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TS Version 7
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
TS Version 7 // Roundtable
Post by Tolerant // Nov 15, 2006, 2:43pm
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Tolerant
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I started using Truspace from its initial version and found it a very good program and have upgraded all the way through to Truspace 7. It has been a very profitable program for me in my business and I would like to thank the company for its hard work in the development process.
As a businessman what I cant understand is Roman and his team not keeping to the golden rule in business "listen to your customers!"
I have taken "hits " in business when things didn't work because my customers kept giving me simple answers - "No we don't want that! ".
I think its time for Caligari to take their "hit " and dump Version 7 and go back to the drawing board. I wonder if they will have the courage not to follow a "large corporation " mentality of " we know what's right so stop telling us that we are wrong !"
Good luck guys and hopefully I'll contribute to your comeback by buying Version 8 I only used V7 for two weeks and to continue using it would have sent me broke. |
Post by iBrent // Nov 15, 2006, 2:59pm
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iBrent
Total Posts: 102
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I guess the question is how have they not been listening to their customers?
Everyday I see Tom, Norm and/or Roman replying to everyone's concerns regarding TS7, as well as keeping us informed on what improvements they are making. From what I've read, it appears that TS7+ is their response to the community's desire for a better product. I think they listen to their customer base pretty well.
You mentioned that if you had kept using TS7 you'd have gone broke. Have you posted about the problems you're having? Did you not get an answer?
iBrent |
Post by Tolerant // Nov 15, 2006, 3:12pm
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Tolerant
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We all ,when developing something, listen in our own way. I think the major problems with software these days is "bloat". I'm a great believer in plug-ins- if you want extra functionality you pay for it both in speed and price but the core program should always be available in stripped down form to maintain its efficiency and speed. The problems I faced with TS7 are echoed in most of the forums. It's so easy to lose sight of functionality in development that why there are still basically a lot of good programs out there without the gloss. |
Post by rj0 // Nov 15, 2006, 6:16pm
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rj0
Total Posts: 167
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I think Caligari made a reasoned decision to include the entirety of trueSpace 6.6 in version 7 (as the 'Modeler' side of the program). It will be really hard to judge version 7's real 'bloat' until Modeler's general functionality is updated (and improved) through porting to the Player side of the program (ie. the real trueSpace 7), then Modeler can be cut loose.
rj
P.S. If they hadn't included version 6.6 as Modeler, all of your plugins would be immediately SOL (and, of course, you'd be missing a whole batch of functionality currently only in Modeler). |
Post by Tolerant // Nov 15, 2006, 9:59pm
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Tolerant
Total Posts: 4
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I still use TS 6.6 which is think is a very valuable program. I'm trying to be very constructive because I think Truspace fills a gap in the market. I used to use 3D max and Autocad but they became very bloated. I doubt whether any user knows or uses all the functionality of Truspace simply because they don't need it. I know there are always judgments to be made but you only have to look at Microsoft Word etc as a perfect example of an incredibly complicated program which 90% of users, use just to write a letter.Trying to be all thing to all people. It doesn't work and will never work.
Photoshop now ships with a bridge and enormous bloat. I have gone back to Photoshop 5. |
Post by Tiles // Nov 16, 2006, 1:01am
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Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
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Matski, have a look at the "trueSpace 7 and some thoughts" thread here in the Round Table section started by Graysho:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=1570
Too bad that this thread has become a Power Supply thread now. Was and is an importand thread in my opinion ...
Anyway. There are most of the issues named and discussed. I don`t share your " 'YOUR' problem with TS7 and not anyone elses," statement here. Pretty much people have the same problem with TS7 as Tolerant has. I for example am back to TS 6.6 for now too. It's just that most of those users simply disappear and use another software instead stating their opinion why they dislike the current TS Version and what they would like to be implemented or do to make it better ;) |
Post by Steinie // Nov 16, 2006, 2:28am
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Steinie
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Tiles, I put a link over on the original thread pointing to this thread. If you want to find out about dust balls or peach pie recipes go there. If you want to discuss the future of TS stay here.:) |
Post by Tiles // Nov 16, 2006, 3:14am
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Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
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Thank you :) |
Post by CdeB // Nov 16, 2006, 4:14am
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CdeB
Total Posts: 160
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In response to Tolerants original post. Everything that could be said about listening to customers has already been said, and at length in post after post and thread after thread. Here is the diet version;) and a story...
