|
|
A more perfect union
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.
A more perfect union // Roundtable
Post by roman // Apr 28, 2006, 10:49pm
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
We released TS7.0 three months ago and with successful 7.1 + Vray1.0 update shipped last week I now have the time to write down a few things to describe my thoughts about where we are and where we are going.
Almost instantly upon the release (even before it) we have seen on TS Forum extraordinary TS7 renderings from Marcel Barthel, Mike Harris, Oliver Rohe, David Froude, Paul Woodward, Even Anthony Ware, who only gave us 6 stars in 3D World produced great cathedral rendering in TS forum. There were many others.
At the same time we saw early appearance of new real time interactive content made possible by new TS7 features by Marcel Barthel, David Bokon, Pete Massaro. More recently, new TS7 users Dele and Johny created wonderful interactive content and now they are already helping with animation stuff for TS7.5 as newly added members of Beta team. Johny has already created two cool 3D games, each in less than a day of work.
But the learning curve is greater this time. It seems many people did not yet read the manual, which is realy well written this time, I know I wrote many sections of it:) trueSpace7 is not an improved trueSpace6, it is a whole new product, despite is bridge based real time bidirectional compatibility with TS6. We have seen user comments from “TS7 truly breaks the mold, not just of trueSpace, but of 3D work, period” to “We have seen TS7 and we laughed it of” and everything in-between. In some ways, we are more divided community after TS7 was released then before.
While divisiveness is bad, diversification is good. I see TS community as group of professional content creators, whether they are 3D artists, illustrators, designers, engineers, architects, video animators, game designers or researchers. I know many of you would describe yourselves as hobbyists or students and many of you are TS users because you find the program affordable but that is not important to me, we at Caligari are proud to be a provider of affordable 3D software. What matters is not how much you pay for your 3D tools but your attitude, your pride in what you doing, your love for visual form of expression in new media and most importantly, your contribution to our community. Ask not what the community can do for you, ask what you can do for the community:)
We expect tolerance between members of this Forum, someone made a comment that new TS7 functionality is for “game guys” implying that his “industry” was more worthy than the game industry. I happen to think there are a lot of creative professional in game design industry which Caligari would be proud to have as customers! On the other hand what is preventing more “serious” industries to add interactive content to their offerings? Why would a medical researcher not use interactive physical simulation instead of just linear video animation? Why would members of design team not collaborate online in 3D? Why would an animator not take advantage of procedural animation or high level physical simulation? Why would a hobbyist be not intrigued by great new “toys” in TS7 arsenal?
I am convinced this will happen over time and we will move vast majority of TS users over the hurdles to this new world. The truth is this new world may be a bit scary for many. For example a 3D artist in a game design team may prefer to rely on programmers for game “logic” rather then empower himself by learning Link editor or scripting. But while the fear may be great, rewards are even greater and some 3D artists will start to produce behaviors for their 3D objects and characters eventually.
I am willing to work for this goal as long and as hard as it is necessary but I will not accept cynicism and criticism of our goal itself, if you fundamentally disagree with our goals, you should not be part of this community, it is that simple. If you are truly convinced that real time 3D collaboration, real time photorealism or objects with behaviors are fundamentally useless than there are plenty of other communities you can turn to.
Having said that, criticism within our established goals is very healthy and I am ready to throw the first stone myself. When we converted TS6 UI elements to resemble new TS7 UI (and I love new TS7 Icons created by Paul Woodward), we left out some “minor” functionality, like maximizable toolbars, some layer conventions etc out. While we added animation scrubber to Model view animation toolbar back in TS7.1, it became apparent that many other “minor” things turned out to be rather difficult to do for us in the limited time we had for 7.1. As a consequence many loyal TS users still have to rely on TS6.6 for their modeling work. This is not something we can be proud of and we are currently investigating how to fix this. One possibility is to release TS7.2 before 7.5 becomes available. It will depend on just fast work on 7.5 will be progressing, I will keep you updated.
By the way I would like to hear how many people with good DX9 cards consider TS7.1 less stable than TS6.6? We tested TS7 in Beta really hard and our experience in many cases was the opposite, we fixed many modeling bugs for TS7.1. It is true, TS7 uses more memory then TS6 for same scene but you can always turn the bridge off and memory use is then very similar to TS6.
