Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Krallis on January 14, 2009, 12:00:42 pm
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Ok so my XSI has recently decided fail on me and stopped wroking. Ive been trying to find a link to download truespace 3.2 (as its meant to be free). But all the links I've found have been broken. Does anyone know an official Caligari site that still hosts the download or provides a link to it.
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There are no longer official Dl links for TS 3.2, they stopped supporting it and removed the links because TS 7 is free now.
But check the Caligari forums, 'cause TS 7 CAN cause some weird things.
If you are interested, i can check if i find a link to a site where 3.2 is still hosted.
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If TS 7 is free and still works wiht FS2 then thats really all im after righ now. Something thats free and works with FS2.
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Then you'd probably be much better off with blender.
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Blender?
Whats wrong with Truespace 7
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Nothing, except that Blender is much more powerful. If you've never used either one before, I'd really recommend looking at Blender first.
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Can Blender export to .pof or .cob formats.
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not in a nice way at the moment, from experience. export is shifting towards COLLADA files, so 7.6 will work equally well. in theory at least :p
blender has some dae export scripts, but i'll be damned if they work properly. last i heard, half of the time they'd hang blender.
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So truespace will export into the files I require?
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depends. if you want to get it into pof, it has to have a very specific structure when exporting to pcs2
also, take note, when exporting to PCS2, export the cob as a ts 6.0 cob, not as a 7.0 cob. if you export as a 7.0 cob, you lose uv maps.
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(I was hoping I wouldn't have to come in here and squish TS yet again to save a new modeller from it's horrors, but apparently I do so: :p )
Wha? Blender currently still presents the best DAE -> POF conversion option of any 3d modelling app. I don't know where you heard that the script hangs blender, but it's garbage. :p
The Collada 1.4 DAE export script that comes with blender works just fine. Blender itself is far far FAR more powerful than all the versions of TS combined, and it's equally more stable. I would HIGHLY recommend anyone starting out modelling start with blender because there are so many tutorials for it on the net and because you won't be shooting yourself in the creative foot as you would by using TS.
I know both programs pretty well (up to TS6 anyway - but even diehard TS fans dislike TS7) and so could go on for hours about what blender can do that TS can't, or at least where TS makes simple operations far more difficult. Some examples of what TS can't do would be: the clunky UV editing with no automation of any kind, no auto UV unwrapping, clunky selection systems, no ability to join meshes without booleaning them, no ability to remove double verts without going through all the pairs one by one, no serious sculpting capabilities (crucial for organic shapes), no ambient occlusion rendering let alone baking, no particle system of any kind (crucial for most cutscenes at some point), crappy lens flare system etc.
Now that the collada support in PCS2 has progressed as nicely as it has, I've been able to ditch TS entirely - which makes me sooooo very happy. :D
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i havent been able to export anything from blender even after going the "read the manual" route. so yeah.
might have been an old version of the script, but yeah :p
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Does anyone have a copy of the .pdf manual that came with truespace 3.2, not much luck finding it with google as all the download links from Caligari are now dead. :hopping: Thanks in advance!!
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I will try to upload ts3.2 tomorrow.
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Thanks chief1983, I found the program already just cant locate the .pdf manual that went with it when they were giving trueSpace 3.2 away free.
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Ok, yeah I noticed that too. Apparently you have to pay $15 for it now, and I can't find it anywhere either. There is the TS 7 manual of course. Too bad the program doesn't come with it, although I heard it does come with something.
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Wait a sec, do i understand you correctly that you have to pay now for TS3.2?
A software that was free for years and that is hopelessly obsolete?
:ick:
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Uploading ts to some server and installing it is one thing. Getting an activation to it is another. As far as I'm aware, that service is no longer available for 3.2.
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In a other forum i read that they send always the same activation key.
Even if it's not true, it shouldn't be that hard to get one.
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When I tried to install 3.2 again (one or two months ago), the website clearly said that this serviice [sendin an activation number] is not available anymore.
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Yea, all the links at Caligari are dead except for the forums, tutorials and the DL links for the last truespace 7.6 and a few others. I had the 3.2 version backed up on a disc with my serial # but somehow I lost the manual that you could download for free when they were giving it away. :hopping:
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Oh well, what a pity. Now go download and learn Blender. :p
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Yeah we've already convinced a few modelers who were using Truespace to switch to Blender and they all seem to be enjoying it once they get the feel for it.
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I use TS 5.1 and I love it. The only thing missing is the ability to join meshes (weld vertices like 3D Max)
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Oh well, what a pity. Now go download and learn Blender. :p
I have tried Blender a couple of times but the GUI gives me a massive migraine. :hopping: TrueSpace was bad enough to learn where everything was at.
