3D on a Budget
By Clayton Crooks
3D modeling may be the most exciting area in computer graphics, but it's also the most difficult to learn and can be quite expensive. The vast majority of high-end modeling packages cost several thousand dollars. Unless you have considerable experience in this area, they also have tremendously long learning curves. This is where trueSpace comes in.
Caligari recently shipped the newest version of its flagship product, trueSpace 5. Many of this package's features rival those in products that cost thousands of dollars more. Caligari claims that trueSpace is the oldest 3D application designed for a Windows PC. Its latest version makes impressive strides in usability and speed and incorporates several new features.
User Interface Enhancements
At first glance, the new additions to trueSpace's user interface don't stand out. This is good; previous users who are already comfortable with the program can jump right in and use it. Additionally, the new context-sensitive menus give user feedback for any active object.
It's often difficult to keep track of the resources and models that go into a 3D project. Caligari has addressed this problem with new visual libraries in trueSpace. Using a simple drag-and-drop process, you can place everything from 2D images to 3D models into an existing library or a new one you've created. The items are displayed via thumbnails with an optional text description. This is a huge time saver when compared to the standard File/Open dialog boxes of most applications.
