[IPAndrews]

I am actually allergic to Blender's user interface. It makes me break out in a rash.

[Vasudan Admiral]

The interface just isn't intuitive enough

Ouch. If you're a TS user, you should be shot by a certain monkey on space crack for that statement.

I am actually allergic to Blender's user interface. It makes me break out in a rash.

That's just not possible! They removed the Rash-Installer feature ages ago due to unpopular demand, and the Propagate-Black-Death function isn't finished yet. Report it as a bug.

[dr22]

Hi All; Hope every one is having a good day. I am truely amazed at how people differ on any topic. I also find it interesting how we can come to the same or similar result in such different ways. Aint it great?! I'm sure Mr IPA can use some calimin lotion for his rash. Thank you for your input. Is there a way to combine the needed PCS part to help in ts? Oh what is PCS? Isn't PCS a program or codex part of ts and couldn't it be incorperated into ts as an add on? Thanks all and have a great day :-)

[karajorma]

PCS = Pof Constructor Suite. One of the ways of converting a model into a working pof file.

[Raptor]

The interface just isn't intuitive enough

Ouch. If you're a TS user, you should be shot by a certain monkey on space crack for that statement.

In some ways TS is intuitive.  In some... okay it ain't.

I can easily see this thread turning into yet another 'TS Vs Blender' brawl, so lets all agree that everyone has a prefered platform to work on.

dr22 said it best:

I also find it interesting how we can come to the same or similar result in such different ways. Aint it great?!

If we can all turn out such excellent ships as we all have, then what does it matter what program we use?

(trying to be diplomatic)

[Vasudan Admiral]

Bah, that just takes all the fun out of it though.
(And it's not exactly what you'd call a brawl either, and if it becomes one, then I'll just drop it. As is though, it's just a good old fashioned debate. Hard light general seems to be the real brawl arena on HLP. )

Come on, I count 4 TS users/supporters in this thread - is there a better way to do that duplicate verts operation described at the top of the tutorial post? Here:

A good example is if you're in the middle of editing a mesh - say, just extruded a spike out of a face, and you want to put an identical spike behind it. In blender, you select the verts/faces/edges with box select or any of the other selection methods, press shift+d to duplicate them, y to constrain to the y axis, slide it back and click to set. Textures will be preserved.

In TS, you need to select each face (not verts), (which in itself can get tedious, because of the different selection modes, and the fact that you need to do it properly, or you won't be able to detach the selected verts from the rest of the mesh), then you need to click the detach from object button (if it will let you that is), duplicate the newly created piece, move it backwards, add-select the other spike, then Boolean them back onto the rest of the mesh - which will probably screw up the texturing somewhere, if it doesn't ruin the whole thing, or crash because it's unstable. Do some booleans on complex objects, and you'll get a lot of crashes.

dr22: What Karajorma said - Kazan's PCS is one of two main programs the FS community has to convert 3d models into the FS .POF format. The other one is Styxx's POF exporter plugin - it's for 3ds Max only.
PCS will convert truespace COB or SCN formats to working POFs, and then you can add all the nessecary data to them such as thrusters, subsystems, turrets, gunpoints etc. to get them working properly in-game.
More info here: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/POF_Constructor_Suite

[Raptor]

Good point about the debate.  I just don't want to see people argue.

As for your example, well I use the 'Mirror' tool a lot since all my ships are symeticrical left-right (and in some cases, almost top-bottom too ), so having a spike on the opposite side is no problem.

And you don't have to use 'remove polys-boolean' either.  I only use Booleans for those really akward things (round holes in square faces, tunnels through things etc), the rest of the time I use extrude.  In fact, that is one of my most used tools.

