While I am reviewing the Windows version of Vue d'Esprit 4, I want to introduce it by saying that e-on software's Vue d'Esprit 4 for the Mac OS X won a MacWorld 2002 Best of Show Award.

Vue d'Esprit 4 (Vue 4) is a 3D scenery and animation generation software program. Since this is my first time using Vue 4, I will integrate changes to this version as well as outline the basic features of the program in the text of the review.

• Vue's vegetation is built on e-on software's SolidGrowth technology. Vue 4 ships with 30 different plant species and many more are available. Realism is achieved by simulating as closely as possible colors found in nature.
• Vue 4's volumetric atmospheric system has been improved to more closely resemble the interactions of light and air; thus, increasing the user's ability to create mood in a scene.
• Ancillary to volumetric atmosphere are volumetric clouds, materials, and lights with dust/smoke.
• Stunning visual effects such as a haze of light can be created by using the new luminous and glowing material properties. When using these, one can disable shadows, work with new backlighting that creates more translucent objects, and work with filters that react to the environment.
• One can charge the atmosphere with stellar objects such as realistic stars and planets with just a click. One can, also, adjust their phase, luminosity, and softness by dragging sliders.
• One can create a star dome and tiny lens flares.
• Lens flares, in general, can be generated at the time of rendering (on the fly). These can be customized using the lens Flare Editor.
• Terrains can be modeled directly in real-time 3D preview without having to wait for long rendering times. Some of the techniques and tools used for modeling are Primitives, Alpha Planes, etc.

Two areas that have been improved, according to e-on software, and that I have not mentioned previously are the new interface and the rendering process.

The new interface offers a real-time scene preview and fully OpenGL views. Different views of an object can be selected. Of these views, the display types can vary as well. The display types can further be customized by choosing to use optional OpenGL shadows, fog, lighting, etc. These are just a few of the enhancements one will find that e-on software has added to the interface in Vue 4.

I did not find that OpenGL helped to visualize the scene. I tried it on two machines with different video cards including a GeForce card and found that because of the quick preview rendering times and the preview window on the right, that wireframe mode was more satisfactory.

Rendering speed and quality have also been improved upon in Vue 4. e-on software states that their multiprocessor render engine is now 40% faster than in Vue 3. The multiprocessor mode works with NT/2000/OS X.

Until now, I have only addressed the 3D capability of Vue d'Esprit 4. Vue 4 is, of course, an animation program as well. The beginner, as well, as the advanced animator will find working in Vue 4 easy. To animate a sequence, all the beginner has to do is choose a path and select a type of animation.

The advanced user will find the a standard timeline with editable keyframes as well as with other controls such as motion blur, forward dynamics, field interlacing, flicker reduction, non-square pixels, etc. One will find that the will be able to animate individual objects or link objects together.

Two areas that are connected and that I find important involve the use of other programs and how these programs can interact with each other either through import/export filters or through plugins. One of the first items I look for when investigating a new program are the import/export file format options. Those in Vue 4 are pretty comprehensive.

For those Poser addicts, of which there are many, Vue d'Esprit 4 will import Poser and any scene associated with the figure, UV map and all. This includes all the texture, color, and bump map information as well.

When one initially opens Vue 4 for the first time, a short tutorial appears on the screen. This tutorial is also reproduced in the beginning of the user guide. It is a very good introduction to navigating in Vue 4 especially if one is used to using other terrain building programs since Vue 4 is set up very differently with more information available in the immediate interface. The illustration to the left shows the main view of the display while the illustration to the right is the right hand panel of the interface which gives information about the scene that is being created. This information is updated in real-time. If you look at the right hand panel, you will notice that the terrain that is selected in the main view, as shown in red, is described in each section of the right hand information panel. The lowest part of the panel is called the World Browser.

Vue 4 comes with an excellent manual that also includes a whole section of tutorials. These are broken down into quick how-to's, more in depth ones dealing with specific features, ones on animations, and ones on building whole scenes. These do not have to be done sequentially, but on an as needed basis. I suggest users read the manual not only for key concepts and instruction on how to use the program, but also for information on how, for example, light travels through the atmosphere. In other words, the manual gives the user enough information to understand how different elements of the universe are related so that the user can create more realistic environments should that be their choice. For example, the manual will discuss how the sky is a different color near the horizon and how this can be further altered through the use of fog and haze; the placement of clouds in the atmosphere, ie., their altitude; the makeup of the clouds, their density, etc. Without this knowledge, it would be very hard to create realistic settings. I plan to copy those pages so that I have a handy guide. I am glad e-on software did this basic work for me.

The Atmosphere menu is the key to beginning to set the stage for the creation of an environment. This can consist of using presets and then fine tuning them or choosing to create an atmosphere from scratch. However, since the process for the latter would be so time consuming, Vue 4 has many presets available, and two types of atmospheric editors - standard and volumetric. The latter is more complicated but more realistic. One can, also, save atmospheres and compile an atmosphere library.

