United3dArtists Archive

I'm one of the odd people who found Truespace 4.3 much easier to use than later versions, mostly because I was only using it for static images for tabletop roleplaying games and don't use the animation features at all - mostly I made 3D models and exported them as graphics files with backgrounds etc from NASA and other sources, and added effects such as rain, lens flare, etc.. I got it when it was given away with a computer magazine in the nineties, and I think it's the most useful freeby I ever got from any magazine. But I tried 7.6 when it was released as freeware and couldn't get the hang of it at all, for some reason.

Here are a couple of examples of the sort of thing I did with it circa 2010:
A couple of spaceships
http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff11/html/peri.jpg
http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff ... ardkin.jpg
A Martian gun
http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff ... arsgun.jpg

I've recently returned to using 4.3 after a decade or so, and while it's working OK I seem to have lost all of the materials files ( .MLB) other than the six or seven that came with the program. When I was originally using it I had a couple of dozen others I'd found on line, but I'm drawing a blank on them now. The clear red material in the gun picture is an example.

Can anyone point me at a source for them that still works? Alternatively, is there an easy way to make my own from texture files or other graphics?

You can try this oldie but goodie:
https://lunadude.com/rsrc_trueSpace.htm

trueBlue wrote: 12 Jan 2023, 15:41 You can try this oldie but goodie:
https://lunadude.com/rsrc_trueSpace.htm

Marcus asked me this same question in an email and I gave the same answer. Unfortunately, a lot of the links are broken, even the internet archive version has a lot of dead links..

It's the clear materials I'm having trouble with - for example, the rocket exhaust in the first picture was a rod of blue gem-like material with a lot of lights inside it, worked very well. The gun was a similar red material, I think they came from the same file.

Later - just took a look at the software disks on the archive and searched for Truespace

https://archive.org/details/vintagesoft ... =truespace - search I used

Found 41 results, mostly demo disks but also including

Trueclips for Windows 3.1
https://archive.org/details/TRUECLIPS
Caligari trueClips is a CD-ROM of over 200 textures and 600 professional-quality 3D objects, included with trueSpace2. trueClips is designed as a companion product to trueSpace and provides users with a rich library of nearly half a gigabyte of professionally-designed content to be used as royalty-free building blocks and materials for trueSpace creations.

https://archive.org/details/caligari-truespace2-bible
This is the Companion Disc to the book Caligari trueSpace2 Bible by Peter M. Plantec

I suspect that Trueclips is probably the one I want from the description, just downloading a disk image now. I'll say more when I've had a play with it.

OK, trueclips has a lot of bitmaps and object files, but no prepared materials files - also the software won't run on my PC which isn't much of a surprise. I shall keep looking.

These any good?

Yes - book and construct have the clear materials between them, they ought to be exactly what I need - many thanks!

Found some more on the Trueclips disc in the end - not sure how I missed them the first time except it was 1AM and I was half asleep.

SHINY is various smooth shiny metallic finishes in different colours
PLASTIC is smooth less reflective finishes, a bit like billiard ball colours
GLASSY is various materials with a glassy finish
There's also ROADWAY which is US road signs, which for some reason I can't get to work properly - it needs some bitmaps which I also copied across, but still doesn't work, and for some reason a copy of the WOOD file.

I recommend downloading the entire disk from archive.org rather than me uploading the files if you want these materials, since I obviously got something wrong.

Marcus Rowland wrote: 14 Jan 2023, 16:00 Yes - book and construct have the clear materials between them, they ought to be exactly what I need - many thanks!

What you gonna do with them?

Saul wrote: 15 Jan 2023, 02:52

Screenshot1.jpg

Marcus Rowland wrote: 14 Jan 2023, 16:00 Yes - book and construct have the clear materials between them, they ought to be exactly what I need - many thanks!

What you gonna do with them?

The general plan for the moment is to recreate some low-res monochrome 3D models (mostly of airships) in colour and high res as part of updating a role playing supplement I wrote in 1993. For example:

The original from 1993, created using an old modelling program called Zing 3D.


The remake

whoa!! That's kinda synchronistic dude I just finished reading this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airshipwreck-L ... 003046451X
Highly recommended if you into airships, lots of reference material.

you can model chinese spy baloons too :D

Saul wrote: 13 Feb 2023, 21:57 whoa!! That's kinda synchronistic dude I just finished reading this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airshipwreck-L ... 003046451X
Highly recommended if you into airships, lots of reference material.

Pretty sure it's one of the books I read when I was writing my game.

My main source was two stories by Rudyard Kipling, With the Night Mail and As Easy As A.B.C., both written before WW1 and set in a 21st century utopia with lots of airships. I put together a PDF with the stories (the first includes some wonderful fake adverts and articles from "the magazine in which it appeared") and all the art from their publication in British and American magazines and a little book that was published a few years later. It's on line here: https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff1/nm-abc.pdf

bitkar wrote: 14 Feb 2023, 11:30 you can model chinese spy baloons too

Don't see any reason why not, but they wouldn't fit into the game very well.