmos), this legacy trigger is also available: Ctrl + click + Drag inside objects: move-
ment constrained to nearest axis / move object forwards/backwards if in main view.

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Using Bounding Box Handles

Bounding Box Handles: Corners, Middle of Segments, Rotation Handles

click + Drag on selection corner dots: resize selected object(s) keeping all proportions.

Shift + click + Drag on selection corner dots: resize selected object(s) equally along the
two view axes, leaving dimension along the third axis unchanged.

click + Drag on selection middle dots: resize selected object(s) along indicated axis.

click + Drag on selection rotate handle: rotate selected object(s) around the axis perpen-
dicular to the view (e.g. for Top view (XY), around vertical axis (Z)).
• When the 3D Gizmos are shown, the rotate handle appears when hovering near the sides
of the selected object(s)’s bounding box (when not too close to another “hot” area like a
corner or segment’s middle point).
• When the 3D Gizmos are not shown, the rotate handle is the icon showing a circular arrow
with a “Rotate inside view” tooltip, at the right-hand side of the manipulation icons group.

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Manip. Icons Group

Finally, when the 3D Gizmos are not shown:

click + Drag on selection “4 arrows” handle: rotate selected object(s) around the 2 axes of
the view (e.g. for Top view (XY): around Front (X) and Side (Y) axis).
• The “4 arrows” handle is the icon with the “Rotate around view axes” tooltip at the left-
hand side of the manipulation icons group.

When Editing Paths in 2D/3D Views

click on a way point: select way point / activate path editor.

Ctrl + click: extend way point selection.

Shift + click: select all way points between last selected and this one.

Double-click on way point: select all way points of object.

click + Drag way point: move selected way points.

click + Drag on selection corner dots: resize selected way points keeping proportions.

click + Drag on selection middle dots: resize selected way points along indicated axis.

click + Drag on selection 4 arrow handle: rotate selected way points around the 2 view.

click + Drag on selection rotate handle: rotate selected way points around perpendicular
axis to view.

Inside the World Browser

click on object: select object under cursor.

click on nothing: deselect all objects.

Ctrl + click on object: extend object selection.

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Shift + click on object: select all objects between last selected object and object under cur-
sor.

click on layer: select all objects in layer.

click on layer / group expansion box: toggle Unfolded / Folded state.

click on layer state box: toggle Active / Locked / Hidden state.

Double-click on layer state box: activate layer.

click + Drag: move selected objects to the release point location.

Ctrl + click + Drag: copy selected objects to the release point location.

click: display popup menu.

Inside the Timeline

click on nothing: deselect all objects.

click + Drag: move ruler.

Ctrl + click + Drag: zoom ruler in / out.

click on item: select item.

click + Drag: move selected item.

click on nothing + Drag: marquee keyframe selection.

Ctrl + click on keyframe: extend selection.

Shift + click on keyframe: select all keyframes between last selected keyframe and this one.

click on property: select keyframe at current time.

Double-click on property: select all property keyframes.

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click on expansion box: toggle Unfolded / Folded item state.

Ctrl + Drag selected keyframe: drag all subsequent keyframes together with selected keyframe.

Inside the Animation Wizard Path Editor

• Click: add / delete / insert way point.

Ctrl + click on way point + Drag: move way point.

• click + Drag: move view.

Ctrl + click + Drag: manual zoom.

Space + Drag: move view.

Insert: insert way point at cursor.

Del: delete way point at cursor.

Mouse Wheel Operations

The mouse wheel can be used in several contexts with an intuitive behaviour:
• In a 3D perspective view like a camera view or the 3D preview of a Terrain, Plant or Text
Editor, it will move the viewpoint forward (into the scene) or backward (away from the
scene) along the direction the viewpoint is looking at,
• In an orthographic view (top, front or side views), it will shrink (zoom-in) or enlarge (zoom-
out) the extent of the scene shown in the view,
– In this type of view, the center of the zooming action is not the center of the view
but the position below the mouse cursor while the wheel is scrolled, making it easy
for example to zoom on an object you want to focus on.
• In other types of 1D or 2D views like the Function Graph, the Time Line or the Function
Node Preview, it will also zoom in or zoom out the view contents.

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Keyboard Operations

You can modify the default shortcuts using the Options dialog (see here).

Note:

The following shortcuts may not apply if you have changed the default interface preset (see
here).

The list below is not exhaustive, you can see the currently assigned shortcut (if any) next to
each menu entry label in VUE’s menus as well as in the tooltip hints displayed when leaving the
mouse cursor over a toolbar button.

Interface Shortcuts

Ctrl + N: new file.

Ctrl + O: open file.

Ctrl + S: save file.

Ctrl + W: close file.

Ctrl + T: open Options panel.

Ctrl + Q: exit.

Ctrl + Z: undo last operation.

Ctrl + Y: redo last operation.

Del: delete selected objects / object animation.

Ctrl + X: cut selected objects into clipboard.

Shift + Del: cut selected objects into clipboard.

Ctrl + C: copy objects from clipboard.

Ctrl + Insert: copy objects from clipboard.

Ctrl + V: paste objects from clipboard.

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Shift + Insert: paste objects from clipboard.

Ctrl + D: duplicate selected objects.

Ctrl + A: select all objects in scene.

Escape: deselect all.

Ctrl + Num .: store camera.

Ctrl + 0..9: activate camera.

Ctrl + Num +: zoom into view or timeline ruler.

Ctrl + Num –: zoom out of view or timeline ruler.

Ctrl + Shift + M: select objects by material.

Ctrl + Shift + O: select Objects by type.

Ctrl + Shift + W: select objects by preview color.

Tab: walk to next objects in selection.

F1: open help files.

F4: display Atmosphere Editor.

F5: load atmosphere.

F6: display Summary of Materials.

F7: toggle only display main view.

F8: display last render.

Ctrl + F8: save color picture.

F9: render.

Ctrl + F9: Render Options.

Ctrl + Shift + F9: resume render.

F11: display Timeline.

Ctrl + F11: display Animation Wizard.

Alt + Enter: toggle full screen mode.

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0, 1, 2, 3: Select Main, Top, Front, Side view.

Ctrl + Alt + W: Lock or unlock the Workspace

Viewports and Navigation

Ctrl + Alt + C: Switch to mouse-centered navigation mode.

Ctrl + Alt + F: Switch to target-centered navigation mode.

Alt + T: Choose Targeted Point (switching to target-centered navigation mode if needed).

F: Frame the current selection in the current perspective or camera view.

A: Frame all objects in the current perspective or camera view.

D: Drop current perspective or main camera on top of all scene objects.

Ctrl + F: Frame the current selection in the current orthographic view.

Ctrl + Shift + F: Frame the current selection in all orthographic views.

Shift + Alt + F: Frame all objects in the current orthographic view.

Shift + Alt + A: Frame all objects in all orthographic views.

Ctrl + Numpad+: Zoom into the current orthographic view.

Ctrl + Numpad-: Zoom out of the current orthographic view.

Object Creation

Shift + W: add Water.

Shift + G: create a Ground plane.

Shift + A: create a Cloud plane.

Shift + S: create a Sphere.

Shift + C: create a Cylinder.

Shift + U: create a Cube.

Shift + O: create a Cone.

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Shift + Y: create a Pyramid.

Shift + R: create a Torus.

Shift + P: create a Plane.

Shift + H: create an Alpha Plane.

Shift + T: create a Terrain.

Ctrl + Shift + T: create a terrain inside the editor.

Shift + F: create a Procedural terrain.

Shift + V: create a Plant.

Ctrl + Shift + V: load plant species and create.

Shift + N: create a Planet.

Shift + K: create a Rock.

Shift + Q: add a Directional light.

Shift + L: add a Point light.

Ctrl + Shift + L: add a Quadratic Point light.

Shift + X: add a Spot light.

Ctrl + Shift + X: add a Quadratic Spot light.

Ctrl + L: load Object.

Shift + M: create a Metablob object.

Object Edition

Arrow up: nudge selected objects up / if no objects selected: nudge views up / nudge camera
down if in Main camera view.

Arrow down: nudge selected objects down / if no objects selected: nudge views down / nudge
camera up if in Main camera view. Arrow left: nudge selected objects left / if no objects selected:
nudge views left / nudge camera right if in Main camera view.

Arrow right: nudge selected objects right / if no objects selected: nudge views right / nudge

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camera left if in Main camera view.

Page up: nudge selected objects closer / if no objects selected: nudge views closer / nudge
camera forward if in Main camera view.

Page down: nudge selected objects further / if no objects selected: nudge views further / nudge
camera backward if in Main camera view.

Shift + Nudge key: nudge 1/10th of increment.

Ctrl + Nudge key: resize objects / change focal.

Shift + D: drop selected objects.

Shift + Alt + D: drop selected objects on top of all other objects.

Ctrl + G: group selected objects.

Ctrl + Shift + U: make Boolean Union.

Ctrl + Shift + I: make Boolean Intersection.

Ctrl + Shift + D: make Boolean Difference.

Ctrl + U: ungroup selected groups.

Ctrl + M: change selected objects Material.

Ctrl + E: edit selected objects (if applicable).

Ctrl + Shift + L: pick link parent.

Ctrl + Shift + T: pick tracked parent.

Ctrl + Shift + B: display Animation Toolbox.

Ctrl + K: bake selected objects to polygons.

Ctrl + Shift + K: convert (or re-convert) selected objects to MetaCloud.

Numpad /: Repeat Operation Subdivide.

Numpad *: Repeat Operation Extrapolate.

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VUE Integration Plugins

This section of the reference manual deals with the specifics of running VUE Integration Plugins
in the integrated mode. In the integrated mode, VUE Integration Plugins gives you the ability
to create, edit, and render a VUE scene inside a target application.

If you have trouble installing VUE inside your target application, we suggest you first refer to
the online VUE FAQ on the e-on software website. You may find additional tips and advice for
specific setups not covered in this manual.

Standalone and Integrated Modes

VUE standalone offers all the tools that are required to create, animate and render natural 3D
environments, without the need for any other applications. Obviously, it also offers many tools
to help integrate your VUE work with other 2D and 3D applications – but using other applica-
tions alongside VUE remains optional.

VUE Integration Plugins, on the other hand, is primarily designed to run “inside” another 3D ap-
plication (the target application) as a plugin. These versions let you “host” a VUE environment
inside this 3D application, and automatically combines the VUE objects with the native objects
of that application. Thus, the VUE environment is “integrated” inside the target application.

VUE Licenses

It means that a single VUE license lets you use the integration plugin in all your compatible 3D
applications and renderers. If you want to use VUE with a 3D application, simply make sure the
plugin has been installed for the application.

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VUE Installation

The installation of VUE Plugins is explained in the Installer section.

During the installation of VUE, you will be asked which versions of the integration plug-in you
want to install. All supported applications for the current architecture (64bit) will be listed.
Please select the versions for which you want to install the VUE integration plug-in.

If the installer detects the application on your computer, then the corresponding item in the list
will be already selected and the path to the application will already be filled. Otherwise, you
need to:
• Check the box near the application version (you will be asked to browse to the location
where the application is installed)
• Or select the application version, click on the Browse button, and then check the box.
With Windows, the installer will detect if the application you selected is already running, and
will ask you to close it before continuing the installation. This is to ensure that the plug-in files
are successfully installed and that the configuration files of the host application can be edited.
To avoid any mistake during installation, the installer will only allow the installation into a folder
if it can detect the application there. But, the installer has no way to tell which version of the
application you’re selecting in the browser. It is up to you to select the correct path.

Note:

In the case that you haven’t selected any compatible application, the installer will ask for con-
firmation. If you choose to continue the installation, only the standalone application and the
core will be installed. You won’t be able to use any integration plug-in except if you already in-
stalled them (but it’s better to use the same version of the plug-ins and the core to be sure you
are using the latest improvements and fixes).

Architecture

VUE is only natively compatible with 64-bit applications and the Intel architecture. On an ARM
mac (M1, M2, etc.), though, VUE can run emulated using the Apple-supplied Rosetta 2 software.

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V­Ray Renderer

With the current version of VUE, V-Ray for 3DS Max and Maya are supported. You must select
the correct version of V-Ray during installation (V-Ray 4, 5 or 6, depending on the Maya/3DS Max
version). The VUE for V-Ray shader is automatically installed in your host application folder,
along with the general plug-in. No user action is required to install VUE for V-Ray.

Supported Versions of the Host Appli­

cations

Only applications listed on our website, on the Requirements page of the VUE Integration Plu-
gins product, will be able to load the integration plug-in. If your application is older than the
ones listed on the Requirements page, the plug-in won’t work.

Note:

Keep in mind that, on macOS, the list of plugins supported is specific to each architecture (In-
tel vs. ARM aka. “Apple Silicon”). This is reflected in the list of plugins available during the
installation process, depending on the host architecture.

Adding the VUE Menu and Toolbars

All of the VUE commands are accessed through the use of a VUE menu in the target application
main user interface. VUE introduces toolbars and icons, supported in all applications except
LightWave.

Described below are the steps required (if any) to add the VUE menu and toolbars to each of
the supported target applications. For most applications, this is done automatically when the
target application loads the plug-in.

You don’t need to add the VUE menu or toolbars if you won’t be using VUE inside your applica-
tion (e.g. if you install a plug-in for an application that will be used only for network rendering).

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3DS Max

The plug-in is automatically loaded during 3DS Max startup. The VUE menu is added automati-
cally by the plug-in. You can access the VUE menu in the 3DS Max menu bar. It should be located
to the right of the Help menu entry.

Check that the plug-in is loaded by opening the Plugin Manager (from the Customize main
menu). There should be at least one entry for VUE:
• VUE xStream.dlb is the main VUE file for 3DS Max plug-in,
• VUE xStream.dlr is the VUE file for VRay plug-in.
To add the toolbar, use the Customize | Customize User Interface menu command of 3DS Max
to display the customization dialog. Then, select the Toolbars tab, and click on the Load button.
Browse to the ui subfolder of the 3DS Max application and load the xStream.cui file.

The VUE for V-Ray plug-in is automatically loaded during startup. If V-Ray is the active renderer
at the time you create or load a VUE scene, the 3DS Max integration plug-in will automatically
setup everything for the V-Ray renderer. If V-Ray was not the active renderer, and you later want
to render with it, you need to open the Rendering/Environment dialog in 3DS Max. Then, in the
Atmosphere section, add the VUE/VRay atmospheric effect to the list.

Depending on the active renderer at the time of the VUE scene creation, the integration plug-
in will also try to select corresponding shadow types for VUE proxy lights. This means that if
V-Ray is active, they will have “V-Ray raytraced shadows” selected. So, if you load a VUE scene
containing many lights, make sure you first select your preferred renderer in the 3DS Max ren-
der settings dialog. This will save you the burden of manually editing each light to select the
appropriate shadow type.

Cinema 4D

The plug-in is automatically loaded during Cinema4D startup. The VUE menu is automatically
created, and it’s located in the Main Menu bar.

You can load the VUE toolbars as Cinema4D Palettes using the Window | Layout | Load Palette
menu of Cinema 4D. You will then have to browse to the plugins/VUE_xStream/UI/Palettes/
subfolder of your Cinema 4D application (not in the user folder) and select one of the palette
files available.

You can also load the complete VUE layout using the Window | Layout | Load Layout menu
of Cinema 4D. You will then have to browse to the plugins/VUE_xStream/UI/Layout/ sub-
folder of your Cinema 4D application (not in the user folder) and select the xStream.l4d file
there. Please note that this will replace the current layout.

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General Toolbar in Cinema 4D

LightWave

The plug-in is automatically loaded during LightWave startup if you have the AutoScan Plugin
option enabled, if not you need to add the plugin manually. This option is under Preferences
| General, press “o” to open this panel, by default this option on Layout is ON.

This menu needs to be added to the interface manually. This operation only needs to be per-
formed once.

Here is how to add the VUE menu:

• Open the Menu editor by selecting Edit | Edit Menu Layout... or pressing Alt + F10 on
LightWave’s Layout.
• In the Menu Editor, click on Main Menu in the Menus list (the list on the right).
• Right click on Main Menu and select Import Branch. A browser will appear; browse to
the VUE application folder, open the Environment\Integration Plugins\LightWave
subfolder, and select the VUE_Plugin_Menu.cfg file.
• This will add a VUE tab menu in the menus list.
• Now you can drag and drop the VUE tab to place it where you want. You can, for instance,
move it after the User Tab.
Due to limitations in the SDK of LightWave, there are no toolbars or icons available.

Problem with Menu Display ­­ Incomplete Menus

If the previous version of VUE Plugin menus have been loaded in LightWave, you may not be
able to load the new version of the menu correctly.

Before adding the VUE new menu, you must remove the Integration Plugin menu from any pre-
vious version: In LightWave, open the Configure Menus dialog, using the command Edit | Edit
Menu Layout.

In the list of menus (on the right), select VUE Integration Plugin and press the Delete button.
Close LightWave and reopen it. Now you can add the new version of the VUE Plugin menu.

Warning! Even after removing the old menu with the LightWave interface (see above), the VUE
current menu can still be incomplete.

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To fix it, here are the steps to follow:

1. Close LightWave. 2. Delete the configuration files of LightWave, containing the menu layout.

They are located in the user folder:

OS

Version

Path

Windows

LightWave new version

C:\Users\[user_Name]\LW[xxx].cfg

C:\Users\[user_Name]\LWEXT[xxx].cfg

LightWave new version

C:\Users\[user_Name]\.NewTek\LightWave\new version\LW[xxx].cfg

C:\Users\[user_Name]\.NewTek\LightWave\new version\LWEXT[xxx].cfg

MacOSX

LightWave current version

/Users/[user_Name]/Library/Preferences/LightWave3D/Layout 9

LightWave new version

/Users/[user_Name]/Library/Application Support/NewTek/LightWave/[NEW_VERSION]
'/Layout 10

/Users/[user_Name]/Library/Application Support/NewTek/LightWave/[NEW_VERSION]
/Extension 10

Where [xxx] depends on your version of LightWave and your system (for example LW9-64.cfg).

3. Open LightWave again, and add the VUE menu again.

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Maya

The plug-in is not automatically loaded during Maya startup; in order to load the plug-in, open
the plugin manager (Window | Settings/Preferences | Plugin Manager).

Locate VUE xStream.mll entry and check the Loaded checkbox to load the plug-in. If you want
the VUE plug-in to be loaded each time you start Maya, check the Auto load checkbox.

Once the plug-in is loaded, the VUE menu is automatically created. It can be found in the menu
bar, at the left of the Help menu. If you have checked the Auto load option, the next time you
start Maya, VUE will be accessible.

In order to load the VUE toolbar shelf, please use the Help | Load VUE shelf menu command
from the VUE menu.

Integration Plugins Options Dialogs

Integration Plugin Options Dialog

This dialog is accessed through the File | Options... menu command. This is where you will
setup the general behavior of VUE.

Some options are not available in some versions of the plugin, because they’re not needed or
not appropriate: for instance, options related to V-Ray are available only in applications that
support this render engine.

The Options dialog has two tabs: General and Render Options.

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General Tab

Integration Plugin Options dialog – General tab

This tab of the Options dialog has options for how VUE and the host application interact.

