Reprinted from a Caligari press release:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire/ — Caligari Corporation a pioneer provider of 3D multimedia authoring technologies, today announced trueSpace6, a powerful new version of its award-winning 3D modeling and animation program. In trueSpace6 Caligari adds more than two dozen significant new features for more powerful modeling and design, as well as increased functionality for game developers, professional engineers and designers, and trueSpace users interested in web-based collaboration and community building.
“trueSpace appeals to a wide variety of users because its novel direct manipulation user interface is powerful and intuitive, its price tag is affordable, and its features are comprehensive — offering a complete solution for 3D modeling, rendering and animation,” said Roman Ormandy, president of Caligari. “With trueSpace6, we listened to our users and expanded an already exceptional level of modeling and design functionality, including new support for layers, a series of tools for arrays, a UV editor for advanced texture editing, and a comprehensive scene editor with soundtracks.
“Over the past six months Caligari has also introduced four trueSpace companion ‘Paks’ with more than 60 third-party plug-ins, libraries, and standalone applications for animation, special effects, professional design, and sophisticated presentation of trueSpace creations. We pay close attention to our customer feedback, and we’re committed to providing everything that’s necessary, so all trueSpace users have the power they need to create top-notch 3D content for web-based communication.”
New trueSpace6 Features – Modeling and Editing:
— Layers – Full color-coded layers make creating complex models
easier. Users can hide, lock, merge, name, color and copy layers or
manage them by painting layers in the Scene Editor.
— Scene Editor – By combining six trueSpace editors (objects,
hierarchies, key-frames, function curves, layers and audio) into the
new Scene Editor, users now have faster access and multiple methods
of viewing and organizing the structure of scenes and objects.
— Unwrapper and UV Editor – Direct manipulation of object faces with
the UV Editor allows for precise texture placement. Improved 3D
paint allows users to paint color, transparency and displacement
directly on the texture in the editor.
— NURBS Modeling Enhancements – Trim curve extrusion, capping and
curve projection further increase the power of NURBS modeling. Users
can create or maintain a closed structure at any time, and they have
visual feedback of projected curves before they are applied.
— Chamfers and Fillets – Creating complicated rounded and beveled
edges can now be done in minutes. This new feature includes support
for three edge mixed blends and real time feedback of settings, plus
the power to rapidly select entire chains of edges.
— Array Tools – Direct manipulation based Radial, Spline and Grid
array tools are great for creating rows of Roman columns, arches,
modern architectural designs, spiral staircases and countless other
structures comprised of repetitive objects.
— Deformation Tools – Powerful Bend, Taper and Skew tools allow users
to work precisely on entire hierarchical objects.
— Additional modeling features in trueSpace6 include: expanded object
and vertex snapping for NURBS and polyhedra, shelling for polygons,
and real time mirrored modeling for polygons — even in surface
subdivided modes.
Other New Features in trueSpace6:
— Facial Animator 1.2 includes a library of heads and allows for easy
creation of texture mapped customized talking heads.
— Texture Baking allows users to create real time photo realistic
walkthroughs.
— A new Physics Module provides more accurate simulation, greater
speed, more sophisticated interaction with animated objects, and
better detection of concave surfaces.
— Icon Helper allows new users to quickly find tools, assign hotkeys
and learning tool functions. A full list of icons can be viewed by
name under a variety of categories.
— LightWorks 6.6 rendering engine provides support for objects as
lights and textured area lights.
— Improved X format provides better texture UV support, and improved
DXF (r12) format, so layers are recognized with color and name and
duplicated in the trueSpace scene.
System Requirements
trueSpace6 requires a Pentium II CPU (Pentium III recommended), Windows 95/98/2000/NT, 64MB RAM, and 50MB of free hard disk space. For optimum performance, 128MB RAM and 3D accelerator are recommended.
Pricing and Availability
trueSpace6 will be available in July 2002 for $595. Upgrade prices start at $129. Users can also purchase aniPak, fxPak, dePak, or rayPak for $199 each, all of which will run under trueSpace6. Contact Caligari by telephone at 800-351-7620 or 650-390-9600, or visit the Caligari Corporation website at http://www.caligari.com/
