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What they are saying on the net.
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.
What they are saying on the net. // Roundtable
Post by jamesmc // Apr 19, 2006, 5:06am
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jamesmc
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tS 7, no version listed, 279.94 at Academic Super Store (hmmm)
Interesting that there's no sample animations using tS7 on Caligari's site.[/I[I]]...They force people to pay big bucks for Pro Team to get some video tutorials when virtually everyone else has free videos and active sites like here for support etc. They don't even allow the manuals to be downloaded.
I mean MS can't even get all the back doors closed in MS-IE and here you get portal into your machine via your 3D application. Who needs that?
The fact is that the trueSpace core was approx 10 years old...They made the decision to made a "bridge" between the old (ts 6.6 - currently called modeler) and the new one.
TS, from my experience, is a classic case of not allowing thier community & 2nd/3rd party developers to add to the program. IF they had they would have tooling and an interface that would rival today's leaders. Now it's in drastic need of whole scale business reconstruction because who in their right mind sells an update for nearly equal the price of a competitors full package!
trueSpace 7 – long awaited but still lacking polish?
GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE—SAN FRANCISCO, CA—MARCH 7, 2005—NVIDIA Corporation "Applications include trueSpace 7 (Caligari Corporation), Mimic (DAZ Studios), Animation Master (Hash, Inc.), Shade 7, and Poser 6 (Curious Labs). Did it ever happen?
trueSpace7 is now available from www.caligari.com ttp://www.caligari.com/> for an MSRP of $595.00. Rendering applications from LightWorks and VirtuaLight are included with trueSpace7. V-Ray is available for an additional $299. eh ???
Roman's review of his own product:
http://www.caligari.com/News/news_dec2004/truetown_roman_b.html
In Rosetta, there is no difference between Caligari developers, 3rd party developers, script writers, game designers, animators, rigging artists, modelers, material designers or illustrators. Everyone can add to Rosetta platform in a Context appropriate to their purpose, using interface Aspects appropriate to their Talent? (whatever the heck that means.)
I put the reviews I could find. They seem to be mostly negative, I couldn't find any good reviews and I looked hard. |
Post by splinters // Apr 19, 2006, 5:56am
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Any links James, to see these quotes in context.
The only one I am familiar with is the Truespace 7;... Lacking polish? from 3D World magazine and that is not a bad review really. |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 19, 2006, 6:29am
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No links provided. It's out there on the net if you search for trueSpace 7 reviews.
I suspect some of the quotes are from the same people who visit this forum, so I didn't want to incriminate anyone. |
Post by splinters // Apr 19, 2006, 6:36am
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Any chance of a translation of that one Emma...;) |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 19, 2006, 6:59am
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@jamesmc
Sorry, you forgot to mention what is said on the other side of the pond:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=607
I've got the whole article in front of me an can not read that much negative positions as you list. In fact the article expresses exactly what Roman said in first above given forum entry and additionally lists the minus points from which you can already delete some with version 7.1
The magazine is publishing mainly professional articles about the inside of copmputers and software.
Sorry you misunderstood my post. These are quotes from the Internet. Only one of them refers to an online computer magazine review and I don't have access to the article.
The others are from actual users or prospective buyers, which to me is far more important than a review from a magazine. I often base my decision whether to buy something based on what I read on the Internet. It is today's world after all and today's action-based people use the Internet as a conveyance for their ideas, thoughts and opinions.
Plus, I don't like plugging magazines. If I were going to plug something it would be a product(s) that I like, but that is not appropriate for this forum. |
Post by splinters // Apr 19, 2006, 7:17am
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@splinters, Did you get an e-mail sendmessage from me ? if not please send me an e-mail
Yes thanks Emma. |
Post by splinters // Apr 19, 2006, 7:20am
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The others are from actual users or prospective buyers, which to me is far more important than a review from a magazine. I often base my decision whether to buy something based on what I read on the Internet.
