E-On software has released updates to Vue and Plantfactory. New features of Vue 2016 R4 include:
- Stereoscopic rendering for stills and animations available for panoramic and non-panoramic renders. The user is able to define the interpupillary distance and final image layout and select one of 3 convergence modes for handling parallax: Parallel, Converged and Off-axis.
- The ability to render a 180° vertical and horizontal FOV that can be automatically recognized by VR180-compliant platforms.
- Several multi-pass rendering improvements including optimised handling of semi-transparent materials and the ability to embed alpha channels for each mask pass.
- Path tracer renderer improvements including support for normal mapping and the ability to select OpenCL devices using 3 categories: All Available Devices, GPU Devices Only, or CPU Devices Only.
- UX/UI improvements to add support for CPUs with more than 64 cores on Windows, improve 4K/HiDPI display compatibility, and improve responsiveness and faster computation of Procedural Terrain within the Terrain Editor.
- Alembic compatibility updated to version 1.7.3.
- xStream support added for Maya 2018 and Cinema 4D R19.
New features of PlantFactory 2016 R4 include:
- The addition of multi-polygonal single-plane Leaves that are intended for use with offline rendering and light enough for real-time. The technique uses a grid based mesh and leaves can be bent, curved, folded and react to wind. The resultant plant is compatible with auto and user-defined LODs, color shift, multi materials, two-sided materials and more.
- New crossed-plane leaves features suited for real-time engines, or low level LODs. Useful for complex plant geometry parts such as flower groups or dense foliage. Users have options for either 2 or 3 crossed planes (2 vertical + 1 horizontal).
- The same Improvements to multi-pass rendering as Vue, including optimised handling of semi-transparent materials and alpha channels for each mask pass.
- Improved Exporting.
- Improved sap inheritance.
- Support for CPUs with more than 64 cores on Windows.
- A new wireframe display for billboards and improved display of billboards back face.
- Enhanced image browsing.
- Improved hooking points placement for warpboards.
PLE editions of both tools are available. Find out more on the E-On blog.