Scene File
• Incorporate VUE scene in native scene file: When on (which is the default), saving the
native scene will create a unique file which contains both the native scene and the VUE
scene. (see Saving your work while using VUE).
• (LightWave only) Relative to LightWave content folder: When checked, the path to the
VUE scene is no longer absolute, but stored relative to the LightWave content folder path.

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Time
• Adjust frame rate when loading VUE animated scenes: This gives you the option of
using the frame rate from VUE or from the host application. When loading a VUE scene
which contains animated parameters or objects, VUE can load the frame rate of this VUE
scene and set it to the same value in the host application. When VUE loads the animation
from the VUE scene, it first reads the animation for each frame of the VUE animation. It
then recreates all of these keyframes in the native scene. Enabling this option will prevent
VUE from creating keyframes at non-integer frames in the native scene. This is especially
known to lead to interpolation problems on rotations in Cinema 4D. This option is not
enabled by default because it will edit the current frame rate in the host application.

Scale
• Automatic or Manual:
– if you select Automatic (the default), then the conversions between native scene
and the VUE scene will be based on the internal units of both applications. For in-
stance, if you have an object that’s 1 inch tall in VUE and you open it with the integra-
tion plugin it will still be 1 inch tall in the target application, no matter which unit is
currently displayed. If you’re displaying centimeters, the object will be 2.54 cm tall.
– If you select Manual, you have to specify the ratio between the two internal units
with the two editable fields.
• Automatically adjust viewports and grid size: by default, host applications use smaller
scene sizes than VUE. With this option, VUE sets the grid size and viewport configurations
to match the VUE default scene size. For better control, if you want to set these options
manually, uncheck this option else VUE will override your settings.
• Restore defaults for viewports and grid size when closing: if the previous option is
enabled, when closing the VUE scene, this option restores the default values for grid size
and viewport configuration (clipping planes, orthographic camera position, etc.).

Light Options
• Native Lights Conversion: this Edit button opens the Native Lights Options dialog to let
you edit the way the integration plug-in translates the lights from one application to an-
other.

VUE Proxies
• Geometry quality: this option lets you select between High quality geometry or Low
quality geometry. Obviously, the proxy objects look better when the high quality is se-
lected but display in the view ports is faster with the low quality mode. In the high quality
mode, if you notice some slowdowns after having loaded a VUE scene or added an object
to your VUE scene, then you should switch to the low quality mode.
Several notes on this setting:

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• It has no effect on the render of the VUE objects. Rendered objects always use the most
detailed geometry, or procedurally generated geometry,
• It won’t have any effect on EcoSystems instances (please refer to the EcoSystem instance
option below),
• It won’t have any effect on infinite planes geometry (please refer to the infinite planes
geometry size option below).
Changing this option will force the re-generation of the geometry of all objects in the scene,
therefore:
• The update of the native scene will take longer than usual,
• Any change you might have applied to the geometry of the proxy objects in the target
application will be lost,
• It can be useful to change this setting to reset the geometry.
• Limit Number of EcoSystem Instance Proxies: This option lets you edit the number of
EcoSystem instances displayed in the viewports of your host application. For instance,
if your scene contains large EcoSystems and your application becomes less responsive,
you can lower this setting. The limit density setting in the EcoSystem Painter dialog has
no effect on native (3DS, C4D) objects.
• Infinite Plane Geometry Size: There is generally no such thing as an infinite primitive in
target applications. For this reason, VUE creates a flat polygonal object instead of a true
infinite plane. Depending on the size of your scene, you may get annoyed if the object
proxy is too small or too large for your scene: if you want to drop your native objects to
the ground you’ll have trouble if the ground is not covering your entire scene; it can also
affect the display, through the near/far clipping planes.
With this option, you can set the size that VUE will set the proxy objects being used for
infinite planes.
Note:

This option is not available in Cinema4D, as VUE will use the Cinema4D floor primitive for such
proxy objects.

Misc
• Switch viewport to VUE Camera upon creation: Checking this option switches the view-
port to the VUE camera instead of the viewport/camera currently being used in the native
application.
• Scene Options: This button will open the Scene Options dialog, which allows you to edit
the spherical scene options. These options are similar to the ones found in the Options
dialog of VUE standalone, in the Units and Coordinates tab. Please refer to the corre-
sponding section of this manual for more information on spherical scene options. These
scene options are specific to the current VUE scene, and are saved directly in the VUE

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scene file.
• Gamma Options: This button opens the Gamma Options dialog, where you can enable
and adjust the gamma correction. Since you are rendering in the host application, these
settings do not affect renders; any gamma corrections for the renders must be made in
the host application settings. The settings here affect the VUE Color Editor, Material pre-
views, Color Function previews and the Scalar Function previews.
• Save: clicking on this button will save the current options as default. The next time you
start VUE, these default options will be used instead of the generic default values. These
default values will be used in all versions of the plugin, in case you have installed versions
for several target applications. Only scale options are application-specific.
• Reset: clicking on this button will reset all options in the dialog to default values (either
generic default values or customized default values).

Render Options Tab

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Render VUE Scene

Integration Plugin Options dialog – Render Options tab

By default, the Render VUE scene option and its sub-options are all checked, meaning every-
thing is rendered.
• Render atmosphere: uncheck it if you don’t want atmospheric effects to be rendered.
• Render sky: uncheck this option if you don’t want to render the VUE sky. Please note that
it won’t be rendered for primary rays but also for secondary rays (i.e. it won’t be visible in
reflections/refractions). If you want to remove the background, you should use the alpha
channel instead of this option.
• Render Objects: uncheck it if you don’t want to render VUE objects.
If you uncheck the Render VUE scene frame checkbox, then VUE won’t be used at all during
the render of the scene. It can be used to check the render of the native objects alone.

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LightWave renderer (LightWave only)

• LightWave renderer: check this option to enable the blending of several volumetric shaders
in your LightWave scene. For instance, if you use HyperVoxels and VUE, turn this option
on. You may have to enable a similar option in your other volumetric shader. Please refer
to the documentation of the shader to know how to do this. This option is only compati-
ble with Spectral and Volumetric atmospheres.

V­Ray (only applications supported for V­Ray)

• Use Physical Lighting: check this option if you’re using a V-Ray photographic exposure.
This option will scale all values returned by VUE during render by the intensity scale you
specify. The default value of 8000 should work well in daylight scenes, but you may have
to change it depending on your scene setup. Typical values range from 5000 to 30000.

Post Processing
• Apply natural film response filter: select this option to enable the non-linear reaction
to light typical of photochemical films. Please refer to the Camera Options for more infor-
mation about natural film response.
Please note that if you want to create high-dynamic renders (with floating point values exceed-
ing 1.0), then you should un-check this option, because the natural film response filter tends to
reduce the dynamic range of the output image.
• Apply lens flare on VUE lights: if checked, then VUE will compute lens flares on VUE
lights.

Render Quality
Select either the Automatic mode or the VUE render options mode.
• Automatic (based on native renderer sampling quality): In this mode, the VUE render
quality will be set to match the native renderer settings. If you perform a draft render,
the VUE render quality will be set to a low render quality mode in order to speed up the
rendering of VUE objects.
If you use production quality render settings, the VUE render quality will be increased.
The exact render quality depends on several parameters, most noticeably on the Sam-
pling Quality parameter of the native renderer.
• VUE render options: In this mode, the render quality preset that will be used is the one
that’s selected in the VUE Render Options dialog.
For a quick access to the Render Options dialog, click on the Edit… button. Alternately,
you can access it through the Render | Render options… VUE menu.
• Adjust native renderer settings to match VUE scene: When enabling this option, the
integration plug-in will try to match as closely as possible the VUE render preset you se-
lect. For instance, if you select a Preview render quality preset in the VUE Render Options
dialog, the integration plug-in will select a low quality setting in the native renderer. If

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you select a Final preset, the plug-in will increase the quality of the native renderer ac-
cordingly. When loading a scene, the render output size will also be matched.

Final Gather Matching

• Disconnect VUE from host Final Gather: by checking this option, you instruct the na-
tive renderer to ignore the VUE scene when computing Final Gather. This way, you can
configure VUE and your native render engine’s Global Illumination independently.
• Disconnect host from VUE Final Gather: by checking this option, you instruct VUE to
ignore the native scene when computing Final Gather.
By using these two options, you can configure VUE and the native renderer Global Illumination
independently:
• Scale VUE FG: this value can be changed to modify the contribution of VUE’s Final Gather
in the host Final Gather. A higher value will increase the influence of VUE objects on the
global illumination of native objects. The default value is 1 (which should be correct in
most cases).
• Scale Host FG: conversely to the above, this value will modify the contribution of the
host’s Final Gather in VUE’s Final Gather. A higher value here will make the native objects
have a higher influence on the indirect lighting of VUE objects.
• Save: clicking on this button will save the current options as default. The next time you
start VUE, these default options will be used instead of the generic default values. These
default values will be used in all versions of the plugin, in case you have installed versions
for several target applications. Only scale options are application-specific.
• Reset: clicking on this button will reset all options in the dialog to default values (either
generic default values or customized default values).
The only way to reset the default values back to the generic default values is to delete the Vue-
Plugin.cfg file in your Config folder, where “xxxxxx” is your product name and version.

It is found in your c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\e-on software\VUE\Config folder

on Windows machines.

It is found in \Users\username\Library\Application Support\e-on software\VUE\Config

on a Mac.

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VUE Light Options Dialog

This dialog is accessed from the VUE Options dialog, using the Edit... button in the Light Options
section.

Using this dialog, you can choose the way you want the integration plug-in to translate lights
before the native and the VUE scene.

It is used in the following cases:

• you want to control what VUE will do concerning a specific native light.
• you want to control what the host application will do concerning a specific VUE light.
This dialog is therefore separated in two tabs: Native Lights and VUE Lights.

Before moving to the description of the options offered by the two tabs, please note that these
options are saved in the scenes, and that VUE is also able to uniquely identify lights, even if you
edited the VUE scene separately in the standalone. In this case, newly added lights will use the
default settings, while the lights that were already present when you edited the scene using the
integration plug-in will use the settings you set at that time.

Native Lights

Integration Plugin Light Options dialog – Native Lights

On this tab, you will see a list of all the native lights detected in the native scene. Each light will
be displayed with its name, its type (Point light, Spot light, etc.), and the current mode for this
light.

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When you select a light in the list, you can change the current mode by using the radio buttons
in the bottom of the dialog. The available modes are:
• Ignore: when this option is selected native light will be ignored by VUE. No VUE light will
be created at render time.
• Automatic (which is the default mode): the selected native light will have a correspond-
ing VUE light created at render time by VUE. This means that if you have a red spot light
placed in your native scene, VUE will create a corresponding red spot light at the same
position and orientation. VUE will try to match it as close as possible to the native light,
and will use it to illuminates the VUE scene (which will make your VUE elements appear
red if placed under the spot).
• Manual: Using this option, you tell VUE that you would like to manually edit the settings
of the VUE light that is used at render time. This is especially useful when the automatic
matching doesn’t give you the results you’re expecting, or if you want to fine tune the
matching. To edit the light, use the Edit button, and edit the light as you would do for
any other VUE light, using the standard Object Properties dialog. When using this option,
only the position and orientation of the light will still be matched. This means that if
you move the native light in the native scene, the corresponding VUE light will be moved
accordingly.
• Match VUE Sun to Selected Light: when this option is checked, the VUE plugin will match
any native light to the VUE sun. It’s position and orientation will be read and set to the
VUE sun.
• Match VUE Sun with existing native Sun object: when this option is checked, then the
VUE plugin will try to match an existing native sun object. This means that if your native
scene contains a sun object, then its position and orientation will be read and set to the
VUE sun.
It will also have two important effects, to avoid conflicts between the VUE proxy light and
the original native sun light.
– The VUE sun proxy object will be created in the target application but it won’t illu-
minate native objects or cast any shadows in the native scene, because the native
scene is already illuminated by its own sun.
– The native sun object will be ignored at render time, when creating the temporary
lights in the VUE scene that recreates the native scene lights. Please refer to the
Rendering section to learn more about temporary lights created at render.
Using this option, you can continue using your native sun without having to tweak your scene
for VUE; everything will be handled by the plugin. Of course, if you move the proxy object rep-
resenting the VUE sun light, the change will be ignored and the proxy object will go back to its
original location the next time the scene is updated (please refer to this section to know more
about scene updates).

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VUE Lights

Integration Plugin Light Options dialog – VUE Lights

On this tab, you will see a list of all the VUE lights detected in the VUE scene. Each light will
be displayed with its name, its type (Point light, Spot light, etc.), and the current mode for this
light.

When you select a light in the list, you can change the current mode by using the radio buttons
in the bottom of the dialog. The available modes are:
• Ignore: when this option is selected, the selected VUE light will be ignored by the inte-
gration plug-in. No native light will be created in the native scene. When changing from
another mode to this one, the native light that was present in the native scene is deleted.
When changing from this mode to another, the native light is re-created in the native
scene, with default settings.
• Automatic (which is the default mode): the selected VUE light has a corresponding na-
tive light created in the native scene. This means that if you have a red spot light placed
in your VUE scene, the integration plug-in will create a corresponding red spot light at the
same position and orientation when loading the scene. The integration plug-in will try
to match it as close as possible to the VUE light, and will use it to illuminates the native
scene (which will make your native elements appear red if placed under the spot).
• Manual: Using this option, you tell the integration plug-in that you would like to manually
edit the settings of the native light. This is especially useful when the automatic matching
doesn’t give you the results you’re expecting, or if you want to fine tune the matching. To
edit the native light, just use the regular tools of the host application. When using this
option, only the position and orientation of the light will still be matched.

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VUE Scene Options Dialog

VUE Scene Options dialog

This dialog is for setting up a scene with a spherical terrain, either complete planets or partial
curved terrains. These properties should probably not be checked as a scene default. This
dialog is accessed from the VUE Options Dialog.

Spherical scene
• Enable spherical scene: this will enable the spherical scene properties in the scene you
are currently working on.
• Use planetary terrains: this will reform all of the infinite planes currently in your scene
(and any you might add) into a spherical shape.
• Scene radius: this sets the size of the terrain you are creating.

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• Move native objects onto the surface: this places any native objects directly onto the
terrain surface.

Sea Level
• Altitude: this sets the default for the water plane in your scene. This default affects all of
the scenes you create using a water plane.
• Show sea level in 3D Views: this gives you a visible plane in your views as a reference. A
Sea level plane will show in the World Browser, but be invisible in renders.
• Show sea in renders: this will give you a visible water plane and it will show in the World
Browser as Sea.
If you don’t check either option, sea level is still present and its value is defined by default as
z=0, or whatever value you give in on this screen.

VUE Render Options Dialog

This dialog is accessed:

• With the Render | Render Options menu command,
• From the VUE Options dialog, using the Edit... button in the Render Quality section.
This dialog is similar to the standalone Render Options dialog, with the following changes:
• General render options like image size, aspect-ratio, render area, tile rendering, etc. are
not present because these options are set in the target application and have no meaning
in the case of the integration plugin.
• Options about which renderer to use (standalone, RenderCows, etc.) are obviously not
present, and the same applies for the renderer destination (render in main view, etc.).
• The OpenGL render quality preset is not available because the VUE render engine is not
compatible with this render preset.
• Object anti-aliasing options are removed because the target renderer is in charge of ob-
ject anti-aliasing. Texture anti-aliasing is still performed by the VUE renderer on VUE
objects so these options are still available.
• If you enable G-Buffer and/or Multi-Pass rendering, VUE will compute additional infor-
mation. In order to save this information to a file, use the Save to disk option. If this
option is not selected, you will not be able to see the computed information (unlike in
the standalone VUE application where you can display the computed passes in the VUE
interface). While this information is generated, it is not anti-aliased when rendered in the
host application. If anti-aliasing is needed, it is recommended that you render using VUE
standalone. Please turn here for full details on Multi-Pass & G-Buffer options.

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VUE Integration Plugins

VUE will manage all creation, deletion, and synchronization required to edit/render the VUE
scene along with your native scene. The plug-in will register several plug-in types when loaded:
an object plug-in, a shader plug-in, a scene plug-in, etc. These plug-in types are written specif-
ically to be used internally by the VUE integration plug-in. You may encounter these plug-in
types in the target application interface (other than in the VUE menu), but you should never
attempt to create these objects or shaders directly. If you do so, an error message telling you
to use the VUE menu will be displayed, but you may also experience crashes in the worst cases.

VUE is not an import/export plug-in, so the entire VUE scene won’t be converted into native
format. Therefore, the plug-in is required during all editing and rendering operations. For the
same reason, you can’t network render a scene containing VUE content if VUE (or a VUE Ren-
derNode – see here) is not installed on all the computers participating in the render process (as
with any other plug-in).

In order to integrate into the target application, VUE uses commands, dialogs, and proxy objects
to let you specify how you want to edit your scene. VUE also creates toolbars and icons. All
VUE commands can be accessed through icons in the host application interface. Whenever we
reference a VUE command in this reference manual, you can also use the corresponding icon.

VUE Commands

The VUE commands are accessed through the VUE menu in the target application interface. All
actions you may want to perform on the VUE scene will be done through the use of this menu.
Most of the entries of this menu are directly taken from the main menu bar of the standalone
VUE application, so you should already be familiar with them if you’ve used the standalone
application.

You can also edit the VUE scene directly through the target application’s view ports, as explained
in the Proxy Objects section.

