Bjornlo
Deity
This mini-tutorial is based on Truespace 3.2.
Because so many people on this forum use Bryce, Poser and similar tool which support primitives and in the case of Bryce Booleans with Primitives, I will only talk about Boolean modeling in Truespace with the specific goal of creating Content for either Poser or Bryce. If you want to know more, please use Google.
The Program:
Truespace 3.2 version is available for free from:
http://www.download.com/TrueSpace/3000-6677_4-10298420.html After installing it you go to http://www.caligari.com/ and get your free serial number. In exchange for the serial number they will send you a "super colossal, never before this good, act fast" blah blah sales flyer every 2-3 weeks.
I am not a Truespace guru. I just use it now and then for modeling bits I use in 3d images or in units for Civ3.
File Format
It is important to note that Truespace 3.2 will only save objects in COB format (ok a few other useless formats too). The scene files are called SCN files and the object files (COB) can both read by both Bryce(v5 and above) and DeepExploration(v3.5 and above).
If your 3d application can not import COB or SCN files, you must do one of the following:
1. Upgrade to Truespace 4.3 (wait for a sale and you can get it for 20 bucks). Although, there is very little difference unless you are working with just Poser.
2. Get a format converter. The best low cost format converter is Deep Exploration. For students (or the parents of students k-12) the price is 29 http://www.studica.com/RightHemisphere/ or http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=753686. For non-students the price is 149.- Or, for the next few days you can get Bryce 5.0 for free. In addition to being the tool responsible for more units than any other 3d app, it is a decent format converter. It can save any format mesh it imports into any of the mesh formats it supports (including COB, OBJ, 3ds, LWO, etc). This offer end Sept 6, 2006 so act fast. http://www.daz3d.com/program/bryce/bryce5free.php?trid=446713850&trid=919467712
On to Truespace.
Note: Most of the images here can be enlarged by clicking on it. This will open a large version in a separate window. A few of the screen shots were actually smaller than the thumbnail, so for those what you see is what you get.
Please follow along carefully and closely. I show screen shots of every important step, but I only show them once. After that I expect you to be able to read along and do it on your own. If you want to download and read this tutorial
Open the app.
Along the bottom you will see a tool bar.
Right click (and hold down the mouse button) on the peach colored SQUARE near the left hand side of the tool bar.
This will bring up a list of 5 available primitives. (Torus, sphere, cone, cylinder and square)
Move your mouse cursor until it is over the circle and let go of the mouse. The default primitive shape is now the circle.
Close all the small windows which may have opened by right clicking in the upper right hand corner of these windows.
Left click on the circle to bring up "new circle settings":
Play with these settings and create and delete a few circles.
Delete all the objects you created and change latitude to 16 and longitude to 32
These will now be the default settings for this session of Truespace. You need these numbers to be high enough so the object has the right shape, but not so high as to give your PC problems due to the polygon count. If you have a lower end system, just use smaller numbers there.
Go ahead and create a circle.
Next mouse over the arrow gadget. This allows you to change the size, location, and orientation of the primitive.
Mouse over the circle gadget.
Left click and hold down the mouse button.
Change the default primitive to a torus. You can tell you succeeded here if the circle gadget on your toolbar has been replaced by a torus.
By default the "default torus settings" window should have opened. If it did not open it now by left clicking on the torus gadget. The change these settings to latitude 32, longitude 32 and inner radius of .2
Now right click on the torus gadget to create a torus.
In the object info screen,
Change the torus location to 0 0 -19
Change the torus size to 180 180 390
Click on the circle mesh. You will know you have selected it when it goes from blue to white.
The object info screen will now contain info on the circle.
Change the circle to
Location 0, 0, 180
Size 120, 120, 420
Now with the circle selected (white) go to the Boolean operations gadget. The available Boolean operations are subtraction, addition (or merge) and union.
Set it to subtraction.
Right click on the gadget (if you ever click on this by mistake, a 2nd right click deselects it).
You can tell you have made this operator active if it changes color.
