Truespace is dead

http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html

I never got my head around it or Caligari, but it is sad to see another Amiga-era product disappear.

 

Ditto here. So which was the "kiss of death" for Calligari, being bought by M$oft or the recession (or both)?

 

Just speculating here, but the Microsoft buyout must have seemed like a blessing/lifeline at the time. I hope Roman did well for himself.

Any time a product is given away for free, you have to question the soundness of the business model, but in the end, it appears that Truespace is a victim of the current economic climate which is forcing everyone to retrench and focus on core businesses.

 

Why did MS buy the company!

Just to close it down...

 

No, I don't think they bought it intending to close it down. As a huge company, Microsoft has many projects percolating at once. Someone somewhere wanted to compete with Google's SketchUp and saw Caligari's Truespace as a ready-made solution.

With Microsoft revenues declining for the first time in its history, shareholders demanded dramatic cutbacks. The timing just wasn't right for Caligari.

 

I have no love for MS sorry

 

Having spent much of my adult life inside corporations, I long ago learned that "it's nothing personal...just business."

 

For the heck of it, I downloaded Truespace 7.6 and installed it. I can't believe that interface. Someone at Microsoft thought that this product could compete with something as streamlined as SketchUp?

 

I remember going to Amiga user group meetings in NYC back in 1986 and seeing Roman talk about his work in progress -- TrueSpace. So many decades ago!

 

It was Caligari then.

[EDIT]
And I was just reminded that the original corporate name was Octree.

 

Correct.

 

That letter sounds non-logic. I doubt that Roman guy signed an NDA and contract with M$ to give out code to M$ for their next 3D apps.

That means, he earned a lot of $$$, but not for "M$ force us to close down because of economy crisis"

Really funny that he could cheat many people!

There is nothing personal, just business 8)

 

Interesting post over at CG Society: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=5879233&postcount=27

 

Roman Ormandy, Caligari's founder and ex-CEO, posted on the company's forums that Microsoft has decided to keep the website up and running for the next five months. They also just posted the last beta version of the software, 7.6.1.

The software, training materials and everything else on the site is available for free download. Once you get past the shock of the garish UI, the software really did have a lot of cool features.

http://www.caligari.com/downloads.html

 

One thing that Truespace did very well the last time I tried it (maybe 3 years ago?) was .X file support. When I was developing for games / sims that required files in that format the exports from Truespace were rock solid. I have no idea how (or if) TS even exports to FBX?

As for the GUI, if you put it in the perspective of when it was first created, it was one of the more user friendly, innovative GUI's of it's time. Compare TS to what 3DS looked like back then. It's definitely outgrown it's GUI over the years though.

 

I couldn't find any FBX export. It does export to standard static formats like .obj and .3ds. It would be difficult to export any of its animations to Unity, unless there's a third-party plugin or app for FBX or Collada export.

As for the GUI, it looks like the designers just went insane with color icons and buttons. There must be hundreds of them strewn across the screen. Since they're full color, they constantly fight for attention with the workspace, which also features a full color grid. All of this can be turned off and customized, but the first impression is really ugly. The transformation and navigation gadgets are also non-standard and quite odd.

Nevertheless, if you look through the gallery or tutorials on the site, users have done some amazing things with the software over the years.

 

I've owned there products starting with GameSpace 1.6, and that exports to all formats. TrueSpace was geared to production movie level work and not really games but you can easily get your work from TrueSpace to Unity. I would recommend that everyone who wants to learn modeling in general download every video they have since they are free. I have paid for tons of their videos prior to them going free after Microshaft purchased them. Anyway, Roman is awesome and I am sure he has something else in the works. I have been purchasing their work since early 2005.

You really should look at the scripting videos, you might be very suprised, the linking ability and the fact you can use C#, etc.. seriously, Truespace as in Microsoft owned Truespace might be near death but I think that Microsoft will change their mind.

 

I wouldn't say TrueSpace is dead just yet. This is 2009 and TS is a top professional modeling system sold upwards of 600 dollars. All the lessons are there for download at least 79 downloadable tutorials in either video or html format, plus 7 user guides and have at least 6 plugins. Anything you can do in TrueSpace will be viable for years to come as it really has a lot of power and can create top notch models. Even thought they dont have built in support for exporting the FBX format they do export to other formats Unity can work with, ( as I understand it).

Plus the support community is still there. They have a new forum at :http://www.tscommunity.co.cc/forum/index.php .

It's the same community that just moved the forum because they know in October Microsoft will take the old site and forum down.

