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3 Dimensional Chat / TrueSpace 6

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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 18th Jan 2003 14:35
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I just got my shipment and unpacked my box, I couldnt wait till I got home so I tried it out on my office laptop, a PII 333 MHz with 256 MB of RAM...... SURPRISE, it actualy ran at an impressive speed considering the junk laptop I have. I dont even have hardware accelaration for the graphics.

It has impresed me a lot in many ways till now, I am sure that when I get home it will impress me some more still. My only grub is that you dont get tutorials as such. It seems calligari makes extra money from selling them online.

The package allowed me to build impressive things reasonalby fast, though I still get confused by the number of buttons, I also miss having the options in the menues where to my mentality they are easier to find than on icons within icons within icons.

But I guess that once I grasp the logic behind it I will be able to cope with it, especialy after the money I paid for it. Got it for less than half price, but still, it sure is a hell of a lot of money.

Anyway, as I use the application here, I will put up the pros and cons of the package as I run into them. I hope you will find my review useful.
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 18th Jan 2003 14:36
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My only problem now is how to get my free upgrade to version 6.5. I lost the email that informed me about the upgrade.

Any idea people?
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Steverino
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Posted: 19th Jan 2003 01:32
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Caligari tends to send upgrade offers on a regular basis, so a reminder is bound to be on its way before too long.

I have tS 4.3, and I never really got fond of the interface, but I'd be interested to hear how v 6 and 6.5 have improved, especially for setting UV coordinates and texturing the model.

Surrealist writing toy -- http://www.iconpoet.com
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 19th Jan 2003 13:01
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Textures annoyed me too with the older versions, but it seems to be much better here. I still dont fully grasp how it handles textures, but it is definatly better than before.

What realy impressed me with the head animator. Great for making heads for charecters in games.

It runs damn fast at home, which is good. I wonder if it supports smp, because I would like to know if it is worth it getting a dual CPU setup.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 20th Jan 2003 03:34
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It supports Dual Processors
and the UV Mapper changed thanks to Tucows - now a full UV Map editor is builtin

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 20th Jan 2003 18:29
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Well, I wonder if that will make it go fast on a pentium 4 3 GHz with that new built in "almost smp"
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 21st Jan 2003 10:54
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SMP and Dual Processors arn't quite the same deal, the SMP is more like an MMX style extention - cause the new AthlonMP processors have it - really isn't upto much.

The best processor for developing 3D (in any package) is the AMD Optiron becausd it has Dual Instruction Sets very handy for programs that don't support 2processors.

The button setup within trueSpace since version 1 has always been a remarkably simply premise.

If you hold the mouse button rather than clicking you know that the menus come out ... all of these menu's are effectively the same as Max Modifier Groups, you can then go even deeper level because seom trueSpace Icons have upto 4 function layers before you get to the actual function

Right clicking brings out the actual Rollout editing stuff..
and in the taskbar you have the name of the function which oftenly is quite familiar - but in somecases isn't.

the reason trueSpace isn't over-run by tutorials and help is because after about 2-3hours of playing you already understand the basics of the development, so why spend hours explaining something which everyone can easily understand by playing. However the manual is alot like Pro's right now - doesn't go deep enough for anyones likeing.
However there are alot of online groups which have updated manuals for use

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 21st Jan 2003 15:45
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enlighten us with some useful URL's, dont keep all the knowledge to yourself
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 21st Jan 2003 19:05
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lol... i never remember urls they're all on my favourites list

alot of others give me good links alot, so hopefully they'll post them up

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Steverino
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Posted: 21st Jan 2003 21:57
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I've heard a number of people on the forum say how easy they think the tS interface is, but to me it was always like trying to type in oven mitts. And if I take some time away from it, when I come back it's like I've never used it before. Stuff that ought to be constantly available is buried under multiple levels of cryptic little icons, and I just find that frustrating. There's no perfect program, though. I want something that comes with a VR helmet and data gloves! Anyway, here are some tutorials:

http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvportg/art278.htm

Surrealist writing toy -- http://www.iconpoet.com
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2003 14:15
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I am explorring the possibilites of using true space 6 for level design. The ability to extrude along a path makes for easy building of tunnels. With texture baking, it is possible to do lightmaps (I think).

Now I just wonder if my lights will carry over into the BSP file I create out of the X file.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2003 18:54
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well from my pov... the fact that everything is icons allows alot more of the screen to be available - and as they're all grouped based on operation it means that they're simpler to find than the Maya, Lightwave, Softimage and Max kin.

The Vertex, Edge, Face selection is easily access - there is an option to have all three as active selection modes.
The object selection is ALWAYS active as is the limb selection.
The combination, path, array and spline extrusions are just outstanding.

The objects are simpler to access, however in Max i've turned on the icon menus and populated them with most of these options because having everything right there rather than in millions of roll-outs makes it quicker.

there is no messing about knowing the object properties and changing menus all the time because you simply right-click on it and you have it.

the animation manager is one of the most professional and more like an editor suite

plus everything after 4.0 gets highlighted when you want to select ... and the 3D menus that people kinda hate is pretty sweet to use

hehee i could go on forever on how the gui is just outstanding - but for some reason alot of people hate it
i've noticed that its the people who grow up with max as thier only modeller too tend to hate it.

