Vue d'Esprit 2 Tutorial

The picture is that of a wooden bridge leading down into a dense forest stretching out as far as the eye can see. It was created using Vue d'Esprit 2, a very exciting new 3D tool from e-on software. Please visit our Vue d'Esprit 2 page for information on this incredible package. LightWave 5.6 was used to model the bridge. This tutorial will focus on the way the scene was created in Vue d'Esprit 2.

It is divided in 6 sections:
1. Shaping out the forest
2. Adding a distant background
3. Tuning the atmosphere
4. Adding vegetation
5. Importing the subject
6. Tuning the light

1. Shaping out the Forest
Create a new scene. You will be prompted to select an atmosphere for this new scene. Just pick one that corresponds more or less to the results you want to achieve. You can always select another one later, if you finally decide that you made a bad choice. We chose Breaking Storm:



Most of the scene is going to be a forest. Create a large terrain, and stretch it out so that it occupies the two lower thirds of the main camera view:



Reduce its vertical amplitude by using the resize handles. Double-click on the terrain to open the terrain editor, and push up its resolution. Add bumps and a tad of erosion to give it a smoother look:



Notice how the Terrain has been added to the list of objects in the World Browser (the list on the right side). Click on it, and change the name to Distant forest:



Labeling your objects clearly is extremely important as it will enable you to find your way rapidly inside your scene as it grows more complex. The Object Properties Panel (just above the World browser) displays information relative to the selected objects. Select the terrain, and click on the ôLoad materialö button:



Now choose something that looks more like a distant forest than the default material. We chose Grass from the Landscapes collection:



End of stage screenshot:



  2. Adding a Distant Background
In order to give more depth to the picture, we will now add a far background of a large and distant mountain. Add two more terrains in the background:



The first will be a sort of transition with the forest, the second a large mountain.
Don't be afraid to make those terrains really large and distant (see how small the distant forest terrain is on the following capture):



Resize them vertically and stretch them laterally to increase their visible size on the picture:



Assign them the Grass material too (just drag the material from the ôDistant forestö terrain onto these new terrains).
Now letÆs make the grass turn into rock with altitude. Select the mountain terrain, and double-click on the material in the Object Properties panel to open the material editor.
Select the ôMix materialsö checkbox, and load Clumpy rock from the Rocks collection into Material 2:




This will mix the grass with the rocks:



Indicate that the rock material appears at high altitudes, and on steep slopes using the ôInfluence of environmentö tab:



Use the ôMixing proportionsö slider to adapt the amount of rock visible on the mountain:



Use test renders to make sure the amount of rock is right (since the editor can stay open without blocking access to other parts of the scene, you can do test renders without closing the editor. It just disappears during the render).



Using the World browser, drag the two terrains into layer 2, and rename this as ôMountain rangeö. Layers let you instantly hide, lock or activate whole chunks of your scene, thus avoiding screen clutter:



End of the stage screenshot:



  3. Tuning the Atmosphere
Before we make any further progress, we will improve the atmosphere of the picture.
We want the warm light from the sun to lick the scene from the left. Select the sun in the side view and drag it down to the left of the camera:
Using the Object properties panel, choose an orange color for the sun color:



Modify the ambient light color to make it darker and give it yellow tones too:



Now we will add fog at lower altitudes. Open the Fog and Haze editor, and create altitude dependent fog using the ôAltitude dependent fog thicknessö sliders. Select a pale gray color for the fog:



Next, open the Sky and Clouds editor and increase the density of the clouds close to the horizon using the "Thickness near horizon" slider. Change cloud illumination boost to control how clouds are illuminated depending on their position relative to the sun. Reduce the size of the clouds using the cloud material scale control:

We want to add clouds over the transition forest, in front of the large mountain. Create a couple of spheres:



and assign them the Cloud Sphere #6 material from the Clouds collection:



Drag the clouds above the transition forest and enlarge them until they are as large as the terrain:



Having enlarged the spheres, we also have to increase the scale of the attached material. Open the Summary of materials panel and push the scale of the cloud material up. The Summary of materials is a very useful panel that displays all materials used in the scene at any given time. Modifying materials here guarantees that all objects using that material will be modified accordingly:


WeÆve finished work on the background, so you can now hide the ôMountain rangeö layer (click on the eye to the right of the layer title). Although the objects in that layer donÆt appear in the views, they will still render the same:



End of the stage screenshot:



  4. Adding Vegetation
Vue dÆEsprit plants behave like standard objects (they may be moved, resized, twisted and rotated using the same set of tools). Just like in nature, no two plants from a given species will ever look identical (because they are grown randomly inside the software). Vue d'Esprit 2 can currently grow 18 different species:



In this picture we will use walnut trees, bushes, plum trees and dead trees.
Create a group of walnut and plum trees (ca 100 in all), and place them in front of the distant forest. Add a few bushes. Position the trees on the terrain, then drag them up way above the terrain:



Press Drop to position them precisely on top of the terrain:



Group plants that are close together. This will increase rendering speed. Since Vue dÆEsprit trees are very detailed, notice how the polygon count has jumped up to over 5 million polygons...



This hardly slows the program though, thanks to the fully multi-threaded architecture, and the efficient way plants are displayed. End of the stage screenshot:



  5. Importing the Subject
Now we are ready to import our subject: the bridge. We'll add a dead branch and a tree just showing on the edge of the picture, suggesting the start of the bridge.

The bridge was created in LightWave, but any application supporting DXF export could have been used. Select Import object from the Objects menu and load the Bridge DXF file:




Position and resize it so that it starts out of the right corner of the picture, and leads to the trees that you have just added in the previous step:



The material used for the bridge is a mix of wood and moss, created in much the same way as the grass and rock material from above. A distribution function was used to create the clumps of moss:



Create a dead tree branch by clicking on the vegetation icon and picking Dead tree from the vegetation browser:



If you don't like the shape of the branch, disguard it, and generate another one! They'll never be the same twice! Resize and position the branch in the bottom right corner of the picture. DonÆt worry about placing it close to the camera: Vue 2 vegetations look great, even up close! Place a plum tree in the top right corner, to fill up the empty space.
You can use render blow-ups to check that positioning is just right:



End of the stage screenshot:



  6. Tuning the Light
This is one of the longest (and most important) steps. ItÆs often just a question of trying and ôtest renderingö regularly.
Create a spot light and aim it from the left at the subject to emphasize the dead branch in the foreground:



 Give it a yellow color. Place another spot to add some light to the group of trees at the end of the bridge. Make this one slightly green using the Object Properties panel:



Finally, soft shadows were turned on for the sun light to make shadows more realistic:



The scene is now complete. Congratulations! It comprises over 5.37 million polygons, and 3 lights, but still takes less than 5 minutes to render in 800 pixels wide, preview quality. Final screenshot:



In this tutorial, we discovered the very basics of composing pictures using Vue d'Esprit 2. We saw how easy it is to create realistic scenery, cleverly placing terrains and vegetation, and importing objects from other 3D applications.
Obviously, there is a lot more to be learned! But hopefully, we've managed to give you the desire to create your own natural scenery using this exciting tool.