I do not think you have to wait for 7.2 or 7.5 to benefit; there are plenty of powerful new features you can learn right now in TS7.1. Link Editor is my favorite, I know many are asking what it is for and why is it taking so much screen space in Default layout. Why not study the manual, or better yet open active object in LE and study how they were built? What I am also missing is a serious comparison of LE with Houdini node editor or Cinema4D Xpresso node editor. Are we missing something, are we better that they are? What could be improved on Player SDS edit tools or Player point edit tools? What are next few tools absolutely critical to add to Player to make it a strong modeling environment? I would also like to hear about TS7.1 new abililty to save Player animations to a file, one tester said it provides him with a very fast way to create video animations, how can we improve it further?
Next week we will improve truePlay portal and release truePlay to general public. This will give you the ability to present your 3D content to your friends or customer online, via simple e-mail attachment or even collaboratively. You can think of truePlay as Acrobat3D on steroids which will allow you to share your 3D content with your friends or customer in real time and you can even add your own 2D control panels to interactive scenes or 3D recordings you made with TS7.
And then there is of course the new character animation in TS7.5, but we will discuss that later:) |
Post by Alien // Apr 28, 2006, 11:33pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
I must confess I haven't really done much with the player yet, but as you asked for suggestions I do have a few:
There really needs to be an option to change the player's floor grid [or whatever you call it] to wireframe. I think quite a few people would agree this is important.
Not really sure how to best describe this, but... Norm talked me through how to make objects look wireframe instead of solid in the player, but it would be nice if there was some sort of option to just switch between wireframe & solid view, & maybe even save the level of wireframe [size of points, etc] as a preset or something. From what little I understand of the way such things are done in tS7, there may already be a way to achieve this, I'm just asking for a quicker/simpler way of doing it.
You mention a couple of other 3D progs, & ask us to compare tS7 to them, but I'm not familiar with them. However, I have been looking at the site for Hexagon, & there's definitely some stuff in there that I'd like to see in tS. I like how the widget shows the size of the area of influence, eg brush size for painting textures directly onto the model.
Also, have a look at Hexagon's freehand modeling tools (http://server2.eovia.com/demos/hexagon2/brushes.html). I think having stuff like that in tS would be very cool. :cool:
That's about all I can think of for now, keep up the good work. :) |
Post by splinters // Apr 29, 2006, 1:35am
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
I, for one, would like to thank you Roman for such a lengthy statement. It poses as many questions as it provides answers and reminds me why I am proud to be part of this community. Thank you also for your kind word regarding renders and icons. I hope to do even better for 7.5...:) |
Post by xmanflash // Apr 29, 2006, 2:45am
|
xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
|
But the learning curve is greater this time. It seems many people did not yet read the manual, which is realy well written this time
This was a problem I had - I downloaded the software on Fri hoping to have a simple tissue box modelled, rendered and textured by Monday for a client. I based this on my existing knowledge of Max (7/8) which I use for another client, but wanting to use my own software for the new client.
I spent the weekend (ALL OF IT) trying to get one thing after another working properly.. It was awful. Partly my fault thourgh lack of experience, partly a hardware problem with my video card (Matrox Parhelia - every object is white in Player mode, so I had to use modeller for everything) and partly due to 7.0 being buggy and also a lot due to a large UV map (2500x1500 TGA) which slowed everything down so much it was like working with glue.
I percevered, and bought the tutorials to try to learn where I was going wrong but alas mostly they didnt help - I didnt have time to read much of the manual except to pick out the functions i needed when I needed them, and much of the time things didnt work as expected, due to me having to use the modeller interface.
someone made a comment that new TS7 functionality is for “game guys” implying that his “industry” was more worthy than the game industry.
I made a comment asking if the software was tailored towards Game Guys as I was trying to guess where you were positioning yourself in the industry.. You cant do everything well obviously, or the software would cost a fortune.. and my aims are toward photorealistic animations, and the DX engine rendered does not quite cut it for final renders.. (although v-ray is certainly making me grin a lot..)
I am willing to work for this goal as long and as hard as it is necessary but I will not accept cynicism and criticism of our goal itself, if you fundamentally disagree with our goals, you should not be part of this community, it is that simple.
And this is where i was prodding and poking to find out what was going on, and happily it helped....
