gameSpace Light and contest...
Community Forums/Developer Stations/gameSpace Light and contest...
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| Hi all, Just wanted to let you know that we (Caligari) released a free downloadable version of gameSpace. It is restricted somewhat (650 polys for objects, 5k polys for levels) but there is no time limit and you can save in .X format so it is actually useable for learning, prototyping, etc. If you're interested check out the pages at: http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/ Also, we just announced a contest with some great prizes (>$10k!!). Categories are character modeling and animation, vehicle modeling and animation, and interactive demo creation. Hopefully something for everyone! I managed to score six Radeon X800 and three Radeon 9800 Pro cards from our partner ATI (those guys are so cool) to use as prizes so you want to at least check it out. I wish I could enter :) The contest pages are linked from the main gamespace page (link above) - just click on the orangish banner in the right column. Hope you guys don't mind the pimpage. Cheers, M |
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| Hm, I can't access the page. Depending on the prizes, I might enter some work. EDIT: The page works now. |
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| thanks for the pimpage mearrin... --Mike |
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| Awesome. Downloading now. |
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| It says on the main page that gamespace comes with "libraries of 3d models for fast content". Where can one find a list and pictures of these models? |
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| Where can one find a list and pictures of these models? Isn't that darkmatter? |
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| I know Darkmatter is one of the prizes for the contest, but it does not say ont he site that Darkmatter is included with Gamespace. I wonder... did Gamespace come before mearrin69 decided to use Blitz, or after? Or was mearrin69 using Blitz before he was hired by them? |
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| Let's see. I've been using Blitz for about two years. I was started working for Caligari about a month and a half ago - though I've known Roman for a number of years. gameSpace was introduced last September. DarkMATTER doesn't come with gameSpace. We offer it for sale on our site and, in return, we allow TGC to sell gameSpace and related products on their site. The site says "Libraries of models for fast content, and access thousands of publicly available models". In truth this statement needs to be reworked a bit. There are, in fact, libraries of models distributed with gameSpace but the number of models is between 50-100 and a lot of them probably aren't very useable for games (though I suppose that depends on what kind of game you're doing). Some of the included models are quite good however. [edit]Oh, to my knowledge there's no list of included models available - I'll check into maybe providing it on the site, though the current model libraries shouldn't factor into the purchase decision too much. This is one of the reasons the statement above should probably be worked on a bit.[/edit] We are, however, working on converting 500 low and medium resolution models (from Digimation) to COB format and these will be made available (probably in blocks of models over time) to gameSpace customers when the conversion is done. We have also commissioned several pro-quality animated characters to be given to gS owners. I think maybe three of these are nearing completion. No firm date on the availability of these - and I haven't seen them myself - but I do know that both projects are pretty far along. Hope that answers everyone :) M |
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| mearrin, is the contest open for TS users too? |
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| MikeHart, Yes. Not sure if we said so but it is. Michael |
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| Tryed it. I would say it's quite interesting; anyway, I was a bit scared by the unusual user interface, whith lots of icons and hidden icons, and without a simple description on what does what. There's an icon helper and it does help a bit, but is way far from being 'user friendly' IMO. 1) About tutorials, there are only 2 movies and one tutorial on the main web site; I expect much more for a 299$ product. 2) the UNDO function does not undo everything; if you happen to delete a face and you didn't saved your work previously, you're lost. 3) the help file consists in a huge document which contains NO images ! I mean, when you want to know which icon to press to obtain the 'delete surface' mode, why in the hell don't put just a simple image in the help file with the related description ! Is that so hard to do ? This is really annoying. In my opinion, with a proper set of tutorials, a whole remake of the help file, and a much better user interface, it would be much more interesting. Again, my 0.1 eurocent. Sergio. |
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| Heya. VERY aware of the help file issues :) We have a 60MB plus set of PDFs which are essentially the printed manual in electronic format and the CHM - which for some reason is missing images (making it nearly unuseable). I raised this issue in a meeting yesterday and have asked our documentation person to look into getting images into the CHM. I suspect this was done to limit file size - but without the images it isn't much good for new users. We are aware of the UNDO function. It works to spec - but the spec was established when tS1.0 was created (like when Windows 3.1 was still the big thing). At the time undo wasn't exactly a standard feature as now so it works a little differently. Each object has its own stack so, when you switch contexts, you can't go back and undo what you had done previously. It's a design issue but, from the POV of most users, it is broken. We can't unfortunately fix it in existing products because it is woven so tightly into the core. We are, however, creating a global undo stack in our next generation of products - which have been rewritten from the ground up. Undo works but you just have to be careful. On tutorials, we certainly want to and plan to introduce more. Did you look at the 3D buzz videos though? There's like an hour and a half of video there. The UI is certainly bizarre (though perhaps not as alien as Blender :) ) to new users. Work with it for a bit (with a proper manual, I might add) and it becomes very intuitive however. Then again, I've been a tS user since v1.1 so I've always been a fan of how it works. FYI, our new UIs will be displayable as icons or text - very smooth. Thanks for the feedback Semar! M |
