Vue d'Esprit coming to Mac OS X

E-on software, based in France, plans on brining Vue d’Esprit 4 (Vue 4), its award winning 3D scenery animation and rendering software, to Mac OS X. Vue is a application that has been optimized for the creation, rendering and animation of natural scenery. Nicholas Phelps, president of e-on software, said that Vue d’Esprit 4 for the Mac will include “hundreds” of new features over the previous Windows only Vue d’Esprit 3.1, such as:

A whole new volumetric atmosphere system that closely captures the complex interactions of air and light; volumetric clouds, materials and lights

Lens flares, stellar and Atmospheric objects — planets (moons and other planets of the solar system), stars, rainbows and ice rings

A new Terrain Editor with real-time 3D preview, random rock generator, symmetrical terrains

SolidGrowth 2, an advance on e-on software’s realistic tree and plant creation and rendering technology that creates “unique” natural objects

Direct import of static Curious Lab’s Poser Scenes for inclusion of complex animal and human models

Luminous and glowing materials, light gels, unlimited transparency depth, several new shadow features

Backlighting and anti-aliasing options for higher quality rendering.

What’s more, Vue 4 will add MPEG 1, MPEG 2, QuickTime, QuickTime VR, RealMovie, PICT, and TIFF import/export filters. The Mac OS X version will offer high quality OpenGL scene previews and a real-time thumbnail render of the scene, said Phelps. Vue 4 will also feature a completely rewritten rendering engine that will increase rendering speed by 40 percent, he added.

“The Vue 4 interface underwent a complete redesign so that design environment is so easy to use, very few users will have to open the Vue d’Esprit 4 manual,” Phelps said.

Vue d’Esprit 4 will be available in English, French, German, and Japanese language versions, with an estimated street price of US$199. Look for it in the fourth quarter of the year. More info can be found on the e-on software Web site.