James are you saying your decision to buy TS7 would be affected by the opinions of prospective buyers i.e those who have not actually used it....rather that a review written by someone who has?...:confused: |
Post by splinters // Apr 19, 2006, 7:23am
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There should be a whole lot more for 7.5 as well Emma. Good points you make there and glad you are enjoying TS7.1. I certainly am..:D
Any help you might need...just shout. I'm no 'expert' but I have been using it for well over a year in some form...plus I know my around the UI pretty well..;) |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 19, 2006, 8:21am
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James are you saying your decision to buy TS7 would be affected by the opinions of prospective buyers i.e those who have not actually used it....rather that a review written by someone who has?...:confused:
Sure.
Reviews of any item are often done by people who have not used a product. For instance, just going on the Manufacturer's specification and brochures, 10's of thousands of reviews are done on appliances, tools and many other items including software reviews.
A large Marketing Company like J.D. Powers and Associate usually demand in their contract that they get the product in hand before reviewing it. That is the proper way to get a review in my opinion.
A review by a Beta Tester is like a subcontractor/associate company doing the review. The lines of objectivity may be blurred between actual critique of the product and a partnership alliance which the reviewer does not want to violate. I bet the reviewer didn't mention in the article that he was first invited by Caligari to become a beta tester and he didn't mention that he was going to be the reviewer for a computer magazine. Maybe he did or didn't, but I bet he didn't tell the readers that? hmmmmmmm??? Fraught with suspicion of collusion mixed with "I won't go too hard on you Caligari cause I still want to be a beta tester." That is not an independent review.
If for instance Macromedia comes out with FlashGoZilla 1.0. In their brochure they mention there will be no trial downloads or beta test trials as they have their own group of testers. The product price is $1100.00 and extra for backup CD with manuals. So, what is a person to do.
They are most likely not going to fork out money and if they do pay hope they don't surpass the 30 day money back period. What if they got extremely busy/hurt/called away and or just plain forgot about the software and couldn't get their money back. Are they stuck with the software if they don't like it?
The alternative is to look for reviews by either professional reviewers, individuals, current users, past users or whatever form of review they can get.
I don't have to defend the reviews of other people, it's out there on the Internet. Look for yourself, you will find them. These are not my words, but the words of others. And, I might add sparse reviews as I had to really hunt for them. |
Post by Loadus // Apr 19, 2006, 9:15am
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Strange reviews. I can't understand people moaning and groaning about trueSpace. It does what any other commercial package does (save ZBrush) and much more. My own feelings about trueSpace are nothing but positive. And the nags about the version 7 for "not being completely finished". Well, dah. The whole system was rewritten. I can say from my point that trueSpace 7 is at least 2x faster than 6.6, it renders faster and the whole link editor system is exactly what was needed to get a full control over shaders and objects. It does what it's supposed to do. It helps the user model one's work, animate it and render it. People probably think it sucks because it doesn't download warez and DivXDVD rips from the net. *sigh*
Strange stuff on the internet ... |
Post by Garion // Apr 19, 2006, 9:41am
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and the nags about the version 7 for "not being completely finished". Well, dah. The whole system was rewritten.
Don't forget the triple upgrade price that was asked for, for this unfinished product:)
I honestly do not see how the whole system has been re-written given that 3/4 of Truespace 7 is Truespace 6.6.
The Player is new and to all intents and purposes, at the moment at least just eye candy, Shared space is only availible to the few and could have security issues all of its own, the tools long term users like myself have been asking for have once again not been included and those that did not pre-order Truespace will have to fork out more money for the updates.
Items that were adverstised prior to purchase were not in fact availible, sure they are coming out soon, but at what extra cost.
I really do not understand why people treat software any differntly from any other consumer item. If yoo bought a car that was adverstised with having all the mod cons, only to find out AFTER yoo purchase it that they would infact be added six months down the road. Would yoo not be a tad upset?
I am sorry if I sound like a parrot or a Fagin but the 3D market has altered drasticaly in the last year and Truespace has fallen so far behind that I fear for its future.
Caligari would be better employed implimenting the toolset that users have been asking for, rather than trying to be first with gimmicks. Its not going to do Caligari any good when/if other applications intigrate into their own software the inovations pioneered by Caligari, if Caligari are no longer in business due to user migration and lack of sales.
