Thanks for the info. Vue creates procedural materials and terrains look very cool but Is it possible to export baked terrain mesh and baked diffuse and normal texture maps from vue to use as a textured terrain mesh without any foliage? Coz it would be the most optimized for use on mobile devices projects like games or the VR experiences. Could you perhaps make one video about this? Thanks !
The real powermove would have been to make the software open source as far as possible. Probably not possible if they used some kind of proprietary library in the development. Would have been neat, though.
It also sounds like the pulled a lot of the features from these applications to integrate into their other tools, so probably don't want to give up that competitive edge either.
@@gamefromscratch Yeah, most likely the case and definitely understandable. A bit unfortunate but in the end it's still a nice move to make their previous work at least free to use.
What?! This is huge!! This is one of the major terrain generators in history! It was used a lot in Hollywood. ... Let's see if it's actually any good :D
It looks like for the PlantCatalog you want to download and 'install' every listed link to get all the items. Don't make the mistake of selecting only the most recent collection.
Wow. I actually just ran across my Vue d'Esprit 4 disc out in my garage over the weekend. I thought about trying to install it for fun, but now....wow.
I have used VUE for years to create parts of short animations mostly done with Carrara (another no development program but still for sale and to me very easy to use). It was the only program I paid a yearly subscription for. And yes, it was slow on Intel Core i7 quad core machines. But my newer machine is an AMD 12 core 24 thread machine which dramatically speeds things up. A 1280x720 frame used to take minutes, can now be done in seconds, depending on the content.
@@ethanwasme4307 Plant Factory exports billboards, but I have not tested this feature. At least I saw this function in the export window. I just install PlantFactory for the first time yesterday, i'm no expert.
@@ethanwasme4307 You can render out leaf clusters just like in Speedtree as well as billboards from the full plant (not with 360 degree angles, though).
This is huge and kinda sad, because I have used plant factory for some time, and it's really nice and now the best free tree creating software since it's decades better than tree it
Good to see this one free and not dropped. I used it in production way back when (gamedev) and yes, it is slow.. and it is a bit of a learning curve. But the same can be said for Terragen, Gaia I don't really think is particularly good. But as with everything it's a matter of taste I suppose. But it's very nice people can use this to create assets for games (hint the only competition costs money.. a lot of it too)
Speedtree is not aimed more at game dev. Speedtree is split into two subsoftwares: Speedtree Games for games and Speedtree Cinema for feature film and animation. And you can't bring in a project from one to another lol. Plant factory has a realtime preset and auto lods but does not seem to be geared enough for games though with nanite on foliage you probably could make decent use of it for animations rendered in unreal.
A disclaimer since you mentioned Nanite potentially allowing for the use of the PlantFactory foliage: Nanite foliage comes with two big caveats that everyone planning to use it should be aware of: 1) Nanite does not perform well with the masked transparency cards that are typically used for leaves in these foliage generators. 2) The whole "vertex count doesn't matter" sentiment many get from Nanite completely goes out the window if you want to use wind emulation through world position offset on your foliage. You still pay that price per vertex. This means you want you vertex count on foliage to be as low as possible to achieve your visual goals, even with nanite. (For reference: Epic transitioned fortnite to nanite and their biggest tree has 300k vertices. They baked the wind animation into a VAT to make that number run good enough with it.)
Hope you receive the appreciation you deserve because man you're always so early on keeping people updated and with useful stuff. When I decided I'll get into game dev, your channel was one of the first I found and subscribed to like man you're a real one
Interesting that they preferred to completely give up on the products instead of doing what the old Vue users kept begging them to do all these years, and start offering permanent non-subscription licenses again, so we could start giving them money again.
i used to use this in the past, they don't have to run on supercomputers, but of course like any render software they can take time, if you want a still image it's not so bad, and if you work smarter you'll get benefits.
Today I emailed them for support with my older Vue 9 Infinite and they gave me a key for all my previously bought objects and more. Now I get to use VUE and Plant Factory along with the Plant Catalogue with a perpetual license. You can create roads on terrains you made.
I always liked Vue for artistry... I've never really used it for animation rendering anything though. I also did notice the slowing down on huge products but it can be fun to use at least for inspiration and being able to make your own scenery... I'd say, since it's free... it's worth a go!