1. tS6.6 series doesn't deliver what users have repeated requested (e.g. better rendering, better animation, hair, fur and so on).
2. Caligari listens but ts6.6 code is incapable of delivering what users want
3. Caligari decides not to do 'botch job' but answer user requests in a daring and enterprising (not to say risky!) way.
3. Caligari goes back to drawing board and rewrites code completely so that new functionality can now be delivered and gives a new level of accessiblity to software vearing towards 'open source' so that 3D party developers are not impeded. Code is also written with a view to future developments so that code development doesn't come to grinding halt.
4. Resulting software tS7-up
5. tS7 is a hybrid of old and new to make backward compatibilty intrinsic to the software. It is a staging post in a new direction...
Thinking of this reminded me of a childrens story I have been watching with my kids. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Edmund, the traitor is due to be sacrificed. His siblings, not surprisingly (and understandably) request of Aslan that he do something to prevent this. Knowing the situation in its entirety Aslan, works out a plan to save Edmund.He announces he has a solution (without revealing its substance) and everybody is happy. But of course the solution is that Aslan sacrifices himself instead, and the children had not anticipated such a drastic solution was required, simply because they didn't understand the seriousness of the problem in the beginning. Their original request, naturally, was a very reasonable one...the solution, a rather drastic one.
So, what I am saying is, paradoxically, if Caligari hadn't listened to their customers concerns so closely we wouldn't have the tS 7 form we have in front of us now -and the possiblity of an in-depth, future proof solution to the original concerns expressed. The major problem for us all (including Caligari) has been the length of time to get from A to B, but I still think is worth waiting for...I myself have discovered unanticipated bonuses coming from the realtime environment and the truePlay concept...all will be revealed in the future... |
Post by TomG // Nov 16, 2006, 6:29am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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No-one here at Caligari could have summarised it any better than CdeB below. That was very well described I have to say. And, I am interested to see what you'll be revealing in future! Looking forward to knowing more :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by Matski007 // Nov 16, 2006, 7:15am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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All this said, I still dont understand why my post has dissapeared lol and also what the point is in this post when as people have said, these questions and complains have been made already on other posts, so lets stop repeating ourselves and send complaints directly to Caligari, this is a creative Forum, not a complaints forum |
Post by iBrent // Nov 16, 2006, 7:30am
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iBrent
Total Posts: 102
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Amen!
You mean we aren't going to go OT and post endless questions about hardware?
;)
iBrent |
Post by GraySho // Nov 16, 2006, 11:47am
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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...so lets stop repeating ourselves and send complaints directly to Caligari, this is a creative Forum, not a complaints forum
I guess, a lot of people wouldn't have expressed their thoughts if I wouldn't have started this thread, neither in the Forum, nor directly to Caligari. I know, I might repeat myself, but in 90% I felt unheard. IMO, this roundtable forum is about discussion, not only about creativity. Btw, yes, it was a complaint, but mostly it was a constructive complaint/suggestion. If I wouldn't care, I would just shut my mouth and move on. But I'd like to stay with trueSpace, so here we go.
Thinking of this reminded me of a childrens story I have been watching with my kids. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Edmund, the traitor is due to be sacrificed. His siblings, not surprisingly (and understandably) request of Aslan that he do something to prevent this. Knowing the situation in its entirety Aslan, works out a plan to save Edmund.He announces he has a solution (without revealing its substance) and everybody is happy. But of course the solution is that Aslan sacrifices himself instead, and the children had not anticipated such a drastic solution was required, simply because they didn't understand the seriousness of the problem in the beginning. Their original request, naturally, was a very reasonable one...the solution, a rather drastic one.
