[KewlToyZ]

Yeah my Etch-a-Sketch skills are really lacking 
I have to admit though I dragged myself through learning ABACUS Aircraft Studio which was a lot tougher at times to work with. But it made transfer to the CFS environment a snap.

[Vasudan Admiral]

I got hold of a free version of Rhino from an old copy of PC Format years and years back. But i could never get to grips with it. Just goes to show, everybody has their own preferences and not everythings better or worse.... (except sketchup )

I wholeheartedly disagree there. Sure preferences and experience plays a part in it, but the capabilities of a modeller app are measureable. If one app can bake textures and ambient occlusion, unwrap the UVs of a model, create particle systems, duplicate selected parts of a mesh within an object etc, and another one can't, then the modeller that can't is simply an inferior tool. I know how to model in both applications, so the differences are plain to see. No amount of work in truespace will give you the ability to bake textures for example.

If I were a truespace user it would have been completely impractical for me to model the HTL Aten, or any other ship with irregular curved surfaces. I remember Nuke saying that he used to have to make curved surfaces in TS by entering co-ordinates for each individual vert in a surface, which is about the absolute worst and most hair-removing method you can possibly use, and it's far from the only thing that TS makes far more difficult than it really is.

By and large TS is simply a primitive modeller\animator. It's not designed to be able to create complex technical objects like ships. If you want a weird proof of that, search in google for 'modeled in truespace', and compare the image results with the ones you get for 'modeled in blender\max\maya'. There are a few nice TS models, but the results from any of the other apps blow the TS ones out of the water. Why? The other applications are quite simply much more powerful tools.

[Excalibur]

Even Sketchup?

[Colonol Dekker]

I love Max from what i've seen of it,  The texture baking alone is vital for my Glowmaps. It's just taking time for me to learn the finer points. Eventualluy (and i'm ashamed to say it ) i'll be fully subverted.........to Maxism.


The modifier list is amazing in 2009.32bit.

But i was reared on TS since V2 and it's paionfuil to let go...

*fights the urge to vocalise the stress formed through indesicion

This is just a point of view not a pro-con voice for either prog. Everyone has their favourites, that's all.

[Stormkeeper]

I'm pretty much stuck on maya. Tho i am learning blender.

[bizzybody]

When yer bashing trueSpace, you should say WHICH VERSION. It's had a quite rapid accumulation of features and functions over its history. IIRC it was at 4.2 or 4.3 it added the same Lightworks render engine, that as a *plugin* for other programs cost more than trueSpace.

Now the latest version is freeware, thanks to Microsoft buying Caligari.
http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx Register to get the download page for the software, manual and videos.

Seems like most of the tS bashers compare ye olde 3.2 or 4.x to much newer versions of other programs.

[Vasudan Admiral]

I specified early on - I used version 6 for years, which was pretty similar to version 5 I'd used for years before that both in terms of (lack of) modelling tools and (lack of) stability. Version 7 I've heard even diehard TS supporters paying out, so I never bothered trying it and don't ever intend to.

In fact, with collada support in PCS2, I never will need to touch TS again. Though that of course won't in any way shape or form lessen my dislike of it.

[KewlToyZ]

3D Explorer/Deep Exploration let me avoid TS altogether as well.
I do understand if someone learned with a tool then it is a preference.
I've been using AutoCAD for design work since 1990 so my intuition with the TS interface is ruined.
Rhino made more sense and is much faster than AutoCAD for 3D modeling because it is using NURBS.
Although it did take me quite some time to get used to the right and left mouse buttons.
Max is powerful but the terminology of its menus and features eludes me quite often.

[varsaigen]

I like Milkshape. Sure, you have to find export stuff for it. But it is very neatly organized and very powerful. Sadly, you have to pay for it. But, I got the latest version for $30! ^ ^ And I won't regret it. I've made great models with it for other games and now that I've learned how to use it, I'll try modeling for here to. What's great about Milkshape is that it's easy to learn if you can wrap your head around the basics, and it's got many many tools for creating models for other games like Half-life and Warcraft.