I don't think you need a super computer it just takes hours to render stuff. Thats normal. Took that long 2-3 decades ago too. Bryce 3D and other like these performed about the same.
It’s is funny I got the educational version of Vue in high school and used it for short films (I was a media nerd then.) I didn’t understand anything about 3D or lighting whatsoever, but I could just throw a few trees, make a mountain easy, and even water, and it looked amazing. It did take an hour per frame though 🤣
So can somebody explain to me why a company buy another to just end it? What is the logic? Like all the aquisitions that Unity made and then threw in the garbage can.🤷
Not sure if this is the case here... but usually, the new parent company wants underlying tech/patents without getting into the business of selling/supporting the thing they bought.
Sometimes they're focus is to get the engineers, the software it sounds like aspects were already utilized & integrated into some of their other high-end products in unique ways, so this particular products are of no use to them, quite nice for them to release it like this.
wow i remember this soft. i couldnt justify the purchase but it did really cool skys and terrains etc. could be good for some skybox distance type stuff for games
Great free plant modeler and (N.C._Use) catalog. I can 3d model some plants faster in Blender. Although, texture input, procedural, exporters and baking displacement maps, can be a little quicker, comparing.
Haven't used Vue for several yrs and unfortunately you do need a powerful computer to get this working properly at the time. Considering how the new Ryzen 9000 series is going to be released soon, i'm looking forward in trying this out. Didn't realize that the app haven't been updated for over several yrs now.
Looking at the workflow it seems that you need to bake the plants into fbx to use in UE, do you know if any PCB interaction would be available to create almost infinite variants ? Would love to see a more indepth video to use plant catalog (at least using the premade ones, no need for full on plant factory) in UE if you have the time to do so! Thanks for the video! Always a huge deal increasing the number of high quality freewares like these ones!
I would be great, if you would have actually installed and tested the stuff you present here and not only browse thru their website. At least you could show and test some of the plants from the catalogue so we can get an impression of the possibilities and quality of the content.
They should sell it to epic then they will have a speed tree competitor they could ntergrate unreal tech to vue the plant catalog could be updated with megascans technology . They could do so much with it if i ran epic i would snag the ip. And since this would take a bit of time people could learn the software while they wait and it would reaim industry relevant
I haven't used Vue in years but as far as I recall its purpose was to create (highly realistic) landscapes for movies/cinematics (either video or still images). I can see some of its usefulness disappearing with the advent of AI images (it's usage was already kind of limited). It's cool to hear it's free, but I am kind of sad that development has ended...
Back in the mid-1990s that's close the same length for an even less realistic 3D footage. It's ridiculous how render times keep needing the latest hardware to keep up with advancements. But a film reel could still be developed in less time through conventional means.
It works fine on Mac. You need to do this with a lot of software on the Mac that does not come from their App Store. RIGHT-click on the app, select open. It says 'no'. REDO it again, you can now select 'OPEN' - the software will now run.
I also ran across a YT channel that claims to have thousands of tutorials & plans to release new introduction videos. "Vue and Plant Factory now Free forever! E-on software now FREE."
Too bad they only make it free but don't Open Source it. Maybe it's not possible due to 3rd party licenses but if it's all contained in itself it would be awesome if they simply made it so the community could take over keeping it alive. In it's current form it's awesome but probably wasted time due to now slowly declining compatibility and features.
Ya, and there is suppose to be a plugin inside Unreal for vertex colors, Pivot Painter, Nanite(if it works) auto material setup etc..for vers. 5.3...so how long will the plugin function, idk? Don't have Unreal installed so..
you needed what was a "super computer" a few years ago, a gamers level machine can handle it. video renders do take time, that's why we've been running renders on a machine that does just that 24 hours a day:) example of what it does from a few years ago: ruclips.net/video/TfYF5iIdaYs/видео.html
Souer -sweet news.... free sowftware is always nice but unfortunately it means that it is now dead... with maintainance, soon will be gone.... Rest in peace VUE!
Not shocked at all that this died. This should be a lesson to software companies that want to charge hundreds of dollars for their software. You will have hundreds of users at movie studios. If you want to charge 10 dollars you will have hundreds of thousands of users and a steady income. As I recall they had software that ranged from $500 - $1000+ I also remember using vue back in 2005 and it took hours to render a small 640p image.
