Truespace 4.3 - Beginning user

[webfx]

I am starting to get into 3d animation and think that Maya, 3d Max and Lightwave are a little bit beyond my economic reach. I was thinking about starting with Truespace 4.3 (http://www.caligari.com/) because they have a special on it for the summer. Can anyone give me insight to whether this is a worth while product and if I will be able to tranfer my understanding from Truesapce 4.3 to other 3d software products when I decide to move up. Thanks for all the help on this

[jtk77]

I posted this in your for sale but i figured the discusstion is best continued here.

well, perhaps to learn how 3d in general works it might be a good go.
I used Truespace once on a trial that came with a magazine and thought it was horrific.
But honestly , it might be better to spend the 100 bucks on some training materials and then get the Maya Learning addition or maybe the XSI experiance for free and doing it that way.

[fredc]

I agree with jtk77. TrueSpace is not going to do any more than help you understand some of the concepts in 3D. In addition, I've heard they are really focusing more on the web market now, making it easer for web designers to get quick graphics.

Other than use the demo versions of Maya or XSI, you might look into Hash's Animation Master. It's a little more at $299, but you could by "any" old copy on ebay for pratically nothing, then buy the upgrade for $99. I used this many years ago, and it really is capable of producing some good work. You can get it here: http://www.animationmaster.com/

Urp

[webfx]

Thanks everyone for the comments so far. I have downloaded Maya PLE and Softimagine XSI EXP and I using the following hardware

Toshiba Tecra M1
- Pentium (M) 4 - 1.4 Ghz
- 256 Megs of RAM
- Trident XP4 - 32 Megs of RAM
- 60 Gig HardDrive
- Windows XP Professional

I could get Maya to start but it completely locked my PC and I had to do a hard boot. I was able to load and use Softimage XSI but it required that I set the resolution to 1280 x 1024 which made me have to scroll up and down across my screen. So now I am at a decision point. Could some tell me what they think about the following

• If you had to do it all over again what software product package would have choosen - Maya or Softimage?
• I am looking to do Computer Animation - Something like Jimmie Newtron - should I look at Lightwave since it is geared more to a PC?

Thanks for your continued support.

[jtk77]

Well, Maya and Softimage are just as "geared" towards a PC. You can look into Lightwave for sure, I think the maya locking has to be your Graphics card.
You need something strong in open GL, I'm not familar with your card but it sounds old and not suited for maya use. Also , look into 512 megs of ram for any 3d package if you are running under xp.

[jordan-mcgehee]

At our High School we use trueSpace 5. Its not too bad if your are just a beginner, it does have some glitches here and there but if you arent willing to upgrade your computer then you wont get good 3d applications to run on your computer.

[jtk77]

I still think you should look into getta a used or student copy of www.hash.com
It was the first package I got into , well besides Power Aniamtor , but this on a personal level, and I still love it.

[shakes825]

Just thought I'd add my 2c to this thread - I started with TrueSpace 1.0 (think it was around 1994 or so?) then moved to lightwave and then to maya.

TrueSpace will give you the basic concepts (texturing, lighting, composition, basic modeling, basic animation, etc) - but its workflow I think is quite different from the higher-end packages. Going TS to LW was a big jump because of this, but LW to Maya was a lot easier having used a more in-depth package (ie: LW.)

I'd say get a new vid card and Maya PLE and crank on tutorials and books.