There are a few additional commands though, which are not found in the standalone version.
Below are listed these additional commands, or commands that behave in a slightly different
way than in the standalone:

In the File menu:

• New...: this will add a default VUE scene to your current project, letting you choose the
atmosphere you want to add. If no VUE Scene existed yet in your project, this default VUE
scene will just be added to the project (this scene only contains a VUE Camera, a Sun light

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and a Ground). If your project already contained a VUE Scene, the default VUE scene will
overwrite the previous scene. Warning: this action cannot be undone.
• Open...: this will let you choose an existing VUE scene to load in your current project. If
no VUE Scene existed yet in your project, the new VUE scene will be added to the project
(VUE will create objects and materials in your native scene to reflect the VUE scene). If the
VUE scene you are adding has multiple cameras defined, these cameras will be included
in this scene. If your project already contained a VUE Scene, the newly loaded scene will
overwrite the previous one. Warning: this action is not undoable.
• Merge...: the only difference with the Open command is that the newly loaded VUE scene
will be merged with the existing VUE Scene, if any, instead of simply overwriting it (it is
the same distinction as in VUE standalone). Here again, it will only affect the VUE part of
your project, and will not clear you current native scene. And here again, this command
is not undoable.
• Close: this will remove the VUE Scene from your project, if any. All VUE objects and ma-
terials will be removed, and if you save your project afterwards, you will lose them per-
manently. Here again, this command is not undoable.
• Export object/sky/scene: this will export the selected VUE object, the VUE sky or the
entire VUE scene. Keep in mind that EcoSystems do not export.
• Purge memory: this will automatically reorganize the system’s memory ensure mem-
ory defragmentation and cleaning up of any data that is not immediately required (for
instance, if you delete a very large object, this object stays in memory in case you decide
to undo this operation – by purging the memory, the object will be removed from RAM
and stored on disk, until it is completely removed when the delete operation goes out of
the undo list).
• Export Animation To VUE Scene: will open the Export Animation to VUE dialog. Please
refer to the corresponding section for more information.
• Open scene in Standalone VUE: it will save the current scene, and will open this scene in
the standalone application (launching it as a separate process). Please refer to the Where
is the VUE Interface? section.
• Reload scene from file: if you have edited the scene from the standalone application,
you can use this command to reload the scene file in the integration plugin. Please refer
to the Where is the VUE Interface? section.
• Options...: this command is present in the standalone but it opens a totally different
dialog in the case of the integration plugins. The VUE Options dialog is indeed the place
where you can set all the general VUE options. Please refer to the VUE Options Dialog
section below for more information.
In the Object menu:
• Edit Object Material...: this will open the Material Editor to edit the material of the cur-

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rently selected object. If the currently selected object contains several materials (ie. plants
or meshes), a dialog will open to let you select the material you want to edit.
• Object Properties: this will open the Object Properties panel of the selected object. This
panel lets you edit properties such as light color, camera focal, etc.
• Edit Object Graph: this opens the VUE Function Graph to display the graph for the se-
lected VUE object.
• Edit Wind on Plant: this opens the Wind Editor so that you can adjust wind amount on
the plant.
In the Windows menu (not present in the standalone)
• Show Material Summary: it will display the Material Summary of the scene. For more
information about the material summary, please refer to the corresponding section.
• Show World Browser: this option gives you easy access to the controls for the VUE scene’s
materials, bitmaps, and EcoSystems. An icon for this has also been added in the Toolbar
(for all applications except Lightwave). For more detailed information about the World
Browser, please refer here.
In the Maya UI menu (only present in the Maya plug-in):
• Restore grid and viewports: this option will restore the default settings of Maya view-
ports and grid size (please refer to the section below to know more).
• Load VUE shelf: This will add the VUE toolbar to the interface of Maya. This toolbar will
allow you to access the VUE commands directly from icons, without the need to use the
VUE menu.
Other commands act in the same way as in the standalone: for instance, if you select Object |
Create | Sphere it will obviously add a sphere to the scene.

Scene Display in Host Application Viewports

In order to allow the edition of large scenes, typically landscapes, the VUE plug-in can change
the viewport and grid settings of the host application scene. This behavior can be changed from
the VUE Options dialog. Before doing any operation, the integration plug-in will ask for your
confirmation (you can check the “don’t show this message again” checkbox in the confirmation
box if you don’t want to see it again).

Note:

In some cases, especially in the Maya application, in the case Maya was not exited normally
(either killed by user or a crash), the default values are not restored, and these modified values
will be used by Maya as default values.

You can use the Maya UI | Restore grid and viewports menu command to reset these settings.
You can also restore original values by deleting your Maya preference files, which are located
in your user folder (please refer to Maya documentation to know the exact location depending

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on the version of Maya and your operating system).

VUE Dialogs

Some commands will have a direct effect on the scene (like the creation of a primitive), others
will display a dialog: an Atmosphere Editor, an Options dialog, a Plant Editor, etc.

Unlike the standalone application, SOME dialogs opened in the integration plugin are modal,
which means you can’t keep these dialogs open while editing the scene. For instance, in the
standalone, it’s possible to change the current selected object while editing a material (result-
ing in the Material Editor switching to the material of this other object). This is not possible in
the integration plugin; you must first close the Material Editor, select another object, and then
open the Material Editor again.

Most of the editor dialogs (ie. Plant Editor, Terrain Editor, Material Editor, etc.) are amodal in
VUE, which means you can continue working on your native scene while these dialogs are still
open. When you validate the change in the editor by clicking on OK, the change will be instantly
reflected in the host application viewports.

In order to simplify your workflow, and because you will probably access the VUE menu com-
mands often, you should use the VUE Toolbars that are installed along with the plug-ins. You
should also consider using keyboard shortcuts to the most often used commands.

Depending on the possible customization of the target application, you should be able to cre-
ate such keyboard shortcuts for separate entries in the VUE menu. Please refer to your target
application documentation to see how to do such a thing.

Proxy Objects

The integration of the VUE scene in the target application is accomplished with the help of what
we refer to as proxy objects. Proxy objects are standard native objects created by the VUE inte-
gration plugin to represent the VUE objects, and to allow users to transform (move/rotate/scale)
VUE objects directly from the target application interface.

Depending on the type of the VUE object, different proxy objects will be used:
• VUE cameras: in this case, a native camera will be used.
• VUE lights: a native light with a matching type (point light, spot light, etc.) will be used.
• VUE objects: a native polygonal object will be used. The geometry will be read from
the VUE object and this geometry will be set in the proxy object mesh. In the case of
procedural terrain or plants, an approximate version of the geometry will be used (the

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same that is used in the standalone VUE application view ports).

• EcoSystems are not handled through the proxy objects mechanism.:
As it’s a central concept of VUE, proxy objects are further explained in the following section.

VUE Proxy Objects

In order to understand the concept of proxy objects, we will first take a look at an example of a
session with VUE.

Scene Loading Example

Let’s say you created a VUE scene in the standalone VUE application. This scene contains a
procedural terrain, 2 plum trees, a camera, and the Sun light.

When you open this scene with the integration plugin, the plugin will first create a VUE scene
object, which will act as the “root” of the VUE scene in the native scene. It will then create a
proxy object for every object in the VUE scene:
• A proxy object for the terrain: a native polygonal object. The geometry of this polygonal
object will represent the terrain. A native material will be created and assigned to this
object, with a color matching the color of the VUE material applied to the terrain.
• A proxy object for each of the plum trees: two native polygonal objects. The geometry
of the polygonal objects will represent each of the trees. A single native material will be
created (plants of the same species have the same material but different geometry), with
texture maps for the leaves and the trunk. This material will be assigned to both proxy
objects.
• A proxy for the camera: a native camera. The camera properties will be set according to
the properties of the VUE camera.
• A proxy for the sun light: a native directional light. Light color and other properties will
be set according to the properties of the VUE sun and atmosphere.
When the plugin has finished creating these proxy objects, you will see in the view ports of the
target application your whole scene: the native objects and the newly created proxy objects,
giving you a fairly good representation of how your scene will look when rendered.

Several important notes about proxy objects:

• Proxy objects for VUE objects other than cameras or lights are flagged as non-renderable
in the target application: they will therefore be ignored by the native renderer, avoiding
a conflict with the VUE renderer. If you manually reset this option, then proxy objects
will be rendered by the native renderer at the same position as the corresponding VUE
objects, leading to strange effects.
• Proxy lights will affect the native objects, and will cast shadows depending on the “cast
shadows” property of the corresponding VUE light.

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• you should never attempt to create such proxy objects by yourself (the same is true for
the volumetric shader used by VUE).

VUE Splines in a Host Application

There is no VUE menu command to create a spline in the host application. In most applications,
native splines can be used exactly as VUE splines. They are converted internally and appear in
the VUE World Browser in a “native splines” layer – so, you can then double-click them to add
EcoSystems, terrain effects or geometry exactly like in VUE Standalone. The edition of the spline
itself, however, must be performed directly in the host, with native tools.

If you load an existing VUE scene which already holds splines, the latter splines will be converted
into native splines and will appear in the views. They can be manipulated with native tools, and
the modifications will affect the initial VUE spline, and thus, will have an impact on the Terrain,
EcoSystem or Geometry effect(s).

Due to limitations in LightWave’s SDK, this feature is not implemented in LightWave.

Editing the VUE Elements

Now, let’s say you’re not happy with the position of one of the plum trees. You select the plum
tree proxy object in the target application’s view port and with the native transformation gizmos
you move the object to a different place. If you render the scene, the integration plugin will
detect that the plum tree has moved and it will update the VUE scene accordingly, rendering
the plum tree at its new location.

Proxy objects can indeed be freely edited or used with the target application tools:
• Transformation gizmos,
• Align tools,
• Scripts (MEL, MaxScript, JScript, VBScript, Python, etc.).
Note:

In Cinema4D, you must be in Object Tool mode in order to resize VUE elements. If you are in
Model Tool mode, the resize gizmo will have no effect on the VUE elements.

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Special Case for Lights and Cameras

You should not edit the type of the proxy lights (direction, point, etc.) or proxy cameras (free,
target, etc.) created by the integration plugin.

Additionally, you should not edit light or camera settings directly from the host application. You
should instead use the Object | Object Properties... menu command. This command will open
the Object Properties dialog of the selected object, letting you making your changes. When
closing the dialog, the changes you’ve made to the object will be reflected on the corresponding
proxy object.

Here is the list of parameters set in the proxy lights and cameras:
• Light position and orientation,
• Light color,
• Light Shadow (on or off),
• Spot Light cone angle,
• Camera position and orientation,
• Camera field of view and target point (focus point).
If some parameters in the host application are not set by the plugin, you can freely change them
in the host application. For instance, the type of shadows is not set by the plugin, so you can
select your preferred method (raytracing, shadow map, etc.).

You will probably notice a difference between the light color set in VUE and the light color ap-
plied to the light proxy. This is because the light color of a proxy is actually computed using
several different parameters to create the final color that best matches the corresponding VUE
light. These parameters include:
• The actual color of the VUE light,
• The VUE atmosphere Color shift setting if used for this light,
• The VUE atmosphere Global Light Balance,
• A decay that is applied near horizon with spectral atmospheres.
If you want to freely edit the native light settings without changing the VUE light ones, you
should refer to the Native Lights Options dialog described later in this document. This dialog
let you specify the way the integration plug-in translates the settings of lights between the two
applications.

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Animating Your VUE Elements

Proxy objects can also be freely animated using the animation tools in the target application:
ie. you can create a keyframe for the position, rotation or scale of a proxy object. You can for
instance select the proxy object of the VUE sun light and animate it with the timeline or with a
script.

Animation is entirely managed by the host application, which means keyframes are stored in
the native scene, and not in the VUE scene. If you want the animation to be stored in the VUE
scene, you can use the File | Export Animation To VUE Scene.

Because each application use its own interpolation system, exporting animation from one ap-
plication to another is done using a keyframe per frame, to ensure the animation of your object
is not modified by a different interpolation.

For the same reason, when you load a VUE scene containing animated objects, proxy objects
will be animated using a keyframe per frame.

Further Edition of the VUE Scene

If you want to create another tree in your scene, simply select the Edit | Create | Load Plant
Species... command in the VUE menu. A tree will be added to the VUE scene, and the VUE
plugin will create a new proxy object for this tree.

Note:

In order to properly duplicate a VUE proxy object, you need to use the commands from the VUE
menu (VUE

If you use the host application commands (by using the host application’s own menus, or by
simply pressing the copy/paste shortcut keys), this will result in an undefined behavior con-
cerning the newly created object.

Explanation: the newly created object will be a regular native object, it won’t be managed by
VUE or present in the VUE scene. So, VUE won’t render it. So why does the native renderer
ignore it as well? Proxy objects have a ignore from render flag enabled (to avoid both renderers
from rendering it) which is copied into the duplicate object, which explains why this object is
also ignored from native renderer.

You can remove a VUE object from the scene by selecting it and deleting it directly in the target
application. The deletion of the object will be detected by the plugin, which will remove the
corresponding object from the VUE scene.

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Proxy objects’ geometry can be used for a variety of tasks:

• To drop a native object onto their surface,
• To grow some native hair/fur on VUE objects, etc.
Because EcoSystems are not handled through the proxy objects mechanism, this means that
it’s not possible to select an EcoSystem instance or use the geometry of an instance. It’s also
not possible to access the individual instances in the target application.

Display of the Proxy Objects

Proxy objects are displayed natively by the application. This means that whichever display
mode you’re choosing for the application (OpenGL, Direct3D, Heidi, etc.) or for a view port
(wire frame, smooth, flat, etc.), the display of the VUE object will match the display of other na-
tive objects. It also means that the target application is entirely responsible for the display of
the VUE objects, without the expense of calling a plugin to display its objects.

In order to get the best looking VUE objects, you should enable transparency (especially for
SolidGrowth plants) and advanced OpenGL/Direct3D effects.

Below are listed options you should enable to get the best of each target application when using
Integration Plugin.

3DS Max
VUE is fully compatible with Direct3D and OpenGL, so you can keep your preferred engine (Di-
rect3D generally offers best performance in 3DS Max).

Cinema4D
It is suggested to enable the Enhanced OpenGL option in the Display menu of the view ports.
This will especially enable transparency.

LightWave
No option is required to enable the correct display of VUE objects. But it’s possible your VUE
scene is too small in LightWave when loading or creating a VUE scene. In such case, you should
open LightWave display options and change the grid size. You can also disable the Fixed Near
Clip Distance option.

Maya
It is suggested to enable the Shading | Hardware Texturing option of the view port to enable
the display of texture maps (color and transparency).

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Editing Proxy Objects

Geometry of the proxy objects can be edited in the target application but it has no effect on the
“real” geometry stored in the VUE scene. If you want to edit the geometry of terrains, plants
or texts, you can select the Object |Edit Object VUE command, which will display the appro-
priate Object Editor. When closing the editor, the geometry of the proxy object will be updated
according to the changes you made.

You can still edit the geometry of the proxy object in the target application (by moving the ver-
tices or applying a bend modified for instance) for specific reasons, but some VUE actions (like
changing from Low quality to High quality meshes, global scale change, etc.) may trigger a ge-
ometry update and therefore overwrite your changes. Furthermore, this kind of edition directly
on the proxy object (without using the VUE menu) violates the principle of letting the UE plugin
handle the whole life of the proxy objects; you should be really careful doing this.

Also, you can edit the materials applied to the proxy objects, but this won’t have any effect on
the VUE scene: changing the color of an object is only possible through the VUE menu: Change
Object Material or Edit Object Material entries.

Just like for the geometry, you can still edit the native material manually. This is less critical
than for the geometry so you should not experience problems changing a texture map or a
color in the material. But, because VUE may want to access the material after its creation (even
if you modified it), you should never delete the material manually.

It’s important that you keep in mind what you can do, and what you cannot do with proxy ob-
jects:

You can:
• Edit a proxy object transformation matrix (position/orientation/scale),
• Edit proxy light properties,
• Edit proxy camera properties.
You shouldn’t:
• Edit proxy object geometry,
• Edit proxy object materials.

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Scene Updates

The target application only gives the control to the VUE plugin when specific events are re-
ceived.

These events are:

• An VUE menu command,
• When a proxy object is deleted (depending on the versions),
• At various stages of a scene loading or saving,
• At various stages of a render.
Apart from these events, the VUE plugin will never get the control of the native scene. And, more
importantly, the VUE plugin can never decide on its own to act on the native scene.

Before transferring the control back to the application, VUE updates the native scene with any
changes that should occur during the processing of the event. These scene updates are there-
fore not automatic; they are always triggered by a user event.

This behavior has an important side-effect: during normal edition of the native scene, such
scene updates will never occur. For instance, if you move a proxy object, the plugin will only
detect the scene has changed during the next VUE action (the beginning of a render session,
a VUE menu command, etc.). For this reason, a few effects may require you to trigger such an
action before showing up, to force a scene update.

Indirect effects fall into this category: changing a property “A” on object 1 has an effect on prop-
erty “B” of object 2 (object 1 and 2 can be the same). In the standalone application, any change
on property “A” automatically triggers an update of the property “B”. For instance, if you move
the VUE sun close to the horizon in a spectral atmosphere, the sun light color will change (from
very bright white at noon to dark red/brown at dusk). In the integration plugin, if you move the
proxy object standing for the VUE sun light close to the horizon, its color won’t change. It’s only
after a scene update that the color will be updated.

It can be disturbing at first, but it has no real impact on the scene edition. In the case of the
previous example – the sun proxy – if you haven’t forced a scene update after moving the sun,
the color would still have been updated if you have launched a render (because initializing a
render falls into the category of events triggering an update of the scene). For this reason, you
should never have to force a scene update (if you really want to, you can still open the VUE
Options dialog and close it; it won’t have any effect on the scene apart from triggering a scene
update).

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VUE Integration Plugins EcoSystem Painter

It’s possible to paint EcoSystems directly in the view ports of 3DS Max and Cinema 4D. At the
time of writing, painting is not yet supported in Maya or LightWave.

During the painting session, you can freely paint on the surface of every object in your scene,
including native objects. You can also paint in all views: orthogonal, perspective, or camera
views.

Painting EcoSystems is done by the use of a specific painting tool plugin. During normal edition
of a scene, this tool is disabled. Once you start a painting session, this tool becomes enabled
and you can start painting in the view ports. There are two ways to start a painting session: you
can paint an EcoSystem material or you can paint the (unique) global EcoSystem.

When editing an EcoSystem material using the Material Editor, clicking on the Paint button will
activate the painter tool and open the EcoSystem Painter dialog.

You can also paint the global EcoSystem: to do this, simply select the Edit |Paint EcoSystem
menu entry.

During a painting session, you can freely move around the objects, enlarge a view port, etc. All
the actions done through the use of the left mouse button are generally not possible (because
painting is done this way) whereas actions using other buttons are still possible.

While painting, just like in the standalone version, the EcoSystem Painter dialog will remain
visible, to let you adjust the painting settings on the fly. This dialog is used to add species to
the EcoSystem, or to set general options. You can for instance select if you want to paint only
on the underlying object or on the whole scene (including native objects).

Once you have finished painting (when stopping the painting session), if you want to continue
painting, you’ll have to re-activate the painter tool by following the above steps.

The VUE EcoSystem Painter tool is implemented differently in each supporting application. Here
is how to use it once it’s activated in each application.

Painting EcoSystems in 3DS Max

3DS Max Painting tools work better if you look at the objects from a reasonable distance. If you
are too close to an object (especially if it’s a large object), you may not be able to paint on it at
all due to a limitation in the 3DS Max Painting system; A good rule to follow when you want to
paint on an object is to have it entirely visible in the view port.

On the EcoSystem Painter screen, the icon ( ) next to the Airbrush option, to enable/disable

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the painting on selected native objects because sometimes complex geometries can slow down
the painting. When it is enabled, the user can select which objects he wants to be processed in
the core of 3DS Max, in order to accelerate the painting.

Painting EcoSystems in Cinema4D

Select the Painter menu entry to activate the painter tools.

Notes about Painting

Depending on the implementation of the painter tool in each of the supporting applications, it
may not be possible to paint on some objects. In this case, try the following:
• Duplicate the object so you have a backup of your object,
• Convert the clones into polygonal objects,
• Paint your EcoSystem onto these objects,
• Delete the clones or hide them from render if you want to keep them for later re-use.
This may or may not be possible to convert the objects to polygonal objects. Please refer to the
documentation of your target application to get more information on this operation.

Rendering with VUE Integration Plug­

ins

Rendering of the VUE scene elements is done through the use of a single volumetric shader
added to the native scene. Depending on the target application, this volumetric shader is either
applied to the cameras, to the whole scene/environment, or to a volume object.

The VUE volumetric shader is responsible for rendering VUE objects (and EcoSystems), the VUE
atmosphere, and the VUE sky in a single pass. It is possible to enable these elements indepen-
dently in the VUE Options dialog.

