TrueSpace (styled as trueSpace) was a commercial

3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for t ...

and animation software developed by Caligari Corporation, bought-out by

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. As of May 2009, it was officially discontinued, but with some 'unofficial support' up to February 2010.

History

The company was founded in 1985 by Roman Ormandy. A prototype 3D video animation package for the Amiga Computer led to the incorporation of Octree Software in 1986. From 1988 to 1992, Octree released several software packages including Caligari1, Caligari2, Caligari Broadcast, and Caligari 24. Caligari wanted to provide inexpensive yet professional, industrial video and corporate presentation software. In 1993 Octree Software moved from New York to California and became known as Caligari Corporation. In 1994 trueSpace 1.0 was introduced on the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

platform. In 1998 an employee inadvertently left a copy of the trueSpace 4.0 sourcecode on the company website's public FTP server. The source code was released to the internet by the piracy release group REVOLT. In early 2008, the company was acquired by

and trueSpace 7.6 was released for free. As of May 19, 2009, Ormandy announced that TrueSpace had been discontinued: Elsewhere he thanks everyone, urges people to download all the free software as soon as possible. After 2010, many of the talented developers helped develop Microsoft's 3D Builder application available for free in the Windows Store. There are many similarities between 3D Builder and the original TrueSpace product even though the former is aimed at a consumer level.

Overview

TrueSpace was a modeling/animation/rendering package. It featured a plug-in architecture that allowed the user to create tools to enhance the core package. TrueSpace was at the last release version 7 (also known to its users as tS7). Point upgrades had brought it up to version Rosetta Beta 7.61 and had added new modeling features. It also had an interface that beginners found easy to learn. Caligari had enhanced the modeling, surfacing and rendering capabilities of TrueSpace, and the latest version TrueSpace7 allowed all aspects of real-time design, modeling and animation within a virtual 3D space shared by remote participants over the broadband internet. The TrueSpace7 collaboration server enables multiple participants to connect to a shared 3D space to create and manipulate shared content in real-time.

Features

One of the most distinctive features of trueSpace is its interface, using mainly 3D widgets for most common editing operations. trueSpace can also be scripted, using

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

for creating custom scripts, tools and plugins. trueSpace7 introduces the use of

VBScript VBScript (''"Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition"'') is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers ...

and

JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applic ...

as scripting tools for developing plugins and interactive scenes. trueSpace is also known for its icon-heavy interface which was drastically overhauled for version 7 onwards. While staff at Caligari had originally made them 'inhouse' during the creation process of earlier releases, trueSpace 7 had a new set of icons made by Paul Woodward, a freelance designer and illustrator. Capabilities of the software include creating visualizations and animations with realistic lighting (through the use of radiosity, HDRI and

global illumination Global illumination (GI), or indirect illumination, is a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light that comes directly fro ...

) and organic modelling using

NURBS Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using B-spline, basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and Surface (mathematics), surfaces. It offers great flexibility and pr ...

, subdivision surfaces and metaballs. The software has several native formats: RsScn for scenes, RsObj for objects, RSMat for materials, rsl for layouts, RsLgts for lighting, etc. Older formats native to trueSpace6.6 and earlier are also supported, e.g. one for standalone objects (with the file extension .cob), and another for the scenes (with the file extension .scn). Objects in trueSpace can be embedded in

Active Worlds Active Worlds is an online virtual world, developed by ActiveWorlds Inc., a company based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and launched on June 28, 1995. Users assign themselves a name, log into the Active Worlds universe, and explore 3D virtual wo ...

. In addition to its native formats, trueSpace can also import and export several additional model types.

Modeling

Polygon modeling In 3D computer graphics, polygonal modeling is an approach for modeling objects by representing or approximating their surfaces using polygon meshes. Polygonal modeling is well suited to scanline rendering and is therefore the method of choice for ...

* Subdivision surface

Rendering and surfacing

Currently TrueSpace has two native internal rendering engines and also support for DX9 pixel shader output quality images alongside the traditional style Render engines. These engines are: * LightWorks (from Lightwork Design Ltd.) * VirtuaLight VirtuaLight
TrueSpace7 also includes support for the

VRay V-Ray is a biased computer-generated imagery rendering software application developed by Bulgarian software company Chaos . V-Ray is a commercial plug-in for third-party 3D computer graphics software applications and is used for visualizati ...

rendering engine.LightWorks, Virtualight, And V-Ray Renderers Integrated Into trueSpace7
Caligari.com, January 2005trueSpace7.6 Specifications
Caligari.com

Rendering

* HDRI * Caustics *Multi-pass Rendering for the Lightworks rendering engine with output to

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

layers integrated into TrueSpace7 *Hybrid radiosity, ray tracing,

Phong shading In 3D computer graphics, Phong shading, Phong interpolation, or normal-vector interpolation shading is an interpolation technique for surface shading invented by computer graphics pioneer Bui Tuong Phong. Phong shading interpolates surface norm ...

Image-based lighting Image-based lighting (IBL) is a 3D rendering technique which involves capturing an omnidirectional representation of real-world light information as an image, typically using a 360° camera. This image is then projected onto a dome or sphere analog ...

*Non-linear

tone mapping Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors to another to approximate the appearance of high-dynamic-range images in a medium that has a more limited dynamic range. Print-outs, CRT or L ...

editor *Post process editor *Advanced

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...

s (color, reflectance, transparency, displacement, background, foreground, post processing) *Volumetric, anisotropic reflectance

Surfacing

*DX9 (SL2.0) pixel shaders and

HLSL The High-Level Shader Language or High-Level Shading Language (HLSL) is a proprietary shading language developed by Microsoft for the Direct3D 9 API to augment the shader assembly language, and went on to become the required shading language ...

editing *Procedural shaders editable in Link Editor *

Normal mapping In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a texture mapping technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common ...

*Shader trees *Modeless UV Editor *Advanced UV Editor with real time UV mapping controls *Unwrapper with Slice *Breaking and welding of vertices in a UV map

References

External links

Caligari's official website
(archive)
An archive of the original Caligari sponsored forums

trueSpace FAQs including download links

trueSpace Unofficial Website

YouTube TrueSpace Videos

trueSpace Wiki

Truespacers - a trueSpace group on DeviantArt
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truespace 3D graphics software Freeware 3D graphics software Amiga raytracers