Next right click on the torus.
The Boolean operation will be preformed, and the gadget will be deselected.
Your object should now look like this:
Side note:
The CTRL key has the following standard copy & paste in windows.
+c = copy
+V = paste
+c = cut, the same as copy, except the original object is deleted.
The other most common CTRL keys are:
+a = all, select all of a active window's contents
+s = save the current document to disk (works in almost all windows applications, even if the
application is having problems (such as a mild crash)
+n = create a new document
+o = open a existing document
+p = print
+q = exit
+w = close the current window
+z = undo, or go back one step
There are others, but those are the ones you are most likely to find in any application.
Make a copy of this item by having it active, and using CTRL +c and then CTRL +v
Now the object info window will contain the coordinates and size of your copy of the object.
Change the Z location to from 180 to 178.
Select the original version of the object.
Perform a Boolean operation and erase the contents and of the copy from the original.
Your object should now look like this:
Change the z position to 1 and the y position to -40, just to get them out of our way for now.
Set the default primitive to cylinder.
(Right click and hold the mouse button down on the torus and scroll up to cylinder)
Change the default Cylinder properties to:
Latitude 2, longitude 32 and top radius of 1
Create a cylinder
Set the default primitive to sphere.
Check that the properties are Latitude 16 and longitude 32.
Create a sphere.
Change the sphere to size 300 300 300
(Right on the white arrow gadget)
Change the cylinder to size 200 200 400
To do this make the cylinder active and right on the white arrow gadget
Change the Boolean operator to union (also known as Object Intersection)
Perform this operation on the cylinder and the sphere.
Your new object should look like this:
Change the settings of this (pill) item to:
Rotation 90 0 0
Size 100 100 20
Change the first (horn) item to
Location 0 195 100
Rotation 90 0 0
Now select the "pill" item again and hit ctrl+c and ctrl+v
Change the settings on the “pill” copy to
Location 0 -10 65
Rotation 0 0 0
size 20 20 100
Set the Boolean operator to merge
Merge the two pills and let’s call this the horn back
Make a copy of the horn back and change the settings to
Location 100 -10 65
Select the horn
Make a copy of it and change the settings of the copy to
Location 100 170 100
Rotation 90 0 0
Size 80 80 190
Now select the Boolean operator, make sure it is still set to merge
Use the operator to merge the two horns
And use the operator to merge the two horn backs
Do not merge the horns and the horn backs as they are likely to receive different textures, and texturing them separately will help. But, merging the two items that will receive the same texture as one item just simplifies things later.
Now select the horns and change the names to Horns,
And select the horn backs and change the names to hornbacks
Your item should now look like this:
Rendered in Bryce
Now go to the file menu and select save as and save the horns and hornbacks. They will need to be saved separately. If you decided to have them be a single color, you can merge them and save it as a single object.
These horns were used in this tugboat I built for my son.
The entire ship, and all of the little bits, detailing elements, etc were all modeled in Truespace using only Boolean modeling.
This image was rendered in Bryce
Random notes:
Save often, and in incrementing file names. Save both the indivual objects and the scene as a whole. ie: horn1.cob horn2.cob and horn1.scn and horn2.scn.
Truespace as a bug with some boolean operations. Sometimes it will just refuse to perform an operation between two objects. To work around this, try and keep your booleans at around the same detail level. Keep their longitude and latitude settings more or less the same per object. If your object requires both addition and subtraction, experiment with different sequences. Change which is the base object (for merge). Change the boolean accuracy. (right click on the boolean gadget and you can vary it from 1 to 1000, the default is 50. I typically try one extreme than the other, when there are problems) Avoid object with too few polygons. For example, a square with only 1 poly per side is more likely to give you a problem than one with 4 to 16. Avoid too high a polygon count on screen at the same time. If you have to, save off the objects and load them only as needed. Finally, try and avoid boolean operations between very complex objects, as this seems to give more problems. Instead do it as a series of simple ones.
