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Finally, I’ve got something to share
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Finally, I’ve got something to share // Work in Progress
Post by joekel4 // Feb 22, 2006, 2:40pm
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joekel4
Total Posts: 15
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Explanatory note: Please bear with me as I try to explain a few things that are directly related to the images that I am about to post. I am hoping that your patience will be rewarded with an understanding of the benefit and purpose of the plan for their ultimate use, and the amount of time and effort that has been invested in them so far. I hope to add many more images and animations in the future but as you will find out in the body of this post my resources especially time are severely limited.
General Background
I have been working in trueSpace since version 5.0 (+/- .5) however, I still consider myself very much a novice user. My primary purpose in obtaining trueSpace was to generate presentation graphics aimed at the following three areas: Sales & Marketing, Web content creation, and training (both internal manufacturing procedure based animations and external safety related training for our customers). My primary responsibility is Drafting and Design work and I am currently going to school in pursuit of a Mechanical Engineering Degree and P.E. license. The CAD software package I use primarily is AutoCAD which I have used since version 12, and we are about to migrate to Inventor Professional. I have been learning to use trueSpace on an as time permits basis so therefore have not been able to devote as much time to it as I would have liked.
Company related notes
I work for Columbia Body Manufacturing Co. where we manufacture dump trucks. We normally receive new or used class A truck chassis, modify and/or add necessary components in order to deliver finished high-quality fully-functional and very reliable earth moving equipment. Primarily dump truck and trailer combinations. We manufacture two, three, and four axle pony and transfer trailers from the ground up. Our 8 axle combinations sets when fully loaded weigh 155,500 lbs.
Scene related notes
When we complete a truck and/or truck and trailer combination we normally take a photograph of the completed truck with our shop building in the background and store that for archives and record keeping purposes. That background is what we call our “Wall of Fame”. The wall of fame is what I call my “standard” scene in which the face of the shop acts as the background against which I initially display all of the models
Model related notes
I have spent the last two to three years creating 3D ACIS solid models of all of our product lines in AutoCAD preparing them for import into trueSpace. As you might imagine these files are extremely large. I construct the models with every conceivable add-on optional part in AutoCAD, export the model out of AutoCAD in .3ds format and then import into trueSpace with File->Load->Object command. As the uses of the model change I can delete the unnecessary options to reduce file size later. I found that it is much less time consuming to delete parts than to import new parts and then attempt to position them in trueSpace. As most of you know if you want the final model to have the capability of using different materials and/or be individually movable the component must be a separate entity. This fact required a great deal of planning with a large impact on my normal drafting practices.
Image related notes
The first image is a photograph of the face of the shop that I used for my “standard” background scene. I already had the shop drawn in AutoCAD I just needed the picture as a target to get the colors and textures reasonably close. My goal was not 100% accuracy of image but a combination of speed of rendering and the feel of 3D depth.
The second image is of my largest and most complex model with my standard background. It is 100% computer generated. It is of a Transfer Trailer combination set. This model has in excess of 422 components (ie, assemblies and individual parts) with a scene file size of 102Mb. The cab nose, exhaust stacks, tires and wheels were all modeled in trueSpace after not being satisfied with the quality of my imported models. The wheels of which there are 22 have 10434 faces each. The outboard tires have 54990 faces each and are modeled after Goodyear heavy duty truck tires. The model is made to scale and is 75 feet long from bumper to bumper.
This scene will not render unless I run it in tsnet using both computers and it causes the second computer to give “out of memory” error messages. With this set up it took 17minute 20 seconds to render this image.
Computer system related notes
Dell Precision PWS370 Pentium 4 cpu 2.80 GHz 2.79 GHz 1.00GB RAM, Windows XP Pro V2002 SP2, Nvidia Quadro PCI-E Series video card.
tsNet 2.70 3 node license
Second system is duel Pentium 3 processor system that only seems to slow down the process. Hoping to be replacing this computer, get second new system to use up third node by the middle of next month.