The rendering process with VUE is a constant communication between the native renderer and
the VUE Rendering Engine. Thus, VUE objects will cast shadows onto native objects; native
objects will reflect VUE objects, etc.

Once your VUE scene is loaded, you can render it without any additional setups (other than
selecting a VUE-compatible renderer). Some options (like turning ray tracing on) are automati-
cally set when starting a render.

General options such as image size, output file, etc. are entirely controlled by the native ren-
derer, so you don’t need to change your regular workflow.

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If you selected the Adjust native renderer settings to match VUE scene option in the VUE
Options dialog, the image size will be based on the image size set in the VUE scene, so you
won’t have to change it manually after loading a VUE scene.

If you’re trying to render with a renderer that is not compatible with VUE, you will either get an
error message from the renderer, or the VUE scene won’t be rendered without notice. If you’re
using a compatible renderer, but you’re using a non-activated version of VUE, the VUE scene
will be rendered with a watermark applied to the image.

Render Quality

The main difference between a render in the standalone VUE application and in the integration
plugin is that primary rays are cast by the native renderer. This means that the anti-aliasing
is entirely handled by the native renderer, and not at all by VUE. This is why changing the ren-
der mode used by VUE will have less influence in the integration plugin than for a standalone
render.

Sampling quality of the native renderer will affect primary rays that hit VUE objects (they’re
cast from the camera by the native renderer), but it won’t affect sub-rays (reflections, refrac-
tions, shadows) cast by VUE objects. These sub-rays are cast by VUE, so their sampling quality
depends on the VUE render quality.

If aliasing appears on an object, and you would like to increase the sampling quality to avoid it,
keep in mind the following:

VUE objects are always shaded by VUE, and native objects are always shaded by the native
renderer.

So:
• If aliasing appears on the shading of a VUE object, increase the VUE renderer sampling
quality by selecting a higher quality mode,
• If aliasing appears on the shading of a native object, increase the native renderer sam-
pling quality.
If aliasing appears on a shadow, don’t look for the object that’s casting it. You only need to
look at the actual object that’s being shaded (the object which receives the shadow). This is
the same for reflections and refractions.

We’re talking here about aliasing on the shading of the objects, not on the edges of the object. If
you want to reduce edge aliasing, then you need to increase the sampling quality of the native
renderer.

To review, if you want to generate a draft render:

• Use a draft preset in the native renderer,

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• Use a draft preset in the VUE renderer to avoid casting lots of sub-rays or computing ad-
vanced effects.
If you want to generate a final render:
• Use a high quality preset in the native renderer to increase object anti-aliasing and com-
pute advanced effects,
• Use a high quality preset in the VUE renderer, to increase the quality of texture anti-aliasing
and advanced effects.
To get consistent results, you should therefore leave the automatic render quality option en-
abled in the Integration Plugin options dialog. The preset of the VUE renderer will be based on
the current settings of the native renderer.

G­Buffer and Multi­Pass

On top of the actual picture being rendered by the native renderer, VUE Integration Plugin can
compute and save additional information about the VUE objects being rendered, using Multi-
Pass and G-Buffer rendering. You can use the Multi-Pass and G-Buffer Options dialog (accessible
from the Render Options dialog) to select which additional information you would like to gen-
erate.

Several notes:
• Additional information about native objects can’t be included this way, because the VUE
Render Engine only renders VUE objects.
• Unlike in the standalone VUE application, these passes can’t be anti-aliased. Because the
integration plugin has no control of the order a render is actually performed, the plugin
would have to keep a several gigabytes buffer in memory to be able to anti-alias each
channel.

Post­Processing

VUE is not compatible with VUE’s post-processor or the native renderer’s post-process pass.

This means that:

• VUE objects that use post process (like objects with a glowing material) won’t be rendered
correctly (the object will be rendered without glow in this case),
• VUE Post-Processing Effects won’t be applied to an image rendered with VUE,
• Native Post-Processing Effects might not work on VUE objects, depending on the actions
performed by these post-process passes.
There are two exceptions:
• The natural film response filter applied to each pixel can be enabled,

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• The lens flare of VUE lights can be computed.

Both options are available in the VUE Options dialog.

Advanced Rendering Effects

Global Illumination
Global Illumination is computed by both renderers:
• The native renderer computes the Global Illumination on the native objects, using the
information of the entire scene. VUE objects contribute to the global illumination of the
scene as any other native object, except if you checked the Disconnect VUE from na-
tive renderer final gather option in the VUE Options dialog. If you haven’t checked this
option, you can scale the contribution of the VUE objects onto native renderer Global
Illumination from the VUE Options dialog.
• VUE’s renderer computes the Global Illumination on the VUE objects, casting global illu-
mination rays into the entire scene. Native objects contribute to the global illumination,
except if you checked the Disconnect native scene from VUE final gather option in the
VUE Options dialog. If you haven’t checked this option, you can scale the contribution of
the native objects onto VUE Global Illumination from the VUE Options dialog.
Therefore, if you want to use Global Illumination for the entire scene, you need to turn on the
Global Illumination in both renderers. In the native renderer, this is done the usual way. In VUE,
Global Illumination is specific to the atmosphere, so if the scene you loaded contains a Global
Illumination atmosphere, Global Illumination will be computed during render. You can edit the
atmosphere settings using the Atmosphere Editor (see here).

The VUE render engine will generally compute its prepass before the native renderer begins
to render the image. Because shader plug-ins generally don’t have a way to display images
directly in the native renderer frame buffer, this (lengthy) operation has no feedback. If possible,
the plug-in will display progress information about the prepass computation. In the V-Ray plug-
in, the plug-in has access to the frame buffer, and you will see the prepass computation as you
would in the VUE standalone.

Saving Global Illumination Prepass for Reuse

If you will be rendering over a network using RenderNodes, it is possible to set the RenderNode
to only render the GI prepass and save it in order to reuse it for further render jobs. See here for
rendering commands and more information.

Motion Blur
VUE is compatible with native Ray-Traced Motion Blur. This means Motion Blur on VUE objects
works if it is performed by casting additional rays during render. It can therefore greatly in-
crease the rendering time. Because it is not possible for VUE to pass post-processing informa-

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tion up to the native renderer, VUE objects cannot be computed during the Post-Processing
pass, so native Scanline Motion Blur or native Image Motion Blur (also known as 2D Motion
Blur) will not work on VUE objects.

If you activate Ray-traced Motion Blur in the native renderer, VUE objects, as well as VUE shad-
ows and reflections, will automatically display motion blur. Motion Blur of the VUE scene can-
not be enabled on a per object basis.

Motion Blur with 3DS Max

In order for the VUE render engine to initialize Motion Blur correctly, motion blur needs to be
enabled for the VUE scene object (in the Object Properties).

If you don’t want to compute Motion Blur on the whole scene, you can do the following:
• Disable Motion Blur for the VUE Scene object (so Motion Blur isn’t computed for VUE ob-
jects)
• Disable Motion Blur for the rendering camera (so Motion Blur isn’t computed for the VUE
sky)
• Enable Motion Blur (object Motion Blur) for the Max objects you want to be blurred.

Motion Blur with Cinema 4D

In C4D, motion blur is applied by using the Scene Motion Blur effect in the C4D render settings.
It will render several passes, with a time increment, and will then blend all the passes into a
final image, therefore creating some blur on moving objects.

Motion Blur Settings in Cinema 4D

If you want to add motion blur to renders in Cinema 4D, the setting, which is Scene Motion
Blur, is found in the Cinema 4D Render Settings dialog. Look for the Effects setting (in version
10, it is found under Effects, the Post Effects droplist. In version 11, it is found under General,
the Effects button). It will render several passes, with a time increment, and will then blend all
the passes into a final image, therefore creating some blur on moving objects.

Depth of Field
VUE is compatible with the native renderer’s Depth of Field option. You can enable it in the
Render options and/or in the camera parameters, depending on the application. Depth of Field
will be applied to both VUE and native objects.

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Specific Render Settings

Some specific render options have to be activated in some host applications, depending on
their version.

LightWave 2018
To render VUE elements correctly in LightWave 2018, you need to check the option Use Legacy
Volumetrics in LightWave’s Render Properties panel:

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LightWave 2018’s Render Properties

Note that a scene created in a prior version of LightWave will automatically have this option.

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Saving Your Work with VUE Integra­

tion Plugins

Information about the VUE scene (render options, position of the proxy object in the native
scene, etc.) will be saved along with the file. Please note that unless you selected the option
to incorporate the VUE scene inside the target application scene (see the VUE Options dialog),
only the path to the file is saved, and not the actual scene.

This means that if you edit the VUE scene externally, it will be modified the next time you load
your native scene. But it also means that if you delete or move this VUE scene file, the applica-
tion will fail to find it when opening your native scene. You will then be prompted to browse to
the new location of the VUE scene file. If you re-save the native scene, it will now point to the
new location.

The same happens if you share the native scene with another user. For this reason, you should
always use the Incorporation option when sharing your scene.

Automatic Backup of 3DS Max

When using the AutoBackup feature of 3DS Max, VUE will automatically enable the incorporate
option for these backup files, whichever mode is selected for regular saving. This way, backup
scenes will contain all the necessary information to prevent anything from being lost.

Incorporating VUE Scenes inside Native Scenes

If you want to incorporate the VUE scene inside the native scene, you can use the correspond-
ing option from the VUE Options dialog. The VUE scene will be stored in a compressed format
and will contain all incorporated texture maps so you can easily share the native scene with
other users or computers. If you want to network render with plug-ins using Integration Plug-
ins render node licenses, you first need to save your scene with this option enabled. You can
then freely distribute the scene to the render nodes. When using BackBurner for 3DSMax, VUE
will automatically save the Max scene with the VUE scene incorporated, so you don’t have to
manually select this option.

Additional Content
If you use copy-protected content (such as content found on the Cornucopia3D™ store) in your
VUE scene, other users:
• Will be able to load your scene, but any copy-protected content they don’t own will be
replaced by dummy objects or materials,
• Will be able to load the entire scene if they acquired the same content for their seat.

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If you have several VUE licenses installed on one or more computers, each plug-in will be able
to load copy-protected content acquired for use in VUE.

Sharing Scenes with Other Users

In order to open a scene containing VUE information (either incorporated or not), a VUE plug-in
is required. If this plug-in is not installed in the application that’s trying to open the scene, an er-
ror message will appear. Non VUE elements, however, should still be read correctly (depending
on the standard behavior of the native application).

Export Animation to VUE

This dialog is accessed through the File | Export Animation To VUE menu command. It is used
to export the animation information of all the proxy objects to the VUE scene. This reads the
transformation information of the proxies for each frame of the animation and sets the trans-
formation information in the VUE scene (as keyframes).

It is especially useful in the following case:

• You have setup an animation on a proxy object using the integration plugin, you want to
share your VUE scene with another user, and you want this scene to integrate the com-
plete animation on the corresponding VUE object.
The dialog consists of three editable fields:
• Frame Start (default to 0): set the start of the animation.
• Frame End (default to 100): set the end of the animation.
• Frame Step (default to 1): set the step of the animation.
For example, if you set Frame Start to 10, Frame End to 20 and Frame Step to 5, and click OK,
the VUE plugin will perform the following:
• It will set the current time to frame 10,
• It will read the transformation information of all the proxy objects present in the native
scene. It will set a keyframe in VUE for the corresponding object at the corresponding
time.
• It will do the previous step for frame 15, and then for frame 20.
A message will appear at the end of the processing to let you know the result of the operation.

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Converting VUE Objects into Native Ob­

jects

VUE objects (including EcoSystems) can be converted into native objects of the host applica-
tions.

This reduces the dependency on the VUE Integration Plugins (still useful for network rendering),
and enables the edition of converted objects with your 3D host application’s tools.

This feature is available in the VUE Integration Plugins for 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema 4D.

Selecting and converting objects

There are 2 similar methods:

• Select the VUE object(s) directly in the host application viewports, then select the menu
command VUE > Object > Convert to XXX Object
• Or open the VUE World Browser (using the menu VUE > Windows > Show World Browser
) and select the object(s) you want to convert, then right-click and select Convert to XXX
Object. This method is necessary to select Global Ecosystems, which can’t be selected in
viewports.

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Convert Tool options

When you convert an object, VUE offers to customize geometry and material maps options. This
editor is quite similar to what you get for the Export option.

Geometry resolution
In the Export geometry frame, the resolution slider controls the quality of procedural objects
and effects (primitives like sphere/cube/plane/etc, meshes with displacement, splines with ge-
ometry, terrains...). It does not affect 3D meshes without displacement (whose quality can
be edited in the Mesh Options) and PlantFactory plants (whose resolution can only be con-
trolled from the Plant Editor using the parameter named “global mesh resolution” or the Re-
fine/Simplify buttons).

Material export mode

In the Export materials frame, the Export mode can have 3 values:
• Automatic:
This mode automatically selects one of the two modes below, depending on the objects
selected for conversion and their materials.
• Dump existing texture maps:

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This mode is the quickest way to export materials, since it simply uses the texture maps
(if any) defined in VUE materials and converts them to native materials. The underlying
3D meshes should also have UV coordinates that were defined in its original file, so that
this mode works properly.
• Bake to texture maps:
This mode is generally much slower since it implies calculations. It is used for procedural
VUE materials, and for objects that don’t have explicit UV coordinates (they are automat-
ically generated, and depend on the “mapping” parameter in VUE).

Native material types

The Convert Tool generates materials for the currently selected renderer in the render settings
of the host application (3ds Max, Maya or Cinema 4D). The supported renderers are Arnold and
V-Ray in the 3 applications, Redshift in Maya and C4D, Renderman in Maya, and ART in 3ds Max.
If legacy renderers like 3ds Max Scanline or Maya Software are used, then standard materials
are created but the number of supported effects is very limited.

Redshift Sprite node

When the Redshift renderer is used, an additional option appears to enable or disable the use
of sprite nodes for the alpha channel of materials. Sprite nodes are an efficient way to render
multiple objects with materials using an alpha/opacity map, like the leaves of a tree.

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Instance types

Arnold Instances
When you use Arnold as render engine, and convert a VUE object holding EcoSystem instances,
VUE can create Arnold proxies (called “procedurals” or “standin”, depending on the host ap-
plication) instead of standard native instances, in order to benefit from Arnold’s optimizations
in this mode, and be able to further edit/reuse the generated asset file(s). This is the default
option, but you can deactivate it and let VUE create standard instances instead if you prefer.

Note:

You must select Arnold as renderer before opening the Conversion dialog, or else the option is
not visible. It is not available if the converted object does not hold any EcoSystem.

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Cinema 4D Instances
In Cinema 4D, it is possible to convert VUE instances either to Render Instances or Multi-Instances
(no matter the renderer) or Arnold procedurals (only if the renderer is Arnold).

It is recommended to use Render Instances for small populations (with less than 10000 in-
stances, this number depends on the hardware of your computer), as big populations can make
the user interface too slow after the conversion. Render Instances appear in the Cinema 4D Ob-
ject Manager, they can be selected independently and are attached to their underlying parent
object (if there was one in the VUE scene, before converting).

Multi-Instances can be used for large populations, but they don’t appear in the Cinema 4D Ob-
ject Manager and can’t be selected. Also, they are not attached to their underlying parent ob-
ject.

After the conversion

Note:

Please do not close / remove the VUE scene from your host application scene before the conver-
sion is completely finished. If your host application’s material and object lists are still updating,
the conversion is not done yet. Once all converted objects and materials are visible and there
is no more refreshing happening, the process is finished. If you close the VUE scene too early
while the process is still running, you risk crashing the host application.

Once converted, the object appears among the native objects.

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Its EcoSystem instances are now also native objects, and are grouped with it (except with Cin-
ema 4D Multi-Instances, as explained in the previous section).

The object is no longer rendered by the VUE render engine: it behaves now like any other native
object and cannot be edited anymore with VUE tools. With VUE content converted to a native
format, you can now use any renderer you wish such as Arnold, V-Ray, Octane, Renderman etc.

Afterwards, you can choose to revert the object, so that it becomes a VUE object again. From
the World Browser, select the object (part of the Converted objects layer), right-click to open
the Object menu, and choose the Revert command.

Reverting will add the object back to the VUE scene, but it will not delete the converted native
object. So you might want to manually delete the converted host application object from the
host application scene, unless you want the object to be present twice (once as a VUE object
and once as a converted native object).

After reverting, you can convert the object again to a native host application object at any time.

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FBX Import

Objects

FBX supports have more than one object in a FBX file. So when you import a FBX file in VUE,
a group named after the FBX file name will be created containing all objects inside the FBX
file ( except for Cameras ). It is possible to import scenes with textured geometries, but other
objects (like lights, characters with skin and bones, morphers, etc...) are not supported. Some
materials may not be well imported (it can be caused when the exporter writes data specific to
its application only).

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Camera

When importing a FBX containing cameras, the cameras will be added to the camera list.

Camera Synchronization
Unfortunately, the camera settings such as Focal Length or Field of View do not mean the exact
same thing in each software (Maya, 3ds Max, C4d... ). To ensure you have the same image in
VUE and in another software, you must ensure the image resolution is the same on the software
before you export the FBX.

Example
If you want to make a 1024 × 1024 render on Maya and VUE from a Maya scene:
• Go to Maya, render settings, select 1024 × 1024 resolution.
• Go to file, export All.
• Import the generated FBX in VUE.
• Select the camera you imported.
• Go to render options, set resolution to 1024 × 1024, render.

Supported features from Maya

• Camera Scale is not supported in FBX.
• Film Offset is supported.
• Lens Squeeze ratio is supported.

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Nuke EXR Exporting

To use this feature, you need to activate the multipass rendering on the Render Options screen.
Select to use Multi-Pass Options and click the Edit button.

On this screen, select the items you wish to include in the render. Be sure to select the Several
Files option.

Compositing

There are two scripts inside the install files for your VUE. In folder Synchro Plugins/Nuke, you
can find VUE Compositing.n, a compositing script and VUE Relighting.nk, a relighting script
This script combines the rendering passes to recreate the image VUE create from the same data.

Just load the multipass EXR files and the “VUE Compositing.nk” script. You can then modify the
different contribution of each pass at your convenience.

Note:

there are passes that allow you to make masks on the different items so you can change the
contribution for one item without changing the others.

Relighting

The latest layers such as World Point Position allows the Nuke to recreate a 3D image of what
is seen on the EXR.

The script VUE Relighting.nk uses the relighting nodes from Nuke.

From the .exr file, it creates the 3d image with PositionToPoints node, adds a light and the Re-
lighting node.

You can then modify the light position in Nuke and the Image will reflect the changes.

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Tutorial

You can find a tutorial here.

VUE Integration Plugins EcoSystems

In Integration Plugin, the same ecosystems features as in the standalone version of VUE are
available, meaning that you can paint ecosystems or add ecosystem materials on objects from
the VUE scene, then add VUE objects, VUE/PlantFactory plants and VUE rocks into them. In ad-
dition, you can now create ecosystems materials on native objects (i.e. objects from the host
application) and add native objects into them or in painted ecosystems. This compatibility
with native objects is available in the plugins for Maya, 3ds Max and Cinema 4D, but not for
LightWave.