If you are truly convinced that real time 3D collaboration, real time photorealism or objects with behaviors are fundamentally useless than there are plenty of other communities you can turn to.
... because now I understand that these are the real design goals of TS7.. (is that correct?) so now I can decide wether I want to be part of that community or not..
By the way I would like to hear how many people with good DX9 cards consider TS7.1 less stable than TS6.6?
Mine was not a good DX9 card, but surely it should work at least in an onlder supported mode in the Player window? - maybe you can get your hands on one and try it - they are amazing for video related work (the overlay output is second to none for HD video from a video card)
Thanks for sharing, I will endeavour to be involved in the improving of TS whenever possible, as soon as I get to learn it more thoroughly.. |
Post by roman // Apr 29, 2006, 11:23am
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
And this is where i was prodding and poking to find out what was going on, and happily it helped....
... because now I understand that these are the real design goals of TS7.. (is that correct?) so now I can decide wether I want to be part of that community or not..
Exactly, if you do not want to invest in DX9 card, you will miss out on some of the best features on TS7. However, DX9 photorealism, collaboration, procedural modeling/animation, Aspects, configurable panels and layouts, Link and Script Editor are not the only "real" goals, we are equaly commited to world class modeling, surfacing, rendering and character animation tools which you will already see in TS7.5.
In fact, it is the new features and architecture which will make further advances in more traditional modeling, rendering and animation possible. But you must have a mind open to innovation, when we introduced 3D widgets and hardware acceleration for textured solids back in TS4 a lot of users said that they will never use them and woved to stay in wireframe forever. I doubt they still say that.
Our goal was and it always will be to provide a complete 3D authoring solution (platform) for one good price. It is true we are charging extra for V-Ray but V-Ray is a world class renderer and we are licensing it form Chaos group and V-Ray for trueSpace is the best value for this kind of quality there is. Everything else that we develop is a standard part of trueSpace, for $595 you get the best configuration, not a restricted version of $3,000 piece of software. If $595 price is too high we sell you a full version of our previous generation trueSpace at very low cost. In my mind that makes more sense, some users in fact decide to wait till current generation is superseeded with newer one and buy it at discount and that is just fine with us. On the other hand those who decide to go for the new capabilities and explore them with open mind (and vallets:) though we always offer good pre-order and upgrade price) will benefit from the exhilarating feeling of brave new world opening up for them. If that is elitist thinking I pledge guilty as charged. |
Post by roman // Apr 29, 2006, 11:54am
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
There really needs to be an option to change the player's floor grid [or whatever you call it] to wireframe. I think quite a few people would agree this is important.
I am one of them, it is one of those "7.2" features which would take about 2 hours to implement. As for modeling, we will be adding a lot more modeling functionality to Player in 7.5. |
Post by Alien // Apr 29, 2006, 12:31pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
I am one of them, it is one of those "7.2" features which would take about 2 hours to implement.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/smilies/w00t.gif That's great news, thanks! http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/smilies/w00t.gif
As for modeling, we will be adding a lot more modeling functionality to Player in 7.5.
Cool. :) But... do you mean functionality that currently exists in modeler, or that tS hasn't had at all before? :confused: |
Post by Asem // Apr 29, 2006, 12:33pm
|
Asem
Total Posts: 255
|
It is true that there doesn't seem to be many people using the player side of ts7 for at least a finish but the thing is why not? Direct3d 10 is to be released or is technically released just not officially (I think). I just read an article that direct3d 10 will improve performance greatly, I mean to do physics on the gpu is pretty outstanding and will improve ts7 if they decide to implement it. I have been trying my hardest to think and use the LE and physics together on the player side and I like it (ie. spook house in the WIP section - still working).
By the way, major problems with the physics not running when you have a certain amount of objects. So I'm texturing the house and creating more objects.
I like the LE and trying to place many LE objects to make it interactive. Seems a little discouraging for those who feel that they do not know how to program but it is still simple and just takes practice especially like dele and Johnny have been creating custom like LE objects.
As a suggestion for those who wish to work in the player view as a finish product to have parallax mapping I know its been suggested a few times. |
Post by Alien // Apr 29, 2006, 12:47pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
just read an article that direct3d 10 will improve performance greatly, I mean to do physics on the gpu is pretty outstanding and will improve ts7 if they decide to implement it.