While I have trueSpace 6.6 and 7.0 installed on my “rendering” machine I have only opened 7.0 about three times. I do not have time to play with it yet.
In closing any questions and/or constructive criticisms are welcome. I hope to be posting more images in the near future. Sorry to be so long winded but after over two years of work some explanation was necessary.
Thanks,
Joe |
Post by b_scotty // Feb 22, 2006, 3:46pm
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b_scotty
Total Posts: 176
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Joekel4,
If you had not said the second image was cg, I would have assumed a photograph. Very nice work! You have obviously invested a great deal of time and effort into this. I look forward to seeing more. |
Post by ProfessorKhaos // Feb 22, 2006, 3:54pm
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ProfessorKhaos
Total Posts: 622
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Vehicles in the 2nd image are really sweet! At first glance I thought they were photographs placed in front of your building. Very nice work!
The American flags may be a bit too saturated though. You may want to fade them just a bit.
Antialiasing may be difficult under the circumstances given your rendering limitations but it may help the stars on the flag from being lost. I think you'll find an extra gig of memory (up to 2 gig) might go a long way if you wanted to consider that before a completely new computer right off.
Great job! |
Post by hultek43 // Feb 22, 2006, 5:33pm
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hultek43
Total Posts: 234
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Nice work. :) |
Post by chamaeleon // Feb 23, 2006, 5:22am
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chamaeleon
Total Posts: 74
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Great job, Joe. Really like the life-like feeling of the scale of the objects in the scene. :) |
Post by hemulin // Feb 23, 2006, 5:32am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Nice render :jumpy: |
Post by stoker // Feb 23, 2006, 10:08am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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Nice Render, Second image looks just like a photo.:jumpy: You obivously spent a great deal of time on this:D |
Post by joekel4 // Feb 23, 2006, 2:50pm
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joekel4
Total Posts: 15
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Thank you all for your kind words.
ProfessorKhaos, I tried to fade the flags a little bit on this run. I compared the new image with that photograph and it looks pretty close. I noticed that the white decal on the side of the bodies was distorted in that it is really three stripes (outside ones are thin and center one is wide) but the top one did not show up very well.
The second image above is 720 x 576 pal format. The one I am posting now is 720 x 480 ntsc. It's kind of funny the pal looks closer but the ntsc looks more detailed to me anyway.
Both the cg images (the last two) have adaptive antialising turned on. I ran one with the 4x aa and I could not see any significant improvement. I also tried the feature-following antialising but that one caused an out of memory error message.
I'm looking at maxing out the ram on my existing p4 system at 4 Gigs along with the addition of a 512mb video card. The other two computers were to first replace the duel p3 and will be used for AutoDeck Inventor, the second new one will use up that third node from tsnet. All three computers will have 4 gigs of ram and 512 meg video cards. That's my hope, they are in the pipeline or so I have been told.
Thanks again everyone for the comments. I appreciate it very much.
Joe |
Post by spacekdet // Feb 23, 2006, 5:43pm
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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It's a nice render and all but it's tough to see all that beautiful high-poly detail from 1/2 a mile away!
How about a few detail 'beauty shots'? |
Post by Alien // Feb 23, 2006, 6:07pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Speaking of large distances.... I've got to ask - why such a big gap between the 2 sections of the vehicle? |
Post by hemulin // Feb 24, 2006, 2:40am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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I'm slightly confused, brilliant render, but why are you outputing to pal and ntsc sizes, are you planning to show these on a tv or something, or is it just your preferred standard?:confused: |
Post by stoker // Feb 24, 2006, 2:45am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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I have never seen two trucks attached to each other that far apart:confused: Brilliant Render though:jumpy: |
Post by joekel4 // Feb 24, 2006, 10:37am
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joekel4
Total Posts: 15
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Answers to questions
Thanks again for the comments and interest.
Spacekdet - I’m working on it and will post more detailed close-ups as soon as I can. The reason the camera is so far away is because the truck and trailer combined are 75 feet long and that was the only way I could get the whole thing in one image.
