This is true. if the UI for Blender were intuitive, then I would drop 2 of the 3 other products I have like a hot potato. But, I just cannot wrap my mind around it like the people who have had it since the beginning.

And that's why I'm still using Blender

Hi. I know the title seems a little provocative.

trueSpace 7.51 is a wonderful, absolute amazing and a great tool.
So why do I use Blender then, though I have licensed trueSpace 7.51.

The reason is simple enough.

I can't export my work to something usable by either GameStudio A7
or Torque Advance which are among the most used game engines
for the indie game market.

Why are the game exporters removed? There used to be exporters
for both GameStudio and Torque. Using the old ones (tsx) in the model
does not work either... Why.. Because they are old and don't support
the formats (mdl is now mdl7 in gamestudio as an example)

I was around in early testing of ts7.0 and pointed out the need for
game exporters and they existed (at least GameStudio) during the
Beta. After have being away from trueSpace since, I updated to
latest ts7.51e and was very surprised to see that ts7.5 is still an
closed tool width lack of exporters.

It does not help me or anyone interested in game production that
trueSpace is a great tool when its not possible to export the work.

A good FBX exporter would solve the problem for most game engines,
but as you all know there is no such thing either.

Ok. I can export objects as OBJ or 3DS files and used other software to
get things together although that's a tedious work which also often
leads to errors because local differences in same file formats (even though
they should be the same, it seems that 3DS and others have dialects
that won't work together). OBJ seems to be the only reliable format.

But the worst thing of all ... trueSpace skeletons and animation tools
are soooo great, especially together with Mr Bones wonderful skeleton.
All this and there is no possibility to export any rigs or animations
( ... at least ...could we get a fbx exporter ).

So here I am.. building armatures and animations in Blender (which has
fbx, mdl7 and torque exporters) and the trueSpace desktop icon has since
long been move to 'unused desktop shortcuts' by Windows.

Is that not a shame?

I own one of the greatest tools and can't use it because my work
is not possible to get out of the system.

My hope is that anyone now gives a reply telling me that I am
a real looser which just don't know how to get the animated figures
from trueSpace to GameStudio A7 (which I'm currently using). That
would just be great to hear and I would not be offended at all

Please tell me that a 600$ tool can do what the free Blender can.

Cheers
Roland

(which still has hope .. )

Hi again

Tested your suggestions

Blender
Collada import
OBJ import
BHV import
GameStudio MDL7 export
FBX export
+ Exports both MDL7 and FBX
- Have to do the skinning here
- Collada importer don't accept tS dae files

Note:
So far the best and cheapest solution

fragMotion
OBJ import
BHV import
GameStudio MDL7 exp
ort

+ Exports MDL7
- Have to do the skinning here

Note:
This works but is no better than using Blender
which is free.


Ultimate Unwrapper
Collada Import
GameStudio A7 export
FBX export
- Collada importer don't accept tS dae files

Note:
The Ultimate Unwrapper would have been great
as it would need no extra work. But as the collada
import fails this fails.


Thank's for your effort to help
and hopefully Caligari someday will give us fbx export or
a Collada export (includng animations) that will
be accepted by third party tools as Ultimate Unwrapper.


Cheers
Roland

If you need to create cut scenes and cover art blender is your best choice.