I'm not trying to say that TS is superior to anything else.  It all depends on how you like to work

[dr22]

Hi All; Hope everyone is having a great day. I thank you all for the input. I have yet to get very far with eaither program yet. Seems the more I try the confuseder ( I wonder if thats a real word?) I get. I did however get a ball (mesh) to stay on the screen just not able to center it yet though, thats in ts. I was having some old time memories about Descent3 so I pulled her out of the moth balls and took her for a spen. I don't remember all that I thought I would. I do miss the ability to creat from verts though. Seems these new fangaled programs have a mind of there own. When I tried to start to create a ship I could only get a ball not a square. But I find it to have a smoother shape using the ball. great, I'll keep working on it. And with your help I'm sure I'll get there. Thanks again for all your help. Have a great day all. :-)

[Colonol Dekker]

http://www.render-lab.com/Render_Lab_tuts_tS.htm
This is one of the best intros to TS you can get In my opinion, Give it a try mate, Good luck

[Vasudan Admiral]

As for your example, well I use the 'Mirror' tool a lot since all my ships are symeticrical left-right (and in some cases, almost top-bottom too ), so having a spike on the opposite side is no problem.

I mean y axis copying - so you'd end up with 4 spikes if it were mirrored.

And you don't have to use 'remove polys-boolean' either.  I only use Booleans for those really akward things (round holes in square faces, tunnels through things etc), the rest of the time I use extrude.  In fact, that is one of my most used tools.

So how would you reattach the spikes without Booleans? I know gluing wouldn't work.

I'm not trying to say that TS is superior to anything else.  It all depends on how you like to work

Ah, but who would like to make 14 mouse clicks on various icons when they could do an identical or superior operation with one or two key-taps and one or two mouse clicks?

In fact I just read right through that tutorial Colonol Dekker linked to, comparing Blenders equivillant functions to the ones listed there for TS. Blender won every time.
I really honestly reckon this is a case of 'anything TS can do, Blender can do better."

Oh, and I quite liked this part of the tutorial:
"Once you are done setting the starting properties for your object, you can right-click on it and get into edit mode. Here you can select faces, edges or vertices and do some editing tasks......Sometimes you can’t seem to find the object editing tool panel even after you right-clicked on your object. In this case, the panel has been minimized and it might take a while to find it. Just look around in your scene until you find the button."

I've seen this myself a lot, and opened up TS to see if it would happen again. It did.
In the words of the tutorial: "it looks like the little grey square, but with a little black arrow on it." See if you can find it here:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/EditingPanelHideAndSeek.jpg


========

dr22: You like editing meshes verticie by verticie do you? Awesome - that's what blender is brilliant at.
In fact, that's how I do my ships in it. I start by going to a side view, deleting the default cube, creating a plane, deleting all but one vert of the plane, and then using the extrude key on that vert to draw the side-on outline of my ship dot-to-dot style.

(There is a vaguely appropriate function in TS - the drawpanel, but TS likes deleting any verticies or edges that aren't attached to a face, so it's not a particularly helpful feature in the way you're describing.)

Also, if you like drawing outlines of your ships on paper first, you can set scanned images as your backdrop in blender, and do the dot-to-dot technique to match it nicely.

I can write up a small guide on how to do that if you like - just let me know.

[Raptor]

You really don't like TS do you VA?

Vert, line & face editing can all be done in TS too.

As for the spikes... you wouldn't remove the ploys from the mesh in the first place.  Just define the shape of the spike where it meets the main hull (this can be tricky if you've got a complex shape), extrude the face, then edit the verts/lines/faces as needed.

I'm getting tired of this... I use TS, you use Blender, and lets leave it at that.

PS: You have any more thoughts on my docking problem?

PPS: I might come after you to bounce ideas/opinons about the Ursa Mk2 I've designed in the future (unless I reveal it to the whole commuity first )

[asyikarea51]

Also, if you like drawing outlines of your ships on paper first, you can set scanned images as your backdrop in blender, and do the dot-to-dot technique to match it nicely.