Take small steps. Don’t begin by trying to model a 100% accurate anything. Just have a basic object in mind. Try a chair with out any negative booleans. Now one with no merge operations.
If you are modeling for Poser, you need to get a mesh format converter if you use Truespace 3.2. I suggest either get Bryce or Deep Exploration. Or, you can upgrade to Truespace 4.3. I did this upgrade for 19.95. It allows you to skip the format converter for Poser. It can and write 3ds files and read in OBJ files. This allows you to load the poser character so you can size and position the prop for easier importation and use in Poser. Plus you can write out in 3ds format which poser can import.
Truespace is a decent modeler. It is not as good as the 1500.00 – 10,000.00 modelers (Lightwave, 3d Studio Max, etc).
If you are looking for a midlevel modeler I suggest you look at Cinema4d v8.5 or 9, Carrara v5 plus Hexegon v2, Truespace 7.0. Expect to spend 500-800
If you want a high end one, look at Lightwave v8 or 9, 3d Studio Max v7 or 8, Softimage XSI or Maya. Expect to spend 1500 to 10,000.
If you are an educator or a student of any age (or sometimes just the parent of one) you can typically save 20-90% of the price. Well worth checking out.
One thing to remember, that the higher the price the more options, the greater the learning curve.
I own several modelers. I enjoy the various options each brings to the table. I have had the good luck and good timing to buy a few as a student. And a few from others who bought them as a student and then changed their mind (yay!).
There is no one best modeler, at least not that I have seen. I really like Truespace (3 & 4) for their simplicity. I really like Cinema4d for its ability to split a mesh. Although, you can achieve the same results in ANY modeler with just a few more steps. I also like C4d’s simple Boolean operations (though it is not as fast nor simple as Truespace, but the results are sometimes more accurate). I do not like Carrara because of how awkward it was to do any Boolean operations, though it is VERY popular. But, I also haven’t seen version 5.0 which is supposedly much better. But, there is a separate modeler (Hexagon) which can be used standalone or with Carrara and has gotten rave reviews.
I find Softimage, Lightwave, Maya and 3d Studio Max and Softimage to mind boggling complex. Simple operations aren’t simple. These can be mastered by anyone, as there are some real chowderheads out there using these.
I own and use the following:
*Lightwave 8.5
3d Studio Max 6.0
Carrara Pro 4.0
Cinema 4d 8.5
*Truespace v3.2 and v4.3
*Poser v5 and v6
*Bryce v5 and v5.5
*Daz Studio
*Deep Exploration v3.5
*Photoshop CS2 (and several older versions)
PaintShop Pro v9
UVMapper
Plus some bad purchases… like Microsoft’s Digital Image Suite, PhotoDraw, VistaPro, DarkBasic, TurboCAD, HomeBuilders CAD, etc…. live and learn, eh?
* = recommended.
I am most interested in getting (and will probably eventually get) Bryce 6.0, Hexagon 2.1 (and maybe Carrara v5pro), Vue6i, ZBrush. Maybe DeepUV or something similar.
I suggest:
1st modeler = Truespace 3.2
2nd modeler = Later, if you still like modeling let your wallet decide. I like Lightwave or C4d.
1st 3d app = Bryce
2nd 3d app = Poser or Daz Studio (I prefer Poser, but DS is compatible, supposedly easier and free)
1st 3d utility = DeepExploration. Simply a must have if you ever wanna have control over your downloaded content, or wish to publish your own.
1st paint program = photoshop if you can afford it, Paintshop Pro otherwise.
2nd 3d utility = Animation Shop. Comes with Paintshop pro, or can be bought seperately for around 29.00
3rd 3d utility a UV mapper. For now, I am using UVMapper it is free and the super one built into Lightwave is hard to use, but I would love to find a better one that was reasonably priced (married with kids now and no longer able to buy those student versions ).
By the time you get far enough along in this hobby to have more than a few of the things I detailed above, you will also have firm ideas on what you like and what you want to add to your 3d tool box.
