Recently I've been playing around with the Vue 8 beta, and I have to say I'm impressed! Lot's of neat new features including the new Strata filters, displacement map overhangs and super God Rays. There seems to be a certain crispness I haven't seen before for the landscape fractals-- sorta reminds me of Terragen renders. Here are a few of the test images. If you're on the fence about upgrading, maybe these will help you with the decision. ;-)

Wow, simply amazing.  Nice work!  Reminds me of Terragen but better.

Stunning work Chipp.  These belong in the GodRays hall of fame.  That second one is really awesome

I am most curious about these "strata filters"

are they in the function editor ?

could we ( ME :D ) ask for a step by step ?

 Okay. Now I want Vue 8...
Does it take lightyears to render, those now attractions?

Hi,

images look great. Any chance you can give render times and your processor specs?

Great work.

Jon

No, they don't take more time to render than before, displacement is even faster, and cleaner. The strata filter is indeed in the function editor, it's a filter like any filter you basically place between the fractal input and the altitude output. But there are other ways to use it of course.
Chipp, those godrays are wonderful, and you didn't say that you don't even need clouds anymore to get them, like your 3rd example shows, you can get crisp godrays through tree branches.

Very very nice renders. The new godrays look spectacular. I am currently busy rendering a scene with lots of godrays shining through multiple cloud layers. I have arrived at a quality boost of +8 and there is still a lot of noise in the render, not to mention that the sky tages ages to finish now. Maybe I'll postpone the rendering of this scene until Vue 8 finally arrives.

Chipp, you also said that displaced overhangs are now possible. Could you supply an example? Rather than painting the caves and the overhangs I'd like to create them in a procedural way, similar to Terragen 2.

Astounding work!

I'm dribbling....but my mind was already made up anyway   :thumbupboth:

On the strata filter thing - can it do diagonal stratas?  That's more what I'm used to seeing in open rockfaces

Gill, although I don't own Vue 8 yet I think that should probably work with a "Rotation and Twist" node or a turbulence node.

Just a guess :-)

those are absolutely stunning! not sure whether its chipp or vue 8 but whatever! its great!

Quote - Wow, simply amazing.  Nice work!  Reminds me of Terragen but better.

And somewhere, a snowflake in Hell, didn't melt!! ;)
Honeslty glad to see you happy, not mocking ya :)

I really do need ot learn terrain work, sigh.

Quote - images look great. Any chance you can give render times and your processor specs?

I don't remember exactly, but I created all scenes and renders in a single evening. I'm using a fairly standard off the shelf at Best Buy Intel Quad-Core: 6Gb memory desktop.

Vue 8 seems to render a tad bit faster for me than 7. As Bruno mentioned, none of the atmospheres had clouds in them-- so the renders were pretty quick. 

To get rid of noise in Godrays, I used an old trick of Dave Burdick's: up the anti-aliasing to something like 95% quality and it really helps. I believe some of the scenes above will come with Vue 8, so you will be able to study them directly if you purchase an upgrade.

I really hope they release Vue 8 soon.  Otherwise, can someone distract Chipp while I "Borrow" his ? :biggrin:

The renders look great Chipp! 

Excellent work, Chipp....!

With the new update I'm trying out the cows...... Threw animated godrays over an infinite procedural terrain. -Definitely- not optimized (plus it's only one cow; the one on the CG box. I do finally have the rack finished, but I still need to run the cat 5 from my office to the downstairs closet it will be occupying. But the old rig is almost out of my office, halleujah!), as I started the 15 sec render and started typing this, and its not even finished with frame 0 (of course I just set it for default finish, which is death incarnate for speed anyway.....but at least it is rendering faster than 7 on the same machine with the same settings does). 

Hmm. Okay, according to hypervue, average frame time is 9:02 minutes, which actually isn't that bad, considering the light calculations being made. Now we wait and see how the sequence comes out......

wOW!!!!!  Those are stunning!!!!!!

Quote - ....

I don't remember exactly, but I created all scenes and renders in a single evening. .

,,.. Wow !

Quote - I am most curious about these "strata filters"

are they in the function editor ?

could we ( ME :D ) ask for a step by step ?

It's in the function editor under Filters... Recursive...  There's a "Strata" node and a "Confined Strata" node, the latter adds upper and lower limits on the effect.

On the two images linked, I added it between the terrain fractal and the altitude output.  'Layers' features a very high "Rock Layer Hardness" while 'Peaks' usues a very low "Rock Layer Hardness" value.  Otherwise, mostly playing with the dials in those...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1962255&user_id=427128&np&np

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1964843

 Wonderful images and a very nice explanation of what the Strata functions are.

Quote - those are absolutely stunning! not sure whether its chipp or vue 8 but whatever! its great!

I think it's a combination. Super tool and super artisan.

I have the pre-release of Vue 8 too and so far it seems more stable than the production 7.5. I have high hopes for this one.

Absolutely breath taking images.

Really impressive, Chipp!

Beautiful! Is there the PDF or anything that lists what the system requirements will be (Mac, PC)? Does it seem to need more horsepower than 7? Thanks.

 I'm pretty sure the requirements are the same as for 7.