Ecosystems on and with native objects

It is now possible to add ecosystem populations on native objects from the host application
(not only on VUE objects). For this, select a native object, then click on the menu item: VUE >
Object > Populate Native Object (at the end of the sub-menu). The VUE Material Editor opens
with a material type automatically set to “EcoSystem/Particles”. Then you can add PlantFac-
tory or SolidGrowth plants, or native objects/proxies by following the instructions below.

Native objects and proxy files can now be added as items in the population of ecosystems.
• First, if you are in 3ds Max or Maya, make sure that V-Ray is selected. This information is
needed by Integration Plugin to prepare the instantiation of objects. If you change the
renderer after native objects have been added, you will have remove and re-add them to
ecosystem populations.
• To add a native object, click on the Add Item button below the ecosystem population list,
then select Add Object from [host] Scene... A small windows listing the native objects
opens. Select one object (or several by maintaining the Ctrl key pressed), then click on
OK to add the item(s) in the ecosystem.
• To add a native proxy file, click on the Add Item button below the ecosystem population
list, then select Add Proxy... A system browser opens, allowing the selection of .vrmesh
files. This feature is not available in Cinema 4D.

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Loading of Carbon Scatter scenes

The scenes created in 3dsMax, Maya and Cinema 4D using the Carbon Scatter plug-in can be
reloaded in these applications with the Integration Plugin.
• Native objects and proxy files will be rendered by the native renderer, like with Carbon
Scatter. However, PlantFactory and SolidGrowth plants (i.e. tpf/veg/csplt/csvez/csveg
files), as well as billboard trees (csbb files), will be rendered by the VUE renderer, which
produces better results for these plants (than results obtained in Carbon Scatter which
exported their 3D geometries and materials for the native renderers). It means that any
tweak made in the native materials for these plants will be lost, but will very probably
not be necessary anymore in the VUE materials of the plants.
• By default, when Carbon Scatter scenes are loaded in Integration Plugin, the rendering
of the VUE atmosphere and sky is disabled, in order to get a render close to the original
render obtained with Carbon Scatter. You can enable the VUE atmosphere and sky in VUE
> File > Options > Render Options.
For this reloading to work properly, it is important to :
• uninstall the Carbon Scatter plugin from host applications (either before or after installing
the Integration Plugin) otherwise there will be conflicts between them.
• in Maya, make sure that VUE_xStream.mll is loaded in the Plug-in Manager, accessible in
Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager.

Display quality of ecosystem instances

Per instance display quality and color
The display quality of ecosystem instances can now be controlled separately for each item in
the population list. For this, click on the down arrow icon on the line of an item in the ecosys-
tem population list, them move the mouse cursor over “Display Quality” and select either Box,
Point Cloud, Billboard or Geometry (this last quality is not available in all applications). It is
still possible to control this display quality globally from the Integration Plugin Options, which
affects all ecosystems in the scene.

It is also now possible to select a preview color for each item in the ecosystem population list,
by clicking on the colored square on a item line, which opens a dialog allowing the selection of
a new color.

Point­cloud display quality

This quality shows the vertices of the object/plant, and is faster than the Geometry quality. The
number of points displayed for a single instance varies between one point (if the instance is
very far from the camera) and the maximum number of point defined in the Integration Plugin
Options (if the object is close to the camera).

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Faster display of large populations

With the Box or Billboard display quality, all ecosystem instances are automatically merged
into a single large mesh in a background process and shown once it is finished to make the dis-
play faster (than when drawing each instance separately). It is beneficial for population larger
than 10000 instances. In older version of Integration Plugin, the maximum number of instances
displayed per ecosystem had to be very limited to keep a decent framerate (1000 was the de-
fault value). Now this maximum number can be greater (50000 is the new default value in new
scenes).

Proxy files
Export proxies
Native objects from host applications which are loaded in VUE ecosystems can be exported to
proxy files for the current renderer. The generated proxy files can be reloaded later in other
ecosystems.

For this, click on the down arrow icon next to the native object in the population list of the
ecosystem. Select the menu entry Proxy Options > Export Proxy. A window opens where the
destination file name can be defined. If the object is animated, you can also define the frame

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interval that should be exported in the proxy.

Assign native materials to proxies

Proxy files don’t contain any material. So after loading a proxy in a VUE ecosystem, you will
have to connect it to an existing native material from the host application.

For this, click on the down arrow icon next to the proxy in the population list of the ecosystem.
Select the menu entry Proxy Options > Replace Material. VUE opens two windows: a small
list of materials and the native Material Editor in 3ds Max or HyperShade in Maya.
• In the first window, select the first material listed (assigned by default after loading the
proxy).
• In the second window, select the native material you want to use.
• Then click the button Replace by selection from the first window.

In Maya, you can add several materials to the proxy by selecting the menu entry (new material)
in the small list. The addition will occur after clicking on the button Replace by selection. In
3ds Max, you have to create a Multi/Sub-Object material and connect it to the proxy using the

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method described in the previous paragraph.

You can access and edit the current material of a proxy by clicking on the down arrow icon
next to the proxy in the population list of the ecosystem, with the menu entry Proxy Options >
Edit Material. It opens the Material Editor in 3ds Max or Hypershade in Maya, by selecting the
material of the proxy.

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Network Rendering
This section will show you how to setup and use network rendering.

RenderCows vs. RenderNodes

There are two ways of handing network rendering in VUE: RenderCows and RenderNodes:
• RenderCows are controlled via the HyperVUE network rendering interface (see below).
They are easy to setup and manage, but can only be controlled via the HyperVUE inter-
face. You can install as many RenderCows as you want, on as many computers as you like.
However, with a VUE Creator license, you will only be able to render on 5 of these com-
puters simultaneously – whereas this number is unlimited with the Pro versions. Render-
Cows are a very cost-effective solution for setting up a small-scale VUE-dedicated render
farm.
• RenderNodes are more complicated to set up, but are a lot more flexible and can be inte-
grated into large render farm management systems. They are controlled solely by com-
mand line. RenderNodes are ideal for large production houses that have a render farm
that needs to handle jobs for different rendering platforms.

Description

HyperVUE™ is VUE’s network rendering system. Using HyperVUE™, you can create your own
Render Farm by distributing the rendering of your pictures or animations over a network of
computers. Each computer on your network will do its share of the work. That way, if you have,
for example, 3 computers (of equivalent power) on your network, the animation will render 3
times faster!

In order to take part in the rendering fun, each computer must receive a rendering node. The
render nodes in HyperVUE are called RenderCow™ (pun intended).

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HyperVUE™ Network Rendering Manager

HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager

The HyperVUE™ Network Rendering Manager is the control center that dispatches rendering jobs
to all the RenderCows on your network, and then collects the resulting images once they are
completed.

To enable and configure network rendering, select the External renderer, select the Network
icon and click the Edit button alongside it in the Render Options or Animation Render Options.
This opens HyperVUE so that you can set up your RenderCow network.

When you start HyperVUE, it will try to contact all the RenderCows that are referenced on your
network. If the RenderCow is running, it will appear in the list of available RenderCows.

Each RenderCow™ appears as a line in the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager. The line fea-
tures the name of the host computer running the RenderCow, as well as the current status of
the cow. If the RenderCow is available for rendering, it will be listed as ‘Idle...’. At the beginning
of each line is a checkbox that should be checked if the computer is to take part in the rendering
fun.

Initially, no RenderCows are referenced by your HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, so the
list should appear empty (except on macOS systems where RenderCows installed on other ma-
cOS systems will automatically be detected and added through the use of the Apple’s Ren-
dezVous™ technology). Please read on for details on how to add other RenderCows to your
HyperVUE™ Network Rendering manager.

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RenderCow™

RenderCow is the name of VUE’s stand-alone multi-processor rendering engine. A RenderCow

must be installed on each computer that is to participate in the network rendering.

Basically, the RenderCow spends its time waiting for an order from the HyperVUE Network Ren-
dering Manager. As soon as it receives an order to start rendering a picture, it does so and then
returns the completed render. The resulting picture is subsequently retrieved by the HyperVUE
Network Rendering Manager, and a new job is issued to the RenderCow.

Maximimum number of RenderCow

• VUE Professional and Enterprise: the number of nodes participating in the render is
unlimited with those licenses.
• VUE Creator: You can render with up to 5 RenderCows simultaneously.

Setting Up RenderCows

Installing a RenderCow

A RenderCow™ must be installed on each computer that is to take part in the network rendering.
To install a RenderCow on a computer, locate your downloaded installation files on your disk,
and double-click the ’Install VUE.app’ icon on a Mac or the ‘Setup.exe’ file on the PC. Follow
on-screen instructions to complete installation.

Note:

If you purchased a downloaded version, you can copy the entire installation files folder to a
shared network folder and access the RenderCow installation from each target computer. Or,
burn your installation folder to a DVD and use that to install the RenderCow program on your
networked machines.

If you get cryptic error messages the first time you launch the RenderCow, you will have to
change the port number (see below) and restart the RenderCow.

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Launching RenderCows at Boot

On the last screen of the RenderCow installer is an option to automatically launch the Render-
Cow at boot. It is recommended that you check this option so that the RenderCow will be auto-
matically loaded each time you reboot your computer. This will save you having to go around
your network to start each RenderCow manually. Besides, since very little resources are actually
used when the RenderCow is idle, there is no real down side in doing so. Also, because it runs
in the background and only uses extra CPU cycles that would otherwise be lost, the RenderCow
should have very little impact on overall system performance (even when rendering).

RenderCow Port Numbers

Setting the RenderCow’s Port Number

In order to communicate with the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, the RenderCow listens
to communications on a given port. By default, this is set to 5004. However, there can be cases
where another application is already using that port. If this is the case, you should change the
port number used by the RenderCow to a free value. This is done by picking the Settings | Port
Number command from the RenderCow menu and entering the new port number.

Announce RenderCow: select this option if you want the RenderCow to be automatically de-
tected by HyperVUE managers running on your network. Indicate the port number that is watched
by the HyperVUE manager (5591 by default).

Please note that each RenderCow can use a different port number.

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CPU Affinity

On machines with multiple processors, you can select how many processors/cores you would
like the RenderCow to use. This setting is accessed from the RenderCow menu (right-click on
the RenderCow in the taskbar and select Settings | Processor count). This setting is defaulted
to the number of processors you have on your machine, but can be changed to less, if you pre-
fer. This setting takes affect immediately. There is no need (on Windows machines), to go into
the Task Manager and change it there as well. The setting will be visible in the Task Manager,
however.

Installing a RenderCow on the Computer Run­

ning VUE

You can also install a RenderCow on the computer that is running the VUE program and the
HyperVUE manager. Simply reference the RenderCow as any other one in the HyperVUE Network
Rendering Manager.

Because the RenderCow runs in the background, it will not slow down the HyperVUE manager as
it manages the distribution of the rendering over your network. If the workload of the HyperVUE
manager is high, that cow may not be able to do much, though.

Rendering With HyperVue™

To access the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, go to the Render Options dialog, press
the Edit button alongside the Standalone renderer option and select Use HyperVUE network
manager. Click on the Edit button alongside that option, and the interface of the HyperVUE
Network Rendering Manager will appear (this is a separate application).

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Configuring HyperVUE™

Adding a RenderCow to HyperVUE

Before you can start network rendering, you must first reference all the RenderCows running on
your network. To add a specific RenderCow to the list of available rendering nodes, press the
Add button. A dialog appears prompting you to identify the rendering node either by entering
the host name of the computer, or its IP address. The Port number should match that used by
the RenderCow. Unless you had to modify the value because of conflicting uses of the default
port number, you should leave this untouched.

Make sure the host is booted and the RenderCow is running, then press OK. After a short wait,
the new host should appear in the list of available RenderCows, together with its current status.
If the RenderCow cannot be contacted for any reason, nothing will be added to the list. One of
the typical reasons that the RenderCow cannot be contacted is if you have a Firewall blocking
access (on either end). If this is the case, you should contact your system administrator so he
can allow connections of VUE and RenderCows to your local area network on the port numbers
you selected for the RenderCows (see RenderCow Port Numbers above).

If you check the Auto discover RenderCows option, HyperVUE will automatically scan your net-
work on the indicated Port number, to identify and add any new RenderCows to the HyperVUE
Network Rendering Manager as soon as they become available. This scanning continues while
a render is in progress, so new cows can be put to work as soon as they are powered up. You can
change the port number at any time, in case you installed your cows on different port numbers
(this is a bad idea).

You can remove a RenderCow from the list by highlighting it and pressing Remove. If you just
want to temporarily stop a RenderCow, click Stop.

Press Select all to select all RenderCows in the list. Press Deselect all to deselect all Render-
Cows.

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The list of RenderCows is stored when you close the HyperVUE dialog, and automatically re-
stored next time you open it. Next time you open the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, it
will contact all the referenced RenderCows. Only those that could be contacted will appear in
the list, together with their current status.

You can save your list of nodes in a standalone file for future use: press the Save nodes to save
the list of RenderCows to disk. Press Load nodes to load an existing RenderCow node list.

When rendering, you can press the Minimize button to minimize the application.

Putting RenderCows to Work

Before you start rendering, you should select which node is going to participate in the render-
ing. This is done by checking or unchecking each RenderCow on the list. RenderCows that are
selected will participate, others will be left aside.

RenderCows can be added even when the rendering process has already begun – see below for
details.

Starting a Render

When you are done adding RenderCows to HyperVUE’s list and you have decided which cows
would take part in the render, you are ready to start rendering using your network. In the Ren-
der Options dialog, press Edit alongside the Standalone renderer option and select Use Hyper-
VUE network manager, then press Render and watch as HyperVUE contacts each RenderCow
in turn, first sending the scene to be rendered, then issuing orders to render a given frame and
finally collecting the rendered pictures.

Please note that the scene is only sent once to each RenderCow. The traffic generated on your
network will rapidly drop as soon as all RenderCows have received the scene.

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Monitoring the Render Farm

Rendering with the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager

When a HyperVUE render is in progress, the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager displays in-
formation regarding each of the RenderCows:
• Host Name: this is the hostname of IP address of the RenderCow. Uncheck the checkbox
to disable rendering on that RenderCow.
• RenderCow Status: this indicates the current status of the RenderCow (sending scene,
sending textures, rendering…).
• Number of Frames: this indicates the total number of frames of the animation that have
been rendered by this RenderCow.
• Last Frame Time: this indicates the render time of the last frame.
• Average Frame Time: this displays the average render time of all the frames rendered by
the RenderCow since the beginning of this rendering session.

Aborting a Render

You can abort a render any time by clicking the Abort button. You may either opt to save the
frames already rendered, or discard them. There will be a short time lapse before the render-
ing process aborts, because the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager must first contact all the
RenderCows and tell them to stop their work. Discarding the frames that have already been ren-
dered is faster because it doesn’t require the HyperVUE Rendering Manager to save the frames
to disk. Also, please note that if you save the frames that have already been rendered, you may
have some missing frames in your animation (especially if some computers on your network
are significantly slower than others). It isn’t possible to resume an aborted network rendering
session.

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Managing RenderCows

This section describes operations that are performed on the host computer running the Ren-
derCow.

Showing RenderCow Status

You can view the status of a RenderCow running on a computer by clicking on the RenderCow
icon in the task bar, or selecting the menu command Show (Windows only). The RenderCow
window will popup, displaying the current status of the RenderCow. Click the Close button (or
select the menu command Hide) to store the RenderCow back in the Task bar.

Adding RenderCows During Render

You can easily add RenderCows even when a rendering process has already begun. Simply press
Add and enter the IP or host name of the computer holding the new RenderCow. The new Ren-
derCow will automatically be put to work and join the rendering process.

Thanks to the use of Apple’s RendezVous™ technology, RenderCows running on macOS systems
will be detected automatically. What this means is that you can start a network rendering ses-
sion, and then turn new macOS systems on. If you setup the RenderCow to launch at boot, it
will be detected by the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager and immediately put to work!
This cool e-on technology is known as SmartCow™.

Pausing a RenderCow

RenderCows can be paused/resumed by an option on the RenderCow tray icon menu. The status
is visible both in the RC status window, and in HyperVUE. The RenderCow can only be resumed
from the tray icon menu, however; it cannot be resumed from HyperVUE.

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Shutting Down a RenderCow

If you want to stop a rendering job that is currently running on a RenderCow, select the menu
command Shut Down.

You can safely turn off RenderCows or shut down the system hosting the RenderCow even when
the RenderCow is working... To shut down the RenderCow, select the Exit menu command.

Updating RenderCows

Just like the rest of the application, RenderCows require regular servicing (see here for details
on updating your software). However, downloading and installing software updates on all the
computers on your network can rapidly become a very time consuming hindrance.

Fortunately, VUE features e-on software’s unique network updating technology, called New-
Cow™. This technology automatically maintains your render nodes by remotely installing all
required updates on demand.

When an obsolete RenderCow is detected by the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, it hands
over control to the NewCow technology. NewCow then dispatches update commands to the
RenderCow so that it can be updated. Because this updating process takes place in the back-
ground, it does not keep up-to-date nodes from beginning their work. The progress of the up-
dating process is displayed in the HyperVUE window. As soon as the obsolete RenderCow is
updated, it will join the other nodes in the rendering fun.

RenderNodes

The RenderNode is a command line version of VUE devoid of any graphical user interface. Ren-
derNodes are ideal for production houses that have a render farm management utility and wish
to integrate VUE rendering into this render farm.

RenderNodes are controlled via the command line and by placing appropriate files at the appro-
priate location and at the appropriate time. Your render farm management utility will have to
be configured to interact with the RenderNodes (e.g. so that it launches the RenderNodes with
the required command line parameters so as to perform the desired operation).

When launched, a RenderNode parses its command line to find out the operation that needs to
be performed, performs the said operation and then quits automatically once the operation is

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completed.

Some examples of configuration for typical render farm management software are supplied to
help you setup your own system. You will have to adapt these examples to the specificities of
your setup.

RenderNode Licenses
With the perpetual freeware version of VUE, no license is required to use RenderNode.

RenderNode Network Options

RenderNode Network Options

When you instruct VUE to render using the RenderNode Network option, VUE will:
• Save the current scene to a user-specified folder or to its temporary folder, then
• Execute a custom command.
The RenderNode Network Options dialog lets you specify the temporary folder and the com-
mand line that is executed when you launch a network rendering session using a render farm
with RenderNodes. This dialog is accessed by pressing the Edit button alongside the RenderN-
ode option in the Render Options dialog.

The command line depends on your particular render farm setup. Please consult your render
farm management documentation for the specificities of configuration.

Temporary Folder
Depending on your network manager, it’s sometimes possible to attach a file to a job. If this is
possible, VUE will save the current scene to a temporary file, and send the file to the network
manager which will store it into its own temporary folder before sending it to the nodes. If

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this case, you can leave this field blank (it’s fine for VUE to delete its own temporary file after
submitting the job, so VUE can use its own temporary folder).