I'm glad you mentioned physics, as it reminded me of something I'd been meaning to ask Roman:
Have you considered building support for the Ageia PhysX Accelerator (http://www.bfgtech.com/physx/index.htm) into tS? |
Post by chrono // Apr 29, 2006, 1:38pm
|
chrono
Total Posts: 0
|
Finally roman states what TrueSpace's duel purpose is and what it's meant for!!! Good. Now we can start actually, as a community, to push it in the direction that it so badly needs to go!! Instead of randomly asking for the sky for improvements and continously reading articles about the questionable direction of TS.
But sadly the people of the community know beyond a single doubt that it truely falls on muted ears as is evidenced by the history of customer feature requests and Caligari's near total inaction.
Again maybe when TS8.0 rolls around it will be worth buying.
In the mean time roman I suggest that you download Blender and see how close to the edge of oblivion your software is. |
Post by Vizu // Apr 29, 2006, 1:41pm
|
Vizu
Total Posts: 628
|
Much to read and more than a half of them i can´t understand with my english ( Emma can you hang up this for translate ) ? ;)
Okay, Player needs a expensive 3D Card.
Player have not the modeling tools like in the modeler.
Scripting is hard to learn (impossible to me to read and understand the manual) i work with try and error.
Last few weeks i have not much time to play with the full functionality in 7.x
TS7.1 crashes often still with enabled lightworks as renderingengine so i let it still on VRay. That runs stable.
It is hard to test all possibilitys of materials that looks real in VRay so i miss already material librarys written for VRay (Glass of a window, glass of a bottle or glass for a drinkglass )
also i wish i have a Lightlibrary that have real 60, 80 or whatever watts bulb or real fluorencetubes etc lights.
by the way where i begin to wish, i wish to get the extrude faces along normals in the modeler view and a displacement like in VRay for max ;)
Why caligari don´t make the modeler and player in one surface ? for what the bridge it makes TS slow when you work with glued objects.
all my comments are just subjective from the eye of a hobbyst and see my comment more unimotional ...
• ------> excuse my poor english <------- • |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 29, 2006, 2:06pm
|
jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
|
I would also like to hear about TS7.1 new abililty to save Player animations to a file, one tester said it provides him with a very fast way to create video animations, how can we improve it further?
Next week we will improve truePlay portal and release truePlay to general public. This will give you the ability to present your 3D content to your friends or customer online, via simple e-mail attachment or even collaboratively. You can think of truePlay as Acrobat3D on steroids which will allow you to share your 3D content with your friends or customer in real time and you can even add your own 2D control panels to interactive scenes or 3D recordings you made with TS7.
And then there is of course the new character animation in TS7.5, but we will discuss that later:)
Looks like a good way to present tutorials and the videos should be free since it is native to the program. |
Post by mykyl1966 // Apr 29, 2006, 2:07pm
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Roman, I seem to read a bit of frustration in you regarding some folks inability to see the potential in TS 7. If you and the others who work for you believe in it then damn the negativity.
Why dont you ask the TS faithfull for thoughts on the uses of this new technology. Perhaps a brainstorm chat session or something could be setup where all sorts of ideas are thrown in the pot no matter how ridiculous and lets just see what comes out. I am sure that if you set a date and time and found some way for the faithfull to have a live chat/brainstorm session that it could bring some amazing points to the marketing table and help to shut up the naysayers.
I must admit I had been waiting on 7.1 (Now 7.5 ) for the animation tools before upgrading to TS 7. Due to a complication during a surgical procedure I am now housebound so until I can find a way to create an income from home that will have to wait.
Saying that I would still love to be a part of any brainstorming chat that could help those who cant 'think outside the box' see the potential that TS7 could hold for the 3d community.
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by xmanflash // Apr 29, 2006, 5:47pm
|
xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
|
In the mean time roman I suggest that you download Blender and see how close to the edge of oblivion your software is.
I think thats probably a little harsh..:p I downloaded blender a week ago and it gave me the only BSOD I have had in the last 2 years after a minute of playing!!
Scared the heck out of me.. - I know thats a trivial matter as its problay my weird matrox apve video card causing that.. but still, I like the fact that TS has a much more powerful underlying achitecture and now they can focus on new tools/features that MAY possibly include what we are hoping they will...