Wow, you're really full of yourself. A hobbyist subscription to both VUE and PlantFactory was 200$ per year for BOTH products. That's not what I call "hundreds of dollars", and if you want to see a product developed, I am afraid you have to pay something for it so that we employees can develop it. But why am I even reacting to this. It's the internet and you're obviously a troll.
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Thanks for the info. Vue creates procedural materials and terrains look very cool but Is it possible to export baked terrain mesh and baked diffuse and normal texture maps from vue to use as a textured terrain mesh without any foliage? Coz it would be the most optimized for use on mobile devices projects like games or the VR experiences. Could you perhaps make one video about this? Thanks !
The real powermove would have been to make the software open source as far as possible.
Probably not possible if they used some kind of proprietary library in the development.
Would have been neat, though.
It also sounds like the pulled a lot of the features from these applications to integrate into their other tools, so probably don't want to give up that competitive edge either.
@@gamefromscratch Yeah, most likely the case and definitely understandable.
A bit unfortunate but in the end it's still a nice move to make their previous work at least free to use.
Omg this is great, it's a very nostalgic software, used to work with it back then..very good they did that
What?! This is huge!! This is one of the major terrain generators in history! It was used a lot in Hollywood. ... Let's see if it's actually any good :D
it's brilliant
Is it good for game engines ?@@JPDiViO
It looks like for the PlantCatalog you want to download and 'install' every listed link to get all the items. Don't make the mistake of selecting only the most recent collection.
thanks for the headsup, any pdf cheat sheets or plant libraries like after Hilliers or pinterest
Made that mistake, thanks
Wow. I actually just ran across my Vue d'Esprit 4 disc out in my garage over the weekend. I thought about trying to install it for fun, but now....wow.
I have used VUE for years to create parts of short animations mostly done with Carrara (another no development program but still for sale and to me very easy to use). It was the only program I paid a yearly subscription for. And yes, it was slow on Intel Core i7 quad core machines. But my newer machine is an AMD 12 core 24 thread machine which dramatically speeds things up. A 1280x720 frame used to take minutes, can now be done in seconds, depending on the content.
I used to use VUE for terrains etc.. 10 something years ago, it's good stuff
I love your videos, thank you for all the work/effort you put into your videos/tutorials and your website!
Plant Factory supports the creation of low-poly lods, so even without nanites it is quite suitable for game development.
billboards like speed tree? i don't mind doing my own but it's something we wouldn't wanna start doing xD
@@ethanwasme4307 Plant Factory exports billboards, but I have not tested this feature. At least I saw this function in the export window. I just install PlantFactory for the first time yesterday, i'm no expert.
@@ethanwasme4307 I saw an option in the export window to create buildboards, but I haven't tested it yet.
@@ethanwasme4307 You can render out leaf clusters just like in Speedtree as well as billboards from the full plant (not with 360 degree angles, though).
Thank you! This was a very detailed description of what these are; as you pointed out, their website is lacking in product descriptions.
This is huge and kinda sad, because I have used plant factory for some time, and it's really nice and now the best free tree creating software since it's decades better than tree it
Good to see this one free and not dropped. I used it in production way back when (gamedev) and yes, it is slow.. and it is a bit of a learning curve. But the same can be said for Terragen, Gaia I don't really think is particularly good. But as with everything it's a matter of taste I suppose. But it's very nice people can use this to create assets for games (hint the only competition costs money.. a lot of it too)
Speedtree is not aimed more at game dev. Speedtree is split into two subsoftwares: Speedtree Games for games and Speedtree Cinema for feature film and animation.
And you can't bring in a project from one to another lol.
Plant factory has a realtime preset and auto lods but does not seem to be geared enough for games though with nanite on foliage you probably could make decent use of it for animations rendered in unreal.
I've use both games and cinema and i don't know but they are the same. lol
you import in Vue and render, great results
A disclaimer since you mentioned Nanite potentially allowing for the use of the PlantFactory foliage: Nanite foliage comes with two big caveats that everyone planning to use it should be aware of:
1) Nanite does not perform well with the masked transparency cards that are typically used for leaves in these foliage generators.