However, if your network manager does not allow attaching a file to a job, VUE will just tell
the network manager where it can find the scene file. Because the network manager sends the
path of the file to the nodes, and not the file itself, the file must exist during the entire rendering
session. Also, the path to that file needs to be a valid network path accessible from all the
computers taking part in the render.

Because the file must exist during the entire rendering session, VUE should not delete the tem-
porary file, so it needs to be stored outside VUE’s standard temporary folder (which is flushed
at regular intervals). In this case, click on the Browse button and select an alternate temporary
folder.

Command to Execute
This setting indicates the command that is executed each time you start a RenderNode network
render.

As an example to illustrate what this setting does, if you entered C:/Windows/NotePad.exe

in the command field, VUE would launch the NotePad each time you press the render button
(of course, we expect something a little grander). If you want VUE to launch your network man-
ager application, all you need to do is enter the path to the application file in the command
field. Launching the network manager without any arguments will surely do nothing useful, so,
basically the command should contain at least:
• the network manager executable path and file, and
• the scene file path.
It can also contain some additional information required by the network manager, like the de-
scription of the job, how to handle it, etc.

Arguments in the Command

Following is a list of arguments that can be added to the network manager command line. When
running the command, VUE will dynamically replace them with the appropriate value:
• [SCENE_NAME]: the scene name (name of the job).
• [NUM_FRAMES]: the number of frames in the animation (may be required by your network
manager in order to distribute rendering across several nodes).
• [FILE_PATH]: path to the temporary scene file. If you specified an alternate temporary
folder in the RenderNode Configuration dialog, this folder will be used to store temporary
scene files. If not, the default VUE temporary folder will be used. You should specify a
folder that’s accessible from all the render nodes (e.g. a network path), in case your net-
work manager doesn’t send the files to the nodes itself.

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• [UNC_FILE_PATH]: path of the temporary scene file after conversion to UNC format (e.g.
\\Server\SharedFolder\Folder\scene.vue). Available on Windows systems only.
If you are using a render farm of Windows computers and the scene files need to be accessed
by their paths, you can either:
• select a folder on a network drive (the letter of the network drive must be the same on all
the render nodes), or
• use the [UNC_FILE_PATH] argument so that any folder path will be automatically con-
verted to UNC (in which case either the folder, one of its parents, or the entire drive must
be shared, lest it won’t be possible for the system to create the UNC path – for obvious
reasons).

Sample Setup for BackBurner

Here is an example of the command to enter for BackBurner:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\backburner\cmdjob.exe -jobName: VUEJob_[SCENE_

NAME] -jobNameAdjust -description: 'Rendering of VUE scene: [SCENE_NAME]
.vue' -numTasks: [NUM_FRAMES] -workPath: 'C:\Program Files\e-on software\
VUE RenderNode\Application' RenderNode.exe -file ‘[FILE_PATH]’ -job %
tn

Note:

The path to the RenderNode is: C:\Program Files\e-on software\VUE\Application

We used both the -numTasks: [NUM_FRAMES] and -job~\%tn options to distribute the ren-
dering on several RenderNodes. Each job sent to a node will correspond to the rendering of one
frame of the animation. For this reason, the animation output file can’t be a single file (i.e. AVI
or MOV ), it needs to be a separate file for each frame.

If we want to render the whole animation on one single computer, we can specify -numTasks: 1
in the command line.

In the example above, the workpath (the folder where the RenderNode is installed on the ren-
der node) needs to be the same for all the nodes. This is a limitation of custom jobs with Back-
Burner.

BackBurner is used here as an example. The RenderNode system was designed to work with all
the major network managers. It should be simple to configure any custom network manager
to use RenderNodes, provided the application was designed to accept custom jobs.

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Hints on Setting Up Your Network Rendering Manager

You should of course be familiar with how jobs are submitted to your network manager before
trying to setup this feature. Here are a few recommendations before you attempt to configure
your network manager:
• Read the network manager reference manual on custom jobs,
• Read and try to reproduce the sample commands that are usually described in the refer-
ence manual,
• Run a few simple tests with batch files, or simple applications (the NotePad application
is perfect for that!)
• Finally, try to setup VUE to use your network manager, first with simple commands, and
then with more elaborate commands that include all the required options.
If, after several attempts, it appears that it’s impossible to use RenderNodes with your network
manager, please get in touch with our tech support to try and find a solution.

Setting Up RenderNodes

Installing the RenderNodes is done easily using the VUE product installer. On the screen where
you select the product to install, select RenderNode, and then continue with the rest of the
installation program screens.

Controlling RenderNodes via Command Line

If you want to build your own Network Rendering Manager, or for any other purpose, you can
also control the RenderNodes directly by command line. The following options are available:
• –file '<FILE_PATH>': specifies the scene file that will be loaded and rendered, and
(optionally)
• –frame X: indicates which frame to render if you don’t want to render the entire anima-
tion (if the scene is animated). If you don’t use this command, if the scene is animated,
the entire animation range will be rendered (the part between the start and end frames),
using the Animation Render Options stored in the file. If no animation is defined, the picture
will be rendered using the Render Options stored in the file and the –frame X option will have
no effect.
• -range X Y: indicates the range of frames that will be rendered (from X to Y inclusive).
• -step S: sets the rendered frame increment (e.g., if set to 10, only frame 0, 10, 20… will
be rendered).
• -job N: renders frame N-1 (for compatibility reasons with BackBurner that numbers jobs

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starting with 1).

• -output '<FOLDER_PATH>': specifies a path to a folder where all output images should
be saved (it overwrites the output paths set in the scene, and only keeps the base names).
• -output_color '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name where
color output still images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the scene).
• -output_depth '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name where
depth output still images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the scene).
• -output_alpha '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name where
alpha output still images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the scene).
• -output_color_anim '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name
where color output animated images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the
scene).
• -output_depth_anim '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name
where depth output animated images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the
scene).
• -output_alpha_anim '<PATH_OR_FILE_NAME>': specifies either a path or a file name
where alpha output animated images should be saved (it overwrites the value set in the
scene).
• -tile_rect X_MIN Y_MIN X_MAX Y_MAX: specifies the tile of the image to render. (X_MIN,
Y_MIN) will be the top-left corner of the tile, and (X_MAX, Y_MAX) its bottom-right corner,
both in pixels, and both included in the rendered region.
Warning:
The top-left pixel of the image is (1, 1). For instance -tile_rect 1 1 64 64 will output
one 64 × 64 tile starting at the top-left corner of the full image.
• -rendersize W H: overwrites the render size defined in the scene. W is the width and
H is the height of the rendered frame.
• -cpu N: indicates the maximum number of processors/cores which will be used by the
RenderNode to render the job. This can be useful if you want to use other applications on
the same machine where the RenderNode is running (by default, the RenderNode will run
on all available processors, which can make other applications quite unusable).
• -output_suffix something : adds something to the output images filenames (before
the extension)
• -auto_tile_suffix : adds _tx_ty_tr_tb to the output images filenames (before the ex-
tension), where tx is the left coordinate of the rendered tile, ty the top one, tr the right
one and tb the bottom one.
Example :-file L:\scene_folder\PTx9c.vue -output E:\Users\[user_name]\Desktop -currentfra

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rect 101 701 200 800 -auto_tile_suffix will produce the “output_101_701_200_800.png”
on the desktop.

Saving Global Illumination Prepass for Reuse

If you will be rendering over a network using RenderNodes, it is possible to set the RenderNode
to only render the GI prepass and save it in order to reuse it for further render jobs.

Then you add an option to specify where the GI prepass can be found. If the file is found, the GI
prepass will be skipped for this render.

To save the GI prepass file, there are now three new options to be added to the command line.

-gi_output_file <path_to_gi_file>

The rendernode will save the GI prepass to the specified path. You may use the file extension
.dat, but it will have no importance.

-gi_only

The rendernode will stop after the GI prepass is computed and saved using the option gi_output_file
is used. This option shouldn’t be used without the gi_output_file command. In the case of an
animation, by default the RenderNode will save one file per frame (padded like specified in the
Render Animation Options).

If you want to render only one single frame of GI (the first one), you may add this option:

-gi_single_frame

Only the first frame will be computed and the RenderNode will stop.

Reusing a GI Prepass File

The command for reusing the GI prepass file is:

-gi_input_file <path_to_gi_file>

The RenderNode will try to load the GI info from the given file (which should have been saved
previously with option -gl_input_file). If it succeeds, the prepass phase will be skipped in the
render process.

If rendering an animation, by default, the RenderNode will rebuild a different path for each
frame (depending on padding options), exactly like it does when saving GI files.

If you want to use the same file for all frames (this single file should have been saved with the

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-gi_single_frame option as well), the option is:

-gi_single_frame

This feature can be useful if you have a big image which you want to distribute over a network,
using the -tile option.
• First, render the full prepass on one node, with options -gi_output_file and -gi_only
• Then, distribute the tiles over the network with the -gi_input_file to all nodes.

Integration Plugin Network Rendering

Saving Native Scenes for Network Rendering

If you want to network render a native scene that includes VUE content, you first need to in-
stall VUE rendernodes on all the computers participating in the network render. You can then
launch the render using your usual network rendering manager. In order for the VUE scene to
be loaded correctly on all the computers, it is suggested that you incorporate the VUE scene
into the native scene, using the VUE Options dialog using the Incorporate VUE scene in native
scene file option.

If you don’t incorporate the VUE scene, it means all plugins will try to load the scene from its
absolute path, so you need to copy the VUE scene on the same exact location on all the com-
puters, and you also need to check they use the same version of the VUE scene. This is a little
tedious, so this is why it’s generally more convenient to use the incorporate option.

In LightWave, you can use the Relative to LW content folder option and then save the VUE
scene in a subfolder of your LightWave content folder. Then, if all plugins use the same network
shared content folder, they will be able to load the VUE scene, without having to incorporate
the VUE scene in the LightWave native scene.

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VUE Licenses for Network Rendering

Instead of installing a full license of VUE on all your render node computers, you can install a
RenderNode license. This license is restricted to render only. It cannot be used to edit a VUE
scene, nor to save it.

In order to install a rendernode version of VUE on your computers, you need to launch the VUE
installer, and select the VUE RenderNode option on the first screen. This will actually install the
full VUE application, but will edit the RenderNode.cfg file in the application folder, so that when
a plugin initializes, it will initialize as a RenderNode (no user interface, no message boxes...)

Setting­up Your Workstation for a Network

Render

You can configure your regular workstation so that it will take part in the network rendering
process. To do this, we recommend that you edit the RenderNode.cfg file and change the li-
cense to a RenderNode one (use any basic Text Editor to do that – the file is commented to show
where you need to make changes). It is suggested to switch to RenderNode mode so that the
plugin will know it should not ask for any user interaction (all warnings, information messages
and dialogs will be skipped). Depending on how the network rendering manager operates, the
plugin may detect that it is participating in a network render and do the switch dynamically,
but it’s not always the case. This is why it’s better you switch it manually.

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Python Scripting
Python is the industry standard, cross-platform, object-oriented application scripting language.
It is both sufficiently easy to use and powerful to let you develop complex scripts and expand
the capabilities of the VUE Pro versions.

Included in the VUE application folder is a selection of sample Python scripts that demonstrate
typical effects that can be achieved with Python. These scripts are fully documented and we
recommend that you take a look at the way they are written for a good example of Python
scripting. You can find them in the Python/Scripts folder of the Application.

There are many online documents and tutorials about Python on the internet. If you are not
familiar with Python scripting, we recommend that you read general documentation on Python
before delving into the intricacies of VUE Python implementation. Please read below for details
on the Python Console and interpreting Python commands.

In the Python Foundation homepage, you will find documentation, tutorial and links to more
Python-related websites.

Note:

Because VUE features its own Python interpreter, you do not need to install any additional soft-
ware in order to create and run Python scripts in VUE.

Python Scripts

Python scripts are text files that contain a list of Python statements and function calls. These
files usually carry the extension .py. You can find sample Python scripts in the Python/Scripts
folder of your Application installation folder. Basically, there are 3 types of Python functions in
VUE:
• Functions that create or modify objects,
• Functions that define specific processing and that are called back by VUE at various points
during execution; these are know as callback functions,
• Functions that setup the callback functions so that they are actually called back by VUE
at the desired point of execution.
The first type of function is typically used in “helper” scripts that could be written to automate
certain tasks, such as e.g. generating a patch of grass. The callback functions are used to really
“customize” the behavior of VUE and create entirely new rendering geometries and effects.

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Running Python Scripts

To run an existing Python script, simply select the menu command Python | Run Python Script
in VUE. This will open a standard file browser letting you browse to the Python script that you
would like to run. By default, the file browser is opened on the Python/Scripts sub-folder of
your VUE folder. The first time you run a script, it will be compiled on the fly by the Python
interpreter and a compiled Python script will be generated and executed. This is to make sure
that the script can be executed with maximum performance. Compiled Python scripts carry
the extension .pyc. Please note that although the script is compiled and Python performance
is very good considering that it is an interpreted script, performance is in no way comparable to
hard-coded effects. The most recently used scripts are listed at the bottom of the Python menu.
To re-run a recently used script, simply select it from this list.

Startup Scripts

Startup scripts are script files that are loaded and executed whenever a given scene is loaded.
These startup scripts usually setup callback functions, but they could be used for any purpose.
For instance, you could easily write a script that creates a new sphere each time a scene is
loaded! Setting up callbacks using a startup script is very useful as it avoids having to set
them up manually each time the scene is loaded. For instance, if you look at the scripts in the
Python/Scripts/Filters folder of VUE’s installation folder, you will notice that these scripts setup
callback functions to post-process the pictures as they are rendered. But if you save the scene
and open it later, you’ll have to run the script again, so that it restores the callbacks. This is
where setting a startup script becomes useful: If you call the function Scene().SetPythonStartupScriptPat
with the name of the script as parameter, the script will automatically be loaded and run next
time you load the scene. Now take a look at the scripts in the Python/Scripts/Quartic folder.
There are two scripts in this folder, one called Quartic_Builder.py, the other Quartic_Startup.
py. If you examine the code in the Builder, you will see that it creates a Python object, and then
runs the Startup script. The Startup script sets up several call backs, and then sets itself as
the startup script by calling Scene().SetPythonStartupScriptPath(). That way, the next
time you load this scene, the Python object won’t be created again, but the call backs will be
properly setup.

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Running Python from Command Line

You can run Python scripts from the command line using the –python command. VUE will im-
mediately load and run the indicated Python script after starting up. For instance, you could
write a Python script that loads a scene and then renders it before closing. To run a Python
script at startup, run VUE from the command line and pass the script path using the –python
option.

Note that you should add double quotes (") around the file name if it contains spaces. For exam-
ple, to run myscript.py at startup, browse to the VUE application folder and enter on Windows
systems:

VUE.exe -\/-python "C:\\Program Files\\e-on software\\VUE\\python\\scripts\

\myscript.py" -\/-

On macOS systems, open a terminal window, go to the VUE application folder and enter:

./"VUE.app/Contents/MacOS/VUE" -\/-python "/Applications/VUE/python/scripts/

myscript.py" -\/-

You can provide arguments for Python scripts between the python script path and the closing
dashes.

Creating Python Scripts

To create or modify a Python script, all you need is a text editor. Open the text editor and start
entering a list of Python commands. Don’t forget to save your script with the .py extension, or
it won’t be listed in the file browser when you try to run it in VUE. You can check that the script
performs as expected by running it on regular occasions.

Python Console

The Python Console can be accessed by selecting the menu command Automation | Display
Console. This console provides feedback on the success of running Python commands or scripts.
It is a Python interpreter that can also be used by advanced users to enter commands directly,
rather than creating stand-alone Python script files. You can enter Python statements and func-
tion calls at the “>>>” prompt. For instance, entering AddSphere() at the prompt and pressing
enter will add a sphere to the current scene.

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Python Documentation

You can access the VUE-Python documentation using the Help | Python Documentation menu
command. This documentation provides a detailed list of all the Python structures and func-
tions used in VUE.

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SkinVue
SkinVue™ is a Python-powered plug-in designed to automate the process of generating high
quality Poser and DAZ character renderings using VUE. It was previously available on Cornu-
copia3D™ store. It is now directly installed within VUE, but as a legacy tool: no technical sup-
port will be provided. If you purchased the tool previously, please make sure that you use the
new version, which contains some important patches compared to the former version from
Cornucopia3D™.

Through a specially developed interactive Python program in combination with VUE’s advanced
function editor, SkinVue™ transforms imported character models into vivid, highly realistic
characters in seconds. SkinVue composite materials contain a base skin texture (either pro-
cedural or texture map driven) enhanced with greenish/blue veins, reddish imperfections, skin
noise, a Fresnel light ramp that reddens skin in the shadows and skin modifiers such as dirt
and wetness. There are three base skin texture options to choose from including Procedural
(procedurally generated skin material using no texture maps), Toon (for cartoon style renders)
and Enhanced (enhancing an existing texture map to achieve photo-realism).

How To Launch SkinVue

A custom eye shader is also included which provides fully adjustable parameters for eye warmth,
eye noise, luminance, and reflection strength. In addition, SkinVue™ provides a number of at-
mospheres and scene files which have been optimized for skin rendering.

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Read about all the possibilities offered in SkinVue™’s dedicated user guide which you can open
from the SkinVue™ window help menu.

SkinVue™ is now installed within VUE, and directly available from the Automation > Additional
Tools menu.

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Advanced PlantFactory Param­

eters
When editing a plant created in PlantFactory, you may have access to advanced splines (typi-
cally used withing the Flower node), if the author of the .tpf species has decided to publish the
corresponding parameters.

Spline parameter allows to define primitive shape using Spline editor.

There are three kind of Spline editors

2D Spline Editor

Overview

The goal of this editor is to draw a 2D spline. It is used for instance in the flower node preset to
define the flower profile.

It displays a decimal grid that can be used for snapping.

The red and green arrows represents the X and Y unit vectors.

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2D Spline

Controls
• Clic and drag points to move them.
• Double clic on the curve to add points.
• Hold the K key while moving a tangent to make sharp angles. (“trigger/trigger in spline
editor/toggle tangent angle constraint” in the Options dialog)

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Axis Spline Editor

Overview

The goal of this editor is to draw a 3D spline.

The main spline is drawn in white. The red, blue and green planes are used to represent all
three projections of the spline. The main spline as well as its projections are all adjustable with
the mouse.

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Axis Spline

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The spline

The spline is a continuous third-degree polynomial curve that passes through several control
points.

Moreover, tangent vectors at each control point allow to finely tune the exact axis of the spline.

Buttons

• OK : validates the currently edited spline and closes the editor.

• X (Cancel) : cancels all changes and closes the editor.
• New (white sheet) : resets the spline to default, a straight vertical spline with two control
points.

3D view

• It is possible to pan, rotate, zoom, unzoom in this editor just like in the 3D plant preview.
Please refer to the Options dialog to configure 3D view navigation.

Control points manipulation

• Left-click somewhere on the main spline to add a new control point there.
• Right-click on a control point to delete it.
• Left-click on a control point and keep the mouse button down while dragging to move
the control point.
These actions can also be done on any of the three projection planes.