I am looking into TrueSpace because they have some really good tutorials on character creation and there are no restrictions on how you use the models you make with TrueSpace. I'm a noob and blender really turns me off big time. Yes, it will take me a long time to learn when I wanted to use something simpler like Daz Studio but in the long run its for the best I think.

Oh yeah and who knows.. the folks at Caligari have some MS cash in their pockets as well as the bundle they have made over the years selling TrueSpace.. They may come back with an even better app stronger than ever.

 

We were all noobs once and you have to start somewhere. Despite their very different approaches, most 3d apps share similar concepts that are interchangable from one platform to another.

Where to begin depends on your long-term goal. If you would like to create work professionally and eventually join a game studio, then I would advise you to find software that takes a more standard approach than Truespace. But if you are just looking to have fun, share with a friendly user community and make great art with a free tool, Truespace is a fine choice.

Lots of luck.

 

Island Dreamer, now you've given me something else to think about. I guess I should ask the questions, is TrueSpace going to make me the quality results I would need if I ever do decide to make a professional game for sale and if not, am I wasting my time at the outset with TrueSpace?

I am sorry perhaps I should have emailed you personally with these ponderings but the answers may help someone else in the future. I don't mean to get this thread off topic.

I should also ask, what types of content has TrueSpace made for professional games.. is it up yo par.. and what tools do professional game developers use and why.. what are the major differences why designers would choose one tool over another?

If I knew all that I could better choose what tools I should learn. I suppose there will be no easy answer.

 

The quality or professionalism of any software's output is entirely up to the artist. I was reading recently about the pre-production art for a Tim Burton film and the fellow who did most of the character designs insisted on drawing only on the insides of cereal boxes. Not any cereal box mind you, but specifically Kellogg's Special K and Von's Krispy Rice boxes.

My point is that you should use whatever software you can afford and feels right for you. The end user will never be able to tell if you used package A, B or Z to create your assets.

However, despite their differences, the major tools do share a lot in common and the user communities of these packages are huge. If you ever seek employment with a game developer, Truespace experience alone may put you in a competitive disadvantage. You may also find the number of potential collaborators limited as you develop your personal projects.

If you qualify for academic versions, that is a great way to get access to high-end tools while you are learning. I also highly recommend the Softimage Mod Tool, which is free for non-commercial use. Play with trial versions, scour forums, view tutorials, read and discuss and find the tool that clicks for you.

 

I just joined the forums and was reading this post. I have used TS since version 3. And honestly, I hav eused pretty much all 3d apps. From 3ds to ligthwave to maya to houdini. And to be honest, TS up to version 6 had the best inerface for modeling out of any of those major apps. The reason being was realty. The space I had to design was huge. It wasn't cluttered by 14,000 buttons to do everything.
Now that's it difficult to find TS 6, I have moved to Gamespace 1.6. And again the inerface is ideal for modeling. The tools are easy to find and use. Yes it does lack a few things, but the over use and flexability of GS/TS is quite ingenius. I just wish I could find a way to export from GS into Unity.

 

Hi all,

I actually wrote the plugin Puppeteer-tSX for trueSpace many moons ago!

http://www.alabsoft.com/bkp/


And I have posted a document on my website detailing how to export models from trueSpace and into Unity.

See post "Converting 3DS and OBJ files to FBX for use in Unity"

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=30782

 

Uh, Oh

R.I.P TrueSpace 1.0 the app that started this all
You were my best friend at the time .

I´ve been using every iterations since 3dsmax 2.5,
but using this Latest Max 2010 "product" couple of days at work I think I´ll really consider
turning to Maya.

 

I have to agree with Zanzibarjones, TrueSpace has/had the BEST interface up to 4.1, and was still tolerable at ver 6, then all went down hill from there... (Once they redesigned the buttons with Ver 6 I was lost)

I've been using it since it's Caligari24 days on the Amiga.

If I could find a way to make Truespace 4.1 compatible with Vista, I'd still be using it now.

One other thing I loved about Truespace is so many modeling programs think they are Tablet Friendly... and yet require a middle mouse button or alt key to navigate the view, or require shortcut keys to be held to lock coords, or type in numerical data... etc. - Truespace was the ONLY 3D modeling program I never once had to use the keyboard or mouse to accomplish a modeling task from start to finish, everything had a on-screen button and could be used with my 2 button stylus. However, as you can see, this became a double-edged sword once they started adding more and more features. All the buttons slowly became more and more confusing, most of them could be hidden though.

I'm sad to see it go - but at the same time I completely understand why.

I just wish other 3D Apps would learn what tablet-friendly REALLY means.