I hope you found this useful and that it might help you have a little fun with 3d. Now get busy and make us some cool stuff for Civ3
Because so many people on this forum use Bryce, Poser and similar tool which support primitives and in the case of Bryce Booleans with Primitives, I will only talk about Boolean modeling in Truespace with the specific goal of creating Content for either Poser or Bryce. If you want to know more, please use Google.
The Program:
Truespace 3.2 version is available for free from:
http://www.download.com/TrueSpace/3000-6677_4-10298420.html After installing it you go to http://www.caligari.com/ and get your free serial number. In exchange for the serial number they will send you a "super colossal, never before this good, act fast" blah blah sales flyer every 2-3 weeks.
I am not a Truespace guru. I just use it now and then for modeling bits I use in 3d images or in units for Civ3.
File Format
It is important to note that Truespace 3.2 will only save objects in COB format (ok a few other useless formats too). The scene files are called SCN files and the object files (COB) can both read by both Bryce(v5 and above) and DeepExploration(v3.5 and above).
If your 3d application can not import COB or SCN files, you must do one of the following:
1. Upgrade to Truespace 4.3 (wait for a sale and you can get it for 20 bucks). Although, there is very little difference unless you are working with just Poser.
2. Get a format converter. The best low cost format converter is Deep Exploration. For students (or the parents of students k-12) the price is 29 http://www.studica.com/RightHemisphere/ or http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=753686. For non-students the price is 149.- Or, for the next few days you can get Bryce 5.0 for free. In addition to being the tool responsible for more units than any other 3d app, it is a decent format converter. It can save any format mesh it imports into any of the mesh formats it supports (including COB, OBJ, 3ds, LWO, etc). This offer end Sept 6, 2006 so act fast. http://www.daz3d.com/program/bryce/bryce5free.php?trid=446713850&trid=919467712
On to Truespace.
Note: Most of the images here can be enlarged by clicking on it. This will open a large version in a separate window. A few of the screen shots were actually smaller than the thumbnail, so for those what you see is what you get.
Please follow along carefully and closely. I show screen shots of every important step, but I only show them once. After that I expect you to be able to read along and do it on your own. If you want to download and read this tutorial
Open the app.
Along the bottom you will see a tool bar.
Right click (and hold down the mouse button) on the peach colored SQUARE near the left hand side of the tool bar.
This will bring up a list of 5 available primitives. (Torus, sphere, cone, cylinder and square)
Move your mouse cursor until it is over the circle and let go of the mouse. The default primitive shape is now the circle.
Close all the small windows which may have opened by right clicking in the upper right hand corner of these windows.
Left click on the circle to bring up "new circle settings":
Play with these settings and create and delete a few circles.
Delete all the objects you created and change latitude to 16 and longitude to 32
These will now be the default settings for this session of Truespace. You need these numbers to be high enough so the object has the right shape, but not so high as to give your PC problems due to the polygon count. If you have a lower end system, just use smaller numbers there.
Go ahead and create a circle.
Next mouse over the arrow gadget. This allows you to change the size, location, and orientation of the primitive.
Mouse over the circle gadget.
Left click and hold down the mouse button.
Change the default primitive to a torus. You can tell you succeeded here if the circle gadget on your toolbar has been replaced by a torus.
By default the "default torus settings" window should have opened. If it did not open it now by left clicking on the torus gadget. The change these settings to latitude 32, longitude 32 and inner radius of .2
Now right click on the torus gadget to create a torus.
In the object info screen,
Change the torus location to 0 0 -19
Change the torus size to 180 180 390
Click on the circle mesh. You will know you have selected it when it goes from blue to white.
The object info screen will now contain info on the circle.
Change the circle to
Location 0, 0, 180
Size 120, 120, 420
Now with the circle selected (white) go to the Boolean operations gadget. The available Boolean operations are subtraction, addition (or merge) and union.
Set it to subtraction.
Right click on the gadget (if you ever click on this by mistake, a 2nd right click deselects it).
You can tell you have made this operator active if it changes color.
Next right click on the torus.
