Poser 12 to Vue test – success

I’ve tested the Vue import of a standard .PZ3 scene saved from Poser 12. Works fine, with a couple of setup caveats.

An older Vue such as mine does not know about Poser 12 and its own dedicated runtime location(s). It only knows about Poser 11 in its Options…

There Vue needs a path set to the Poser 11 .EXE and it also needs to be set to use the Poser 11 SDK. These are easily set, just a drop-down and a file-path. No plug-in is needed, as Vue already knows about Poser and visa-versa. There was a long relationship between E-on and Smith Micro, and the importer was worked on intensively for many years.

Vue presumably needs to see the Poser 11 .EXE folder for two reasons: i) Poser knows about the runtime locations to be searched to accurately rebuild the scene inside Vue, and ii) because Vue has to locate and run the Poser 11 SDK. The SDK is presumably what then does any Poser-Vue material auto-conversions and adjustments that are needed.

Thus for a scene file with Poser 12 content, I find that you must also tell the Poser 11 Library about the new runtime at C:\Users\Public\Documents\Poser 12 Content\Runtime\ (and probably also the P12 ‘Downloads’ if that also has its own Runtime). Give Poser 11 time to index this new runtime then exit.

Your Poser 12 content, if saved to a Poser scene file, will then load into Vue. This is done in the usual way in Vue: New Scene | File | Import Object, load the Poser scene file and apply a Vue atmosphere…

Poser 12 content, “Pink 2.0”, in Vue. Real 3D clouds, not a photo backdrop.

It only takes a minute. To Vue the Poser 12 scene file must seem to be just a normal .PZ3 scene file from Poser 11, 2014 etc. It’s just the file paths in it that may differ, if your scene was built using content from Poser 12’s new runtime. If you only build scenes with your regular Poser 11 runtime content, you may not even need the above steps — even though you are importing a scene file saved with Poser 12.

So far as I am aware the Poser-to-Vue SDK has not yet been updated in the new subscription Vue to handle a few of the funky new Blender Cycles 2 (aka SuperFly in Poser 12) nodes. Thus the very latest Poser 12 SuperFly materials with strange funky new Cycles nodes may not convert so well. But Vue has its own fab funky materials to use, and it looks like everything else should work as with any previous Poser-Vue import.

Note also that Vue has excellent exporters… “includes integration plugins for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Maya and Lightwave”, though I’m uncertain what would happen to the scene if it were no longer connected to the Poser shader tree via Vue. I guess you try it and see. However, Vue is very capable on its own and a great adjunct to Poser for large expansive scenes that could also benefit from a generous scattering of foliage and some misty atmosphere.