So, what I am saying is, paradoxically, if Caligari hadn't listened to their customers concerns so closely we wouldn't have the tS 7 form we have in front of us now -and the possiblity of an in-depth, future proof solution to the original concerns expressed. The major problem for us all (including Caligari) has been the length of time to get from A to B, but I still think is worth waiting for...I myself have discovered unanticipated bonuses coming from the realtime environment and the truePlay concept...all will be revealed in the future...
First I thought, you gonna say that caligari should have sacrificed the "bridge and the modeler" idea. For the benefit of a unified UI and workflow. The most confusion I see on the boards, is about the bridge, player, modeler. It was said, that a demo of tS7 might frighten away some potential clients. True, but not because of the new power and possibilities, but because it's so complicated to use, where there's no need for it.
I understand that evolution needs time, and I never complained about a release date (or delay) of any tS version. Now I own a copy of tS7, and I'm still working with tS6.6 (except the experimenting). That bugs me more than waiting for a finished product. My opinion. |
Post by Burnart // Nov 16, 2006, 12:32pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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I keep reading these kinds of threads and the message I'm getting from them is a genuine kernel of goodwill towards Caligari but an immense amount of frustration with tS7.
The "real" tS7 is the player side - to subdue some of that frustration we need more tools incorporated into the player so that people can actually use it as their primary tool rather than fiddle with it. When a user can open tS7 hop onto the player side and use it for an entire project of modelling, animating and rendering without ever going into the model side that's when tS7 will have earned its stripes. Sadly I don't see that as being the plan for this version - it seems more likely it will be vers 8 before we can do that. Many people despite having tS7 continue to mainly use 6.6 - its because many people regard 7 as not being a full version upgrade.
For me paying the upgrade from 6.6 to 7 was the most expensive upgrade I've done on a piece of software in many years (since I was younger and had more "disposable" income!). When you end up with what seems half of a product after forking over the cash then its leaves a bad taste.
You need to get your user base fully on side and the best way to do that is to let us into your confidence. When long time users keep indicating they are abandoning the latest version in favour of earlier ones or worse still alternate products then you have got problems that need to be solved. In this instance I think it is communication as much as software development thats an issue. What are the plans for development beyond the release of 7.5? What are the plans for the completion of the new trueSpace - are we talking vers 8? What financial consideration will there be for people who upgraded to a not quite functional vers 7 first? - it will need to a significant discount. ...... and so on.... |
Post by Tolerant // Nov 16, 2006, 3:58pm
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Tolerant
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Thanks for an educated and reasoned response from CdeB and Tom G. I'm now a lot more comfortable with where things are heading with TS7 or 8. I have nothing but admiration for the developers and now and again it's useful to get some feedback of this kind. Enough said from me I guess "no pain no Gain" in most endeavours. Good luck. |
Post by Matski007 // Nov 17, 2006, 1:21am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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hmm, now you see people like Burnart's response Are what I was talking about, it was far more creative in that he addressed specific subjects and conerns, not a loose moan about the entire thing, if people actually wrote their actual problems, the individual parts that they think need working on then maybe they will be read by people like TomG who will take these things into consideration, thus something is being done. Believe you me I spent a very large sum of money for this software and even bought VRay and have pre ordered 7.5 and that didnt come easy, lucky it happened to be my birthday not so long after the realease that I managed to scrape enough money together to get it. And yes the thought that I have purchased an incomplete piece of software is quote annoying at the minimum, but I have high hopes for version 7.5, Plus im left with very little options in that I for some reason find it incredibly hard to get to grips with Maya and 3DMax (Hopefully I learn a great deal in Maya at University this year), This is the software that works for me and I think its awesome! |
Post by Norm // Nov 17, 2006, 3:58am
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Norm
Total Posts: 862
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All this said, I still dont understand why my post has dissapeared lol ...
Perhaps best answer would be that asterisk symbol use should be avoided. |
Post by Norm // Nov 17, 2006, 4:29am
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Norm
Total Posts: 862
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I can understand where a degree of feeling overwhelmed with changes to trueSpace7. It is multi-faceted in a whole new sense. Perhaps the old adage about not being able to see the trees for the forest applies.