*looks at quote with minor interest*

[dr22]

Hi All; Got to say I love it, Really makes my day to see such great minds togeather in one place working togeather. Though I'm sure you may not agree. When two or more minds come togeather and toss ideas around on the way to create ,as well as to solve problems then we are farther ahead than you think. Mr. VA I would like any help you can give. I would a tutorial that actually shows making a ship or something (start to finish) along those lines if possible. As I 've said before I am a bit thick most of the time and it seems to take hands on with pictures. haha. At any rate I do see that both programs have there benifits and it all comes down to the users ability to work with them. I went to your picture and could not see the thingy. Could it be that it is covered up by the boxs or the object? Mr. Raptor I see that you have mastered the ts and I thank you for your in put as it helps me to see the possiblitys for using it to mod.
 My vert experiance is of a little different stile as D3Edit actually uses the 2D to lay out all of the items you build. It has three views as all 2D but also shows a fourth window that is world view. In the 2D you lay out the verts one at a time and then extrude or lath as needed to obtain the final shape. In these two programs I see that it is more that you start off with a shape ie; box,circle and the like and then exspand from there. This will take a bit of getting use to. So I will endeavour to persevere and with all of you helping me I will succeed. Thank You all, have a great day :-)

[Vasudan Admiral]

You really don't like TS do you VA?

Not since....well.....ever. I could tell you many-a nightmare geometry tale about it, all of which end in either tragedy or being saved by something other than TS.

Vert, line & face editing can all be done in TS too.

How though? And to what extent? This is one of my biggest beefs with TS, so if you can work in it as though it was a wire frame, I'd really like to know!

As for the spikes... you wouldn't remove the ploys from the mesh in the first place.  Just define the shape of the spike where it meets the main hull (this can be tricky if you've got a complex shape), extrude the face, then edit the verts/lines/faces as needed.

Not sure I'm following you here, but that sounds like you're making the same object (in this case a spike) twice? Now, making two very simple things is fine, but if you want a complex one, lots of them, or both then you need a better system of doing it.

I'm getting tired of this... I use TS, you use Blender, and lets leave it at that.

I'm keeping an open mind about it though - IF there are ways of doing things in TS (such as that geometry copy operation or working with edges and verticies independant of faces) that mean it's more powerful than it appears, then I really honestly want to know about them!

PS: You have any more thoughts on my docking problem?

PPS: I might come after you to bounce ideas/opinons about the Ursa Mk2 I've designed in the future (unless I reveal it to the whole commuity first )

That's weird - I somehow missed your second reply, though apparently I've read it. :\
Err, I'll have a look after this, and yeah I'd be happy to help with the Mk2.

========

dr22: So D3Edit looks something like this? http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/D3EditLayout.jpg
(incidentally, TS can do the same 4 view thing too)

As for the start to finish tutorial, that'll come - pics and all, but there's a heck of a lot involved in making it, so it'll take time. Meanwhile, I'd suggest you just practice modeling.
Have you tried that one I linked to before by the way? This one? http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fs2/mods/fighterguide/step1-1.php
It's the one I started out on, and while it is old now, it's still got some helpful stuff in there.

[bizzybody]

I've used tS 2.1a, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x up to 6.5. Version 7 is radically different, and not (IMHO) for the better in the user interface department.*

If you don't like how the buttons are arranged, hold Shift then click and drag them to create your own setup in 6.x, may work in 5.x- I dunno because I didn't use that one very long due to it breaking things from earlier versions like the procedural textures.

I just checked and the buttons can't be moved around individually (at least not that way) in 3.x or 4.x

To find everything in trueSpace, left click and hold a button. If there's others in that group they'll pop up and you can drag over to the one you want. On 5.x and 6.x there's even a button that opens a mega-group that displays every single button for when you can't remember where that button is you want. Fortunately tS has tooltips for everything plus a statusbar at the bottom which displays info on what's being hovered over.

For the precision picky, rightclick the button with the arrow cursor icon. Ta-da! There's your direct entry box for positioning stuff.