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I use TS 5.1 and I love it. The only thing missing is the ability to join meshes (weld vertices like 3D Max)
And the ability to select faces and duplicate them within the same mesh.
And proper selection tools.
And logical keyboard shortcuts for all the common functions.
And a decent particle or lens flare system for animations.
And an ambient occlusion lighting ability.
And quick and easy to use snap & axis constraints.
And a fully working undo system.
And quick view-snaps.
And a UV editor that actually has even basic *tools*, like auto-unwrap, auto layout, weld points, easy drag and drop, save layout options.
And a UV editor that isn't agonisingly painful to select and manipulate verts edges or faces.
And a way to re-calculate face normal directions.
And a texture/lighting baking system.
And the ability to extrude edges and individual verts.
And the ability to have edges and individual verts NOT get auto deleted every time you leave mesh edit mode.
And the ability to quickly and easily weld verts with more control (ie, anything other than 'merge them all in their average centre').
And working (practical) smoothgroups.
And the ability to create verts, edges or faces wherever you like.
And a Separate tool that actually does what it is supposed to all the time.
And special application tools like extrude-rotate, screw, dupli-rotate, multi-part subdivision, smooth (geometry shifting - not material nor subdivision),
And a flexible sculpting system or even easy to use proportional editing.
And the ability to have multiple UV sets on the one mesh.
And an interface where the bits and pieces pop up somewhere you might see them. (Freaking mesh edit toolbar...)
And a good material management system.
And any sort of mesh error detection system like select-non-manifold.
And the ability to shear selected geometry.
And any sort of node-based post processing editor (or any sort of post process editing in general)
And any sort of modifier stack.
And a mirror modeler that mirrors EVERYTHING and doesn't ever need 'updating' nor whos very existance gets forgotten EVERY time the scene is reloaded.
And a way to do instanced objects.
And the ability to weld any verts you like.
And good multiple screen support.
And scale tools that work no matter how far in or out you zoom (those retarded little blue handles and rotation dimonds are appaulingly fiddly)
And a life ahead of it in the form of an ongoing development.
And stability.
Most of those are off the top of my head things that Blender can do that TS can't - I bet other apps would have similar if not longer lists. :p
I have tried Blender a couple of times but the GUI gives me a massive migraine. :hopping: TrueSpace was bad enough to learn where everything was at.
Did you use tutorials? Were you trying to use the keyboard shortcuts or trying to find everything through menus?
There's no question that Blender is a bit tougher to learn than TS, but I can promise you that it is very much worth it. Everything about it is faster, cleaner and neater. The scary interface you see at first you'll soon find isn't all that important - you basically use heaps of keyboard shortcuts, and your workflow is very much mouse + keyboard as opposed to the clunkyness of just mouse. There are some excellent introductory videos on the blender main site that show you how the interface works, but generally if you don't know, just don't worry. :)
Yes you can create great things in TS, but that is a testament to your skill and particularly your patience rather than an accurate reflection of the application's abilities or usability. A modeller/artist of reasonable skill would be able to do far more in far less time using Blender than TS if for no other reason than TS' clunky mouse based interface.
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Vasudan Admiral you make the case for Blender very well, but it all comes down to personal preference I guess. I find that I personally work better with more mouse and less keyboard driven programs. Hence why I dismissed Blender as my main model program. I don't know the work flow from Blender to get your model into Freespace ( have not searched the subject much here ). But most tuts I see posted are for getting your model from truespace into Freespace making it a relatively simple process.
I personally start off with Silo 2 to get my model from my basic concept drawing to an .obj that can be exported to truespace, add the firepoints and such there, then save as a .cob file for POF Constructor Suite / Modelview. They are no way works of art as I have seen other people have released here but they are MY crappy creations blowing the crap out of each other in the game. From start to finish in less time it would take me to learn to use Blender effectively to create the same thing.
The only reason I revived this thread was to see if someone had a copy of the manual for truespace 3.2 lying around on there hard drive that I could possibly get a copy of, not to start the great debate over the pros and cons of the different modeling programs available.
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Aww, but those debates are such fun! :P
Anyway, with the advent of Collada DAE importing, the work flow from blender to FS is pretty much exactly the same as it was with TS, only you need PCS2 (and really you should be using it anyway regardless of modelling app - don't use modview32 to convert models!). From Blender you just save as a DAE with a setup much as you would with a COB and import that into PCS2 for POF editing. The info's all in the FS Wiki about how to do that. :)
Also, I would quite highly recommend you consolidate all modelling and UV mapping activities into one application. I did the whole bouncing between multiple apps thing for a long time, and it's astonishing how much it slows you down once you don't need to do it anymore.