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Roman's issues
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.
Roman's issues // Roundtable
Post by transient // Jun 18, 2008, 3:39pm
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transient
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Until Blender gets better access to a leading renderer, it won't really have bragging rights over the big guys. I'm a Blender fan, but it's still got some way to go imo.
Really, truespace still has the opportunity to rule the in the rendering stakes with vray. I'm still mystified as to why this hasn't been a priority for the past twelve months. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jun 19, 2008, 5:00am
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W!ZARD
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Really, truespace still has the opportunity to rule the in the rendering stakes with vray. I'm still mystified as to why this hasn't been a priority for the past twelve months.
My guess FWIW is relatated to the text at the very top of this page - even higher than the Caligari logo it says "3D Authoring AND Collaboration" (my emphasis).
From a sales perspective the canny marketer is always going to focus on what makes his product special and stand out from all the others - and with tS you've got reasonable rendering for the price and (when workspace gets really refined and better equipped) a great modeller but the one thing tS does that NOBODY else's 3d app does is the Collaboration/real-time rendering.
From a business development perspective it makes sense to focus on the products point of difference whilst continuing to work also on the other capabilities.
TS has LW, Virtualight and a budget version of Vray (not forgetting Dribble, Kerky and any app that will accept .obj files from the LUUV plugin). That's quite a lot of rendering capability right there - although each renderer has it's strengths and weaknesses. But tS's real 'Ace in the hole' is the real-time and collaborative stuff IMO.
If I was looking for somewhere to spend my venture capital that's where I'd be investing! |
Post by nowherebrain // Jun 19, 2008, 12:35pm
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Blender has access to many "Great" renderers...I'm sure you know indigo and kerkeatheriaiaierathia for free, as well as mental ray and v-ray so.....(I don't mean to sound...well the way I sound, this is just info for others..Transient, I know you are aware of these things). BTW I am still an avid tS user don't take me for face value here, merely a comparison. |
Post by transient // Jun 19, 2008, 12:56pm
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transient
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The vray exporter looks promising, but it still needs a lot of work from what I've seen so far. I think if Blender ever gets Max-like integration of vray the big four will definitely have something to think about.
I had no idea about mental ray, that could be interesting. |
Post by nowherebrain // Jun 19, 2008, 3:42pm
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There is plenty of room for everyone, what they should watch out for is blender 2.5..
-customizable keys!(this is what keeps people away in the first place, difficult to learn...well no more)
-node based modifiers!(tS was first, but this will be great with their python node)
...nuff said, besides...I'm kinda distracting from the thread sorry guys(and girls respectfully). |
Post by transient // Jun 19, 2008, 4:53pm
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If I was looking for somewhere to spend my venture capital that's where I'd be investing!
Plenty of companies have died chasing the real-time web dream, although Microsoft, perhaps the biggest potential investor of them all, obviously haven't been put off by this.
To my mind, vray is just such an easy win for Caligari I can't understand why they haven't pushed a lot harder with it, especially considering how much noise has been made since 1.52 (nearly twelve months ago now) about it's shortcomings.
Even a small piece of the vray pie would command respect, and would segueway very nicely with whatever plans Caligari (or perhaps more importantly Microsoft) have for real-time collaboration.
This is especially confusing to me considering that trueSpace is now officially a part of the virtual earth project, a market that in my view has direct parallels with vray's current cash-cow - archviz. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jun 20, 2008, 2:10am
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Plenty of companies have died chasing the real-time web dream, although Microsoft, perhaps the biggest potential investor of them all, obviously haven't been put off by this. A very valid point but I suspect those companies were trying to run before they could crawl - I just hope that Caligari/MS get the mix right. Those other companies didn't have the advantages of DX9 (and presumably DX10) or the faster broadband speeds of today's internet.
According to Kurzweils Law information technology is not only growing exponentially, the growth rate is also growing exponentially. It's been estimated that solar panel and battery technology is increasing at such a rate that in 20 years time ALL of the planets energy needs could be met through Solar Power. Within that same time span ALL of the current internet infrastructure can be replaced by a fibre optic grid system with speeds thousands of times faster than today's internet. In line with this a 3d internet seems inevitable - despite the disappointments of VRML and other earlier technologies.