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| i'm most impressed with the new layout... usually, this is my biggest fear in converting to newwer versions of TSpace, because they may change the UI around, and i'll never be able to find anything... the new ui (new for me) is great, flexible, easy to figure (maybe because i'm a previous TS user), and quite complete, leaving a lot of free space for modelling when you need it... the only bad thing so far, is the textured cube that i saved as a directx mesh would load into one of the game 'engines' i'm using, while in TS4.3 it would... also, one of the key reasons for 'looking' at GameSpace would be to see how easily the different file formats are imported from and exported to... if they are implemented as plugins... then there is no way to test em in this lite release. in short, so far... great looking capabilities, wonder why Directx won't export, and would like to see a model exported to Torque, or 3DGS, or Blitz3D... --Mike |
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| while in TS4.3 it would... also, one of Did you fall asleep whilst typing again? ;) |
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| ... sorry, what it should've said was... "while in TS4.3 it would... period" ... better :) --Mike |
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| Red, Unfortunately we've disabled saving of any formats besides X and COB but, tell you what, send me a model you want to test (model/textures/etc.) and I will save it out to whatever formats you want and post them somewhere for you to download. Be great if you could do it with a model you wouldn't mind sharing so others could try it too - but it's okay if you don't want to. That should give you, and others if you will share it, a good idea of how well the format conversions work. M |
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| [useless opinion] between the constant crashing, useless help files, buggy and side-effect producing commands, and Horrible interface, I won't even download the a Free Truespace. Why is it that Maya and Max are getting *Easier* to use with each version and TS just gets worse and worse? I think soon TS will end up like blender, as a "powerful but ultimatly just not worth it" modeler. btw, im a longtime Truespace 2 user. I know how to get around in the interface. Just my opinion, not trying to flame. [/useless opinion] |
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| The truespace interface is.....ugh :) This is the fourth time I've taken a look at truespace/gamespace, and everytime I get ready to dig in, I get so put off by the interface(I'm accustomed to imagine and lightwave). The whole idea for gamespace is great I think, and the price is awesome for budget game dev. If you guys at caligari can do a *major* clean up of the UI, I think I would be sold. |
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| mearing... i can get the meshes into the different formats that 3drad, 3dgs, blitz, torque can use... that's not the point... ... the point is to see how GameSpace does it, and what's involved... first hand. seeing as this was a major selling point, the ability to export to various formats, allowing the demo to do a limited export would've been the way to go... also, the directx export (one of the 2 non caligari one that is included) doesn't seem to work... i've gotten this same report from a few people and i've tested it myself and it doesn't seem to be working) POed... the interface is really cool, but either you are gonna luv it, or you are gonna hate it... they've made it so flexible (allowing a lot of stuff to be hidden and opened when you need it as to allow maximum screen area for working) that it may be a lil confusing for a lot of people. the HELP file section on the user interface is complete... but it will probably wind up being even more confusing to you, seeing as there aint no pictures of the icons for the commands that they are talking about that will help guide the user... this really seems a lil bit absurd seeing as the UI is almost totally icon driven... and the help file doesn't have one icon represented... definitely an oversight (mearing, can you send this one up to the gods on Mount Ormandy... i have the TrueSpace 4 manual, and every section has the accompanying icon so that i can associate the icon in the topic to one that i see on the screen in the program. this was a great aid in learning the UI quickly) that lil icon search thing should be abandoned, and the help file littered with icons pointing to the topic at hand. hey, i would be willing to work with the docs gods over there to help with a few obvious (from the point of the users and potential users, but maybe not so apparent to the developers up there, understandable as it is easy for the developers to get isolated from the rest of the world by the very nature of the development schedules and other fsactors inherent) anyway... overall, i like the direction in which the UI is going, and it only took me about 15 minutes or so to be right at home in the new workspace. i was also impressed with the layering and texture 'baking' of the lighting effects... it would be nice to be able to see if these things are exported into the game development system of choice... say, if you have any photos of a mesh running in Blitz, or 3dgs that carries over the texture baking and the multiple layered textures... that would be better to show than me sending up a model... thx --Mike |
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