Atmosphere Editor - Standard	Atmosphere Presets	Atmosphere Editor - Volumetric

Vue 4 approaches creating terrains a little differently than do some of the other terrain generating programs. No two terrains will ever be created exactly alike unless seeded alike. The illustrations below demonstrate the point. I selected Create Terrain from the icon on the left hand side of the GUI. This icon is circled in red. No matter how many times I created a terrain, each time it initially was different. This is how it would appear in nature.

This same concept hold true when choosing vegetation. The following are two top views of a cherry tree. Notice that the shape is varied. All of these factors help create realistic environments.

While many types of vegetation are included with Vue 4, one can download others for a nominal fee from e-on software's website. Once, downloaded, e-on software will send you an unlock key via e-mail. This can take a few days to arrive. Additional vegetation can be downloaded singly or as a bundle. The following screen capture shows some of the foliage that comes with the Vue 4 CD's.

There are many ways to create and modify terrains in Vue 4. One such way is to use the menu command from the top menu Objects>Create>Terrain in Editor. Then using the mouse or a digitizing tablet, one can virtually"paint on" changes. While I am an advocate of a digitizing tablet, I was very pleased to see how much control I had with a mouse. The first illustration below shows the initial menu of the Terrain in Editor. The second illustration shows only a screen shot of the changed terrain (using some mounding and erosion) captured from the menu. Both the illustrations were screen captures from the working menu. Neither terrain was rendered nor placed in the scene.

This should give some examples of the ease in which terrains can be created in Vue 4. This example is only a drop in the bucket because the capabilities of Vue 4 for are basically endless.

Materials are a very important element when creating a lifelike scene. If the materials do not look real, the scene will not. The Material Editor can be accessed by double clicking on the icon on the right hand bar.

Again, one can see all the possibilities. However, I feel that e-on software has made using these menus very simple. If one will look at the mixing choice, Material 1 and Material 2 are shown both visually and in percentiles, thus, in my opinion facilitating the process of creating changes.

Whenever possible I have noticed that e-on software has tried to make all the interfaces as user friendly as possibly without diminishing the power of the program.

Vue d'Esprit 4 is extremely easy to work in and maneuver within. Even when I could not find out intuitively how to do something, I found out almost instantaneously by using the book. Almost every aspect of a scene can be modified. When I was working on a scene, while I wanted the ground plane to receive shadows, I wanted them to be soft. All I had to do was click on the sun and change that setting. Also, each terrain could be set up to either receive or cast shadows. Every editor seemed to me to be complete and yet not complicated. A fete that is hard to achieve.

In the beginning of the review, I did a screen capture of a simple scene from the initial tutorial that came with Vue 4. To the left is another screen capture of a scene I have been working on. One can see how it builds progressively.If you look closely, you can see that the sun is highlighted. This prompted the Light Shadow Editor shown above.

Since many who read my reviews and tutorials use Poser, I decided to see how easy it was to import a Poser figure. The figure imported perfectly. However, Poser must be on the computer for the figure to be imported. One cannot import a figure without the program. When the figure appeared on the screen, in the right hand bar, the name of the figure, in this case nude, had a + next to it. When the plus was clicked, it expanded to show all of the body parts. See a small section of the list in the red box on the bottom of the illustration. The figure could be moved, turned, and rotated. This illustration shows a wireframe of the image.

Vue d'Esprit 4 also has powerful animation features and a number of tutorials to help learn how to use them. To see how to animate a Vue 4 scene, I selected their first tutorial which also made use of the easy Mover Wizard. Unfortunately, I could not find the first file I needed, one called, fighter.3ds so I substituted an .obj one instead. And the rest of the tutorial went smoothly. My only criticism is that the icons in the book are so small that I sometimes had trouble distinguishing what they were when I had to find them on the screen. However, I was able to look them up in the back of the book in the index. The Mover Wizard is an easy way for a novice to set up a quick animation. The Wizard contains a number of screens that allow the user to plot speed of movement, along what axis, type of movement, duration, etc. The screen below is an example of a screen used to decide the type of motion for an object. The object can be any object. In this case the object was to move similar to a motorcycle.

The next screen capture shows the timeline. It is similar to a standard timeline but also notes the types of movements of the object. The hard to read icons on the right allow for further options. The furthest icon opens an Animation Toolbox pictured beside the timeline.

As you can see there are many choices available allowing for both simple and complex animations.

After all this, what are the requirements for Vue d'Esprit 4? Actually, they are very modest. A Pentium II or G3 class CPU, Windows 95/98/ME, NT4/2000 or Mac OS X, 64 MB free RAM, 100 MB Hard Disk space, 16+ bit video, 800x600, and a CD-ROM drive. The program cost is $ 199.00 and $129 .00 for an upgrade from Vue 3 to Vue 4. In addition, a demo of Vue d'Esprit 4 can be downloaded from the e-on software website. This I always applaud because there is no better test of a product than to try to use it. I did not have the internet available while I was writing this review and had forgotten the cost of this program. I was really surprised to discover it was only $199.00 for a full version.

Each day I have been using Vue 4 more and more, and each day I have been adding to this review. As I hope is evident, I really like this program. It is a pleasure to use. For a 3D modeling program, I actually can say that it is easy to use, and yet it can produce some really great scenes. It is a fantastic buy.