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2003 23:00
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humbug....

interface gets in my way, I would rather read a discriptive word But then again, thats personal opinion. There is lots to admire, but also lots to get annoyed about.

But for the price, its a damn powerful package. I am slowly learning, working hours too long to allow learning at steady rate without throwing my limited social life down the drain. Good old days between graduation and getting a job, I had so much time at my hands that I learned 3D studio 4 in 3 months inside out. Thats all the tutorials manual and a good deal of the reference manual. And those were hefty books. I remember the manuals would take up around 30 cm of my book shelf, and thats lots of reading material.

Then again, I'm a manuals freak.... I love documentation.. when I write code, I spend more time putting coments than actualy doing code.

Back to truespace 6, I found one thing to make me happy. An icon that enables a screen to be split in 4 instead of the annoying floating windows..... once I get my second monitor back, then maybe I can go to using the floaters on the primary screen and the perspective on secondary screen for textured preview.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2003 21:12
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only half of max has descriptive words - everything on trueSpace does if you look in the taskbar

i don't read too fast so i'm not one for readin huge volumes - but that said i personally hate alot of tutorials because they don't really teach you anything than a specific task meaning if you want something outside of that you need ANOTHER tutorial - in the end it just wastes time.

i remember having to learn Max4 in less than a day for a new job ... got the general stuff down in like 12hours - but i still don't understand materials fully, nor the render'rs properly.

everything else i know pretty well, wouldn't say inside and out but well enough to do my job quickly and efficiently

i just dislike the layout relying too greatly on searching through menu's ... and giving you an editable UI that actually takes just as bloody long to edit it right for your own preferences.

kinda what i like about the tS5 improvements ... you just drag and drop what you use where you want to use it - just like you can in stuff like MS Word
makes editing the UI far easier - and the setup for changing the shortcuts is also far simpler because you don't have to know what the specific name for a function you've never used before is.
Some of which in Max are bloody cryptic

always found that in trueSpace - you're always 4clicks away from anything ... it takes very little effort to change tools.

Althought i prefer the object movement when it was 3 seperate icons for move, scale and rotate ... but the 3D Widget makes everything just as simple

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2003 21:47
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As I said, for the price, its damn good... you dont want to be spending too much money on a hobby.

Since I started using dark basic, a few months back. I purchased DB, then DBpro, cartography shop, 3d Canvas Pro and now truespace 6.

Add to that a couple of books I ordered with the wrong shipping address ( a bloody shame, now I have to pay again for them)... and it steadily adds up plenty. I think I have spent around $800 to date, and havent produced a single working demo of the game because I am too drawn into design, graphics of models and comenting my code... this is in almost 5 months I think.
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Nazgul
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Posted: 24th Jan 2003 14:38
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I'd buy ts4 if it weren't so interesting the fact that seems ts6.x imports and exports animation in directx with bones and skin deformations...So, saving for the big one. Nice render too.And a load of plugins.Idon't get the ui either. But interest me only the animation and render.
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Disco Stu
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Posted: 25th Jan 2003 02:50
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Hehe, I've found Truespace to be most useful when you just get an idea in your head and want to make it right away. I don't know how the animation system in version 6 adds up but from my experience its not the greatest, I use 3D Canvas to animate game models. But the KFE in Truespace is outstanding, hats off to Caligari for that.

And oh yeah, Raven Vegeta you can still use the 3 seperate icons for movement you know. I like thos better too it just took a while to find which menu I had to enable to get them, they're now locked onto the top of my screen so as I never misplace them. Look around and you'll find them.
Cheers,
Sina.

"Maybe if you ain't so good, I ain't so bad."--Tony Manero to Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney)
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 25th Jan 2003 14:26
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No i know that you have the button seperate, but they're in the same icon space ... like the objects changed to an Icon menu rather than the popup i actually preferred in Caligari24 and tS2

personally i if i knew that trueSpace was only for your hobby use as in something for developing models for DarkBasic - i'd of strongly recommended Milkshape (€20) can't really beat it on price and functionability

or the fact that the SDK is free so if you don't have something and are a decent enough programmer you can add it.

Poor mete ... its been 3months and he's still debugging my Boolean plugin
well i only had 3 weeks C++ learning only MFC so i guess poor ass programming can be excused eh.

i'd still like to be able to find some good "how to.." guides on the net though for basic operations.

that hello world C++ pure code confused the hell out of me cause MS didn't comment it much so i havn't a clue what was doing what. in the MFC one its a pure IF() statement with a void return. messagebox("message",mousebutton|mouseaction for button)

i was talkin' to Mofux last nite about it, and he isn't to sure because he code completely within C and OpenGL as opposed to C++ so alot of that side of things isn't his strong point.

and the KFE is truely outstanding especially with all the "modifiers" as it were which are as standard like object type, resistance, gas|liquid|solid setup, density, rebounds, movement percentage

all that on a tidily lil menu you'd expect it all to just be like "huh? wtf??" but its quite simple to see what does what
especially as it doesn't take 8hours to calculate each frame before animating it hehee

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Disco Stu
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Posted: 26th Jan 2003 01:57
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Eeeh, C++. I've been thinking about getting the free compiler from borland.com . As I recall it was 13mb but yu have to register for something. I'm still trying to gauge whether or not it'd be worth my time getting it. I still have trouble with a lot of the stuff in DB 1.13.