I would suggest that as more folks embrace the different facets of trueSpace7 and begin to create interesting objects, less frustration will prevail. I do believe change affects folks to one degree or another. The same atmosphere surrounds all newly released software as folks who grew comfortable with last version are suddenly presented with ... change. trueSpace7 marks the advent of a season of change. It is pretty radical in my view and I can not help but admire Roman for heading in this direction. He is recieving much positive feedback from folks in many industries, who acknowlege the potential of trueSpace7.
I don't mean to tease, however the new additions to trueSpace7.5 are most interesting and show as much potential in the animation department as I have seen elsewhere. I can't wait to release ts7.5, just to see what this group of folks can do with it. But it all takes time. It all takes resources. Through it all we all deal with growing-pains as Tolerant mentions. I anticipate we will look back and be able to admit it was truely worth the effort and the wait. |
Post by Matski007 // Nov 17, 2006, 6:12am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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Perhaps best answer would be that asterisk symbol use should be avoided.
Lol and I was under the impression that using astericks would be better than just saying the words.
Your right about the other sutff you said, Only I dont think the complaint about costs and the feeling of being ripped off have been addressed |
Post by spacekdet // Nov 17, 2006, 8:29am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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It's like deja vu' all over again.
And again.
http://www.spacekdet.com/junkdrawer/whackwhackwhack.gif |
Post by JPSofCA // Nov 17, 2006, 9:53am
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JPSofCA
Total Posts: 300
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tS4.3 was the best trueSpace (IMHO)...then in later tS's, although they tried to give a variety of added functionality (successfully so in most cases) a couple of 4.3's greatest assets (a culmination of the little things), as a side effect inadvertently 'disappeared' - to 6.6's release, trueSpace is full of valuable features - alot of functionality for its market - but thankfully it is not being dragged forcibly into the present technological era. It has gracefully accepted the fact that it must remain a 20th century product and that it must leave the future to its tS7 counterpart.
On to 7.xx, I think Caligari chose just the right time to work from the ground up. Yeah it's a pain having to wait but they made the right choice. I hope they don't feel rushed by the restless natives (myself included), and I also hope they realize we'll continue to beat on the door until 7.5 comes out...it's kind of our job as consumers. We're a fairly reasonable lot of consumers too, considering what one idiot did for the PS3 - I foresaw before it even happened that some dope, somewhere would rob somebody at gunpoint for it - talk about impatient! Adolescents (or was it a young adult) these days sure are becoming annoyingly predictable, and I never thought I'd say this, but maybe they need to start going to church!?!?!? :rolleyes: Selfish little sh!ts!
Anyhow...despite my own impatience, it is safe for Caligari to interpret it as excitement and eagerness for what is on its way, and not to interpret it as anger for what I have yet to see. I'm looking forward to it! As they say, good things come to those who wait!
:jumpy: |
Post by Chester Desmond // Nov 17, 2006, 11:14am
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Chester Desmond
Total Posts: 323
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I hope they don't feel rushed by the restless natives (myself included), and I also hope they realize we'll continue to beat on the door until 7.5 comes out
I'm pretty sure they are more than well aware of the latter half of your statement and are shoring up for the "didn't you guys test this?" flood after its release followed closely by the "what we need in 8" threads. But I'm getting ahead of myself..we still need the "what the heck, they said it would ship overnight and I took two days off work in anticipation and they already hit my credit card and they better not be working on the software because I need them to send me the Fedex tracking number" threads, followed by "what you got yours? I'm in Thistown and you're in Thattown and we are 4.5 nautical miles higher above sealevel than you and it should have been here by now; they're just holding out trying to get some revenue to pay for dumb old gamepsace which I don't care about"
Is this kinda what you meant by deja vu SpaceKdet? |
Post by Steinie // Nov 17, 2006, 11:24am
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Steinie
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"...and I also hope they realize we'll continue to beat on the door until 7.5 comes out...it's kind of our job as consumers."