In all versions of trueSpace, look for a little Red triangle in the upper right corner of the buttons, that indicates it has a rightclick options panel. A Bluish-grey triangle in the upper left of the button indicates that it has a group which can be expanded by holding with the left button. When you drag to and release on a button in a group, that one switches to the new default for that collapsed group.

6.5 (don't recall about 5.x) has a great Mirror Model function. Create 1/2 a model or use a giant cube to boolean subtract half of one, select the face you want to use as the duplication plane, then click the button with M|M on it. If it looks OK, click the button in that group to create a permanent 'welded' object. This is a good one for people who want a perfectly symmetrical model.

As a long time tS user, the most maddening thing I've run into is for some reason Caligari keeps rearranging the buttons on each new version. I used 4.3 for a long time and got used to it, so when they shuffled things around in 5.0 I was not a happy modeler! One of these days when I'm not doing something else, I need to use the Shift-drag function in 6.5 to create a configuration that exactly duplicates the button groups and positions for every function that's the same as 4.3, then create more groups for the new stuff in what will hopefully be a somewhat logical arrangement.

*trueSpace 7 is an enormous screen space hog! You really need a couple of 21" monitors set at some ungodly high resolution just to be able to see what you're doing. If'n you don't have square miles of display, stick with 6.x.

[Raptor]

As pictures can say a thousand words...



This is the full 'expanded' vertex/line/face editing popup in TS6.  I tend to leave it 'condensed' (then all the hanging icons vanish)

In this mode (activated by clicking the icon next to the white arrow at the top left/bottom left depending on how you set up the screen) the mesh turns into a blue wireframe, and using one of the icons you can work with faces, verts or lines at will.  Then you can drag/rotate as you please, or you can alter the x/y/z values in the box to the left (currently I have none selected, so it's defaulted to the model as a whole)

There are things to watch out for, like remembering to click on one of the view change buttons (top three on the far left here) if you want to alter the view while a poly/line vert is selected, but is this basically what you were interested in TS being able to do VA?

I have to admit, I spend like 70+% of my time with this engaged...

[Vasudan Admiral]

To be honest, it's not. :\
I know about those buttons, but never really found them to be much use for anything I've needed.

What I was hoping for and am still after is the ability to go from a basic outline to a 3d mesh, via manipulating and extruding the original outline in TS. This isn't a great demonstration pic, but it gives you the basic idea:


If I tried that in TS, it would kill off isolated edges or verts whenever it's not in editmode, obviously making things rather difficult.

Seeing as we seem to have a lot of TS users in here now though, can any of you tell me how you could go from that outline to the finished result in TS? (perhaps even better, try and do it?)

[Raptor]

My bad.  Sorry if I implied anything bad about you...

I'm pretty (95%+) sure I could do it.  Explaining how I do it, that's an entirely different matter...

And may I just say that's an interesting ship you've got there

[Vasudan Admiral]

lol, no worries - I've done the exact same thing more than once.

If you're not too busy, do you reckon you could give building it a quick go?

And thanks - the ship is the HTL version of Flipside's awesome (but old) little Harpy gunship for TI.

[dr22]

Hi All; Colonol D;Great stuff on ts thanks for the input. Mr. bizzybody Thanks for the info. Sounds as though you are pretty expert at ts. I guess I'll have to look into 6.5 as I only have 5x. Mr Raptor;Again thanks for the input it all helps and I like it so keep it coming. Mr. VA That is kinda like what I'm used to I'll try to put a pic of the D3Edit here.I added an attachement with the pic but I don't know how to place it in the message. At any rate I hope you will be able to see it. Then you will know what I am talking about. Great ship, thats the kinda stuff I want to do. Thank You all for the great help. And Mr. VA any tut help you can give I will appreciate. I know it is a lot of work and perhaps your time is limited but I do thank you for your help. Have agreat day all. :-)

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