Cheers
Garion |
Post by Alien // Apr 19, 2006, 9:54am
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Caligari would be better employed implimenting the toolset that users have been asking for, rather than trying to be first with gimmicks. Its not going to do Caligari any good when/if other applications intigrate into their own software the inovations pioneered by Caligari, if Caligari are no longer in business due to user migration and lack of sales.
I agree on the issue of shared space, in so much as it would have been better leaving it until later, but as for the rest of the stuff that users have been asking for... it simply wasn't possible to do in the old architecture, hence the new architecture. Caligari are in the process of both transferring existing tools that are on the model side over to the "player" side, as well as implementing new stuff that we all want.
I'm not really sure what else they could have called it, but I think calling it the player was a mistake on Caligary's part, it has connotations of not being serious, when in fact it will completely replace the model side once complete.
Had Caligari not created the new architecture, then they'd have been "dead in the water", as they'd built themselves into a corner with the old architecture. |
Post by Garion // Apr 19, 2006, 10:33am
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It would have been better if Caligari had concentrated on porting over the tools to the 'new architecture' instead of wasting time on the gimmicks and the Bridge.
I for one would have preferred that.
They could have released TS7 in all its new found glory, with the tools in place and release the Shared Space as a plugin for those that actually need it.
I just can't get my head around the thinking process that put's 'gimmicks' before solid tools. I have been a software developer in one way or another for over 20 years and this is, for me at least, the first time this type of thinking has survived beyond the actual brainstorming, concolidation phase of the development process.
In all my years it has been first build a solid foundation then impliment the tools that are required by the market and userbase and THEN add any gimmicks or fluff that will, for all intents and purposes be the icing on the cake.
Caligari's penchant for making the gimmicks the 'whole cake' still astounds and indeed confounds me.:confused:
Anyhoo, I am still waiting to see what TS7.5 brings to the party before I make up my mind to migrate full time or not.
Having spent the money on the upgrade and Vray I far for pleased with what I got.
I may be rather vocal in my thoughts regarding Truespace...
But I am still hanging in there though....:)
Cheers
Garion |
Post by Alien // Apr 19, 2006, 11:04am
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It would have been better if Caligari had concentrated on porting over the tools to the 'new architecture' instead of wasting time on the gimmicks and the Bridge.
& if they hadn't made the Bridge, they'd have people moaning about how all the plugin packs, etc didn't work anymore. |
Post by Délé // Apr 19, 2006, 11:25am
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I've heard a few people say it and I think it's a bit unfair to say that beta testers are not able to be objective. I only recently became one but I'm just as objective now as before. Maybe even more so now because I'm trying to find things to fix or change so that I can let them know my opinion. If anything, I feel more of an obligation to be more objective.
I have no obligation to be favorable to Caligari. I am favorable to them, but it's because I very much like Caligari and trueSpace. Which is how it was before I became a beta tester. I think it's just silly to say someone is too close to the action to see what's really going on and have an independent objective opinion.
It's like some people think Roman has some kind of mind control device that he uses on all of the beta testers to make them say only positive things about TS, lol. Simply not true. TrueSpace has it's pros and cons. For me there are more pros then cons. Simple as that. :) |
Post by Garion // Apr 19, 2006, 11:27am
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Garion
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& if they hadn't made the Bridge, they'd have people moaning about how all the plugin packs, etc didn't work anymore.
Yup, probably so but a lot of the paks don't work out of the box in 7 anyway even with the bridge ;)
We can still use the packs in 6.6 so it would have been less of an issue (for me) than releasing an unfinished application at a premium price.
A new archtecture with all the spangly new tools on release day and updates for the paks in the month to follow, seems a more sensible way to do right by yer userbase.
Cheers
Garion |
Post by tomasb // Apr 19, 2006, 11:48am
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A new archtecture with all the spangly new tools on release day and updates for the paks in the month to follow, seems a more sensible way to do right by yer userbase.