Tangents manipulation

The spline tangents are displayed at each control point. It is either possible to :
• change both half-tangents at the same time
• work on only one half-tangent. Hit the B key and keep it down as long as you want to stay
in this broken-tangent mode.
Left-click on a tangent extremity and keep the mouse button down while dragging to modify

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the tangent vector. You can also make the tangent vector shorter or longer, this will affect the
tangent influence on the spline. As for control points, this can also be done on projections.

Profile­Section Spline Editor

Overview

The goal of this editor is to draw a radial spline.

There are two main sections in this editor :

• The left half displays a 3D preview of a sphere with the defined profile or section applied.
This is a mere visualization tool.
• The right half is where you make your changes to define the spline.
The profile editor applies the spline as a revolution profile around Z, and the section editor
applies the spline as XY section. Note the profile editor has left right symmetry but not the
section one.

The lower part of the dialog displays properties of the selected point.

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Profile Spline Editor

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Section Spline Editor

The spline

The spline is a continuous polar curve that passes through several control points.

Moreover, tangent vectors at each control point allow to finely tune the exact shape of the
spline.

Some math notes

The “Section spline” is a periodic function of period 1 (f(x) = f(x + n) for all integer n). For in-
stance you can add a fraction of the primal to the section spline input to twist it when used as
a segment section.

The “Profile spline” is a mirror periodic function of period 2 (f(x) = f(x + 2n) with n integer, and
f(1 + x) = f(1 – x). It can be used to make a symetrical section.

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Buttons

• OK : validates the currently edited spline and closes the editor.

• X (Cancel) : cancels all changes and closes the editor.
• New (white sheet) : resets the spline to default, a circular spline.

3D view

• It is possible to pan, rotate, zoom, unzoom in the left part of this editor just like in the
3D plant preview. Please refer to the Options dialog to configure 3D view navigation.

Control points manipulation

This applies to the right half of the editor.

• Left-click on an existing control point to select it. This displays the control point proper-
ties in the lower part of the dialog.
• Left-click anywhere else to add a new control point.
• Hit the Delete key when a control point is selected to delete it.
• Left-click on a control point and keep the mouse button down while dragging to move
the control point.
For more precise point manipulation it is possible to manually enter the required polar coor-
dinates of the selected point using the Radius and Angle fields located at the bottom of the
dialog.

Tangents manipulation

The spline tangents for the selected control point are displayed. It is either possible to :
• change both half-tangents at the same time
• work on only one half-tangent. Check the Broken Node box.
Left-click on a tangent extremity and keep the mouse button down while dragging to modify
the tangent vector. You can also make the tangent vector shorter or longer, thus affecting the
tangent influence on the spline.

For tangents it is possible to manually enter the slope (tangent direction) and strength (tan-
gent length) using the fields located at the bottom of the dialog. The second fields remain

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grayed unless the Broken Node mode is activated. In this case they are used to display the
slope and strength of the second half-tangent.

Section Spline Sets Editor

Overview

The goal of this editor is to draw a 3D cylindrical surface.

There are four sections in this editor :

• (A) Section curve editor
• (B) 3D preview
• (C) Longitudinal editor
• (D) Control point properties editor
(A) and (D) are equivalent to the parts found in the Profile-Section Spline Editor.

The usual workflow first involves defining sections in (C), then drawing the spline for each one
in (A) and (D) while controlling the result in (B).

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Section Splines Set

The section splines set

The cylindrical surface is defined using some particular cross-sections along the cylinder verti-
cal axis. These sections are 2D polar splines that can be individually configured using control
points and tangents. The whole surface is then generated by interpolation between all cross-
sections.

Buttons

• OK: validates the currently edited section splines set and closes the editor.
• X (Cancel): cancels all changes and closes the editor.
• New (white sheet) : resets the section splines set to default, a perfect cylinder.

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Section curve editor (A)

Control points
• Left-click on an existing control point to select it. This displays the Control Point Prop-
erties Editor (D).
• Left-click anywhere else to add a new control point.
• Hit the Delete key when a control point is selected to delete it.
• Left-click on a control point and keep the mouse button down while dragging to move
the control point.

Tangents
The spline tangents for the selected control point are displayed. It is either possible to :
• change both half-tangents at the same time
• work on only one half-tangent. Check the Broken Node box in (D).
Left-click on a tangent extremity and keep the mouse button down while dragging to modify
the tangent vector. You can also make the tangent vector shorter or longer, thus affecting the
tangent influence on the spline.

3D preview (B)

This is a mere visualization tool. No actions on the section splines sets are possible here.

It is possible to pan, rotate, zoom, unzoom just like in the 3D plant preview. Please refer to the
Options dialog to configure 3D view navigation.

Longitudinal editor (C)

This is another 3D preview of the surface which can only be seen as a side view. You can define
here which particular cross-sections are used for surface generation.
• Left-click anywhere to create a new section.
• Left-click on a section to select it. The selected section is displayed in yellow and its polar
spline is then displayed in (A).
• Hit Delete when a section is selected to delete it.
• Select a section and keep the mouse button down while moving horizontally along the
cylinder to move the section.

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• Right-click and keep the mouse button down while moving vertically to rotate the cylin-
der around its axis.

Control point properties editor (D)

For more precise control point manipulation it is possible to manually enter the required polar
coordinates of the selected point using the Radius and Angle fields located at the bottom of
the dialog.

For tangents it is possible to manually enter the slope (tangent direction) and strength (tan-
gent length) using the fields located at the bottom of the dialog. The second fields remain
grayed unless the Broken Node mode is activated. In this case they are used to display the
slope and strength of the second half-tangent.

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Hot Tips
Resuming Render

If you want to interrupt a render, and be able to resume rendering it in a future session, you
must make sure that the Generate Resume Render option is selected before starting the render
(using the Options dialog, or the Picture menu). When you stop the render, VUE will generate
the required information to resume rendering later. If you save the scene now, you can reload it
later and resume rendering exactly where it stopped by selecting the menu command Render
| Resume Render.

Using Layers for Faster Display

When you build a complex scene, it is good practice to place objects in different layers, each
layer corresponding to one part of the picture (e.g. one layer for fuzzy cloud spheres, one layer
for plants, etc.). This enables you to lock or hide parts of the scene without affecting render
(provided the Render everything option is selected in the Render options dialog). Locking lay-
ers lets you work on other layers without being hindered by the locked ones and keeping them
visible for reference. Hiding layers will seriously improve the display speed, and avoid visual
clutter. You can also accelerate display by representing complex objects (such as plants) by
boxes.

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Resuming Animation Render

You can stop rendering an animation anytime, and resume it later without any loss of process-
ing time: Just press the Resume Rendering Animation button in the Animation Render Options
dialog to restart rendering the animation from where you stopped! This button becomes auto-
matically enabled when it is possible to resume rendering.

Using Motion Blur in Still Pictures

You can use motion blur in still pictures to achieve dramatic effects, giving a sense of life and
speed to a scene that would otherwise look… still. Objects with motion blur will leave some
sort of trail behind them. The blurred cars in the Bridge sample scene are a good example of
using motion blurring in a still picture.

To achieve this effect, you must first define a motion for the objects that you want to be blurred.
To be noticeable, you will probably need to give these objects a very high speed.

Select the object you want to blur and move the Current time slider to 1 second. Now slightly
move the object in the direction of the motion blur. You shouldn’t move the object too much,
if not its position will be modified when you do the final render. Now press the key to reset
the Current time to 0. Do a test render to get an idea of the size of the blur trail. You can adjust
this trail by dragging the keyframe you just created to the right to reduce the length of the trail,
or to the left to increase it.

Broadcast preset render quality may not be sufficient to get perfectly smooth motion blurring
in a still picture (read here). You may want to switch to Superior or even Ultra (beware the
render times…) or increase the number of rays per pixel in the anti-aliasing setting (read here).

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Avoiding Object Detection in Wizard

When you plot the path of an object using the Animation Wizard, the altitude of the object is
automatically processed to avoid collisions with other objects in the scene. This can sometimes
be a problem (e.g. when you want to fly an object through a tunnel).

To avoid the detection of certain objects in your scene, just place them in a Hidden layer. Ob-
jects that are not visible are ignored by the Wizard.

Obviously, the other solution is to touch-up the path in the 3D Views.

Rendering Time Dependent Materials

When you create a scene that contains no animation, apart from time dependent materials, the
Render Animation Preview icon ( ) only renders one single frame, because it is unable to
determine what duration of animation you want to preview (e.g. when solely animating water).

The solution is to define a duration of animation: press the Render Animation icon ( ) and
select Render sequence. Enter the desired start and end of animation, then press Close. The
Start of animation and End of animation handles ( and ) are now displayed in the
Timeline. You can drag them to adapt the duration of the animation. Pressing Render anima-
tion preview will now preview the selected duration of animation.

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Reducing Animation Render Times

Rendering animations is a very processor intensive activity. When you are rendering an anima-
tion, you may have to trade off some of the render quality for improved rendering speed. Keep
in mind that the frames in the animation will only be visible for a fraction of a second, so the
trade off may not even be noticeable. The better results some render features produce may not
even be noticeable in the animation. You can probably accelerate the rendering by keeping the
following in mind:
• Global illumination and global radiosity are definitely a no-go if you want animations that
render quickly,
• Volumetric lights, especially volumetric sunlights are very long to render. Use them only
if you have to. Disabling shadows in the volumetric lights will accelerate the rendering
quite a bit.
• Avoid depth of field, soft shadows and blurred reflections/transparency as they will in-
crease render times by an order of magnitude. They will also probably add a fair amount
of flickering if you don’t increase the render quality.
You can seriously reduce rendering time if you are ready to accept some amount of flickering in
the animation. Do this by reducing the quality of the anti-aliasing. The flickering is particularly
noticeable with highly detailed materials or tiny objects. Keeping the Flicker reduction option
set helps reduce this effect.

Compressing Video

Since there usually are many frames in an animation, the size of animations on disk can rapidly
become daunting. Also, because the files are very large, your computer may experience diffi-
culties reading and displaying the animation smoothly.

Video compression is the solution to these problems. It is available directly in VUE through AVI,
QuickTime and Mpeg 1 & 2 compression Codecs. To choose a compression Codec, open the
Advanced Animation Options dialog, select compressed file format and press the File format
options button to display a standard system dialog that lets you select the Codec to be used
for compression. When you render the animation, it will automatically be compressed using
the Codec you selected.

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Opening Objects from the Command­

Line

You can open VUE with a loaded object using the command line.

Please refer to the description given by the --help option on the command line for other com-
mands.

Here is a list of the main options:

• -software-gl: Start VUE with the software OpenGL mode
• -disable-msg-boxes: Always skip message boxes dialogs and take the saved (or the de-
fault) options instead.
• -r/-R: Launch a render
• -q/-Q: Set render quality ( -q100 set render quality to 100%)
• -x/-X: Set X resolution ( -x1024 image will be 1024 pixel width)
• -y/-Y: Set Y resolution (-y2048 image will be 2048 pixel height)
• -s/-S: Set first animation frame rendered (-s12 start animation render on frame 12)
• -e/-E: Set last animation frame rendered (-e18 end animation render on frame 18)
• -f/-F: Fullscreen (image size will have the same size than the screen)
• -m/-M: Resume render
• -a/-A: Render animation
• -o/-O: Set still image name (-oRendu.png will save render output to Rendu.png)
• -n/-N: Set animation image name (-nRendu.png will save animation render output to
Render_<frame number>.png)
• -p/-P: Launch python script
• <file>: Load the specified file. Can be .vue or any supported object format (.obj, .abc,
.3ds, ...).

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Troubleshooting
The first part of this second appendix gives a list of common problems you may have using the
software. The second part may help you find what is wrong in a picture that, for some unknown
reason, doesn’t look quite right.

Scenes Take Ages to Render

You must keep in mind that some of the effects created by VUE are extremely long to render. If
you find that your scene is taking too long to render, go through it and check out for any of the
following effects that are not absolutely required (listed by order of importance):
• Global Illumination and Radiosity.
• Volumetric lights (especially directional lights such as the sun, and point lights), godrays.
If you absolutely need the volumetric effect, make sure the Quality boost setting isn’t
exaggerated. Check if you can remove the Cast shadows in volume option,
• Depth of field (this requires a large amount of anti-aliasing to produce smooth results),
• Displacement mapped materials seen from up close,
• Subsurface materials with low average depth settings,
• Camera is placed in the middle of spectral clouds,
• Mixed materials that mix several transparent materials together,
• Glowing materials (slightly glowing materials that don’t show up in the final render),
• Volumetric materials used on large objects (can you use fuzzy materials instead?), volu-
metric atmospheres,
• Blurred reflections and refractions, soft shadows (even if the blurring/softness amount is
very low, it’s still going to slow down the render dramatically). Do you need soft shadows
on all lights?
• Shadows (do all lights/materials have to cast shadows, do all materials have to receive
shadows?), etc.
A good understanding of all the advanced rendering features of VUE is required if you want to
keep render times optimal. By getting rid of unnecessary effects you can easily accelerate the
rendering speed by an order of magnitude.

Last, you should keep in mind that the rendering technique used by VUE (i.e. ray-tracing) is an

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inherently slow technique. This technique was preferred over other techniques because of its
vastly superior quality. Since VUE was first released we never stopped optimizing its render en-
gine to make it ever faster, producing one of the fastest ray-tracing engines currently available.

Camera Moves by Itself

If you notice the camera changes position for no apparent reason, check that the height of the
camera above ground is not set to be locked (see the Lock Height option in the camera’s Object
Properties panel, see here). This may cause the camera to move following changes in the scene.

Bright Fringes Appear at Wall Base in

Radiosity

Sometimes, when rendering with radiosity, it may happen that you see bright areas of light
appear in corners or near the floor where there shouldn’t be any. This phenomenon is known
as “light leak” and is an artifact caused by the photon rendering technology.

This problem occurs when the photon gathering radius is greater than the thickness of the walls.
To correct this problem, either increase the Lighting model Quality boost, make your walls
thicker, or reduce the Maximum gathering radius using the Photon Maps tab of the Advanced
Effects Options dialog.

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Render Time Estimation is Pessimistic

You may notice that the render time estimation displayed at the beginning of rendering certain
scenes is extremely pessimistic. The reason for this is that, in order to avoid useless computa-
tion, a lot of preparation tasks are fragmented in such a way that only those fragments that are
indeed required are computed (e.g. displacement mapping, subsurface scattering, etc.). The
usefulness of each fragment is determined at render time: each time the renderer needs an un-
computed fragment, it is computed dynamically. This typically happens during the early stages
of rendering, when none of the fragments are yet computed. This is especially the case when
rendering in preview mode, where the entire surface of the image is evaluated at the first render
pass. The render time estimation should rapidly converge to a more realistic evaluation.

Long Preparation Time for Small Im­

age

Preparation time is long, even for small render-areas.

Certain effects, such as radiosity, are “global” to the scene (an object that is not visible in the fi-
nal image may nonetheless have an influence on the lighting of the scene). Such effects require
the same amount of preparation, whatever the portion of the final image that is rendered. That
is why this preparation time is not reduced by reducing the rendered area.

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Program Crashes Randomly

If you are experiencing frequent random crashes when working with VUE, chances are some-
thing is wrong with your video board driver.

Obviously, you might want to enable Compatibility Mode (see here), but before doing this, visit
the website of your video board manufacturer and check if there are any recent driver updates
available. Depending on the manufacturer, OpenGL drivers in particular will tend to be updated
and fixed for a while after the board is released. Also, because VUE uses several threads of
OpenGL rendering, it can happen that some drivers that perform well with other applications
will not perform correctly with VUE. Obviously, you should point this out to the manufacturer
so they can fix the problem.

In the mean time, here are a number of steps that you can take to improve compatibility (listed
by order of importance):
• In the Options dialog, uncheck the Enable background draw thread option to stop multi-
threaded OpenGL.
• Switch to the software implementation of OpenGL by selecting the OpenGL (software)
option. You will have to restart VUE. The next time you restart the program, the 3D Views
will be drawn using a custom, in-house preview technology.
You should try these options until you find the configuration that works best for your system.

Noise Appears in Volumetric Effects

Grainy Volumetric Lights and Materials.

The reason for this is exactly the same as for getting noise in the sky: the Preview render setting
is optimized for speed and only produces a rough fake of what the result will finally be. Although
you can increase the Quality boost setting for the volumetric lights and materials, switching
to Final render quality (or better) is generally enough.

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Atmosphere is Different in Preview and

Final

When you have finished designing your scene (in Preview render quality) and switch to Final
quality, you may notice that the colors of the atmosphere change slightly. Generally, this isn’t
noticeable, but it may be a problem in certain occasions. The reason is that, just like the noise
problem discussed above, the Preview render quality isn’t optimized the same as the Final (or
better) render quality. As you switch to Final, VUE automatically refines the processing of the
atmosphere, resulting in the slight changes you may have noticed.

If colors of the atmosphere are an important issue, you should switch to Final render quality
before you start fine-tuning it.

Undesired Lens Flares Appear on Lights

If you have unwanted lens flares appearing on your lights (sun, spotlights), double-click on the
light in the World Browser and uncheck the setting.

The default for this setting – on or off – can be set on this panel.

Missing Details

Some parts of the picture don’t look as detailed as they should. It seems as if some fine
details are missing.

This is due to the render quality setting you are using. For speedy renders, Preview quality
optimizes the last render pass, sometimes skipping very fine details.

Preview is fine when you are working on the picture, just to make sure you’re going the right
way. But for final renderings of a picture, you have to use Final render quality.

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Vector Graphics Don't Load in Text Ed­

itor

When loading vector graphics data, it may happen that nothing is loaded (the text preview re-
mains blank). This typically happens when the Postscript processor was unable to process the
vector graphics file. You should use a simpler version of Postscript that doesn’t make reference
to any external libraries (sometimes the case with Adobe Illustrator documents).

Invisible Objects

Although some objects appear correctly when rendered, they are not visible in the 3D
views.

These objects are most certainly placed inside a Hidden layer, or have the Hidden attribute. To
show all objects inside the scene, select Show All Layers from the popup menu of the World
Browser. Alternately, you can use the layer status control to activate the hidden layers. You can
reset the Hidden attribute of the object by using the popup menu of the Preview Options in
the Object Properties panel.

Unable to Select Objects

Objects that are placed inside a Locked layer, or have the Locked attribute, cannot be selected
using the 3D Views. These objects are displayed in gray. Toggle the layer status back to Active,
or use the World Browser to select them. You can reset the Locked attribute of the object by
using the popup menu of the Preview Options in the Object Properties panel.

If you are trying to select an object that is placed behind another one, you can either use another
view, or the World Browser to select it. Alternately, you can select all the objects under the
cursor by clicking and pressing the U key (the Select All Under Mouse trigger modifier), and then
walking through the selection using Tab until the requested object is selected.

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Objects Don't Render

Some objects that appear in the 3D views are not visible when rendered.

Make sure these objects aren’t made from a totally transparent material. Maybe they are so
fuzzy that you can’t see them. Or they are black and Additive together, which yields invisible
results.

Alternately, make sure the Render everything option is selected in the Render Options dialog.

