Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved. aligari's trueSpace loaded easily from the CD-ROM and consumed approximately 32 MB of hard drive space. The installation included Intel's 3D sound system, RSX 3D. It also screwed my video drivers. During the installation I was advised that the drivers for my Matrox Millennium video card were not Direct 3D compatible. The dialog box gave the driver version numbers and the version numbers I had were higher than the version numbers trueSpace wanted to use to replace mine with. So, against my better judgment, I allowed the trueSpace installation replace my existing video drivers believing that I might derive some benefit. I should have listened to my better judgment. After rebooting I discovered I could not obtain any more than 256 colors! Anyway I reinstalled my old drivers and everything appeared to be OK. trueSpace ships with 2 CD-ROMs. The first CD-ROM is where the application is. It also contains quite a lot of other stuff. There is a gallery directory where animations and still images can be found. There are 17 .avi video clips, 3 QuickTime video clips and 6 .flc clips. Each clip is accompanied by a text file that provides some information about the clip. None have sound. There are 57 .jpg files and each is accompanied by a descriptive text file. The CD also has 2 shareware games on it. There are 7 additional material libraries. There is some extension development software. There is a Yahoo 3D folder. The text file states that the various objects and textures in this directory were used to create Yahoo 3D, which is 3D representation of the huge http://www.yahoo.com web site. The CD-ROM also contains 6 prebuilt scenes and a few other odds and ends. The other CD-ROM contains a large selection of trueClips. trueClips are sample trueSpace objects created by other companies such as Acuris Inc., View Point Data Labs, Schreiber Instruments, etc. There is also a large selection of textures with documentation available. n the adjacent screen shot of the interface I have moved the icon bars to the top. The default location is at the bottom. The top choice is made via the file preferences drop down menu. The trueSpace interface does not use bubble help on any icons. Instead a text readout is available in the upper left area. If there is a keyboard short cut, that is shown to the left of the text readout. Most of the icons reveal all the choices available by clicking and holding down on the mouse button. This frequently displays a drop down list of icons. here is an extensive table of contents at the beginning of the manual followed by some questions and answers of a troubleshooting nature. Then the manual devotes a few pages to what's new with trueSpace. Next the manual begins a series of mini tutorials on trueSpace's new features. These tutorials are constructed by someone who knows how to write tutorials. They are well done. Besides that, each time a new icon is introduced there is a picture of that icon in the margin. The picture quality isn't very good but at least it is there. Clearly someone at Caligari was using their head when these tutorials were written. The first mini tutorial covers the magnetic tool. First a cube is created by clicking on the cube icon. This icon also allows the user to create a torus, sphere, cone, cylinder and plane just by keeping the mouse button depressed and moving the cursor down. After the cube is created the material library icon is clicked which launches the material library. trueSpace comes with 8 materials libraries that are installed on the hard drive. There are 7 more libraries on the CD-ROM. The amoeba material is selected. Next the paint object icon is selected and the cube is covered with the material. Then a cylinder is added. The cylinder occupies the same space as the cube. The move tool is selected and the cylinder is moved forward and to the right of cube. It is automatically covered with the same material as was used for the cube. Next the magnetic icon is clicked which launches a small cluster of 6 icons that allow the user to spin, roll, scale, snap to faces, etc. The cursor changes from a pointer to a glue bottle. The cube's face that is adjacent to the cylinder is clicked and the cylinder jumps to the cube's face. Now the cylinder may be dragged about but it will always remain touching the cube's faces. Whether it slides or rolls is dependent on the icon that is clicked in the magnetic icon panel. ext metaballs is covered. The metaballs icon is clicked which launches the metaballs edit panel. Here the user may add metaballs of various shapes then scale, rotate, resize, etc. Three metaball spheres are added. Each sphere may be dragged about and each one will try to stick the any sphere that is adjacent to it. Dragging with the left mouse button moves the object in the horizontal plane while dragging with right mouse button moves the metaball in the vertical plane. Each sphere may be sized or rotated by using the appropriate icon in the metaballs edit panel. Dragging the left mouse will cause the selected metaball to become wider or more narrow. Dragging with the right mouse will cause the selected metaball to become taller or shorter. trueSpace crashed 3 times when I did this. Each time the crash was so bad I had to hit the reset button to get things going again. I usually run Photoshop, Corel Capture, Ami Pro word processor and the arachnid game when I write reviews. At the time I suspected there was some conflict between trueSpace and another application. When I began to trouble shoot the crashing it suddenly stopped crashing at least for a while. The entire metaball assembly of 3 spheres may be moved with the regular pointer. Next the deform icon is clicked at which time a dialog box pops up and advises the user than the object is about to be changed from metaballs to polygons. The OK button is clicked and now the 3 sphere assembly may be deformed. In the adjacent image I have clicked on the front of the middle sphere. Note the 5 control points. Each one may be dragged about to achieve quite a bit deformation. ext the plastiform tool is used. This tool allows the user to sculpt an existing object with another object. First the display options dialog box is launched via the file drop down menu and the scene detail is set to wireframe. Next a cube is added then the plastiform icon is clicked. This launches the plastiform icon panel. The 2 icons on the right side of the plastiform control panel allow the user to either individually select a particular face of an object to sculpt or all the faces. In this tutorial the user is instructed to select the 2 faces closest to the user. Each face receives a purple outline when clicked. Next the sphere at the top center of the plastiform icon panel is clicked. What the user can't see at this point is that a red sphere has been placed inside the cube. Next the activate/deactivate icon at bottom center is clicked. Now the user is instructed to begin dragging with the left mouse button. The instant the mouse button is clicked the cube turns into a wireframe and the red sphere is visible. When the mouse is dragged the sphere completely disappears. I would much rather the sphere remained visible. As the sphere is dragged to the left, the side of the wireframe cube begins to bulge out. The right mouse button can be dragged to move the plastiform sculpting sphere in the upward direction. The sphere is deactivated with the activate/deactivate icon and it is then moved to the other face which places it outside the cube. The sphere may be scaled by selecting the scale icon on the plastiform icon panel then dragging the left and right mouse buttons. The manual states the tool may be activated again then plunged into the cube's face however I found I had to reselect that face with plastiform icon panel again. Anyway dragging the sphere into the cube's face will cause it to be indented. The plastiform icon panel only offers a sphere and a cylinder for plastiform operations. next   All pages copyright© Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1996, 1997, 1998 Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.