The Boolean operation will be preformed, and the gadget will be deselected.
Your object should now look like this:
Side note:
The CTRL key has the following standard copy & paste in windows.
+c = copy
+V = paste
+c = cut, the same as copy, except the original object is deleted.
The other most common CTRL keys are:
+a = all, select all of a active window's contents
+s = save the current document to disk (works in almost all windows applications, even if the
application is having problems (such as a mild crash)
+n = create a new document
+o = open a existing document
+p = print
+q = exit
+w = close the current window
+z = undo, or go back one step
There are others, but those are the ones you are most likely to find in any application.
Make a copy of this item by having it active, and using CTRL +c and then CTRL +v
Now the object info window will contain the coordinates and size of your copy of the object.
Change the Z location to from 180 to 178.
Select the original version of the object.
Perform a Boolean operation and erase the contents and of the copy from the original.
Your object should now look like this:
Change the z position to 1 and the y position to -40, just to get them out of our way for now.
Set the default primitive to cylinder.
(Right click and hold the mouse button down on the torus and scroll up to cylinder)
Change the default Cylinder properties to:
Latitude 2, longitude 32 and top radius of 1
Create a cylinder
Set the default primitive to sphere.
Check that the properties are Latitude 16 and longitude 32.
Create a sphere.
Change the sphere to size 300 300 300
(Right on the white arrow gadget)
Change the cylinder to size 200 200 400
To do this make the cylinder active and right on the white arrow gadget
Change the Boolean operator to union (also known as Object Intersection)
Perform this operation on the cylinder and the sphere.
Your new object should look like this:
Change the settings of this (pill) item to:
Rotation 90 0 0
Size 100 100 20
Change the first (horn) item to
Location 0 195 100
Rotation 90 0 0
Now select the "pill" item again and hit ctrl+c and ctrl+v
Change the settings on the “pill” copy to
Location 0 -10 65
Rotation 0 0 0
size 20 20 100
Set the Boolean operator to merge
Merge the two pills and let’s call this the horn back
Make a copy of the horn back and change the settings to
Location 100 -10 65
Select the horn
Make a copy of it and change the settings of the copy to
Location 100 170 100
Rotation 90 0 0
Size 80 80 190
Now select the Boolean operator, make sure it is still set to merge
Use the operator to merge the two horns
And use the operator to merge the two horn backs
Do not merge the horns and the horn backs as they are likely to receive different textures, and texturing them separately will help. But, merging the two items that will receive the same texture as one item just simplifies things later.
Now select the horns and change the names to Horns,
And select the horn backs and change the names to hornbacks
Your item should now look like this:
Rendered in Bryce
Now go to the file menu and select save as and save the horns and hornbacks. They will need to be saved separately. If you decided to have them be a single color, you can merge them and save it as a single object.
These horns were used in this tugboat I built for my son.
The entire ship, and all of the little bits, detailing elements, etc were all modeled in Truespace using only Boolean modeling.
This image was rendered in Bryce
Random notes:
Save often, and in incrementing file names. Save both the indivual objects and the scene as a whole. ie: horn1.cob horn2.cob and horn1.scn and horn2.scn.
Truespace as a bug with some boolean operations. Sometimes it will just refuse to perform an operation between two objects. To work around this, try and keep your booleans at around the same detail level. Keep their longitude and latitude settings more or less the same per object. If your object requires both addition and subtraction, experiment with different sequences. Change which is the base object (for merge). Change the boolean accuracy. (right click on the boolean gadget and you can vary it from 1 to 1000, the default is 50. I typically try one extreme than the other, when there are problems) Avoid object with too few polygons. For example, a square with only 1 poly per side is more likely to give you a problem than one with 4 to 16. Avoid too high a polygon count on screen at the same time. If you have to, save off the objects and load them only as needed. Finally, try and avoid boolean operations between very complex objects, as this seems to give more problems. Instead do it as a series of simple ones.
Take small steps. Don’t begin by trying to model a 100% accurate anything. Just have a basic object in mind. Try a chair with out any negative booleans. Now one with no merge operations.
