Truespace 7.6 is now free

Some SL users might be interested that the 3D modeling program called Truespace is now free. It's version 7.6, not the old version that's been around for free for ages.

http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx

If that ain't the right url just look it up on Google or Yahoo or something.

Unfriggin believable. Not likely to see Maya go that route.

Thank Microsoft. Microsoft bought Caligari. This is Microsoft's response to Sketchup, I would say.

Linky no worky.

Through the miracle of Google, by typing "download truespace 7.6" in as a search term, I find the download address should be http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx

Whats the sculpty import/export situation?

Well, it's not the new Softimage XSI ICE, but wow, the price is right.I nearly forgot Truespace existed. Excited to see what Truespace is like today.

EDIT:This product looks like it is way ahead of where it was and this Microsoft "Virtual Earth." ...nice.

"COLLADA export
COLLADA is a popular 3D format used in game industry but it is also supported by high end DCC tools such as SoftImage, Maya and 3D Studio "

I just downloaded it and managed to play about with it. A big learning curve but looks interesting.

According to the wiki, there is no sculpt support in the product yet.

The V-Ray renderer for trueSpace is $299.00. Very cheap......






I wonder if it works with other rendering systems?


I am impressed with the new trueSpace....but I need (lust for) the new Softimage

[url=http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi[/url]

Christmas in July

"We are taking the unprecedented step of making these tools available to everyone for free in order to stimulate content creation for the present and future online 3D environments, and so that any artist out there with a dream can fulfill their vision without finding themselves trapped by budget limitations. This is particularly true if their vision includes emerging 3D online worlds, where free and unrestricted communities of web artists can collaborate on 3D projects and even establish new kinds of communities the likes of which the world has never seen before, way beyond simple chats in isolated 3D rooms or 3D islands.

Above all, trueSpace7.6 will empower you to create anything you dream up, whether you want to make illustrations for National Geographic, design products for Rolls-Royce, create buildings for Virtual Earth, make advertising or training videos, architectural walkthroughs, innovative video games, or animated films.All of these possibilities are now open to you simply by downloading trueSpace7.6 and learning what its powerful 3D authoring tools can do for you!

To download trueSpace7.6, visit the link below: http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx

Also, to aid in your learning process we have made all of our video courses, previously $79 each, available at no charge, and you can download those courses from the link above.

At a time when other companies are removing their low cost products to make it even tougher to get started in 3D, it gives us great pleasure to enable all artists regardless of age or income to create 3D in whatever field they dream of. We hope you enjoy your copy of trueSpace7.6."

Roman Ormandy
Founder
Caligari Corp

http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showpost.php?p=71696&postcount=45

Home Page (Resources):

http://www.caligari.com/

Yup:

"trueSpace used to sell for $600 but then Microsoft acquired the company and released trueSpace as a free download probably in response to SketchUp that’s owned by Google.

The idea is to let users create building and landscapes for Virtual Earth just like one can use SketchUp to create 3D models for Google Earth ."

http://www.labnol.org/software/microsoft-truespace-free-alternative-3dsmax-sketchup/3965/

Thanks for the heads-up on this Suezanne

Now where is my free Mudbox?

Can you import objects made in Truespace into SL ?

Maxi

OMG! YES! The stuff I see being done with Softimage is amazing! LOVE the "face robot"!! Too bad it cant be used in SL (yet!).

I tried Softimage a few years back, found it a bit clunky but it had some really interesting features.

The short answer is "no".

Truespace and other 3D modeling applications use polygons to form a mesh, similar to our avatar mesh. SL does not use polygons. Instead, it uses geometric primitives, basic geometric shapes with a limited number of allowed types and deformations, all of which can be described by (relatively) simple mathematics. This makes calculating the world and displaying it to us at home MUCH easier...but it also limits the shapes and level of detail that can be achieved with SL objects.

What is amazing to me is the way in which SL creators have managed to get around most of SL's inherent limitations.

Truespace can, I believe, save OBJ files that you can turn into sculpties via Blender.

It may even be possible to create sculpties in TrueSpace directly, but TrueSpace's UI is so baffling I have no idea how

TrueSpace is a very cool program. I used to teach classes in it at GWU before they coughed up the money for 3ds Max (but please don't ask me for help with it. I haven't used it since version 2 and that was a looooong time ago!). It has a lot of pretty nifty features and one of the nicest scanline renderers around. This is cool news!

See? If I even began to understand that I might have a chance at learning sculpties- as it is, my eyes glazed over and I read words, words, words, mathematics!!, words, words... oh well... back to finger painting...

You're mostly right All objects in SL are made from polygons, but your SL client already knows how to make them so the only information that has to be sent from the server to the client is their scale, rotation, and location, rather than having to send details about every vertex. Avatars are the same way. The polygonal structure is built into the client so all that has to be sent from the server is the shape settings for any av within your draw distance. Sculpties are a little different in that the client has to be sent the sculpt map which instructs it how to offset each vertex from the default position, but the mesh itself is built into the client already.

Y'know, I was just thinking how this news, while interesting, doesn't change the fact that Blender is the best free 3D animation tool available. I wasn't gonna bother saying as much though, but then

Yay!

On a somewhat related note see the info about AC3D in the latest SL Blog entry.

Amara, one of my RL jobs is making technology understandable to the layperson, so let me try again...

Imagine a sphere. Imagine the sphere made up of a grid of lines, like latitude and longitude on a globe, OK? Where two lines intersect, that's a point in the spherical mesh.

Each of these mesh points is at its default location...defined by the spherical surface. Let's call those positions the points' "rest positions".

Now, let's make the sphere look a little bit like an apple. We'll take one point, and move it inward, making a dent in the mesh.

This point has now moved from its rest position. We can define the movement by stating the difference between the rest position and the new position in all three axes, X, Y, and Z.

We could do some really radical deformations, pushing and pulling the sphere into the shape, say, of a high heeled pump. We could describe what we did by making a list of all the new positions of the mesh points, compared to their rest positions. By using this list, someone else could take a sphere and make a high heeled pump just like ours, just by moving all the mesh points to their new positions.

There is another thing that defines its points using three values...a color bitmap image. Each pixel, or point, in a bitmap has three numbers associated with it, for the Red, Green, and Blue color content of that pixel.

Instead of numbers to represent the X,Y,Z positions of our distorted sphere, what if we used color values instead? That is just what a sculpty map does! X,Y,Z => R,G,B.

Did that help? Or am I going to have to look for another line of work?

Url please. I don't see it. The search on the blog doesn't return anything for ac3d.