TrueSpace 3

These extra modelling tools wouldn't be enough to push TrueSpace ahead of the pack, but the new version has more up its sleeve. The most impressive features added with this version are the Physical Simulation and Inverse Kinematics. Both of these capabilities aren't found in any other software at this price level.

The Physical Simulation tools allow you to give objects physical attributes such as the elasticity of rubber, glass, iron, paper, or Styrofoam. You can give most objects these attributes, but unfortunately you can't apply them on Inverse Kinematic figures. TrueSpace will then use a sophisticated combination of collision detection and accurate physics to simulate how a moving object will rebound off the floor and other objects. You can alter gravity and provide an initial forward or rotational speed or acceleration. Wind can also be wafted across a 3D scene, so that all objects with lightweight characteristics, such as paper, will be blown along. You can have both a global gust and local eddies so these light objects get buffeted around. The only limitations are that glass objects don't shatter into particles when they hit a hard surface, and paper won't ripple in the wind. But this is still an incredibly powerful tool that will save you hours of work.

Character animation is becoming increasingly important as everyone gets tired of impressively modelled spaceships and lens flares. The key to realistic character animation is Inverse Kinematics, which was only found on high-end packages before TrueSpace was introduced. Inverse Kinematics is the process where various parts of an object are jointed together, with rules as to how far they can rotate relative to each other, and how stiff the joints are. By fixing one joint in space, you can move a string of joints around this point by the tip and the joints follow each other naturally. Without Inverse Kinematic joints, you need to move each part of a limb separately into position, which makes it almost impossible to make a legged creature walk realistically. TrueSpace's iteration of Inverse Kinematics is quite sophisticated, with full control over the constrained angle of rotation, stiffness and degrees of freedom - the axes around which rotation is allowed. It's weakened by the somewhat fiddly overall animation control, but in general you'll be able to mimic what Lightwave users can do with BONES or 3D Studio MAX users with Biped.

Apart from the interface, TrueSpace is also quirky in its texturing. Since version 2 it has supported procedural, bitmap, and animated textures, but the supplied textures are unusual. There are the usual metal, wood, stone and glass textures, but more of these normal surfaces would have been useful. In version 3, you can paint textures on to an object in real time, and you can also paint on bump maps. These features aren't a patch on the capabilities of Detailer (reviewed, issue 31, p180). You can't paint on existing textures and bump maps, or procedural textures. This makes the feature just about useless, unless you really want to hand paint your entire texture and bump mappings, although you can mix painted and preset textures on different faces of an object if you do your painting first. Painting doesn't work properly with Direct3D, either.

While version 2 was able to use 2D Photoshop-compatible plug-ins, such as Kai's Power Tools or Adobe Gallery Effects, version 3 adds a free API for developing 3D plug-ins: six are included on the CD, all from third parties. TrueView adds a feature that was sorely lacking from all versions of TrueSpace: pictorial tree of object hierarchies. This allows you to navigate all the various components that have been modelled separately and glued together. There are two automatic landscape creators that randomly create a terrain in a similar fashion to KPT Bryce (reviewed issue 34, p170). The particle system fountain creates an animated stream of particles, useful for making explosions, fountains or dust clouds. There are also two unusual plug-ins called Multiplex and Wiggledy, which move objects around or replicate them randomly.