If you are modeling for Poser, you need to get a mesh format converter if you use Truespace 3.2. I suggest either get Bryce or Deep Exploration. Or, you can upgrade to Truespace 4.3. I did this upgrade for 19.95. It allows you to skip the format converter for Poser. It can and write 3ds files and read in OBJ files. This allows you to load the poser character so you can size and position the prop for easier importation and use in Poser. Plus you can write out in 3ds format which poser can import.
Truespace is a decent modeler. It is not as good as the 1500.00 – 10,000.00 modelers (Lightwave, 3d Studio Max, etc).
If you are looking for a midlevel modeler I suggest you look at Cinema4d v8.5 or 9, Carrara v5 plus Hexegon v2, Truespace 7.0. Expect to spend 500-800
If you want a high end one, look at Lightwave v8 or 9, 3d Studio Max v7 or 8, Softimage XSI or Maya. Expect to spend 1500 to 10,000.
If you are an educator or a student of any age (or sometimes just the parent of one) you can typically save 20-90% of the price. Well worth checking out.
One thing to remember, that the higher the price the more options, the greater the learning curve.
I own several modelers. I enjoy the various options each brings to the table. I have had the good luck and good timing to buy a few as a student. And a few from others who bought them as a student and then changed their mind (yay!).
There is no one best modeler, at least not that I have seen. I really like Truespace (3 & 4) for their simplicity. I really like Cinema4d for its ability to split a mesh. Although, you can achieve the same results in ANY modeler with just a few more steps. I also like C4d’s simple Boolean operations (though it is not as fast nor simple as Truespace, but the results are sometimes more accurate). I do not like Carrara because of how awkward it was to do any Boolean operations, though it is VERY popular. But, I also haven’t seen version 5.0 which is supposedly much better. But, there is a separate modeler (Hexagon) which can be used standalone or with Carrara and has gotten rave reviews.
I find Softimage, Lightwave, Maya and 3d Studio Max and Softimage to mind boggling complex. Simple operations aren’t simple. These can be mastered by anyone, as there are some real chowderheads out there using these.
I own and use the following:
*Lightwave 8.5
3d Studio Max 6.0
Carrara Pro 4.0
Cinema 4d 8.5
*Truespace v3.2 and v4.3
*Poser v5 and v6
*Bryce v5 and v5.5
*Daz Studio
*Deep Exploration v3.5
*Photoshop CS2 (and several older versions)
PaintShop Pro v9
UVMapper
Plus some bad purchases… like Microsoft’s Digital Image Suite, PhotoDraw, VistaPro, DarkBasic, TurboCAD, HomeBuilders CAD, etc…. live and learn, eh?
* = recommended.
I am most interested in getting (and will probably eventually get) Bryce 6.0, Hexagon 2.1 (and maybe Carrara v5pro), Vue6i, ZBrush. Maybe DeepUV or something similar.
I suggest:
1st modeler = Truespace 3.2
2nd modeler = Later, if you still like modeling let your wallet decide. I like Lightwave or C4d.
1st 3d app = Bryce
2nd 3d app = Poser or Daz Studio (I prefer Poser, but DS is compatible, supposedly easier and free)
1st 3d utility = DeepExploration. Simply a must have if you ever wanna have control over your downloaded content, or wish to publish your own.
1st paint program = photoshop if you can afford it, Paintshop Pro otherwise.
2nd 3d utility = Animation Shop. Comes with Paintshop pro, or can be bought seperately for around 29.00
3rd 3d utility a UV mapper. For now, I am using UVMapper it is free and the super one built into Lightwave is hard to use, but I would love to find a better one that was reasonably priced (married with kids now and no longer able to buy those student versions ).
By the time you get far enough along in this hobby to have more than a few of the things I detailed above, you will also have firm ideas on what you like and what you want to add to your 3d tool box.
I hope you found this useful and that it might help you have a little fun with 3d. Now get busy and make us some cool stuff for Civ3