I had good news from e-on software this week, they’ve made a start on reinstating their Cornucopia 3D website, which suffered a cyber attack in November 2017. Their online support soon helped me get my ten-year-old Vue Pioneer 8 3D landscape creation program back into action, so I’ve enjoyed going through the basics to build up this scene.
The Vue workspace gives you a plan view of your scene, two side elevations and a main camera view. I dropped in ready-made trees, rocks and reedmace but for the little chapel-style building I used just one cube and one pyramid. I grouped these together and copied them three times then re-sized them to make the apse, porch and tower. And I worked out how to add some chiselled-in-stone lettering.
Rendering the final image is a long process as Vue traces rays of light from the main source, the virtual sun, then goes on to calculate how reflected light and atmospheric haze will affect the scene. I was surprised to see that the first stage of the render created what looks like a night scene. The transparency of the plum tree leaves works well.
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e-on software: the latest version of VUE Creator and PlantFactory Creator is available for twenty dollars a month, so for my purposes I’ll have to make do with my 2009 version of Vue Pioneer . . . but I might be tempted by the free trial!
The spiral stair and the sketchbook were created in earlier version of Vue, then known as Vue d’Espirit. The staircase actually made it onto the readers’ letters page in PC Format magazine in 2004. You can see that I’ve never lost my urge, as a teenager, to be a set designer.