New architecture is so different that this was not possible - first, we moved to COM, inside everything is node based, we moved from polygons to triangular representation.... Not doing the bridge will cause that there will be no plugins till 7.5... also, rewritting all tS tools would take much longer than 4 years - it was developed more than 10 years... etc etc. There were made some compromises and as always there are some pros and cons, but only future will show if the path we have chosen was the right one... |
Post by Garion // Apr 19, 2006, 12:02pm
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Garion
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only future will show if the path we have chosen was the right one...
Believe me when I say I hope yoo have chosen the correct path.. but I must admit that personally and professionally I have my doubts :(
I do not post the comments I make on these forums to be nasty or to bash (for no reason) Caligari, it is my hope that some at least of what I and other Truespace users have said will be concidered as constructive critism and acted upon if possible.
So far there have been no rave reviews (that I have seen) for TS7, the reveivews I have seen have all pretty much agreed that its an unfinished application and at the moment a hybrid one at that. If it were possible it might have been better to wait until 7.5 was ready and call that version Truespace 7, but with the state of the industry and cash flow conciderations maybe that was not possible.
In the end I am stating my concerns as a Truespace user and on a bright spot, I recommened truesapce 66 to some friends of mine at the weekend, but alas I could not recommed TS7 in its current form.
CHeers
Garion |
Post by chrono // Apr 19, 2006, 4:25pm
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As of right now the TS7.0 series hasn't solified/jelled as a program. It's still in a transition state and I find it unlikely that a valid, thoughtful, hardcore review of the TS7.0 series won't happen until TS8 comes out(18months after 7.5 most likely).
I find those recommended programs quite odd. :confused: I'm surprised at the lack of others. Even if they only suggested 'all-arounder' type programs, there should also be others. Maybe they just ran outta room. :o |
Post by TomG // Apr 19, 2006, 4:38pm
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What seems a "gimmick" one day is an indispensable tool the next. We were told the same thing about solid modeling when we introduced it, that it was a gimmick and everyone would just keep on using wireframes in the serious applications.
When something new comes in, it is of course not indispensable, because we've all been living without it, and apparently quite well. But that's because we haven't yet got used to new conveniences and possibilities :)
Anyway, it was also true of many things - the Walkman was a gimmick, who would want to walk around listening to music while on the move? It took a huge marketing effort by Sony to make it work, and they did a good job - and now look at today where portable music is something most of us could never think of living without. They saw the potential, even when the customers themselves did not - and now the customers would never think to question how great it is :)
Anyway, we have chosen our route and with what we think are good reasons, that will benefit the maximum number of our users as possible in the long run.
BTW, making the Bridge was a tricky decision, took a lot of weighing up. As it happens, people have plug-ins and paks and add ons and all sorts that they will not want to abandon. trueSpace7 is a new program, but we didn't want to make it so that our users really felt like they were buying a whole new program and starting over. So the bridge went in there.
A lot of the Pak issues btw are installation issues. They are being worked on now - there was no point on working on them prior to tS7.1 as tS7.1 was changing things, so could just break any previous fixes all over again.
Anyway, we could have some more tools in the new architecture if the Bridge wasn't there. But you would still have tools missing, so would be going backward. And you'd lose ALL your plug-ins, and we mean ALL. They would need to be specifically re-written to work in the Player. Yes I know people are not happy with the Bridge entirely, but I think there would be even more complaints had we gone the other route.
It is all a transition, and the question was how to manage it - a longer, but softer, transition; or a shorter, but much more harsh, one. We opted for the first, believing it important that users could continue with existing workflow and knowledge, and continue to take advantage of what could be hundreds of dollars spent on plug-ins rather than find all that out the window.
Of course we would LOVE to have made everything in the new architecture with all the old plug-ins working and all the tools moved across and all the new tools we have planned in there - but this is not an ideal world, and compromises always have to be made :) We chose the ones that we thought would best benefit as many of our users as possible.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by TomG // Apr 19, 2006, 4:58pm
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A quick few PS's too :)
Leaving the shared space til later - well, you see, this arises from and with the design of the underlying architecture. You can only have two people editing an object at the same time if the way that object is defined and behaves is created from the ground up in a way to allow that.