IF (and it's a big 'if') Caligari/MS has timed it right they should be able to ride that technological wave to a very distinguished future - at least that's my hope.:D
To my mind, vray is just such an easy win for Caligari I can't understand why they haven't pushed a lot harder with it, especially considering how much noise has been made since 1.52 (nearly twelve months ago now) about it's shortcomings.
Even a small piece of the vray pie would command respect, and would segueway very nicely with whatever plans Caligari (or perhaps more importantly Microsoft) have for real-time collaboration.
This is especially confusing to me considering that trueSpace is now officially a part of the virtual earth project, a market that in my view has direct parallels with vray's current cash-cow - archviz.I agree completely - Vray does add up to an easy win for Caligari - but only if they are looking to compete with other similar priced 3d authoring tools. I suspect they are looking in a very different direction with the intention of competing with other 3d authoring tools and riding the online collaboration wave that is building on the horizon.
The technology for uberfast internet already exists - there is a global fibre optic grid already running to process the massive amounts of data from the new Large Hadron Collider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider). A world wide grid with this sort of capability will make today's web look as slow as the horse and cart and will easily handle the large downloads that highly interactive 3d collaborative spaces call for. Imagine bandwidth that would allow you to download an entire Hi Def movie in ...say...5 seconds and think about what that could mean for an interactive global 3d web.
The wave is building, all the ingredients are coming together. This development seems inevitable to me.
Something I'm less sure about is the development of future ray tracers. V-ray in ten years time will be able to take advantage of computers with another ten years of CPU development. Using water cooled stacks of chips to increase today's dual and quad cores to 32 core or higher is being developed right now - and the potential of Quantum Computing is totally mind blowing if (or should I say when) they get it running.
These mega-fast computers will be capable of things that boggle the mind - and new software will need to be written for them - real-time ray-tracing? Real-time true reflections, real-time volumetrics - all these things will become far more possible as time goes by.
Now, if you are trying to run a successful company based on software, wouldn't you be looking ten years down the track and trying to anticipate coming trends? And, in today's rapidly changing technological world, would you be putting your faith into supporting someone else's licensed software (LightWorks, V-ray) which may well be obsolete in a couple of years or would you be focused on developing your own niche in conjunction with the largest IT company there is?
I'm not saying that this is what is happening (although this sort of thinking is part of why I never invested in Vray in the first place) - I'm just posing this as a possible explanation.
As a closing thought: my reasonably average PC just took 5 hours to render a 1600x1000 Vue scene containing 108 different textures and 1,875,000 polygons with volumetric clouds and GI at a high AA level. Imagine a computing network capable of doing that in seconds - or even 30 times a second - and you're looking at the future of the 3d web - forget your VRML!! |
Post by RAYMAN // Jun 20, 2008, 12:08pm
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Well I know what I need and thats not in 10 years ahaead of me !
Its good photorealistic quality and it can take a few hours to render !
I have a high bias to render quality rather then speed !
Thats why I do many MLT bpt renders that go for hours !;)
Peter |
Post by transient // Jun 20, 2008, 2:50pm
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A very valid point but I suspect those companies were trying to run before they could crawl
The technology matured years ago, the market simply wasn't there. People like the net the way it is. Even Flash sites don't have universal appeal, and it's ubiquitous. Youtube is the breaking technology of the new millennium, not web3d, unfortunately.
There are people making money in web3d right now (I think there's even a former truespace plug-in developer among them over at the wirefusion forums - I may be wrong). But it's still a tiny market from my understanding.
In line with this a 3d internet seems inevitable - despite the disappointments of VRML and other earlier technologies.
I've always loved the idea, but anything that slows down browsers or pc's (flash can kill mine if I have too many pages open) is unpopular. I don't think caligari are really going in this direction, anyway, as they've hitched their star to the virtual earth wagon, something I'm not sure I really understand the merits of yet.
I guess like all futurist arguments, time will tell. I'm definitely not intending to burst anyone's bubble; web3d, and the collaboration technology like Caligari's working on, could be made of awesome if done properly, I just want vray to get more love in truespace first.