I had the torches all ready to light...should I put down the pitch forks too?....a crowd of one eyed avatars were forming ready to burn down the bridge!!!! Caligari is just a bunch of party poopers!!;) Anybody got a light? |
Post by Chester Desmond // Nov 17, 2006, 11:24am
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Chester Desmond
Total Posts: 323
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oh and probably that Mark character will mention fonts again lol |
Post by tSplorer // Nov 18, 2006, 12:45pm
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tSplorer
Total Posts: 27
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I think trueSpace still has a bright future ONLY IF it concentrates on streamlining it. Please don't ask me thousands of questions as if the app is perfect. Get rid of the NURBS for starters until Caligari gets it right. It could be offered for free as a plugin for people who want it. Get rid of those useless magic rings that are just designed for three-yr-olds, and on and on.
I see that Caligari is introducing displacement painting. Another thousands of bugs to contend with? When is this going to end? What's wrong with Zbrush? Everyone seems to be in it.
Anyhow, you know what to do. Less is more if tS7.5 got just the right amount of necessary tools. It may even lead to stability. |
Post by whirabomber // Nov 20, 2006, 11:30am
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To the point, I love to model in AC3D vice TS7. Although you can do more with TS7's overwhelmingly large assortment of tools I can find stuff faster and sometimes do things by hand sooner than I could find the right tool to do it with TS7.
TS6.x seemed to lean towards an obese UI while TS7 exceeded it. Caligary should have picked up the hint and went with "modes" ala Maya (animate mode displays animation related tools, model mode had modelling tools, etc). Of course, the nature of such modes is modes based on workflow. I usually model, animate, and render (on uber rare occasions) so such a setup or a more fined tune setup in TS7 would rock.
Although TS' general approach has always been iconization of tools, sliding into the pack of text based menu's would not cause harm. The current icons memorization requirements make the task of learning chinese seem child's play. I shouldn't have to take the vast majority of my work time learning a whole new lingo. I shouldn't have to wrap my mind around a software package to do even the most fundamental tasks (and the cube primitive is where?). I shouldn't have to pause to figure out what the green stick man with a red X does or even find the stick man with a red X.
Sadly, the current experience with the suped up but over iconized TS7 work experience follows this path - have an idea, believe TS7 can do it (it can), start working the idea in TS7 (barring crashes), hit on the "what is that and where is this tool at" snag, spend what time I have to work on my creation searching for some obscurely located tool, loose interest in exploring the idea I came up with because I just spent 15 minutes trying to find the right context/object level to perform the desired tasks, save the work, and go play a PC game out of frustration.
That leads me right back to AC3D - I can find things in under 3 minutes, know what I found, and aside from a few quirks have a finished model to the point of UV mapping. Essentially completing a reasonable realization of the idea I had in less time that it would have taken me to find 3-4 tools under TS7.
Granted Caligary tried to counterbalance the locusts swarm of tools by adding a "tool finder" and "tool tips," but wouldn't a wise man have stopped and asked, "why am I coding in a tool finder when the user shouldn't need to hunt for things that should be there?" I'd call the tool finder a UI duct tape.
TS7 has epitimized the series march towards a griffin in a box - a beautifully powerful creature tied down by a cage of UI. |
Post by GraySho // Nov 20, 2006, 12:34pm
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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I mentioned in the other thread, that some basic functions should be in a standard menu. Every user new to the software expects that he can load and save data from a menu, to access preferences from a menu, or managing layouts. I don't see a benefit if users have to study the philosophy of a developer to understand the basics of the software (not for the user, nor the developer). The functionality in tS is growing, so is the amount of icons. So finally we will have the same situation as with menus, where one has to look through a forrest of icons to find the function needed. I'd also like to see a clear color scheme, from A to Z, which makes the function group of an icon obvious. The idea with seperating icons for different tasks is interesting, and could be realized with layouts. Anyway, if the customization and layout managing gets a bit attention, I think everyone will be happy (eg. stuff working in every layout, saving layouts without the now obligatory stack view, etc...) |
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