2) The whole "vertex count doesn't matter" sentiment many get from Nanite completely goes out the window if you want to use wind emulation through world position offset on your foliage. You still pay that price per vertex. This means you want you vertex count on foliage to be as low as possible to achieve your visual goals, even with nanite. (For reference: Epic transitioned fortnite to nanite and their biggest tree has 300k vertices. They baked the wind animation into a VAT to make that number run good enough with it.)
holy molly, a name haven't heard since the 90's
I'm pretty sure they were used for some of the "Pirates otC" movies
Together with Bryce
@@cholasimmons aaaaa, Bryce. My first 3D app in the 90's. Memories . . .
Hope you receive the appreciation you deserve because man you're always so early on keeping people updated and with useful stuff. When I decided I'll get into game dev, your channel was one of the first I found and subscribed to like man you're a real one
How many more 3D plants to my collection? Yes! Thanks man.
Interesting that they preferred to completely give up on the products instead of doing what the old Vue users kept begging them to do all these years, and start offering permanent non-subscription licenses again, so we could start giving them money again.
completely
Oh they went this way too huh? kinda tragic :/
i used to use this in the past, they don't have to run on supercomputers, but of course like any render software they can take time, if you want a still image it's not so bad, and if you work smarter you'll get benefits.
Imagine Autodesk doing the same with stingray and softimage xsi...
Sorry, but I can't imagine this even on hard drugs.
Today I emailed them for support with my older Vue 9 Infinite and they gave me a key for all my previously bought objects and more. Now I get to use VUE and Plant Factory along with the Plant Catalogue with a perpetual license. You can create roads on terrains you made.
I always liked Vue for artistry... I've never really used it for animation rendering anything though. I also did notice the slowing down on huge products but it can be fun to use at least for inspiration and being able to make your own scenery... I'd say, since it's free... it's worth a go!
Vue D'esprit is a classic. Was always one of the finest, going back to the 90's, from the dawn of desktop 3D animation software.
i remember my father bought me vue as christmas gift to me back in 2004.
I don't think you need a super computer it just takes hours to render stuff. Thats normal. Took that long 2-3 decades ago too. Bryce 3D and other like these performed about the same.
It’s is funny I got the educational version of Vue in high school and used it for short films (I was a media nerd then.) I didn’t understand anything about 3D or lighting whatsoever, but I could just throw a few trees, make a mountain easy, and even water, and it looked amazing. It did take an hour per frame though 🤣
So can somebody explain to me why a company buy another to just end it? What is the logic? Like all the aquisitions that Unity made and then threw in the garbage can.🤷
Not sure if this is the case here... but usually, the new parent company wants underlying tech/patents without getting into the business of selling/supporting the thing they bought.
Sometimes they're focus is to get the engineers, the software it sounds like aspects were already utilized & integrated into some of their other high-end products in unique ways, so this particular products are of no use to them, quite nice for them to release it like this.
wow i remember this soft. i couldnt justify the purchase but it did really cool skys and terrains etc. could be good for some skybox distance type stuff for games
Great free plant modeler and (N.C._Use) catalog. I can 3d model some plants faster in Blender.
Although, texture input, procedural, exporters and baking displacement maps, can be a little quicker, comparing.
Are the PlantCatalog collection 2022 contained in 2023.3, or should we download all available files for the complete collection?
You need to download all 13 archives.
@@danielseebacher8300 Thank you :)
You don't need a supercomputer to run Vue unless you're doing a one to one real world environment
Terragen 😌
Haven't used Vue for several yrs and unfortunately you do need a powerful computer to get this working properly at the time. Considering how the new Ryzen 9000 series is going to be released soon, i'm looking forward in trying this out. Didn't realize that the app haven't been updated for over several yrs now.
Was it competing a bit with Unreal and Unity, as I understand both of those can create awesome landscapes too?
Looking at the workflow it seems that you need to bake the plants into fbx to use in UE, do you know if any PCB interaction would be available to create almost infinite variants ? Would love to see a more indepth video to use plant catalog (at least using the premade ones, no need for full on plant factory) in UE if you have the time to do so!
Thanks for the video! Always a huge deal increasing the number of high quality freewares like these ones!
I would be great, if you would have actually installed and tested the stuff you present here and not only browse thru their website.
At least you could show and test some of the plants from the catalogue so we can get an impression of the possibilities and quality of the content.
If they are not going to support the software anymore, why not make the code open source?
It looks like this can create pivotpainter assets.