In other words, the new architecture and shared space are intimately bound together. Shared space is NOT some clumsy way of sending along what happens to define the scene through some middle ground so that all can get it at once. It arises from the fundamental way that the objects are defined, both in the abstract philosophical sense, and in the specifics of their coding.
This is all to do with message passing and stuff that is too technical for me to do full justice to, but basically an object is capable of "talking" to all other objects, and all in a non-linear form. The non-linearity is built in to our design.
Of course it leads to many more benefits too. Ability to exploit multi-cores fully - multi cores work by the cores passing messages to each other.. same as tS objects... each object can run on its own core, and the tS object messaging passing and core message passing become one and the same... powerful for physics, procedural animation, procedural modeling, and giving true future scalability for when we upgrade our PCs not to a bigger, hotter, more power hungry single core, since the limits of that are being reached, but to 4 core, 8 core, 64 core etc.
New modeling tools and potentials arise too. Physics can run while you model. In time, physics can be PART of how you model. No reason why you can't pull vertices, which can "sag" under gravity as you pull them. Because it's non-linear, because you can model while physics runs and someone else textures, etc.
So the issue really is we could not leave the shared space part until later. That would make it some separate, added on processing that simply acts as a "go between" to grab what one person is doing, and force it to reconcile with what someone else is doing. THis is much more fundamental and elegant :)
Of course I understand people think of it that way. Just like you can "add booleans" to a program or not, just by tacking them on there, why can't you just "add shared space". Well if it were that simple of course, then it would be out there already as a plug-in for other applications. But allowing two people to model on the same model at once (or three, or four) while physics is running - well its a fundamental problem, not an add on or afterthought.
So that is why something like shared space is in there right away. It had to be in there from the ground up to be right. And the same architecture then allows many many things in the modeling and animation departments too. So this is not sacrificing one for the other to gain.
The only slight "sacrifice" is that we had to take time out to do such a big re-write, which of course means during that time we couldn't be writing tools as we were writing the underlying code. Now the code is there though, we can develop new tools much more quickly than was ever possible before. So can third party developers in fact. They have a lot of power and possibilities there which would be an agonising problem to overcome in other applications, in tS with non-linearity and message passing, some things can become much easier.
The tools can also be much more clever and intelligent and responsive than before too.
So yes indeed, it will take time to get out of the transition period. We'll do everything we can to make that transition short, while also making it less painful. We'll do all we can to show what we mean, and where we are going, and why we chose that route. Then time will reveal all, of course, only that will show how everything works out :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by chrono // Apr 19, 2006, 5:35pm
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I'm glad your positive about it TG! But then again you have to be.
The tools can also be much more clever and intelligent and responsive than before too.
This line kinda made me chuckle though. ;) CAN being the most important word there. Shame it's in vain. Few people 'hope' for something clearly positive when it comes to the interface any more. |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 19, 2006, 7:45pm
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In all fairness to Roman and his company, he is a pioneer and an innovator.
One has to know the mind of Roman which hasn't been done yet. , but perhaps Roman wants to innovate more than he wants to market a product. It this is the case, then that is fine.
Marketing people get all the examples in low level courses in college; Edsel - selling the Chevy Nova in Mexico (no va means no go)- and many other examples. Fine products, but marketing blunders for one reason or another.
I'm waxing philosophically here, but here goes anyway...
Sometimes stubbing our toes on technology does not get the bread buttered.
What happens if two years from now some genius figures how to use projections with vectors to make 3D Models like assembling layers in a cat scan? Then, any 2D paint software becomes 3D software and all you have to have is a smart layer manager? Are all the polygonal based 3d programs out of business?
That may be far fetched and maybe it isn't. But most people live for the here and now. As more average people get into 3D modeling, they are seeking the program that will work for them now and have all the toys.
As the drag racing community figured out...you don't need a bigger/newer engine, just add a little nitro.
By the time 7.5 comes out, I bet animation in other software will be using yet another new advanced technology and network communities of certified render farms, with chat talk, object exchange and who knows what will be out on the market developed by the freelancer. |
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