Hey guys- New to everything...sort-of :D

[Unavailableartist]

Hey,
I'm an old veteran to TrueSpace, sort of. I first fell in love with the program when I stumbled onto a demo TrueSpace 4
and eventually my parents (foolishly) let me have my own copy of TS 6.6.

This was all when I was about 13-14 years old, and didn't have a clue... and still don't . Fast forward like 10 years and this is me now going back into modeling.-- Albiet as a hobby.

Here lately, since Caligari is now defunct, I've been dabling in Blender (for like 2 days now). I would've gotten in 7.6 but you know dead company and all, no support etc. I was a bit afraid to deal with truespace at the moment.

Anyways for those curious about my my art is like--don't expect much, really don't know how to work with rendering and UV mapping really well.

Anyways I have two questions,
As you can see I work with blender, though I miss the intuitive navigation I had with TS. So I'll probably model with TS and do my rendering with Blender.
Is there anyway I can export/import to blender, as you know TS exports in .COB and that's the one extention vanilla Blender doesn't support?

[Draise]

Hi there! Welcome back to the world of TS hobbyists! I was a lot like you and learnt how to use TS from a demo of version 4 also, but I purchased 6.6 and 5.5 when they came out for myself. Later I traveled the world and now I work mostly with Autodesk software, but Blender I'm getting into it. I still like to model with TS 7.6, I love the simple tools and viewport. Makes modelling quite zen.

Blender is quite a great program!

I am still finding it a keyboard dance to do anything, but it works well and does the job.

Anyway, if you could export your objects from TS as OBJ's, you will be fine to import them in turn into Blender as OBJ's.

There is a little LUUV plugin available in the MS side, or 6.6 side of TS, and you can also use an OBJ export and import plugin for the workspace side of things that has been developed here (by Froo) in the forums. It isn't so good at importing, but it's good in exporting. There also is an FBX exporter developed by Clinton that could work from the workspace side of TS 7.6.

You can also save models as OBJ from the MS of ts 7.6 (the 6.6 side of things)

[Unavailableartist]

Thanks,
I'll be cranking out things in no time

I might participate in challenge if I'm ever good enough.

Blender is good and I might end up using blender for like 90% of my work. (Im very partial to Truespace, it would be nice if someone would start it up again.) However their menus... Are huge and I barely know how to render. Theirs like pages of hot keys on their Manual.
The only reason I say rendering with Blender is because I've seen some awesome renders with blender... Better than truespace in my opinion.

How do you like Maya? I'd play with it myself, but I'm not shelling out $2,000 for it.

[pugman 1]

Stick with blender ,to learn it quicker whatch as many tuts on youtube
as you can, Its a great app .
Cheers Ralph

[Unavailableartist]

Oh, I'm not worrying about 3D software for until I get some money... from my own blender modeling (truespace when I'm feeling Nostalgic) XD.
I just need to be a good 3D artist first, and THEN I'll worry about buying Maya XD.

I've read in a lot places, people hated Maya. And I've seen others who vouched for Maya, while still saying blender awesome. I know the two can do nearly the same things, but Maya in the end is quicker when it comes to larger, more complex scenes... and when you need to make a lot of them.

Which is probably, most movies they do... A) involves real acting, so animation isn't needed all the time or B) they are short, like 12-30 minutes tops.

Right now, I'm taking a free course on blender. And I might "support" them later and order one or two of their DVDs when I finish the course. I'll check out youtube, I have to be careful though, I've noticed a lot of 2.4x-2.5x tutorials (one had one on rendering), and sometimes there are discrepancies. Actually, I saw one in the course I'm following and it's a 2.6x course, it was minor though (cylinder capping had changed).

[pugman 1]

I have posted a couple of tuts here on blender texturing the one from andrew price is exelent
and very helpfull.
As for maya or max if you want to go profi then yes get one of them
if not stick to blender ,i have modo 501 but i find blender is better .

[Unavailableartist]

i have modo 501 but i find blender is better .

Good to know, and 701 costs 1 grand XD.
-->I'm going to definitely be checking demo's and student version first.
It was very foolish what I did with truespace, I not crossing that line again. If I end up paying for one it'll be because it's better than blender at something, and I pretty know much how use each feature blenders offer well.
Blender- will be my standard and I'll be a hobby 3D artist for a while, like years before I actually buy software (unless its CAD, because I know blender sucks at raw simulation.). I'm also pursuing a degree in engineering.

Thanks for the tips

[Draise]

Yeah, all the software choices are interesting. I liked the looks of Modo 701, but I haven't played the demo yet. I use mostly Softimage these days, it's quite a capable program, and has some new render engines that are really good, like Arnold or a new one like Redshift, a biased gpu engine. VERY GOOD, even if it's alpha (I've got access to it). Softimage's has a slightly cheaper price than Maya, but equal functions, node and visual based programming, advanced rigs and animation, crowds, particles, etc. It's modelling is decent in the polygon area, UV mapping is excellent, simulations notoriously famous and good. But no sculpting.

I don't know much of Maya yet, but I like Blender either way, being free and more than capable, maybe not a workhorse for large studios, but certainly capable.

Just getting tecniques first is a good idea, then chose your tool accordingly to each function.

[Unavailableartist]

Funny you should mention Softimage. I actually never heard of it... and I'm very familiar with Autodesk (I've never used really used them, but back when I was a student I had messed around with Autocad, Inventer, and such under student licenses... I would've tried Maya out, but I think my yearly subscription has expired... I'm gonna redownload soon if i get the chance). If I remember correctly it's like 1 or 2 GBs to download and I have a daily allowance of 200MB I just now read somewhere that the two were similar and in fact they were created by two different companies before they were bought out by autodesk.

I'd say it's slightly cheaper maybe... because it's not as popular as Maya. I read somewhere that maya has a slight edge on animation, while soft image has a slight edge on modeling.

I actually checked out your website earlier draise, that's some pretty work you have there .

[Finis]

render engines that are really good, like Arnold

Draise, is Arnold available now to people other than the great and mighty?