Alien and Stoker – Your questions are related and are going to take some explanation to answer. In most countries the limiting factor in over the road vehicles is the weight bearing capacity of the bridges. The limiting factor in truck and trailer manufacturing is the weight bearing capacity of the tires. Without going into a detailed explanation the axle spacing is limited by state and federal weight distribution regulations. The maximum length that a dump truck combination can be in the United States is 75 feet, the transfer trailer combination is just one of many designs used in an attempt to move the largest volume at the most economical cost. The front axle of the trailer (#5 from the front) is mounted to a turntable that allows close to 300 degrees of rotation, it enables a great deal of maneuverability for the driver. This advantage in maneuverability translates directly into opportunity for work. Some locations have limited accessibility due to turning radius, road grade, traffic conditions or any number of things. The transfer trailer combination is very popular in the western United States because of wider spaces and longer distances. They would be impossible to operate in most eastern states and probably in most of Europe and the UK because of narrow streets and dense city conditions.
The way a transfer operates also might answer some of your questions. The loaded truck and trailer arrives at the sight. The operator disconnects the drawbar from the pintle hook on the back of the truck and the drawbar sets flat on the ground. The operator then drives the truck and dumps the load and returns the truck to its original position in front of the trailer. With the tailgate in the up position the truck backs up and butts up against the frame of the trailer. The operator then connects hydraulic lines that operate a motor on the trailer that uses a chain drive to push the trailer body inside the truck body which locks into place once fully inside the truck body. Then the truck pulls forward and dumps the load from the trailer body. Then the process is reversed and the trailer body goes back on the trailer frame, and the entire cycle is repeated until the job is done.
Hemulin – I don’t really have a good answer for your question, these images were created primarily for the sake of posting something on the forum. When I looked up the resolution limitations of the forum I noticed the resolution was 800x600. We are still in the decision making process of developing our web site so we have not made up our minds about the format yet. Ordinarily I render images in the full screen mode and print them off on our printer. I am just to the point now of being able to start putting out images on a reasonably consistent time frame, but I’m needing the additional computing power before I can really run with it. I am hoping to create presentations for DVD distribution that will be meant for TV viewing, but that is down the road a bit yet also.
When I got into this I knew that once the people I work with saw the capabilities they would want all kinds of stuff. I therefore started in creating models of each and every product line we have in order to be able to best handle the many different demands that I knew would come. The transfer trailer combination is our most complex product line and while its computer resource demands are great, if I can get a set up that is capable of making animations of the transfer trailer I will be able to do animations of any and every one of our other product lines.
If you have any additional questions I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks again,
Joe |
Post by hemulin // Feb 24, 2006, 10:46am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Wow, that was a long answer (thats why i'm not quoting). You certainly know your tankers from your artics. |
Post by stoker // Feb 24, 2006, 10:56am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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Whoooooo:banana: That was a hell of an explanation but atleast I understand now;) If I was going to be a little critical I would say the truck sides are a little shiny if they are black. (matter of opinion) Good Work, Great Image:D :D |
Post by Alien // Feb 24, 2006, 11:17am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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If I was going to be a little critical I would say the truck sides are a little shiny if they are black. (matter of opinion)
Black? :confused: They look dark red to me. |
Post by stoker // Feb 24, 2006, 11:24am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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Sorry I'm on the crappy family computer downstairs and it has a dud screen which shows no red:o :o :) |
Post by hemulin // Feb 24, 2006, 12:19pm
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Hmm, new monitor methinks |
Post by splinters // Feb 24, 2006, 12:21pm
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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it has a dud screen which shows no red:o :o :)
Hope you're not using it for your renders.....;) |
Post by stoker // Feb 24, 2006, 12:22pm
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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No, thankgod, find my way to my Pc for doing things like that:jumpy: |
Post by joekel4 // Feb 24, 2006, 1:11pm
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joekel4
Total Posts: 15
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I'm gonna give this a try and I'm not certain how this is going to work so here goes an animation of a 360 degree flyaround of the truck. Hope you like it.
Joe |
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