E-on has kindly released Vue 2024 “for free, including for commercial use”, perpetual and un-crippled, after owner Bentley Systems “decided to cease development” rather than sell it on. The final version improved clouds, improved viewport display, and added Blender’s Cycles as an experimental render option.
Apparently the free 2024 edition has all the subscription Vue’s superb export capabilities to C4D, Maya etc. And since its SDK still supports easy Poser import, it effectively replaces the old PoserFusion export from Poser. Export is done via a new Export Central panel in Vue 2024.
Python is supported, so theoretically a script could be devised to link Vue to AI image generation, taking quick rough-render Vue landscapes and depth-passes and sending them to AI for full amazi-fication.
Downloads are at https://www.bentley.com/software/e-on-software-downloads/ though the download links are currently 404. Presumably overloaded.
New users should keep in mind that Vue uses CPU rendering, and your monster graphics-card (GPU) will only be of use in accelerating the viewport.
Update: 19th May, download links still dead.
Update: 22nd May, download links still dead.
Update: 28th May, download links still dead.
Update: 1st June, download links still dead.
Update: 6th June, download links still dead. I give up.