Tuesday, November 21st, 2017 Posted by Jim Thacker

E-on ships Vue 2016 R4 and PlantFactory 2016 R4


Image: Drea Horvath. See a stereo view on e-on software’s website.


E-on software has released Vue Infinite 2016 R4, Vue xStream 2016 R4 and PlantFactory 2016 R4, the latest quarterly updates to its professional digital nature tools and line-up of vegetation-generation software.

The Vue updates add support for stereoscopic and panoramic rendering, plus improvements to multi-pass rendering and path tracing, while PlantFactory 2016 R4 adds new base geometries for leaves and flowers.

New in Vue 2016 R4: support for stereoscopic rendering, including 180° and 360° output
The main new feature in Vue Infinite 2016 R4 and Vue xStream 2016 R4 is stereoscopic rendering. Stereo renders can be generated in standard or panoramic formats, including both 180° and 360° output.

The system works with “most of” Vue’s render options, including multi-pass and HDR rendering; and users can define interaxial distance and choose from three standard parallax convergence modes.

The new hybrid CPU/GPU path tracing renderer added in Vue 2016 also gets an update, adding support for normal mapping, plus the option to set the engine to use only CPU or GPU cores.

Other changes include better handling of semi-transparent materials during multi-pass rendering, minimising colour bleed around the edges of object masks, which should lead to cleaner mattes for clouds and trees.

The UI has also been further updated to display better on HiDPI displays; and on Windows, the software now supports CPUs with more than 64 cores.



PlantFactory 2016 R4 adds new base geometries for leaves and flowers, including multi-polygon single planes, enabling leaves to be curved or folded realistically; and cross-plane representations of flowers.


New in PlantFactory 2016 R4: new base geometries for leaves and flowers
New features in PlantFactory 2016 R4 include support for multi-polygon single plane leaves, enabling leaf geometry to be curved or folded, and leaves to be automatically deformed by wind.

E-on describes the implementation as designed for offline rendering but “still light enough for real-time implementations” and compatible with PlantFactory’s level of detail system.

For complex plant geometry like flowers and dense foliage, the update also adds support for crossed-plane representations, with a choice of either two or three (two vertical, one horizontal) planes.

Each plane can have a specific or randomised texture assigned to it; and there is a choice of four normal computation models.

As with Vue 2016 R4, the update also improves multi-pass rendering of semi-transparent materials, and adds support for CPUs with more than 64-cores on Windows. You can see a full list of changes via the link below.

Pricing and availability
Vue Infinite 2016 R4 and Vue xStream 2016 R4 are available now for 64-bit Windows 7+ and Mac OS X 10.8+. Vue xStream integrates Vue with these versions of 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya and Softimage.

New licences of Vue Infinite 2016 R4 cost $1,295; new licences of Vue xStream 2016 R4 cost $1,695.

PlantFactory 2016 R4 is available for 64-bit Windows 7+ and Mac OS X 10.8+. The base Artist edition costs $199, Designer costs $495, Studio costs $995, and Producer costs $1,995. See a feature comparion table.

E-on has also released Vue 2016 R4 PLE and PlantFactory 2016 R4, the free learning editions of the apps. Both have limitations on rendering and saving files: you can see lists of restrictions on the download pages.


Read a full list of new features in Vue Infinite 2016 R4 and Vue xStream 2016 R4

Read a full list of new features in PlantFactory 2016 R4