Most of my issues resolve around the fact I modelled a bit in 6.6 and 7.1 is quite different and unreliable in many cases, even for a simple model i was trying to make. Any complicated interface can be learned with an investement of time, but if its not consistent and reliable then whats the point... and I think the bridge is the core of the irregularities that we see, or maybe the program testing got so darn complicated that a wider beta test (7.0) was decided on ....;) |
Post by xmanflash // Apr 29, 2006, 6:38pm
|
xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
|
Exactly, if you do not want to invest in DX9 card, you will miss out on some of the best features on TS7.
Yes - I am not sure what to do about this - I video edit professionally so cant drop the Matrox card. I also dont think I can run 2 cards in the same machine..
Our goal was and it always will be to provide a complete 3D authoring solution (platform) for one good price.
And I appreciate this, I did buy TS after a lot of research, as an all in one solution that fitted my budget. I think it shows a lot of promise.. I also think that Top Tier peopel such as yourself, making thigs about direction, vision all that sort of stuff is extremely healthy and encouraging for the community, I know many products whos lead people wont respond in public forums and it always creates a polarised view that exaggerates any problems that might have existed, so many kudos to you for sharing..
If that is elitist thinking I pledge guilty as charged.
Wether it is or not I respect that this is your product and you have every right to do with it as you wish - sales and customer sat will be the feedback that makes a difference and thats how is should be :o
Just allow us to have our whinge every now and again, its never the whinges that cause loss of sales (when you think of the forum as a marketing enviroment for potential customers) its always the responses, or even lack of them. Whinges usually happen after a lot of frustrated attempt to get something to work, and are more indicative of a state of mind at the time, but its usually very good feedback for developers, and I thnk worth taking seriously when somebody bothers to post it here..
Looking forward to the releases next week.. - does this mean my TS tissue box could be placed on a web page and spun around? |
Post by xmanflash // Apr 29, 2006, 6:39pm
|
xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
|
I am one of them, it is one of those "7.2" features which would take about 2 hours to implement. As for modeling, we will be adding a lot more modeling functionality to Player in 7.5.
Roman, is there a 7.1 to 7.1 upgrade price decided on yet?
DOH! - 7.1 to 7.5 :rolleyes: |
Post by Alien // Apr 29, 2006, 8:22pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
Okay, Player needs a expensive 3D Card.
That depends on what you call expensive. I've recently been looking at some Radeon X800 GTO cards, which sell for about £100-£130 [€144.50-€187.85]
Why caligari don´t make the modeler and player in one surface ?
The modeler & player are 2 different technologies, it can't be done. The only way to get them to work together at all was with the bridge. The only reasons the modeler is still there are:
1. All the tools that 6.6 had are not yet in the player.
2. Plugins made for 6.6 & earlier versions would not work in tS7 at all with the new architecture, so we still have the modeler [which is why we need the bridge].
Once all modeler tools exist in player, modeler will probably be removed.
for what the bridge it makes TS slow when you work with glued objects.
Do you mean objects that were glued with 6.6 [or earlier]? If so, you need to unglue them & then either use tS7's Glue as sibling, or the encapsulate 3D objects tool in Link Editor. |
Post by Vizu // Apr 29, 2006, 9:10pm
|
Vizu
Total Posts: 628
|
Alien !
• i have a GeForce 6800 with 256 Megs in a PCIx slot and thought it was good enought but isn´t ;(
• the modeler will be remove in one of the next versions of Truespace ? Okay than i can live with it when we have the full modeler function in the Player :)
• Yes i mean Objects that was glue in early versions but now i known more and will try to find out the encapsulate 3D objects tool in Link Editor.
But what can we do wit our PlInns when Caligari finished the TS7 surface without modeler ?
TS without Polytools is a step back (i need this PlInns for my point to point modeling) |
Post by Alien // Apr 29, 2006, 9:49pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
• i have a GeForce 6800 with 256 Megs in a PCIx slot and thought it was good enought but isn´t ;(
Please don't think I'm picking on your English here, but it's not in a PCIx slot, it's in a PCIe [usually written PCI-E] slot. They are 2 different slots [yeah, I know - it used to confuse me too :o].
