Hello Forum, Im pretty new to the world of 3d modeling..I build ship models as one hobby..I purchased Poser 4.03 a few months ago and Im finally getting used to it.My ship modeling has suffered ..This stuff is addictive! I an thinking of purchasing a new 3d program in the near future.Ive narrowed it down to Vue4 or Truespace5..I can only afford one at this time..What ive noticed in the gallerys is that Vue4 does nice skies,plants,terrain, TS does nice buildings, deep space shots, planets seen from space .Anyone out there have both and what is the strong and weak points of these programs... Id love to render digital ships in water..The night action at Jutland, a B-58 Hustler in flight ect..I have photoshop 5.0 and photodeluex 2.0 for post render touch up.. I have a P4 at 1.4ghz and 256meg of 800mhz ram. thank you Prinz Eugen

Hi Prinz, One big difference you should know up front is that Vue isn't a modeling program the way TS is. I assume you already have a modeler that you work with, but just so you know, you could model ships in TS. Vue has its own set of primitives, and some good Booleans, so certain objects can be assembled that way, but it's not a modeling program. Vue 4 added a whole bunch of lighting extras, volumetrics, so you'll probably be seeing deep space images (and others) looking better than what you've seen from previous versions. Probably the best bet would be to pick up the demo of 3.1 (the v.4 demo won't be out for about a month yet), give it a try and see how it feels being "at the controls." There is a Truspace forum here at Renderosity, too, where you can get ideas from TS users. :) Varian

hello Prinz.... could you tell me if there is a set of model plans for an old victorian era houseboat used on the nile (they called it a dahabeeyah) I have been trying to get an understanding of the way it was made from historical photos, and had not even though of boat plans (duh, huh?). thank you, Petunia (Diana)

Hi Prinz, if you really want to get into modeling, you may want to look at rhino... Has a bigger community and is better supported... You would still have to export to something like Vue 4... But you can get Vue 2 for free with older Computer Arts magazine... And you could get Rhino at student price of between $150 - $180 depending where you buy it... If you're not a student, get a student to buy it for you.. :)

I own and use both. Truespace is very powerful for the price. It can do any type of modeling...lathing, extruding, booleans, nurbs, metaballs, primitives...you name it. It has the "top of the line" Lightworks rendering engine with hybrid radiosity/raytracing, fog, volumetrics, and postrender functions like lens flare, rain and snow. It has real-time shaded previews using OpenGL or D3D. For animation, it supports physics and collision detection, It has a good set of 3rd party plugins, though not as good as Max or Lightwave. It imports most 2D and 3D formats, and is very compatible with other programs. On the minus side, Truespace has a very different user interface that some people love, and some people find impossible to use. It requires that you memorize the function and location of a whole series of small icons. Once you've done that, however, the results are as good as any of the top end programs. Vue is first and foremost a 3D scene rendering program, specializing in easy generation of outdoor environments. As such it gives you a number of tools to create atmospheres, terrain and vegetation. It has a very easy to use, straight forward interface. It has a fairly fast good quality rendering engine with raytracing, volumetrics, and postrendering effects such as lens flare and "glow". Vue's material editor is really the easiest and best I've ever seen. The animation wizard simplifies the animation. Vue implements motion blur, and there are several preset types of animation that simulate different types of motion, such as a helicopter, or a motorcycle, It has moderately extensive import functions that support most major formats. On the negative, Vue really isn't a modeling program. There are no modeling abilities outside of primitives and boolean functions. Now days, I tend to model in Truespace and possibly put a scene together there, but do my rendering in Vue, because it's easier, quicker, and I like the results better -SMT

I'd try out Amapi 4.15 first. It's as weird as TS, but should appear quite logical to the construction-minded. It's powerful, too, and best of all - it's free ;-) Check out the Amapi 3D forum (link on the right of this page) for info on where to get the free app. If you find out that you like modeling, I can heartily recommend TS - it's fairly cheap. Rhino is not. Rhino is(AFAIK) a NURBS-only modeler, which (again AFAIK) means you have to convert to polygons to use in most renderers, and the poly count can get nasty. Rhino wizards please correct me if I'm wrong.

thanks for the info, looks like i will go with TS first and maybe for xmas time this fine program..So in the future I could Render Bismarck , Prinz Eugen running up the coast of Norway on there appointment with history as seen from the perspective of the coast watcher who saw them make there run...This would involve Poser, TS, and Vue! I will ask my ship model list about your victorian house boat and let you know...Small craft plans of that type are always the hardest to find.. thank you Prinz Eugen

Attached Link: http://www.insidecg.com/downloads.php

If you are going to use trueSpace, I'd recommend Amapi instead. It has better modeling functions, is cheaper, and has great customer support. I've been using trueSpace for a long time, but since I've got Amapi, I don't use it for modeling at all. You can get Amapi 4.15 free. It's up to version 6, now, and it rocks. Version 4.15 has about 80% of it's functions. Don't be put off by the interface. You will find that it's quite logical. Once you get used to it, you'll wish all apps were as handy. You can be as precise as you want. Or you can create smooth organic forms just as easily.

Attached Link: http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&qu

Also check out ebay for truespace. Right now TS 5.0 is there for $175.

Prinz, thank you for asking your list for me! I have only 2 pictures so far of the durn blasted thing to go by... might have to resort to a bit of imaginative cheating to model the thing but would like it to be as close as I can get to being accurate.

Your welcome, at least there is a shot we may turn up something...you should consider some of the excursion steamers that plyed the great lakes in the late 19th early 20th centurys ..Wonderful looking boats that are well documented..cheers PE

I will check those boats out! They sound wonderful and could be useful for other scenes later on.