I'll try Milkshape, I've been using Truespace so long I haven't really felt the need for anything else. It's a same that Maya PLE won't seem to run on my system, requires NT 4.0+ is the error it gives me (damnit why couldn't they make compatible with win98).

I think Truespace will always be my favourite becuase it doesn't hassle you very much at all. Just load it up, grab a box, and starting adding points.
Sina.

"Maybe if you ain't so good, I ain't so bad."--Tony Manero to Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney)
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 26th Jan 2003 20:57
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I have upgraded to 512 MB RAM today, I wonder if this will speed up things such as radiosity, which seems to take forever to do.

I will run a test today and see if there is a difference that can be noticed without resorting to a stop watch. Then I will post my results here.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 26th Jan 2003 21:39
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Radiosity is very processor intensive, if your have Pentium4 or AlthonXP ... or even better Xeon and Optiron processors (preferabbly in dual setup) it'll get faster.

Also depends alot on graphics cards ... Quattro4 900XGL or GeForce FX or FireGL4 are the best you could get for the task cheaply.

if you have the money, TrinityGL, OxygenGL or Light&Magic GFX are your best bet

TrinityGL is the best you can get and can get SLi models being able to use upto 8 per machine (each using a PCI slot and in addition to you standard card)

but at £2,890 each for the 128Mb Model (expandable with RDRam to 1.5Gbyte)
kinda expensive

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 26th Jan 2003 22:59
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I thought the graphics card has nothing to do with calculations such as radiosity, they only handle real time previews according to my knowledge....

and I have no trouble with that, my GeForce 4 Ti is coping very well. It is finnal renders and radiosity that annoy me
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 27th Jan 2003 19:09
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Radiosity is quite an advanced feature... and not worth using until you go into finaly rendering because it adds realism depth (atleast within trueSpace it does)

unless you understand howto use it, just like the atmospheric fog depth que - it is best to stick away from.

Normally graphics cards don't have much to do with it, however specialised OpenGL based cards specifically for 3D Development have extenstions to speed it up.
The GeForce Fx and 4 have the rountines added because of the Quattro Series, but isn't exactly fantastic speed in them

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 27th Jan 2003 21:41
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Didnt seem all that much faster with my GeForce 4.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 27th Jan 2003 21:59
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what did you try it on before the GeForce4 thou?
you can't really say its not that much faster if you've only used it on a GeForce4 hehee

the standard Radioisity scene on the same machine
GeForce2 Ultra DDR 128: 2hr 32min
GeForce3 Ti 128: 2hr 15min
GeForce4 Ti 4600 128: 1hr 25min
Quattro4 XGL 900 128: 12min
TrinityGL 1.5: 2min 17secs



Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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Hilmi2k
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Posted: 28th Jan 2003 18:47
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ITs not that much faster than my pentium II laptop, but then again, maybe its so slow either way that I might not have noticed the difference.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 28th Jan 2003 23:07
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well those results were from my Althon 500Mhz system ...
when things are REALLY slow you won't usually notice an hours difference.

i mean i remember when i first started to render with trueSpace2 on the PC ... i had a 486 Dx4 120mhz - 32Mb Simm Ram (nope not even EDO) - S3 Trio64 Dx/Gx 2Mb VRam on Windows95

it'd take around 2-3hours for anything to be raytrace rendered

and i remember i upgraded to a Cyrix 180Mhz Mx - 128Mb Dimm Ram - Savage4 Pro AGP 32Mb Dram on Windows95

and it render'd at around 1hr 30min ... which didn't seem like much cause i'd have to go away and do something for a long time waiting for it to render.

But that hour certainly appears to make all the different when at the end of the week you actually have a 5minute Raytrace AVI when before it'd take almost 2 and a half weeks

Anata aru kowagaru no watashi!
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AlecM
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Posted: 7th Feb 2003 21:45
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Ts6 us great. I have a few gripes with it though. Maybe im missing something but copying an object got really tough. You have to hit ctrl+c then click on the object... why not make it so you hit ctrl+c like it used to be?

Goto http://www.shellshockede.com
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 8th Feb 2003 05:02
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lol ... good point
there were a few annoying updates withing 4,5 & 6
unfortunately i'm using Max more and more recently, whenever i use anything else they feel strange - even Maya
:: sighs ::

i can't wait until April, then i can finally use Maya again fulltime ... think i've gotta relearn alot of it thou hehee

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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