United3dArtists Archive

Hello everyone, a bit about myself first, so you may know me better.

My name is Chad, I have been using Truespace since around 1996?
So compared to alot of you I am a youngster (in truespace terms)

I fell in love with the earlier interfaces, and while I love the 7.x's power I still prefer my 6.5 (yes I am one of those folks), and I have come up with a few TSX ideas.

Anyhow, my current Idea is working in 6.5, Gamespace and the modelling side of 7.6
(To be honest the Workspace side kinda freaks me out) sure you get those lovely already "rendered" images etc, but it feels incomplete and alien...like working on the ghost of a project instead of the project itself.

NOW, my request is this, TSX (community) support, alot has changed since C++ or VB6, and its getting darn hard to find any of the old shells for anything other than C++ (blanktsx anyone?)

I know there used to be a shell for VB, and I have found numerous articles on creating a hacked "link.exe" to make VB.net produce "old school dll files" but I am still not sure if I am working in MFC, API, DLL, TSX, or HUH!,

So if anyone has old resources, good article, nice tips, or great workarounds Thanks!!!!


More to my specific need, if anyone can at least tell me a SIMPLE way to merge a vb form into a c++ app thats great (.net)

Basically I want a better interface for my users and a better passing of data for my program, trying to get a string from a CcomboBox has been murder on me

Thanks!

Hello Chad,

Nice to see you there !

I've posted an old tutorial from Ken on the truespaceplugins forum, but you probably know that one. That was THE C+ tutorial
That forum could be the place to discuss your tsX ideas though. I have posted some already...

Regarding alternative languages for tsX development, I belive that Scott from Primitiveitch released a Delphi or VB tool before. Perhaps I should try to get in touch with him and see if he would like to share it.
I'm also interested in learning tsx programming. Ahhhh, if only I had time !

Workspace was a stillborn application that also probably caused the death of trueSpace, so we have no choice but add new tools for Modeler/tS6.6... or wait for Blender's interface to come up to tS' UI level

We can also work toward migrating the functions we need from model to workspace.

this link to the old sdk stuff is still up at cali.
http://www.caligari.com/download/tsx.asp?Cate=DTSX

v3rd3 come back to the darkside and build a few modeler tsx..

I have the python kit and the 6.6 sdk so I might experiment at some point. I have a lot to learn on the workspace side first so that will be my focus for some time yet.

In addition to the development side I am involved in the Miner project and a couple of web site designs so I am finding myself busy all of a sudden.

Please add any dev requests at truespaceplugins.com that way the devs will see your requests there.

I have been spending a lot of time on this site to keep up with everyone and the califorums trying to download everything I can get my hands on. I am therefore assuming that everyone is going crazy trying to keep up with everything. The plugins site and this site will become the focal point for the devs.

well I gotta admit; making plugins for the model side is considerably easier in general.

Well I am STILL not satisfied with the development of TS under MS's control my fear is they will do something trully MS (wonder if that really stands for Machiavellian and Sinister?) Anyhow,

Below you will find a Building, I admit not a super impressive I must live there building, but one I made with my TSX anyhow , right now the tsx supports Square buildings, with square windows (*cough* booleans *cough*) but in the future ledges, streets, alcoves, gargoyles, drainpipes, fire escapes, stairs, doors (revolving etc) will come.

I WANTED to wait till it was a truly worthy app before I demo'd it but you guys are all so cool here I wanted to show it off in case anyone was interested in seeing it furthered.

6.5 is blazing fast, it works in Gamespace too and so far my OBJ exports haven't been horrible (thinking to tone down the poly's and let it become a useable Geometry/Poly App for game developers as well),

In the end it will be "My" version of a City maker, building an entire town from a profile or height map or "Skyline" map, using either textured windows, or full on polys for the
serious machine/renderer/nutcase (like me)

I am willing to let anyone who wants try out the current version as its very basic, (if I sell it for food/programmer money) in the future I won't lose anything by letting a few buildings out for free

I want to do a few dozen templates as well, you know "Stucco modern" "City Skyscraper" etc, toggle options so people can quickly and easily form a City

As well as a suite of development tools for setting up walls/furniture locations, and editing a currently existing building.

I hate talking about my dreams cause its like letting steam out of a pressure cooker, but I have found good incentive to keep working this time. So ....here, have a building to look at

Oh, and words_of_kindness@yahoo.com email me if you have questions or need "BASIC tsx in C++" help heheh

Oops, forgot to mention it is a Brick building with glass windows and a simple wood textured
floor and window frames.

Right now you can select any of the "reasonable" built in textures/phongs/bumps of truespace.
I didn't think many people would use the Transparent Cubemapped Enhanced Phong Windows etc.

But if I can get good feedback I will develop a "Truespace User" application, with a Newbie option interface.

Namely an interface WE all like as users on a switch, with a default for anyone who picks up TS7 Model for free.

Hehe in case you were curious, the building took 1 minute to create, I took 25 seconds to
choose my texture/phong bump, it took about 23-30 seconds to process the booleans
(2.5 gig machine 4 gig memory, windows only accessing 3 gig)
and about 5 seconds for the render.

Originally it took about 10 to 100 times longer till I figured out how to not update
the draw on the boolean cycle, but thats why its slow in TS7 it insists on showing
the Polys after each boolean cut/paste, once I figure that out it will be alot faster in 7
Same issue in Gspace.

as for the booleans, I have a few more ideas that should increase the creation time by
2 or 3 fold if not faster (namely boolean sub is super fast but the way I create the windows)
and place them is slower cause its cut and glue'ing, shortly i will fix that.

I wanted to keep my technique secret though its quite obvious to anyone here with any though
it helps keep the design method/ip'ishness protected, but again I say.

I like you people, I have been following you on Caligari's forum for quite a while, so I know of you
and know you alot more than you know me

OH MANNERS, Thank you all for the suggested sites and TSX information!!!!

So anyhow, thats the tsx as it stands, let me know if you like, or what features you would love to see etc.

I want a few beta-testers, the good ones will get the tsx as it updates for free, I am thinking 5-10 (I sure hope more than 5-10 want it when its done, or I will go hungry ) hehe. Kidding I do this for fun but wouldn't mind profit on it, it would let me spend more time developing it and new tsx's as well

In the future I plan to use the code (modified of course) and export the whole concept to blender, max etc, sure they already have things like this, and I think TS has a few similar TSX's as well but I work cheap so I hope to find a Niche market.