PCI-E [short for PCI Express] is the new graphics card slot, replacing AGP. Having said that, it's not entirely that simple. You know how there were different speeds of AGP [2x, 4x, 8x]? Well with PCI-E there's a similar arrangement, x1, x4, x8, & x16. AFAIK x4, x8, & x16 all use the same slot [for graphics cards], but I'm fairly sure PCI-E x1 uses a smaller slot [for things like RAID cards - I don't know if an x1 card will work in 1 of the longer x4/8/16 slots]
PCI-X is more-or-less just a faster/more bandwidth version of the older PCI slots you use for things like soundcards, etc, except PCI-X is usually used for things like gigabit network cards & RAID cards.
You can find more info on PCI/PCI-X here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pci), & PCI-E[xpress] here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express). There are german versions of both pages [links for them are lower down on the left-hand side], the reason I linked to the English 1s is they have better pics. :)
BTW, I'm sure I read somewhere else on this forum that someone else had a 6800 & said that it was powerful enough. <shrug> I wouldn't know though, as I've never had an Nvidia-based card, & don't pay too much attention to the information on them.
• Yes i mean Objects that was glue in early versions but now i known more and will try to find out the encapsulate 3D objects tool in Link Editor.
Looks like this: :icon_3DEncapsulate: :)
But what can we do wit our PlInns when Caligari finished the TS7 surface without modeler ?
Not a lot, would be the short answer. :( I wish I understood this well enough to do a creditable job of explaining it properly, but if I understand the capabilities of tS7 correctly, it shouldn't be a problem, because either you should be able to recreate the functionality of those plugins yourself, or other users will [or Caligari will]. The new tS7 technology [mostly the LE & script recorder] makes creating tools & automating things easier than it was in any previous version.
TS without Polytools is a step back (i need this PlInns for my point to point modeling)
I'm not familiar with the abilities of that plugin, but I'd be surprised if Caligari or 1 of the forum members didn't end up creating that functionality for tS7 using the new technology of tS7, so that you won't need that plugin any more. |
Post by splinters // Apr 29, 2006, 10:58pm
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
Roman, is there a 7.1 to 7.1 upgrade price decided on yet?
Err...I guess that would be free then....:confused: |
Post by xmanflash // Apr 29, 2006, 11:09pm
|
xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
|
Err...I guess that would be free then....:confused:
oops - Adjusted - thanks for spotting that one! |
Post by roman // Apr 30, 2006, 12:42pm
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
Roman, I seem to read a bit of frustration in you regarding some folks inability to see the potential in TS 7. If you and the others who work for you believe in it then damn the negativity. I must admit I had been waiting on 7.1 (Now 7.5 ) for the animation tools before upgrading to TS7. Mike R
We do believe in our vision. I should not have made some coments about sending TS users to other products but it is sometimes hard to distinguish genuine frustration of some users with truly cynical coments which have no place in professional discussion.
A long time TS user, now inactive, forwarded me your post with this metaphor: "Roman, imagine you get on a bus from Boston to New York and when the bus stops in Connecticut the driver announces that bus is changing direction to Philadelphia, how would you feel?" I imagine I would feel terrible, but as a driver of this particular bus I can honestly state that we are still going to New York and we are going to deliver all passangers to their destination, all we are changing is the bus itself for a shiny new one.
Since we do believe in our vision so strongly we can not abandon it. But we can and are communicating it to you guys, even right here in this post. The truth is if you do not see benefit of some new features in TS7, it is Caligari fault and we need to do better job at transforming new features into real benefits you will want. But if we are pushing in some new direction it does not mean we are not listening to you, we are listening very much.
Case in point, character animation in TS7.5. We have put several excellent TS animators in TS7.5 Beta group and we are comunicating with them intensely, even involving them in actual design process, making sure that new key-frame editor and IK works exactly as they expect. At the same time there are some new R&D developments which we can take advantage of delivering benefits that current TS users do not ask for. One is Style based IK, another integration of dynamic simulation with more traditional key frame animtion. For example Endorphin (yes the $10,000 app I already mentioned) is a modern animation package which does just that.
Now if you look at TS7.1 you will see that we already have procedural behaviors, we already have native high quality physics engine and we already have Link editor which will allow user created procedural dependencies in a way Endorphin can not. I am not saying that we will deliver Endorphin clone with TS7.5 ( we certainly will not) but I am saying that will be able to encapsulate some of the new technologies in TS7.5 and deliver tangible and compeling use for them which any TS user will recognize and hopefuly want. That is the plan anyway:) |
Post by Vizu // Apr 30, 2006, 12:48pm
|
Vizu
Total Posts: 628
|
@Alien ! thanky for the short lesson about PCIx and PCIe, than i use a PCIe x 16 Graphic Card ....
