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E-on Software News - May 23, 2008Dear Vue-er, dear friend,
Exciting news in this letter:
Sales Frenzy: 50% Off Vue 6 Esprit Vue 6.6 Infinite and xStream Final Release New Vue 6 PLE Build Available New User Project: Richard Lyall New Training Material RebusFarm Now Supporting Vue The Dev Team Talks!
Sales Frenzy on Vue 6 Esprit
Starting today, and for 1 week only, all Vue 6 Esprit products are 50% off! Everything, including sidegrades and upgrades, is discounted! Don’t delay: this offer ends May 31, 2008 >> More information on Vue 6 Esprit.
Vue 6.6 build 292711 Final Release for Vue 6 Infinite and Vue 6 xStream On top of other feature improvements, this new update improves Network connections for all floating licenses (Full, Rendernodes and RenderBull), adds support for the latest release of the License server build 2.06, corrects Pre-Animated Mesh support, as well as many other enhancements (a detailed list is available on the update page). The new 2.06 License server improves overall license connection stability, and adds an activity log for troubleshooting. Customers using network rendering with RenderBulls should make sure to download and install RenderBull update that can also be found on the update page. >> Click here to get the update Important! This update is to be installed on the Vue 6 final release version (build # 289768 and higher). If you run into any problems, please don’t hesitate to report them to our online support center.
Vue 6.6 PLE Now Available The latest release of the Vue PLE adds xStream compatibility with the newly released 3ds Max 2009, and Design 2009, as well as support for 3ds Max and Maya 2008. This PLE build will also let you give a spin all the Vue 6.6 feature improvements. Vue 6 xStream starts at $895*. Vue 6 Infinite starts at $695*. *(Download and DVD versions, Nodelocked licenses). >> Download the PLE Now!
New User Project: Le Bisou
Richard Lyall is a 30-something rather unorthodox Anglican priest in the UK with a strong creative side and a lifelong interest in art & music. In digital art, he has finally found his medium. “Le Bisou” is part of a greater unfinished project, where Richard imagines what would happen if paintings came alive at night in museums. To picture his thoughts, Richard uses a combination of Sketch’up, Poser and Vue 6 Infinite. >> Read all about the making of this project in the User Projects section.
3 New Training Titles Available AsileFX has just released the second volume of one of his best sellers: Advanced Custom Plant Creation Vol.2. With Advanced Custom Plant Creation Vol.2 you will have over 6 hours of training, teaching you expert techniques on the plant creation process in Vue. You will learn how to create your own custom leaves, how to create double sided leaves, you will master the branch design, learn how to create flower groups, how to use the Advanced Function Editor to render with templates, and a lot more… >> More information available here. German users, PixelRaster has just released a new Vue training collection. Following is a description of the training video (in German): Vue Infinite alle Kurse aus 2007. Sammlung sämtlicher Kurse von Pixelraster auf Deutsch zu Vue Infinite aus dem Jahre 2007. Die einzelnen Programme sind: Einführung in Vue, Terraingestaltung in Vue, Zeitraffer mit Vue, 3D-Bilder mit Vue, und Marslandschaft gestalten. >> Für weitere Informationen, klicken Sie bitte hier! Wenn Sie den Kurs “Einführung in Vue” schon haben ist dies die Gelegenheit die übrigen Specials dazu zu kaufen Vue Infinite alle Ergänzungskurse aus 2007.
Rebusfarm Now Vue-Empowered! Rebusfarm, the biggest European renderfarm, now supports the complete professional Vue line of products, Vue infinite and Vue xStream. Rebusfarm aims at fulfilling the growing need of rendering power in the field of 3D-animation, and supports a wide range of 3D applications (including all xStream empowered applications). Furthermore Rebusfarm aims at offering the biggest possible rendering capacity - over 1200 Ghz - at the most affordable price, while maintaining service-oriented contact with the customer. Rebusfarm offers staggered discounts which can go up to 60% depending on your rendering volume (a complete pricing grid is available here) >> Check Rebusfarm’s offers now!
From the Developers Desk: Scratching the Subsurface (Scattering) When rendering materials, most rendering engines generally make the assumption that light scatters at the very same point where it strikes a surface. However, for many real materials, this is not true: light enters the material, scatters a few times within the material, and eventually leaves the surface at some other point. This phenomenon is called subsurface scattering (or sometimes translucency), and occurs within a lot of common materials like marble, skin, wax, or milk.
[Figure 1] [Figure 2]
(Figure 1) shows a render made with the assumption that subsurface scattering is negligible, while (Figure 2) doesn’t make this assumption, and performs a full subsurface scattering simulation.
How to simulate subsurface scattering in Vue? Subsurface scattering can be very easily simulated in Vue by checking the “Enable subsurface scattering” option within the Translucency tab of the advanced material editor. The most important parameters are: average depth, absorption and multiple scattering.
[Figure 3] Average depth indicates how far light travels through the material. Thus, the higher average depth, the more transparent the material will appear. Generally, a large depth will produce a glass or ice look, while a short depth will rather produce a milk or marble look. (Figure 3) shows the effect of a large average depth (6 centimeters), while (Figure 2) shows the effect of a short average depth (3 millimeters) on a 30 centimeters wide dragon model. Absorption simulates the very first light interaction within the material, ignoring any further scattering events. Thus, this effect will greatly dominate the overall aspect of the material when average depth is large, which limits the number of light interactions within the material. This effect is illustrated by (Figure 3). Multiple scattering corresponds to all subsequent scattering events within the material, thus simulating the progressive diffusion of light through the material at each interaction. This effect will dominate the overall aspect of the material when average depth is short, as light gets scattered a lot, travelling short distances between each scattering event. This effect is illustrated by (Figure 2).
Both absorption and multiple scattering are essential to simulate, each being more or less important depending on the specified average depth.
[Figure 4] To show you why, let’s look at (Figure 4) which tries to reproduce (Figure 2) using absorption only. Not only the used parameters are way beyond normal ranges to compensate for the lack of multiple scattering, but you can also notice how hard the outlines are compared with (Figure 2), effectively losing the feeling of light diffusion, which tends to smooth out shadows and lighting transitions. Finally, some lighting aberrations can also be observed on the claws and the jaw.
How about a practical example? Let’s consider a built-in Vue marble material called “Green Marble”, from the “Rocks” collection.
[Figure 5] [Figure 6] (Figure 5) shows a typical rendering of this material, without any subsurface scattering simulation. Marble in reality is actually a very highly translucent material. It has a very short average depth for light penetration, but diffuses light a lot, thus making a good candidate for multiple scattering simulation. (Figure 6) shows the full subsurface scattering effect applied to the green marble material, with a short average depth of 3 millimeters. Notice that while the scratches due to bump mapping are preserved, the green veins now nicely blend through the material, giving the feeling that they are located below the surface, like true marble.
Feel free to let us know what topic you would like to be covered next using the online feedback center!
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