TrueSpace 5.(Caligan's modeling tool)(Software Review)(Evaluation)

Enhanced modeling and animation tools highlight Caligari's latest

Caligari's TrueSpace has been around for a number of years and has always offered a solid set of tools for a reasonable price. Version 5 builds on this legacy with a number of new tools and some interface improvements.

TrueSpace presents itself with a single perspective view, but you also can configure it to show orthographic views. The interface is entirely icon-based, which means all operations are represented as pictures, with a text description that shows up on the taskbar. This looks great, but initially I found some icons a bit hard to decipher, making me want basic pull-down menus. After a day or so, though, I had most of the icons memorized, which made the interface fairly quick.

One of the most significant improvements to Version 5 is the completion of the NURBS modeler that initially shipped with Version 4. The software enables you to draw NURBS curves and manipulate them using the new draw panel, which gives each curve its own miniature editing window within the 3D environment. Oddly, NURBS curves in TrueSpace use Bezier-type control handles rather than the more standard NURBS weights. This seems to work fine, but it might be confusing to seasoned NURBS modelers.

After you draw your curves, you can create patches using a skinning tool, which allows for multiple outlines to create a patch. You also can create surfaces using the loft and birail tools. TrueSpace enables you to draw trim curves directly on a NURBS surface to cut a hole in a patch. One thing missing is the ability to project existing curves onto a surface, which can make the modeling process more accurate than re-creating these curves from scratch.

TrueSpace also has some nice tools for attaching patches to each other. You can create blend surfaces to join surfaces with circular outlines, such as the end of an arm to a trim curve on a torso.

TrueSpace has always had polygonal modeling tools and has supported subdivision surfaces for the past few releases. Subdivision surfaces make modeling organic surfaces very easy, and TrueSpace's subdivision tools work much like those in most other packages. When a surface is subdivided, the original polygonal surface appears as a "cage," superimposed over the smooth subdivided surface. You can then edit or animate the cage.