TrueSpace 1.0 by the Caligari Corporation allows you to model, render and animate 3D graphics under Windows 3.1 and Windows 9x.

The full, commercial version of Caligari trueSpace 1.0 is being distributed by the UK computer magazine PC Plus. PC Plus is a monthly magazine that comes with two CDs containing full, commercial software, some of this software, including trueSpace 1.0, is available for download on their website.

PC Plus is the exclusive distributor of trueSpace 1.0, therefore you must visit their website to download the program and get the codes necessary to "register" it. Click here to go directly to their trueSpace 1.0 webpage where you will find the original, commercial trueSpace 1.0 software package. The fully functional program is very powerful, fairly easy to use program and it's FREE. Well worth the download!

Loads/Imports:                Saves/Exports:

.OBJ - Wavefront               .COB - Caligari Object

 .COB - Caligari Object         .ASC - 3D Studio ASCII

  .3DS - 3D Studio Binary        .DXF - Autocad

   .ASC - 3D Studio ASCII

    .DXF - Autocad

     .LWB - Lightwave

      .GEO - Videoscape

       .IOB - Imagine

        .SOB - Caligari Amiga

Important usage note: TrueSpace 1.0 can experience problems running in a 32 bit Windows environment but these problems can be dealt with if you know what to expect and understand how to get around them before they occur. I think the superb functionality of the program makes these problems worth dealing with.

The primary problem is that the trueSpace window tends to make itself "always on top" of other windows. Under certain unpredictable conditions this tendancy causes the main trueSpace window to stay on top of it's own FILE OPEN and SAVE dialog boxes! So if you select one of these options from the file menu the dialog box will remain hidden behind the trueSpace window, and when this happens the main trueSpace window becomes 'locked' and unusable. If you don't know what is happening you will be likely to think the program has locked up on you, forcing you to give it the old three fingered salute (CTRL-ALT-DELETE) to close it. When this kind of thing happens you must immediately hit ESC to cancel the dialog box, or even press "N" to say no to a prompt.

What you must do to avoid this problem is to put trueSpace in window form and then resize that window to take up a small portion of your screen before choosing an option from the FILE menu. This will allow you to see the dialog boxes and respond to them appropriately. Knowing this "hidden window" thing is happening can save you a lot of frustration, just remember to hit ESC if the program stops responding. I must add that it's entirely possible you will not experience this problem at all.

Additional note for MTM editors:

The native trueSpace .COB format is low vertex/face format that is very good basis for MTM bin models, other common 3D modeling programs can often create four or more face sections per single square face, effectively quadrupling the complexity of a model. For the best results save your models as .COB then use "3D Exploration" to convert the.COB to an .OBJ, then import the .OBJ into BINedit.

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