To Polytools ! i can do with it • Edge extrude, loop select on edges and faces, bridge edges, bridge faces, search for polys ( means triangles, quads and ngons ).
Polytools make sit possible to create in shortly a car (have you seen one of my many WIP cars )?
www.vizualizer.de/Images ... there are some of them, all do with 1 single sided face and polytools in short time.
@Emma ! Thanky.
Nett das du es übersetzt hast.
Ich würde Roman ja gerne noch erzählen das TS 7.x Sexy ist und absoluter Hammer und all diese Sachen aber wie man positives im englischen schreibt weiss ich nicht :(
Ah Truespace 6.x und 7.x stürzt nur sehr oft ab wenn man Lightworks engine enabled. Mit VRay gibt es nur sehr sehr sehr sehr selten nen Absturz. |
Post by roman // Apr 30, 2006, 12:54pm
|
roman
Total Posts: 320
|
To demonstrate how our team feels about TS7 I am enclosing an excerpt written by Tom Grimes to one of TS customers. Now, Tom is primarily a rendering and modeling guy, not real-time collaboration guy but as I read his answers I realized that I could not write what he wrote any better, so here it is:
__________________
That said though, we do recongnise how difficult a time it is right now. This is a major transition, not just a small change, but a major change, quite a jump and into a new direction. And yes, the bridge is not an ideal solution - unfortunately there was no ideal solution of course. Every solution would be a compromise. More tools in tS7, but still not all of them - and no access to the old tools and old plugins, or even old scenes. Less tools in tS7 but a more stable bridge. No bridge at all and every tool copied across, but tS7 not released for another 4 years (by which time there would be no Caligari left to release the software).
So we know the solution is not ideal, but when we reviewed the options, we felt it was the best route to follow. It is true that trueSpace7 won't really shine at its best until the Modeler is almost redundant and the Player has become the new modeling ground. Some people, like Mike Harris (binky dog nose) have already moved to the Player and are doing all their modeling there. The modeling tools in the Player are light years ahead of what was ever in the modeler :) I too regret that I can't abandon the Modeler altogether and just do all my work in the Player - but I know that day will come.
It's true that we could have just left people running tS6.6, and loading things into tS7, and have no bridge. But then new purchasers of the software would find themselves learning two different environments, and we plan on having many new users for tS7. So while that might not have been too bad for existing tS6.6 users, it would not have been so good for newcomers and upgraders from t5.2 etc. It's been a hard choice, thinking on how to build a bridge from what trueSpace was to what trueSpace will be, and yes it is a compromise, but we believe it's the best compromise out of the ones available.
tS7 should not be any slower than using tS6.6 - simply turn the bridge off, never turn it on, and work in Full mode, and you are working in tS6.6. You can drop in the Link Editor for a lot of extra power and yet still be working in "tS6.6 plus link editor added on". You can then exploit some of the best features of tS7 with just a minor mod to workflow - want to get a quick render to see if the scene is the one your client wants? Activate the bridge, go to Player, do a realtime render (even more of a saving for flythroughs and animations). By leaving the bridge off the rest of the time and only at this step, it causes minimal change to workflow - and the time saved in rendering an image in 0.5 seconds more than makes up for the small extra step in turning the bridge on.
All that said, no-one denies that it will be MUCH better when you won't ever need to be in the Modeler at all. That is the aim in the end, and everyone who has used the Player and its tools agrees - it is not that they wish we had stuck with the old way, it's that they wish the old way was completely replaced already! In other words, the route we are going is so good, everyone wishes we had already arrived at the final destination, and moved away completely from the old way of doing things :)
Tom Grimes |
Post by Vizu // Apr 30, 2006, 1:09pm
|
Vizu
Total Posts: 628
|
I will try to write in english ... ;)
Roman ! You and in front the complete Team of Caligari have do a realy realy good Job with 7.x and the Player.
This is the future of 3D and i am proud to be a Truespace user since version 1.0
My english will be some times missunderstood.
I Love TS with or without the bridge.
When a user live more than 8 Years with one and the same GUI, it is hard to switch in the new (and on this way in a better) GUI.
