Is this what Microsoft did with trueSpace?

[Tiles]

He has most probably written the first line of code ...

[spacekdet]

Then he opened another tab in his browser and started watching cat videos and well, here we are.

[trueBlue]

Ton Roosendaal, Lead Blender developer, reacts:


When I first saw Caligari on Amiga I was really blown away… imagine, over 20 years ago now, and it had full-window 3D perspective editing, drawing objects in solid even. To my knowledge this was the first editor dropping the traditional 4-split view, which was a big inspiration for me. In the years that passed I only occasionally looked at what trueSpace did, but I know they kept exploring innovative 3D editing, moving user input to the 3D window where ever possible. They even introduced integrated collaborative workflow via internet in their latest release.

Hats off to the Caligari team, and especially to founder Roman Ormandy. You’ve written a piece of CG history nobody will forget.

I know how it is to be locked up by corporate demands, and the tragedy of seeing your baby slip away in other hands… Blender fortunately escaped this route, and hopefully Roman will – in a few months when the dust has settled – find the method to make Microsoft accept a community buy-out too. Reading trueSpace forums, there’s a massive and very devoted community there, don’t underestimate their powers!

[clintonman]

Naturally, I disagree with those who say it would be useless to release the source code. Caligari was pretty much rewriting trueSpace from scratch and they were doing well with it until the sellout. Newtek tried to rewrite Lightwave but had to give up because of how difficult it was. During the sellout the focus seemed to change to the goal of making something that Microsoft wanted and bug fixes and new features just stopped coming for months. I don't think the code became so unwieldy that they couldn't do anything with it, but it was that they weren't allowed to do anything interesting (to me) with it.

If the source was released there wouldn't be any grand changes happening right away. It would be small changes. Most likely bug fixes and the big changes would come later. Sure, Blender already exists, but even with the big changes some people still don't like it and refuse to learn it or use it. Open source trueSPace would be a good alternative. Blender looks like it's written in C. Truespace workspace used C++. That's an assumption on my part. The SDK is C++ so I assume the core is C++ as well. IF this is true then I suspect it would be easier to modify and expand on the truespace core.

All that being said. I have to agree with the naysayers about the possiblility of an open source trueSpace. I don't think it will ever happen and I don't think Microsoft ended up using any of the trueSpace technology. What a waste.

[Tiles]

Just in case. The petition still exists. 100 people was a bit too weak though ... http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/opentruespace/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Haven`t they used big parts of trueSpace for their Google Earth pedant? Virtual Earth?

[theuns]

Just in case. The petition still exists. 100 people was a bit too weak though ... http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/opentruespace/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Haven`t they used big parts of trueSpace for their Google Earth pedant? Virtual Earth?

didn't know about the petition, will you start a new thread with that link and see how many people we can get now? maybe there are a lot more people that would be interested...

[spacekdet]

Virtual Earth seems to have been turned into 'Bird's Eye' views on Bing Maps.
Nothing 3D about it anymore.

[Tiles]

didn't know about the petition, will you start a new thread with that link and see how many people we can get now? maybe there are a lot more people that would be interested...

Makes no sense to open a new thread. The few active souls at this board here have already signed the petition. And there is also no hope that this will change. Four million downloads and just hundret people who signed the petition speaks a clear language.

[marcel]

Who is Microsoft ?

[fahembree]

I tried to sign but get this error message each time?