Attached Link: http://www.caligari.com/products/truespace/ts3/features.asp?Cate=BTS3

Truespace 3 is free this month in "3D World" & "Computer Arts" Mags. 3D World Available Nov 29th. Computer Arts available Jan 5th. Sure these magazines cost around $15.00, but it is WAY worth it for Truespace 3. Just FYI. Check out the link for description of Truespace 3. Collision Detection Live Skin (Organic modeling-metaballs) PlastiForm Booleans Animation - Physics & Inverse Kinematics 3D Paint TrueType text in 3D Draw with polygonal and spline based tools Powerful polygon editing and advanced sweeps 2D & 3D Plug-ins Export anything. I'm gonna try and pick this up myself, try it out. I'll tell ya how it goes. AgentSmith

Cool, Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks. We still have the last one, with 3DS 5 demo, here. So I know now what to look for. :-)

I've got all the 3DWorld issues except for that one. It must still be on it's way to my house. Is it Truespace 3SE or Truespace 3? I've got 3SE, but absolutely no tutorials. The best thing about truespace is the plug-in support. I'm looking for a tool to make long exportable poly-hair. No line primitives, because Bryce doens't support them. And There's a plug-in for truespace that does so. That takes care of a problem I was going to encounter during my X-mas Groove project.

AS - is it the full program or are there restrictions on what you can do with it? Catlin

Has the interface improved enough to be understandable? I had an early version of the program when it had a different name. I never was able to figure out how to use it, it had the most unhelpful manual I even saw, and I never ever got 1 decent render out of it. How does it stack up to other productive software in the free format? And does it have so many "ghosted" features you can't use, and print a big stupid logo over the whole pic? If manufacturers would offer the full version of the program with all the abilities and functions intact...so that it works EXACTLY the way It does in the full market version, even let me save all files created in it, so I could see if I really want to buy the software. When demos have so little functions left, I hate the program and won't consider buying it at all. People, give is the REAL useful version and make it self destruct after 30 days. Software manufactures and distributers need to get one cold hard fact straight in their heads. The majority of users that will steal your software WILL NEVER EVER buy it. And ALL software can be hacked...ALL software. So they should give us a REAl demo that will tell us if we can't live without it. You will sell lots more copies. And I can go back to trying out free demos...I refused to do it anymore because I've been burned one too many times.

I have Truespace 6 and its pretty good. Use it to make models for Bryce. If you export as 3ds or dxf, Bryce can load the models. There is a book on Truespace 4 called "Inside Truespace 4 by Frank Rivera". Cool things Truespace has 1. Different types of metaball primitives 2. Real booleans- can boolean something lots of times. 3. Can draw something freehand and extrude and bevel it. Some things you have to watch for if you are exporting to bryce: 1. If you have a model and you want to put a different texture map on each part, make sure you use the hierarchical scene manager to group them. If you don't it will be all one mesh. 2. If you make something with lots of metaballs and import it to Bryce, you end up with a lot of "mb_prims" which do nothing. Have to remove them by hand. 3. Some of the plugins may not work with Truespace 3, since the sdk may have changed. Don't know if these problems are in 3, I know they are in Truespace 6. Things I wish Truespace had that Bryce has 1. One place to see all your materials instead of having to fish around on the hard disk for them. 2. Way to save the view pos. 3. Less bugs. Don't accidentally hit the scripts button if there are no scripts loaded or its goodbye to your work session. Some actions can cause a dialog box to pop up behind the app which makes it seem that it is hung. Have to alt tab to see the dialog box. 4. Sometimes the 3d widgets are hidden or don't work so well on small things.

I love these magazines. My first experince with graphics came from a copy of Merlin vr that came bundled with one of the magazines.As well my first experience with Poser, when they had Poser 3 on an issue.Way better than limited demos in my opinion. http://www.graphicsteck.ca/vb/index.php?s=

I read as much as I could about the Magazines online, it looks like this is the full version. Which makes sense, since it is version 3 and the current version is 6. It's another move by Calgari to get Truespace into new hands. I think it is only Version 3, I don't see anything about it being version 3SE. I'm going out today, see if I can find one of the mags, see what's up & answer a lot of questions. tjohn, demo's usually go one of two ways; 30 days full, then nothing, or lasts forever with logo mark on render, etc, etc. Personally, I like the latter, since something like Maya is going to take way more than just 30 days to learn, sure having watermarked renders sucks, but at least I can get my hands on it. Nothings perfect, though, lol. But, I agree, any demo NEEDS to allow you to save your files. btw, Maya 4.5 PLE (Personal Learning Edition) is now out/available. AgentSmith

Does anyone Know if truspace 3 will will work with windows XP as it must have been around for a while now?

Good question. Don't know. I assume there has been other problems with other older programs not working with Windows XP? I don't even know anybody with XP (anymore). I had two friends get PC's that came with it. Eventually, they bribed me to wipe their computers and re-install thier Win98SE Os's, lol. But, I hear the Pro version is better than the Home version? (or whatever they're called) AgentSmith

Lightwave 3D Discovery (watermarked, non-timeout) is on the current issue of "Digit" magazine, another British computer graphics publication. http://www.digitmag.co.uk/latest/ I don't rate any of the magazines that much; they're usually too specific for newbies and too shallow for advanced users. Sometimes the writers just come out with total crap. I've learned far more on the net than in mags. There's a zillion free tutorials and help sites for all programs, and plenty of news sites for general CGI info. The mags are useful for free programs, but then there are free programs on the net too.

I've got TS 2 and no problem on XP ... so 3 should be ok on it.

Well, that sucks... Went to a couple book stores, looks like in Los Angeles we are 1-2 months behind in those mags, so I will just have to wait for them to catch up. 3Dworld #31 is available here, and it's #33 that has Truespace in it. Computer Arts #76 is available, but it's #78 that will have Truespace. So...I'm guessing I will have at least a 5 week wait, maybe even the full 8 weeks before I see the issues I want. Sucks. I'll post about it when it does come around, or I find one of them somewhere else. AgentSmith

AgentSmith, Let us know . . . Fresno is a bit behind L.A. in most things so it would be a heads up to me to get down to Barnes& Noble or Border's. Actually from what I've read, the minimum I should be using is version 4, but since when have my upgrades been up-to-date? Besides for $15.00 I'm not that picky. TS2 has been good to me once I got past the confusing interface. - TJ

Yeah, I'll definetly post a new thread when one or the other Magazine comes out here. Just be on the look out for 3D World #33, or Computer Arts #78. But...I have now noticed Computer Arts website has now taken down their description of what will be in #78, hmmm...hope they haven't changed their mind, lol. Btw, specifically it will be Truespace 3.2 AgentSmith

The following is the blurb from their web site;- ON SALE SOON ::: Computer Arts [78] Full versions of trueSpace3, EditStudio 2 and LightWave Discovery Edition on the CD : Get faster results in Photoshop : Going Freelance in 3D : Flash MX character animation : PDF creation in InDesign 2.0 : Director MX previewed : The Moving Picture Company in profile : Lord Of The Rings and Mac Expo news : On sale Thurs 5 Dec.

Attached Link: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/news/story.asp?newsFeature=32672

Thank you, thought I was losing my mind there for a minute. Here's the specific page for Computer Arts blurb. AS