I hope for u and all the Truespace community members on the world, that TS will be much more familar to get a greater community.
My personal next project will post a rendering on cgtalk and hope to get many positive answears on it to advertise Truespace more in the 3D world.
I hope i have write all right ...
Damn warum kann ich nicht einfach auf Deutsch schreiben ? ... |
Post by Alien // Apr 30, 2006, 1:56pm
|
Alien
Total Posts: 1231
|
@Alien ! thanky for the short lesson about PCIx and PCIe, than i use a PCIe x 16 Graphic Card ....
Nicht ein problem. :) So you say that your 6800 isn't fast enough? I'm afraid I can't offer much advice on Nvidia if you want to stick with them [I'm not suggesting you shouldn't], as I don't really have much interest in them [just personal preference]. I know that the 7800 is fast enough [I remember Roman saying he has 1], but IIRC the 7800 is also the most expensive of the Nvidia range. :(
To Polytools ! i can do with it • Edge extrude, loop select on edges and faces, bridge edges, bridge faces, search for polys ( means triangles, quads and ngons ).
I don't understand all of that [due to my lack of knowledge :o, your English is fine :)], but I believe tS can do loop select on edges & faces [I could be wrong].
From something I read in another thread, by [IIRC] Tomasb, tS having the ability to extrude edges would require <insert something I've forgotten here :o>, the problem being that this would cause probs with compatibility with the modeler side, so once the modeler is removed I [b]think they'll be able to implement it.
As for the search polys... it sounds like it could be done with a script, but that's way beyond my knowledge, perhaps Johny might be able to come up with something, he seems to have become quite the master of script-fu. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/smilies/ninja.gif
I don't know about bridging edges or faces, anybody else got any ideas?
Polytools make sit possible to create in shortly a car (have you seen one of my many WIP cars )?
Ah, now normally I wouldn't criticise your English, but in the above sentance there's a rather important mistake.... you forgot to put the word "cool" between "many" & "WIP". :cool: |
Post by jamesmc // Apr 30, 2006, 2:04pm
|
jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
|
Very clearly stated Roman. This clears up many things. Thanks.
And Vizu, forgive my German it's been 15 years since I've been in Germany. Lived there for eight years. Your statement on the bottom...
Möglicherweise Engel oder Teufel steuern Ihr Schreiben. :) |
Post by chrono // Apr 30, 2006, 3:39pm
|
chrono
Total Posts: 0
|
'We' the TS community and the larger 3D community do see the potential in the tools. But, sadly, potential does not equal execution of that potential. Potential is an airly hand waving descriptive word for 'maybe'. Words alone seldom ever sell visual items. So that said. TS7 and it's later versions actually must SHOW what it's capable of and must SHOW that it's worth the money invested into it. The current examples are all 95% possible on a freeware programs and programs less then half it's price with greater speeds.
As it's said "The proof is in the pudding!", but the pudding must look good first. |
Post by mykyl1966 // Apr 30, 2006, 11:54pm
|
mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
|
Chrono, That may be right but if current users of TS go around slamming the application then how on earth are new customers supposed to want to come on board. We are told constantly what is happening with TS7. If Roman came online and said there you go thats TS7 like it or lump it then there would be a reason to be negative. However we know that the folks at Caligari are listening. Just read this thread to see proof of that.
Cheers
Mike R |
Post by GraySho // May 1, 2006, 12:42am
|
GraySho
Total Posts: 695
|
I've been quite negative about the state of version 7 in the past. And I did share the fears like many others, about the direction in which trueSpace is going. Now, I'm tired about ranting and discussing the same issue with the same people again and again and I shut up the last months. I was just watching where it was going.
One line stated by TomasB (kind of a confession :) ) gave me hope:
We have implemented new core because it was very problematic to add more features to old one.
With that information I started to see things a bit more optimistic. And with version 7.1 it has been proven that new tools can be added within a very short period. Now, I'm still not happy about everything in 7.1 but I see that I can change about everything that I want to.
Regarding the animation upgrade, I'm glad you have frank on board. It should make sure that we get the necessary tools, and more important a good interface design to improve the workflow (tools can always be added or changed).
The conclusion is, I was very disappointed at the beginning, gave the whole thing time to evolve, and I see that the bus is still driving to New York. |
|