They should sell it to epic then they will have a speed tree competitor they could ntergrate unreal tech to vue the plant catalog could be updated with megascans technology . They could do so much with it if i ran epic i would snag the ip. And since this would take a bit of time people could learn the software while they wait and it would reaim industry relevant
If the catalogue is good, Would be interesting if exporting to Godot / Blender and LOD'ing would be viable and worthwhile 🤔🤔
I haven't used Vue in years but as far as I recall its purpose was to create (highly realistic) landscapes for movies/cinematics (either video or still images). I can see some of its usefulness disappearing with the advent of AI images (it's usage was already kind of limited). It's cool to hear it's free, but I am kind of sad that development has ended...
For Vue I think you mean professional workstation/server, like Epic or Threadripper setup.
Yes, the minimum core requirement isn't good enough for fast renders. You'll need something close to a Threadripper if you're on a deadline.
Man i remember Vue from a long time ago. Rendering would take a week for 20 seconds of footage.
Back in the mid-1990s that's close the same length for an even less realistic 3D footage. It's ridiculous how render times keep needing the latest hardware to keep up with advancements. But a film reel could still be developed in less time through conventional means.
Well this is confuse me and I thought it was vue js.
I was thinking about the Visual User Environment by Apollo Computer. I must be getting old.
Warning for Mac users - I downloaded in and the OS wouldn't allow it to run. Can't see where to send a request for Bentley to update the Mac version.
It works fine on Mac. You need to do this with a lot of software on the Mac that does not come from their App Store. RIGHT-click on the app, select open. It says 'no'. REDO it again, you can now select 'OPEN' - the software will now run.
@@AlexBoschmans thank you! I'll re-download tonight.
Vue was great for a few decades and actually a pioneer in the field, then they became very expensive sadly.
I also ran across a YT channel that claims to have thousands of tutorials & plans to release new introduction videos.
"Vue and Plant Factory now Free forever! E-on software now FREE."
wow! these are way cool !!
I'm really wish Carrara would go the same way, they haven't updated that program in a decade now
This is kinda huge.
Too bad they only make it free but don't Open Source it. Maybe it's not possible due to 3rd party licenses but if it's all contained in itself it would be awesome if they simply made it so the community could take over keeping it alive. In it's current form it's awesome but probably wasted time due to now slowly declining compatibility and features.
Can you use them free in Unreal?
Ya, and there is suppose to be a plugin inside Unreal for vertex colors, Pivot Painter, Nanite(if it works) auto material setup etc..for vers. 5.3...so how long will the plugin function, idk?
Don't have Unreal installed so..
you needed what was a "super computer" a few years ago, a gamers level machine can handle it. video renders do take time, that's why we've been running renders on a machine that does just that 24 hours a day:)
example of what it does from a few years ago:
ruclips.net/video/TfYF5iIdaYs/видео.html
I feel like there is a word for lots of plants... things involving plants... what is that word?
Vegetation? Flora?
A shrubbery!
... a certain f word is coming to mind.
No, not that one. ;)
''Foliage'' 😅
@@gamefromscratch You confronted it pretty handily in the video, so all those therapy sessions are paying off 😁
If only gaming companies would take a leaf from bentley...
Vue is the 2010 version of Bryce.
Oh I remember Bryce!
Bryce interface was well ahead of its time
God, why are you using Opera? That's a terrible browser for privacy
Souer -sweet news.... free sowftware is always nice but unfortunately it means that it is now dead... with maintainance, soon will be gone.... Rest in peace VUE!
Not shocked at all that this died. This should be a lesson to software companies that want to charge hundreds of dollars for their software. You will have hundreds of users at movie studios. If you want to charge 10 dollars you will have hundreds of thousands of users and a steady income. As I recall they had software that ranged from $500 - $1000+ I also remember using vue back in 2005 and it took hours to render a small 640p image.
Wow, you're really full of yourself. A hobbyist subscription to both VUE and PlantFactory was 200$ per year for BOTH products. That's not what I call "hundreds of dollars", and if you want to see a product developed, I am afraid you have to pay something for it so that we employees can develop it.
But why am I even reacting to this. It's the internet and you're obviously a troll.
Agreed, the price killed it. Would of happily paid £75 for it.
now free
That's a weird looking Vue
At 2GB? Stay obsolete thank you
UE5 swallowed these features whole... theres nothing here that i see its doing u cant do in ue5 now.
There is always a catch. I wonder if it will be too slow for most people to use.
What about Isotropic?
Wow, thanks for this news.