Oolite Bulletins

Back in the dawn of time I used to use a 3D modelling program called Truespace 3D (I think version 4.3) which was given away with a computer mag and nicely fitted my limited needs for 3D modelling. Basically, still images of spacecraft etc. for my RPGs, such as this:



It was pretty easy to use and suited me very well. Unfortunately it turned out to be incompatible with 64-bit windows, and I had to get the later version 7.6 when I got a new PC a few years back.

7.6 was and is free, but seems to be a total bastard to learn, since it's aimed at game designers and has a ton of stuff built in for animation but a user interface that makes little or no sense to me. As a result I steered well clear of this stuff for a VERY long time, and when I recently wanted to get back into it I found that nothing I could find at the cheap/free end of the market worked well for me.

I've recently seen something suggesting that you can get Truespace 4.3 to work on 64-bit windows if you DON'T use the install program but instead extract the files into a directory some other way and simply click on the main exe program. But the only distribution version I can find these days is the install program, and so far I've drawn a blank on getting the files out. I used to have the CD somewhere but it seems to have disappeared.

Anyone know anything about this, or able to recommend a good alternative that really is SIMPLE to use?

have you tried Wings3D ?
i used it to make a space 1999 eagle transporter. I have no artistic talent but the program seemed easy to pick up and a few of the model makers here used it .

'''Wings3D''' was probably the most popular programme for creating the early models. In recent years Gsagostinho moved to it from '''Blender''' in 2017. On the other hand, Killer Wolf moved in the opposite direction.

Personally speaking, I'd go for whichever has exponents likely to help on this BB.

Our most involved chaps currently seem to be Montana05, Redspear & cbr (cbr: more texturing than modelling). Griff, Killer Wolf, Tsoj, Spara, UKEliter etc. are less frequent. And dear old Murgh is again being chased around the 9th by the Witchspace Lobster and his gross prophets.

Very evocative screen shot, by the way.

I'll give Wings a try first - I think I tried Blender at one time and couldn't get into it. Thanks!

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:36 pm

And dear old Murgh is again being chased around the 9th by the Witchspace Lobster and his gross prophets.

Nah, he's just resting... pining for the fjords!

Cody wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 3:12 pm

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:36 pm

And dear old Murgh is again being chased around the 9th by the Witchspace Lobster and his gross prophets.

Nah, he's just resting... pining for the fjords!

He can't be pining for them - he's jolly well knee-deep in them!

By the way, people had been saying that Blender was much improved from what it had previously been - more intuitive, that sort of thing. Spud's ecstatic experience with Wings 3D seems to have been back in 2014-15, and much may have changed since then...

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 3:48 pm

and much may have changed since then...

and maybe not, blender is also more like a suite software, also many tutorials but itself non intuitive for me.

That's a cool bit of artwork ffutures
I hope this helps, I found an installer for Truespace 4.3 (tSetup43web.exe) in a post here : https://united3dartists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6271
it seems it's a full version given away on the cover CD of 3DWorld magazine back in the day, what's interesting was that this setup exe installed and ran fine on my pc without having to do any direct clicking on the exe files (I'm on Windows 10 21H2 build 19044.2251 64-bit), but i then used a program called universal extractor 2 (https://github.com/Bioruebe/UniExtract2#download) to extract the files from the setup exe, i've put the original setup and the extracted files from it up on my google drive if they're any use

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BKaEu0 ... share_link

When trying to start the program direct from the exe without installing it using the setup I could only get the TS4D3D.exe version to run (and it complained about a missing dll file which i solved by finding it in the {win} folder in the extracted files folder and copying it from there to the same folder as TS4D3D.exe), fingers crossed it works the same on your pc

I must admit I'd forgotten I'd posted this thread - despite having tried about five different 3D programs for some of the art in the Carnacki books and ending up doing them with Corel Draw instead!

I've now had a go with the new blender and it seems a lot better than the old one, but still not as user friendly as Truespace 4.3, so I was VERY pleased to notice this tonight - just downloaded the files and hopefully will be able to pick it up reasonably fast again if nothing goes too horribly wrong.

later - OK, no problems installing, and bits are coming back to me as I play with it so hopefully the learning curve won't be too bad.

MANY thanks!!!

OK - there turn out to be some bits that aren't working properly, fortunately I can work around them by e.g. putting in an object to be the background since I can't seem to set it for rendering, but the old skills are coming back to me. I've started out by duplicating one of the illos from the first Forgotten Futures back in 1993, an airship for Kipling's ABC stories which was created using a fairly primitive Windows 3.1 3D modelling program called Zing 3D then converted to monochrome since I was desperately short of space on the distribution media I was using, 720K floppies...

The original:



The remake



That took me about eight hours, mostly learning to use the software again, hopefully I'll be able to work a lot faster when I start to use it in earnest.

Update Sunday - made a few small changes to fit better with information in the story. Most notably, lots more airscrews...

ffutures wrote: ↑Sat Dec 31, 2022 10:17 pm

I really like the classic scifi feel and look of the spaceships, especially the one in the first post...

8 hours for a 'complete' product, seems ok to me

These are actually airships, not spaceships, from Kipling's With the Night Mail and As Easy As A.B.C.

PDF of the actual stories here:
https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff1/nm-abc.pdf

I've redone this illo with broader lettering similar to the black and white version, which makes more sense if it's supposed to be seen from a distance.

Not too sure if you are using Blender or not.

If you are, this might prove useful: viewtopic.php?p=255223#p255223 (JackieBean on the joys of Blender - 2017)

I like the look of Blender but it's a huge learning curve and right now I'm not up to ascending it.