A bit ot, but collaboration enthusiasts might be interested in a new program that wizards of the coast are bringing out which allows people to interactively play pen and paper dnd games online, in 3d. It got me wondering about trueplay and how it could be used to play social games like rpg's scrabble etc. over the net in a more human-like fashion. Definitely a possible market there, I believe. |
Post by frootee // Jun 20, 2008, 5:05pm
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Now, if you are trying to run a successful company based on software, wouldn't you be looking ten years down the track and trying to anticipate coming trends? And, in today's rapidly changing technological world, would you be putting your faith into supporting someone else's licensed software (LightWorks, V-ray) which may well be obsolete in a couple of years or would you be focused on developing your own niche in conjunction with the largest IT company there is?
All I can say W!zard is, strap in and hold on. We're in for one Helluva Ride!
As a closing thought: my reasonably average PC just took 5 hours to render a 1600x1000 Vue scene containing 108 different textures and 1,875,000 polygons with volumetric clouds and GI at a high AA level. Imagine a computing network capable of doing that in seconds - or even 30 times a second - and you're looking at the future of the 3d web - forget your VRML!!
What? Aw Man. Here's a nickel kid. Go get yourself a faster computer. :D
Froo |
Post by tSplorer // Jun 20, 2008, 8:00pm
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There is plenty of room for everyone, what they should watch out for is blender 2.5..I don't think Blender 2.5 will come out anytime soon. Give it a year for a beta-ready version, then another year for a final, stable, industrial-strenght release. Meanwhile, stick with your current apps. Blender is free, anyway.:D |
Post by transient // Jun 20, 2008, 8:38pm
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I'm not sure if you're joking but 2.5 is supposed to come out Jan 2009 give or take. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jun 20, 2008, 9:49pm
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I guess like all futurist arguments, time will tell.
That's good! Would make a great signature byline!:D Yes you are right too and I would have said the same thing myself a couple of years ago. But since I looked up Kurzweil's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change)
I've had a change of mind. Look at the progress of technology through the last century, from 1900 to 2000 and imagine that same degree of technological advancement occurring in just the first 20 years of the 21st century - that's what we are looking at. Today we have far more people, far better educated and far better equipped to advance technology than we did in 1908!
@Frootee - "All I can say W!zard is, strap in and hold on. We're in for one Helluva Ride!" Roger that! I don't know if I should be excited or terrified!!
"What? Aw Man. Here's a nickel kid. Go get yourself a faster computer" All donations gratefully accepted!!;)
@RAYMAN - "I have a high bias to render quality rather then speed " - and rightly so but both quality and speed a currently limited by the technology - imagining a time when neither quality nor speed need be sacrificed seems pretty damned exciting to me. |
Post by tSplorer // Jun 21, 2008, 10:35am
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I'm not sure if you're joking but 2.5 is supposed to come out Jan 2009 give or take.I was exaggerating, of course. I just don't want everyone's hopes get so high, that's all. From what I see in the Blender dev community, nothing substantial has been started yet. They're practically starting from zero trying to make up their minds on how best they could come up with a UI and workflow that would please everybody. It is a major rewrite that would require tons of work porting old code to new. Good thing about it also is that it's not only meant for users but for outside developers wanting to get involved. Which was the subject of an interesting discussion that came up in the Blender community some time ago, ie, why so few developers compared to the number of users. The ratio is probably one developer for every 2000 users considering the fact that many countries are not exactly short on excellent programmers, ie, India, China, Philippines, many parts of Europe. Put it simply, according to one of the new members of the Blender dev team, the current code is not exactly easy to read.
Hopefully, the goal after this rewrite, aside from good, working functionality, is to see 2-3 developers contributing coming from every country in the world. |
Post by transient // Jun 21, 2008, 2:54pm
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All they're doing for the next release that I've seen is adding shortcut customization. This is a huge thing for Blender for me, though. |
Post by moogaloonie // Jun 22, 2008, 11:42am
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I hope it's less dependent on shortcuts, customisable or not. I want some widgets and more stuff to click, I'll learn the shortcuts once I realise I've been using it a while the long way.
I'm even considering Messiah or hash at this point, as the wait for 7.6 just keeps going on and on...