Close­up Materials Look Like Tiles

Color steps appear when a material made from a mapped picture is seen from close, and when
no interpolation has been specified. The pixels of the mapped picture are creating this effect.

Open the Material Editor by double clicking on the preview of the material that you want to
modify (or select Edit Material from the preview’s popup menu ). Go to the Colors tab, and
select a Bilinear, Bicubic or Normalized interpolation method.

Look Ahead Objects

Look Ahead Objects Don’t Point in the Right Direction

When you animate an object with the Look ahead property, the orientation of the object is
automatically processed to make it point in the direction of travel. However, depending on the
initial orientation of the object, you may find out that your object is in fact pointing at right
angles with the direction of travel. This is because the Main axis of the object is not correct.
Use the Main axis drop down list in the Animation Properties panel to select the correct axis.

If none of the available options proves satisfactory, this means that the initial orientation of
your object is not aligned with one of the axes of VUE. This happens when you import objects.

You must align the object with one of the axes. First try zeroing all rotations in the Rotation
sub-tab of the Numeric Properties panel. If the object is still not aligned, then rotate it manually

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until it is aligned. Now ungroup the object and regroup it. You will have to rename it to its old
name. The object is now ready for Look ahead animation (if the object is not a group/Boolean
object, it is necessarily an imported object. You will have to align it in the application that was
used to create the object).

Objects Overreact to Motion

Or don’t seem to react sufficiently

The algorithms used by VUE to compute the reaction of objects to motion are based on physical
rules. While this ensures the most realistic motion, it has the drawback of being sensitive to
the scale of your scene (because the speed at which objects travel depends on the scale of the
scene).

You will notice this when objects don’t seem to react naturally to their motion. You can fix the
problem by modifying the sensitivity of objects using the Motion Options dialog (press Options
in the Animation Toolbox). Read more on this dialog here.

Materials don't Move with Objects

Objects seem to move “through” the material

If you notice that the material of an animated object isn’t following the object, then it is prob-
ably because you are using a World space material. To ensure that the material follows the
objects, you should always select an Object based space mapping in the Material Editor (read
here). If the material is mixed and is sensitive to the environment, you should also check the
Object orientation option in the Influence of environment tab.

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Objects Keep Getting Animated

If you modify a non animated object at a different time than the time it was created at, it au-
tomatically becomes animated. To avoid this problem, you should always modify objects at
the time they were created at, or at zero time. All objects can be modified at zero time without
becoming animated.

You can remove object animation by selecting Not animated from the Motion type drop-down
list in the Animation tab, or by selecting the object in the Timeline and pressing Delete.

You can definitively prevent an object from becoming animated by selecting the Forbid anima-
tion option in the Animation tab of the Object Properties panel.

Animations Flicker

If you notice that rendered animations tend to flicker when played back, check the following:
• First of all, please make sure that the problem is not caused by the playback software
or video compression options you have selected. Also, if no compression was used, you
might want to check that your computer has sufficient bandwidth to playback the anima-
tion smoothly.
• In the Advanced Animation Options dialog, check the Flicker reduction options and make
sure the frame rate is adequate.
• Avoid using high frequency procedural textures, that is textures that have very fine details.
The fine details probably won’t be visible in the animation anyway...
• Turn on texture anti-aliasing.
• Avoid using soft shadows and blurred effects.
• Increase the render quality by using the User settings should be your last resort. In the
Animation Render Options dialog, make sure that you are rendering at a sufficiently high
render quality setting (Broadcast render quality is designed for acceptable quality). If
render quality isn’t sufficient in Broadcast, you’ll probably want to switch to User set-
tings and select a very high anti-aliasing quality (25 rays per pixel). Make sure the Motion
blur option is checked.
Keep in mind that there is no limit to the quality of the animations generated, except the time
allocated for rendering. If you increase the quality, the rendering time will increase accordingly.

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So it’s all a question of finding the ideal compromise.

Texture Filtering

Texture Filtering is an essential render setting to reduce noise and flickering that can arise be-
cause of high frequency textures (components of materials that exhibit very fine detail, usually
finer than the size of a pixel). When used properly, it will lower the needs for strong object
anti-aliasing (thus speeding up the render), and greatly reduce texture flickering.

Texture Filtering can be accessed via the anti-aliasing options dialog, just above texture anti-
aliasing options. Its value is editable through a slider that ranges from 0 to 100%.

How It Works

This value corresponds to the size of the filter applied over textures during render. Ideally, this
filter should always have the size of a pixel, so that all texture detail contained in each pixel
is properly taken into account during texture evaluation. This corresponds to a value of 50%
for Texture Filtering. If you specify a lower value, textures will be sharper but with more noise
and/or flickering. If you specify a higher value, noise will be smoothed out but textures will
appear blurred.

In Practice

You should tweak the value regarding your specific needs. In practice, the smallest value that
yields good enough results should be used. From our own experience, a default value of 33%
usually does the trick.

Texture Filtering Will Influence 2 Components

at Render

Bitmaps: for each bitmap used in materials, if you edit its Texture Map node via the Function
Graph, you will see a flag named Allow mip-mapping, which is checked by default. When this
flag is checked, and if Texture Filtering has a non-zero value, corresponding bitmaps will be
pre-filtered just before rendering. Thus, at render time, distant bitmaps won’t exhibit any noise
or flickering. This is particularly useful when rendering animated plants, especially for distant
ones. You will enjoy much smoother results, and a great reduction in flickering. As specified
above, a value for Texture Filtering of 33% will generally produce the best results.

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Generic texture anti-aliasing: when Texture anti-aliasing is enabled, the Texture Filtering
value will drive the size of the filter used by the texture anti-aliasing process, just like for bitmaps.
This is very important because if texture anti-aliasing is enabled but Texture Filtering is set to
0%, you won’t notice any improvement. Just like for bitmaps, a value of 33% is generally ideal
for Texture Filtering used along with Texture anti-aliasing.

Animations Pulsate

This happens when rendering global illumination or radiosity; it is caused by the way rendering
of these effects is optimized and is a common problem to all renderers. Unfortunately, the only
way to reduce this effect is to increase the quality boost setting of the global illumination render.

Dark Triangles Appear on Terrains

This is probably an indication that the terrain with the problem doesn’t have a high enough res-
olution. To correct it, double-click on the faulty terrain to open the Terrain Editor, and press the
x2 button once. This doubles terrain resolution. Now go to the Erosion tab, select a medium to
low rock hardness, and press Diffusive erosion once to round off the angles in the terrain. This
should solve the problem. If it is not the case, try adding more diffusive erosion. If the problem
still remains, and especially if the terrain spreads out over a large area, you’ll probably need to
split it up into smaller terrains.

Another option would be to use a procedural terrain instead of a heightfield terrain.

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Wrong Material Scale

If you have different items in your scene that somehow don’t seem to fit together correctly, it
may be that you have a problem with material scales. It is important that the objects of a scene
look in proportion to one another (this doesn’t mean the Scale control of the material has to
be the same...).

This problem often occurs with water (see picture to the right): the scale of the waves on the
surface of the water doesn’t fit with the scale of the rest of your scene, so particular attention
should go into getting this right.

Soft Shadows Look Noisy

When rendering soft shadows, depth of field or blurred transparencies and reflections, the
lower preset render qualities (OpenGL and Preview) approximate the effect by adding noise.
This enables you to get an idea of the final result, while not slowing down render.

To render all of these effects properly, super-sampling is needed. This is why they render cor-

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rectly only under Final, Broadcast or Ultra preset render qualities.

VUE Objects Lose Relative Positions

When you import a set of 3D VUE objects (.VOB) it may happen that the relative positions of
the different objects get lost. This is because VUE automatically centers objects that you load,
so that they fit snugly into the viewports. To get rid of this option, open the Options dialog
(by selecting the menu command File | Options) and uncheck the option called Center VUE
objects when loading. A similar option is also available when importing objects created with
other 3D applications.

Load all the models one after the other by using the menu command File | Load Object. Each
object will now be positioned as it was when it was saved. If the objects appear too small or
too large, select them all (using extended selection) and move/resize them together.

RenderCow Not Responding

If, after having setup and launched a RenderCow on a remote computer, you cannot manage to
add it in the HyperVUE Network Rendering Manager, you should check the following:
• Check that no Firewall is blocking access to the RenderCow either on the remote host, or
on the computer running HyperVUE. If you are not sure, contact your system administra-
tor for help.
• Check that no other application is using the same port number on the remote host, or on
the computer running HyperVUE. If so, change port number.
• Check that communication on the selected port number is allowed on your network.

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Unable to Export Object

If you are unable to export an object it may be because the object has been forbidden from
export. This is often the case with polygon mesh objects, and particularly with all objects im-
ported into earlier versions of VUE, and all Poser objects imported as PZ3. When you try to ex-
port such an object, a message will appear informing you that the object cannot be exported.

To forbid exporting a polygon mesh, double-click on it to open the Polygon Mesh Options dialog
and click the Forbid Export button. Be advised, however, that you cannot remove the Forbid
from export tag once it has been set.

Volumetric Plugin Conflict

VUE is considered by V-Ray to be a volumetric plugin. Therefore, if using VUW with another V-
Ray volumetric plugin, there may be conflicts. For example, if using a VUE sky in the same scene
with a hair creating plugin, the hair may take on the color of the sky. It is probably best to limit
the use of other plugins when using VUE, or, just be aware of the possibility of problems and
strange effects.

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License Agreement
IMPORTANT – READ CAREFULLY: THIS END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (“EULA”) IS A LEGAL
AGREEMENT BETWEEN SUBSCRIBER (EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR A SINGLE ENTITY), THE “SUB-
SCRIBER”, AND BENTLEY SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (“BENTLEY”) FOR THE E-ON SOFT-
WARE.

SUBSCRIBER AGREES TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY DOWNLOADING, IN-

STALLING, COPYING, REGISTERING, OR OTHERWISE ACCESSING OR USING THE SOFTWARE.
SUBSCRIBER’S ACCEPTANCE OF ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS EULA IS A
CONDITION TO THE GRANT OF LICENSE BELOW. THIS EULA REPRESENTS THE ENTIRE SET
OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS GOVERNING SUBSCRIBER’S SUBSCRIPTION AND USE OF THE
SOFTWARE AND SUPERSEDES ALL PRIOR OR CONTEMPORANEOUS ORAL OR WRITTEN COM-
MUNICATIONS, PROPOSALS, AND PRESENTATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE SOFTWARE OR
THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE EULA, IN PARTICULAR ANY PREVIOUS VERSION STILL CON-
TAINED IN THE MANUAL.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

1. DEFINITIONS.
1.1. “Device” means a single personal computer, workstation, terminal, handheld computer,
pager, telephone, personal digital assistant, Server, or other electronic device used by a User.

1.2. “Documentation” means descriptive, interactive, or technical information resources per-

taining to the Software.

1.3. “Effective Date” means the User’s acceptance of the terms of this EULA.

1.4. “Object Code” means the Software in a machine-readable form that is not convenient to
human understanding of the program logic, and that can be executed by a computer using the
appropriate operating system without compilation or interpretation. Object Code specifically
excludes source code.

1.5. “Software” means VUE, PlantFactory, and PlantCatalog provided for free download.

1.6. “Site” means the geographic boundaries of a single Country within which User uses or
manages the operation of the Software.

1.7. “Use” (whether capitalized) means utilization of the Software by an individual.

1.8. “User” shall refer to any individual using the Software after having accepted the terms of
this EULA.

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1.9. “User Made Assets” means any procedural or static model files, textures, and meshes (and
any part of the foregoing) that are created using the Software.

2. GRANT OF LICENSE.
2.1 Limited License. Subject to User’s compliance with all the terms of this EULA, Bentley
grants User the non-exclusive right to install and use the Software. Use within the scope of
this license is free of charge and no royalty or licensing fees shall be payable by the User.

2.2 User Made Assets. Such license granted in section 2.1 does not permit selling any Assets
that are either in full or in part derivatives from PlantCatalog assets, materials, and/or texture
maps. The license granted in Section 2.1 permits, however, sharing or selling User-Made Assets
created in VUE or PlantFactory (either files in generic 3D format, proprietary VUE, or PlantFac-
tory formats or images).

IF USER DISAGREES WITH ANY OF THE EULA TERMS, IN PART OR IN WHOLE, USER IS NOT AL-
LOWED TO USE THE SOFTWARE, AND SHOULD REMOVE THE DOWNLOADED SOFTWARE FROM
USER’S HARD DRIVE OR SYSTEM.

3. RESERVED RIGHTS.
User acknowledges and agrees that the Software is a proprietary Software of Bentley or its sup-
pliers, distributors, and unrelated third parties (“Suppliers”) protected by copyright and other
applicable intellectual property laws and treaty provisions. User further acknowledges and
agrees that the entire right, title, and interest in and to the Software, including associated intel-
lectual property rights, shall remain with Bentley. This license grant may be made by Bentley
on behalf of Suppliers as third-party beneficiaries of the license rights provided herein. Bentley
retains all rights not expressly granted to User in this EULA. THE SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT
SOLD. User shall have no right hereunder to receive, review, use, or otherwise have access to
the source code for the Software.

4. TERM AND TERMINATION.

4.1. Term.

This license is effective until terminated.

4.2. Termination. If User breaches the terms and conditions of this EULA, Bentley may termi-
nate this EULA without prejudicing any of its other rights. In such event, User must destroy and
remove all copies of the Software from User’s Device(s).

4.3. Consequences of Termination. Upon the termination of this EULA for any reason, all the
rights and licenses granted to User in this EULA shall terminate immediately.

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5. NO RENTAL OR COMMERCIAL HOSTING.

User may not rent, lease, lend, or provide commercial hosting services with the Software. User
may also not use the Software to provide fee or transaction-based services.

6. COPYRIGHT.
The Software is owned by Bentley and is protected by French and U.S. copyright law as well as
by international intellectual property conventions. Any reproduction, sale, transfer, transcrip-
tion, storage in a retrieval system, translation into any language in any form, or distribution by
any means whatsoever of the Software, in part or in full, without the prior written permission
from Bentley is strictly forbidden. Any such act shall constitute a copyright violation and shall
be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

7. LIMITATIONS ON REVERSE ENGINEERING.

User may not decode, reverse engineer, reverse assemble, reverse compile, or otherwise trans-
late the Software except only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applica-
ble law notwithstanding this limitation. To the extent that User is expressly permitted by law
to undertake any of the activities listed in the previous sentence, User will not exercise those
rights until User has provided Bentley with thirty (30) days prior written notice of User intent
to exercise such rights.

8. NO EXTENSION OF CAPABILITIES.
User may develop User’s own applications that interoperate or integrate with the Software.

9. Support Services
Bentley will not provide User with any support services for the Software under this Agreement.

10. DISCLAIMER.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, E-ON PROVIDES THE SOFTWARE
AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW
IN USER’S JURISDICTION., E-ON DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, FOR ITSELF AND FOR
ALL SUPPLIERS, EITHER STATUTORY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITA-
TION, WARRANTIES OF GOOD TITLE, WARRANTIES AGAINST INFRINGEMENT, AND THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Bentley also disclaims, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, all liability for any
damages and remedies whether direct, indirect, or consequential, arising from the use of the
free Software.

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11. STATUTORY CONSUMER RIGHTS.

Nothing in this EULA is meant to contravene statutory rights that consumers may have pursuant
to local law.

12. EXPORT CONTROLS AND SANCTIONS.

The Software is subject to U.S. export control laws, regulations, and requirements, in addition
to export control laws, regulations, and requirements of other agencies or authorities based
outside of the United States (collectively referred to as “Export Controls”). Regardless of any
disclosure made by User to Bentley of an ultimate destination of the Software, User must not ex-
port, re-export, or transfer, whether directly or indirectly, the Software, or any portion thereof,
or any system containing such Software or portion thereof, to anyone without first complying
strictly and fully with all Export Controls that may be imposed on the Software. The countries
subject to restriction by action of the United States Government, or any other governmental
agency or authority outside of the United States, are subject to change, and it is User’s respon-
sibility to comply with applicable Export Controls as they may be amended from time to time.
User shall indemnify, defend, and hold Bentley harmless for any breach of User’s obligations
pursuant to this Section.

13. U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS.

If the Software is acquired for or on behalf of the United States of America, its agencies and/or
instrumentalities (“U.S. Government”), it is provided with restricted rights. The Software and
accompanying documentation are “commercial computer software” and “commercial com-
puter software documentation,” respectively, pursuant to 48 C.F.R. 12.212 and 227.7202, and
“restricted computer software” pursuant to 48 C.F.R. 52.227-19(a), as applicable. Use, modifica-
tion, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of the Software and accompa-
nying documentation by the U.S. Government are subject to restrictions as set forth in this EULA
and pursuant to 48 C.F.R. 12.212, 52.227-19, 227.7202, and 1852.227-86, as applicable. Contrac-
tor/Manufacturer is Bentley Systems International Limited, having its registered office at 6th
Floor, 1 Cumberland St, Fenian St, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, Ireland.

14. Entire Agreement.

This EULA, incorporates the entire agreement of the parties and supersedes and merges all
prior oral and written agreements, discussions, and understandings between the parties with
respect to the subject matter hereof.

15. Amendments.
Except as otherwise contemplated herein, this EULA may only be amended or modified by a
writing duly executed by authorized representatives of the parties.

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16. GOVERNING LAW.

This EULA will be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws in force
in Ireland.

17. Arbitration.
In the event of any dispute, controversy, or claim between the parties arising under this Agree-
ment, the parties shall submit to binding arbitration before a single arbitrator in Dublin, Ireland
in accordance with the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the International Chamber of Com-
merce. The decision of the arbitrator shall be final and binding on the parties, and the judg-
ment upon the award rendered by the arbitrator shall be enforceable in any court of compe-
tent jurisdiction. Each party shall bear its own legal fees, costs, and expenses incurred in such
arbitration.

18. NOTICES.
Please send all notices under this EULA to Bentley Systems International Limited Attn: Legal
Department, 6th Floor, 1 Cumberland St, Fenian St, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, Ireland.

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Third Party Licenses

• This software uses the FreeImage open source image library. See http://freeimage.
sourceforge.net for details.
• This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. See http:
//libjpeg.sourceforge.net/ for details.
• This software uses 7-Zip SFX Modified Module by Oleg Scherbakov See https://github.
com/chrislake/7zsfxmm/wiki for details.
• This software contains paintlib code. paintlib is copyright (c) 1996-2002 Ulrich von Zadow
and other contributors.
• 3D input device development tools and related technology are provided under license
from 3Dconnexion. © 3Dconnexion 1992 – 2016. All rights reserved.
• This software contains Autodesk® FBX® code developed by Autodesk, Inc. Copyright 2017
Autodesk, Inc. All rights, reserved.

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Glossary
Substance

Set of solutions provided by Allegorithmic (acquired by Adobe in 2019) for the authoring of
PBR materials.
It features tools to design files which, involving procedural mechanisms, allow dynamic and
interactive production of textures.
By extension, in this documentation by Substance we often refer to the format of these files
(.sbsar).
Read more information about Substance on the website at https://www.substance3d.com/.

PBR

Acronym which stands for Physically Based Rendering. Read more information about PBR
here.

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