We just reviewed their Vue d’Esprit natural panorama app, and we wanted some more perspective. E-on have given us that, and more :-). Thanks a lot.
Macuarium. Our readers would like to know a brief history of e-on software. Could you tell us about yourselves?
e-on. Founded in 1997, e-on software was established to develop and promote the highest quality graphics tools with professional strength features. Established by graphics enthusiasts for graphics enthusiasts, e-on software translates its passion for art into tools for the graphics community. E-on software is a privately owned company having offices in Beaverton, Oregon USA and Paris, France.
The company has achieved worldwide reputation for its award winning 3D scenery generator Vue d'Esprit.
Macuarium. Where's e-on software largest user base ?
e-on. Currently our user base is mostly American; however, we are putting the final touches to the Japanese version of Vue d’Esprit. This is going to be a pure gem, and we anticipate that Japanese people are going to literally fall in love with it. We expect that our Japanese customer base will grow significantly in the coming year.
Macuarium. Of course till now, every Vue d'Espirit user is a PC user, what's your foresight abut Mac sales of Vue d'Esprit?
e-on. Well, you know, that’s not completely true: we have quite a few customers who were already enjoying Vue on their Macs (using an emulator)! We’ve received so much feedback from people very, very excited to at last be able to use it natively!
It’s very difficult to estimate what Mac sales will be like. What we wanted primarily was to offer Mac users the opportunity to enjoy a program such as Vue on their favorite platform. We’re so excited about all the talented people that are now going to be able to produce art with Vue d’Esprit. And all I can say is that Mac users are very excited about using Vue too: Vue 4 Mac has been out for just over one month and a half, but sales are currently running as high as 50% on Mac!
Also, as you may know, Japanese people are very loyal Mac users, so we expect to have a lot of customers there.
Macuarium. e-on software had several software packages, but neither of them were for Mac OS users till now and in last Macworld show event it releases the first title for Mac OS X. Why this change? And why you must wait to OS X to release a MacOS title?
e-on. It’s not really a change. The Mac version has been under development for many years. In fact, Vue was supposed to be cross-platform from the start. It was supposed to operate under OS 9. But then, Apple announced OS X, and, after reviewing the specs, we decided that this was where we wanted to be. So we scrapped all our current developments and started over again to build a native OS X application. My, was that a tough decision!
I know it sounds controversial today because many Mac users are still refractive to 10, and we’re certainly losing customers for that very reason. But I also feel that the future is there, so I’d rather be in advance and offer today a version that is all set for tomorrow, and reaps maximum benefit from the new OS (multi-threading, multi-processing, OpenGL…)
It’s actually quite funny the number of visitors at Macworld who told us they’d go to 10 only because of Vue! I think Apple should be sponsoring us!
Macuarium. Is there any intention to increase the number of titles aimed to Mac OS X or to port other titles as Ozone 3D?
e-on. From now on, all our titles will be released for Mac and PC.
Macuarium. How is your relationship with other 3D developers as Curious labs, Newtek, Maxon, Pixels?
e-on. We are working closely with a number of partners in the 3D industry. That may produce some fruit later this year.
Macuarium. Some of the above mentioned firms has got, at least, one Mac show award. Vue d'Esprit already has a "Macworld 2002 best of show" award. Do you think it's important to get this kind of awads to be well known among Mac users or to increase its presence in Mac platform?
e-on. Well yes, definitely! We were baffled to get the award. It’s not just another award for us, it’s mostly a reward from the Mac community!
Macuarium. Is e-on software's intention to keep it alone or could it be merged with other large 3D/digital firms as Autodesk/Discreet or Nemetschek/Maxon?
e-on. We’re actually quite happy to be alone! Imagine, nobody to tell us what we should do! We can dedicate 100% of our time to crafting tools that users will love!
Macuarium. What kind of development does e-on software perform?
e-on. We use CodeWarrior. All development is made in C++
Macuarium. Let's talk about Mac Apple has shipped Mac OS X, its UNIX based OS.
What's e-on software's opinion about this new OS from Apple and its technologies (Aqua, OpenGL, Java2, Quartz)? And from a developer point of view, is there any advance with this new OS?
e-on. We think it’s terrific. I can hear lots of Mac users grumbling about the way Apple has handled the OS X “revolution”, and I can totally relate to that. But nonetheless, OS X is a revolution. Aqua is superb, and I can hear people ask “why use a custom design rather than Aqua?” Aqua is new, so we’re all very excited about it. But soon, when the novelty wears off, I feel people will start to enjoy something a bit different.
Macuarium. Does e-on software staff use Mac beyond development (family, internet,
entertainment)?
e-on. Oh yes! You’re never gonna take my daughter’s Indigo away from her, don’t even dream of it!
Macuarium. Respecting hardware, Altivec is well known among 2D and digital video professionals because its power -for instance Final Cut pro 3 on Mac OS X-, does it have the same value in 3D world?
e-on. Unfortunately not; at least, not for our kind of application. Vue 4 is optimised for Altivec, but the performance gain is not where you’d expect it to be.
In terms of rendering speed, the problem is that Altivec only optimizes single precision floats, and we mostly use double precision. So Altivec only yields a 1% gain in performance (funnily enough, the very first Altivec optimised version of Vue 4 we did was actually running slower than the non optimised version!)
But Altivec really shines in other aspects of the application. For instance, the terrain editor is up to 440% faster thanks to Altivec optimisation.
Macuarium. How's your relationship with Apple, has e-on software received any help
from them?
e-on. Now that Vue is available for OS X, Apple is getting very interested in our products. But we got no help for development (Not even a good documentation ;-)).
Macuarium. In your opinion, has it any chance to keep Apple Macintosh computers in profesional 3D environments such as postproduction houses, broadcast, etc. fighting against Microsoft windows intel-based PC ? What do you think Apple must change to increase its presence and market share?
e-on. What Macs need mostly now is power. But power is coming in short supply. The PowerPC is a fantastic processor. It’s quite a bit faster than a Pentium 4 running at the same frequency... The trouble is that Motorola is having terrible difficulty keeping up with the huge investments required to increase processor frequencies.
Of course, that’s not Apple’s fault. I just feel OS X was the right opportunity to open the Mac platform to other processors (I’m thinking AMD here). Seems like a missed opportunity… But I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve Jobs suddenly revealed OS X for AMD, if the G5 doesn’t turn out to be what we’re all expecting from it!