(and I don't mean that I'm thinking of getting religious or just really st*ned in the meantime... ;) |
Post by nowherebrain // Jun 22, 2008, 1:13pm
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Not trying to turn this into a blender thread, but....
I have no idea about the release date, most stuff will be moved over fairly easily from what I have read during the coders meetings.
Blender already has widgets, maybe I should add that to my "meshing around in blender" video??
As much as I use blender, I use tS, the right tool for the right job. |
Post by noko // Jun 23, 2008, 10:26pm
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One thing about the real time rendering is that the graphics hardware progression is at a much faster pace than the cpu way of rendering. Although AMD is talking about 6-8 core cpu's :cool: So as time goes on, more intense, maybe more realistic and still being artistic possibilities are ever growing with real time ways of 3d rendering. Look at games 10 years ago compared to now. From my viewpoint less time waiting for something to happen means more time to make something to happen, as in real time allows more time to create more stuff. Rendering a complex 3000 frame animation from one computer at HD resolutions or above is utterly possible using WS rendering, to do so with an offline renderer may take a very long time to a point of it not being feasible for an individual.
I too think VRay is very important and any advancement there is only a big plus. Considering VRay for tS is much lower in cost then other packages and can get someone started on a tight budget in rendering some rather nice images. Having an assortment of good, working tools that get the job needed done is extremely beneficial.
I get the feeling some compare the professionals to general users, not necessarily here but in a critical way. May be by movie examples, games etc.. Consider that there are upwards of hundreds of individuals working just on the 3d part of a movie and not just a single person with budgets in the multi millions lasting years in production. Same with games. From my viewpoint this is really not a fair comparison for one to compare themselves to. The art coming out of this community is, I feel, astounding and getting better as time goes on. Just think if 10 or 20 tS users who have a fair understanding of the tools got together and produce something! I think that would be rather an eye opener, something out of this world would result. I see tS heading in that direction fast giving us the ability to pool together for everyone's benefit if desired. |
Post by v3rd3 // Jun 24, 2008, 4:04pm
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Just think if 10 or 20 tS users who have a fair understanding of the tools got together and produce something!
The TS equivalent to "Elephant's Dream" would be a very interesting project and would certainly be a great tool to market TS and the skills of the team. |
Post by transient // Jun 24, 2008, 4:25pm
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This was discussed a while ago, and the word from Caligari was that it didn't have the resources or the inclination to organize something like elephants dream, but it would happily support individuals or groups that wanted to showcase tS in the same way.
It seems tS's days as a traditional animation application are over, so you might have more luck convincing Caligari/ Microsoft to fund a similar project showcasing it's real-time qualities. |
Post by noko // Jun 24, 2008, 7:40pm
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Never heard of "Elephant's Dream" :), times do change and something like this may happen, well at leaset I hope so. All the work put into collaboration should see some fruit. Now only if we had a truePlay window in IE for forum use, interacting not only in words but a context of a scene created by us. |
Post by tSplorer // Jun 26, 2008, 3:36pm
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Just think if 10 or 20 tS users who have a fair understanding of the tools got together and produce something! I think that would be rather an eye opener, something out of this world would result. I see tS heading in that direction fast giving us the ability to pool together for everyone's benefit if desired.I just wish you guys stop talking about it and just do it. The way I look at it TS would just be relegated to print and illustration. Are we waiting for TS version 10 to do something like this (http://www.vimeo.com/1164490?pg=embed&sec=1164490)? |
Post by transient // Jun 26, 2008, 5:00pm
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If your going to flame somebody for having a bright idea, it's far better to make an argument with 3d magic that you've created, rather than someone else. It takes about two seconds to make a hyperlink, a bit longer to make a showreel like the one you've linked to.
FYI there's really nothing stopping someone from doing this quality in ts6.6 (or perhaps earlier), especially with the 3delight renderer. It's the skill level of the 3d guy who made it that's the determining factor.
Also, to be honest, I didn't really find this showreel to be that noteworthy. It's decent, but there are far better reels out there.
