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From baby steps to building your own space program!
My first encounter with trueSpace was back
in 1995, when I was fortunate to get hold of a trial version
on the cover of a PC magazine. It ran soundly on my 90Mhz
Pentium, with 32 MB of ram, and immediately captivated me.
I've never really grown up, and trueSpace allowed me to effectively
play with toys, albeit ones built on principles born out of
post graduate mathematics and formal design disciplines. There
was no escaping the fact that I was building toys. And I loved
it.
What makes trueSpace different from most of its peers is that
it's user interface has not evolved from engineering class
computer design tools, such as AutoCad.
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TrueSpace works mainly through visual manipulation rather
than data entry. You don't input commands or enter numerical
values. Instead you move around your 3D workplace and
interact with objects using in-scene controllers called
widgets. What this really means is that if you want
to make something longer, you grab it and pull it rather
then change some numbers sitting in a box somewhere.
This is exactly how artists and people who think visually
want to work, and its what keeps trueSpace Fun to use!
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So trueSpace is a great programme to begin your journey into
the 3D modelling world, but will you soon outgrow? It is very
unlikely that you will need a more powerful 3D programme for
many years. While trueSpace isn't really capable of producing
movie quality content, it is capable of producing work of
amazing beauty and complexity. The quality of work generated
by 3D modelling tools will always depend mostly on the skill
of the artist.
You can learn more about trueSpace at the site
of its creators, Caligari Inc.
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