Vue Esprit

This app is amazing. But they have to most shity support I ever seen.

Vue could be a killer program. As it stands, however the company behind it does everything to to take all fun out of the experience. Tech support is the worst I have encountered anywhere, upgrade pricing are close to total rip-offs, and stability problems still persists after so many years of development. I also do not understand why we still have to deal with a user interface that looks like it comes from 1994. Granted, Vue can yield amazing results, but I do not feel even welcome as a customer. I strongly suggest looking at the products of the competition, e.g. Terragen.

Even overlooking the fact that it is most difficult for me to use (I have quite a few 3D programs that I can use adequitely) I am amazed at the HORRIBLE support network and in particular their own website where no matter what I do I can not get support from. It runs you in circles and the links all come back to me putting in the same personal info over and over and it just never gets anywhere. The pioneer version promises that the restrictions will be lifted after I buy a particular plugin but it never EVER recognizes me installing the plugin so it still stays restricted. This after 60 dollars for the plugin.. If you go to the website you will find they do NOT accept any form of email whatsoever.. You can NOT contact them at all.. They sluff you off to Cornocopia's website and I am not allowed to use the forums as it too will not accept my personal info so a membership is not on the horizon. For the life of me I can not understand why they want anyone to buy something that does not work and leave you NO OPTION to get advice or troubleshooting info for the problems at hand.. I would truly LOVE to have this program and have literally tons of money to spend on all of the stuff on the website.. I know they would love to have my money but (and this is a BIG BUT) unless I know I can find a way to get any of this expensive software to work and at least have someone to get help from I would not give them ONE RED CENT of my money.. I am not a person that has a grudge against any one and am a true lover of making three dee stuff but I am truly saddened by my experience with these folks and would NOT recommend them to people, especially a beginner at using Vue... I see so much fantastic work done with this program and to tell the truth am very jealous that I can not join in on the fun.. PLEASE.. PLEASE !!.. fix your site and get the bugs out of this program and I would drop a few thousand dollars today on your products.. I AM SERIOUS.. I love to spend my money and I love making artwork but I HATE being made to run in circles chasing my tail.. REALLY I DO !!....

I change my review to ZERO stars. Support for this pos is abysmal - there is NO MAC SUPPORT, and the support people are condescending at best. After testing on a variety of Macs (Xeons, G5s, iMac G5s and Intels) - this program fails across the board. 1) some crashes are permanent. erasing a system and reinstalling the OS (and of course Vue) does little. I've exhausted a supply of Xeons doing this and only one seems to render. 2) the program is ridiculously slow; not just rendering, but the interface and redraws are hideous (even after adjusting the video options in the pregerence pane) 3) memory management is pathetic: the program will make calls to in-use memory blocks, then claim out of memory, then crash. 8gbs of ram isn't enough?

The newer versions are much more stable, though still a bit unMaclike at times. The results are stunning. Support completely stinks - weeks pass before getting the most idiotic responses - stuff like - did you reboot? - ugh. But the results are amazing, if you can suffer through the flaws. Oh, expect to be nickle and dimed with Esprit. (You want to control trees, $xx, oh, you want to batch render with other systems - $xx, you want to control EcoSystems - $xx.)

As a Poser user for the last 3 years, I along with many others have been waiting for e-on (the makers of Vue) to finally get their product to work properly on the Mac. This version still isn't there for Tiger: System: OS 10.3.4 Dual 2.5 3g/ram ATI X800 Multiple crashes per session. Render anomylies. Very slow rendering. Incompatabilities even with their online store products. Extremely slow Tech Support (if ever...)

Vue5 Esprit is incredibly buggy on the Mac platform (OS 10.4.2 to 10.4.3) and the tech support at e-on software has not been able to offer much encouragement except to ask for patience lately. Their user forums have been deleting or shouting down any complaints, which seems an indication that perhaps they are at a loss for what to do at this point.