If you want to see an example of 3d animation that inspires me, look here (http://nofatclips.com/02007/05/23/458nm/458nm_640_polynoid.mp4). [Beware, big download] |
Post by jamesmc // Jun 26, 2008, 5:07pm
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I just wish you guys stop talking about it and just do it. The way I look at it TS would just be relegated to print and illustration. Are we waiting for TS version 10 to do something like this (http://www.vimeo.com/1164490?pg=embed&sec=1164490)?
Nice Video. Your name appears familiar to me for some reason, not sure why.
Actually, you are right. I should put a video together. Have all the tools here, Zbrush, After Effects (Creative Suite from Adobe) and of course Blender. :)
Taking an animating course right now for 2D, which is quite interesting, has a lot of production level stuff in it, which is quite useful. Behind on homework though. :D |
Post by frootee // Jun 26, 2008, 5:50pm
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Never heard of "Elephant's Dream" :), times do change and something like this may happen, well at leaset I hope so. All the work put into collaboration should see some fruit. Now only if we had a truePlay window in IE for forum use, interacting not only in words but a context of a scene created by us.
Hey Noko.
I was going to explain it but then said, ah heck. here's the link. :)
http://www.blender.org/
The latest one is Big Buck Bunny. Elephant's Dream was done in 2006 or 2007. Pretty cool! |
Post by noko // Jun 28, 2008, 4:33pm
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Thanks frootee, now that is some cool stuff! Stuff like that I would think takes alot of people working together. Well tS should be able to do something like this as well. Plus with an environment allowing many to participate from many locations in the World at the same time can only be a plus. I need to check more into Blender. |
Post by frootee // Jun 28, 2008, 4:38pm
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No Don't Do It Noko! That's the Dark Side! :D
Seriously. Yes it took a pretty good size group of artists to pull that off. They were selected from the blender community to work together in The Netherlands I believe, in a studio. HooYah! |
Post by noko // Jun 28, 2008, 4:48pm
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ahhh, but the dark side looks to be so fun :). Netherlands, someone must have had some money. Now if we can just do something like this from our own home at our own pace. . . |
Post by nowherebrain // Jul 3, 2008, 1:37am
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you can, you are your only roadblock. |
Post by butterpaw // Jul 3, 2008, 5:57am
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I finally read through this whole thread... whew!! :D
Although the conversation may have moved past this point, I'd like to say, the process of developing a realtime 3D adventure game has been teaching me a lot of interesting things...
Firstly ... no matter how wonderful the game engine is.. if you can't afford it.. no use pining for it .. so no Unreal 3 .. no Cryengine.. nope.. we looked at a LOT of game engines.. trying to find one that does what we want .. and I wouldn't have to sell a kidney for... :p I finally settled on 3D Game Studio by Conitec. Would like the pro version - has a couple of features we'd really like to use, but settled on the commercial version, and 10 team licenses to go with it.
At the time we purchased it (the A6 engine), models could be exported directly to it from trueSpace.. (with plug in, I think) however, by the time we were ready to try that.. 3DGS had moved on to the A7 engine and that plugin doesn't work for it.. eh well..
One of our modelers (an architects' modeler in Moscow) uses 3d Max - what he produces is wonderful, but it is because of his skill and creative eye, not because of the software. We turn to Vue for the landscape and Make Human for the character models.. but trueSpace is the tool of choice for the rest of us - adding the not inconsiderable advantages of easy communication and collaboration.
Indy game development really depends on getting the job done, by people who often don't have much spare time.. it's great to receive a scene file and be able to get right in there and see what's really going on ... we can talk and several of us look at the same things together - excellent!
uhm.. so what what I saying ? .. oh, yeah.. we just love trueSpace. It does what we need what we need it to, and we are eagerly awaiting 7.6 (well most of us - we still have a few 6.6 die-hards ;))
So, how about including an easy exporter to 3d Game Studio??? :D:D
Ok so this post was more enthusiastic than technical... :jumpy:
@ Jamesmc : stick around, even if you're grumpy.. wouldn't be as good here without you (my daughter also bipolar - can be scary - has thrown things at me - missed, thankfully - broken plates and mugs easier to replace than dented skull ... :D)
The thing I keep in mind is - bipolar is not everything .. it's a part of a the whole person - sometimes it seems to take up rather a lot of space.. but the rest of the person is still there - good to remember.
^_^ |
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