Truespace 7.6 free of charge

Yeah that´s right and a bit crazy, truespace, formerly a 599us$ app is from now on available free of charge.

It all comes down to Microsoft acquiring Caligari, the true space developers some time ago, and Microsoft are now doing a Google thingy and simply releasing the app for free, trying to boost their Live earth service just like google did with sketchup and their earth app.

So let´s see, that means you have seriously capable free apps like Sketchup, Caligari, Daz Studio and gimp and Houdini 9.5 HD available for 99us$, has it ever been so affordable getting your hands on so many and capable tools.

Great times for newcomers of course.

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Virtual earth on the true space for free deal

Blender 2.46

New features 2.46

What a nice improvement over previous Blender versions and in all honesty, Blender is now seriously on the verge of rendering quite a few commercial packages obsolete and in fact, Blender is one app which i would love to see vue7 Extreme and Infinite support out of the box.

sketchup.free for all

Well it´s been out for a very long time now, but it´s still worth mentioning since it´s such an excellent application and of course completely free of charge.

The reason i havent touched upon it yet is simply that im one of the pro users so i never had a reason to check out the free version, but i ended up installing it for fun on our new laptop, if for nothing else to finaly check it out since i dont expect to do much real 3d work on this laptop, the intent behind the purchase was after all browsing,email,writing doc´s and mobility for my gf, not to mention a kids free home rig, not getting one more work and or gaming computer in the household :).

Anyway, sketchup is an excellent application, it´s easy to use and very intuitive.
It´s getting used more and more in higher end educations and studios which means it´s worth spending time getting familiar with and it simply put makes it fun and efficient doing houses.

Another reason to mention it is of course that it works real good with vue, and regardless of you comming from the architechture side of things or the landscape part, getting both apps is a smart move and they fit right in with each other.

The one thing to be aware of is the slightly steeper requirements if you´re using vista, might make it a non option to use sketchup on your laptop, it´s a non issue for desktops tho in my humble opinion.

Official website

and the

Official blogg

poserpro. when the world turns

It sometimes brings with it unexpected changes, and this is one of those.
Poser with it´s akward and unfriendly userinterface wasnt the app i thought would get a pro treatment, not that it isnt used in alot of commercial studios, it is.

But e.frontier has realy been lagging behind last few years and has been struggling with an ever growing bigger and older and slower software, but now that daz studio 1.7 is out(a lightweight app for hobbyists, but alot smoother and pro looking tho) e.frontier unleashed the poser pro version.

Great stuff and i love seeing more and more apps supporting collada, just wished that vue would do it to, just imagine how much smoother workflow would be.

Anyway, as for poser, it´s a great addition, im not found of poser myself but it´s usefull, and i hope that the pro version get´s a serious gui,workflow overhaul aswell now that it dips it toes into the pro taged app land.

poser pro website

siggraph07. and e.on

Hot on the heels of the siggraph vue 6.5 unveiling e.on decided to release the public 6.5 build, it´s what´s called an interim update and it´s free of charge for every vue6 user.

The v6i, 6.5 release gives us even better and more natural looking atmospheres to play with, or atleast it give´s us even better tools to play with, creating our own atmospheres, so no guaranteed results as with anything creative :) heck, the create art button is still not there, but anyway, this is a realy nice update and it also fixes some issues that´s been around in previous v6 updates.

But the main thing is the improvements made to the atmosphere editor and how lights affects cloudlayers.

doing a small qoute.

New features in 6.5:

- Create skies with as many overlapping spectral cloud layers as you like for complex and unbelievably realistic cloudscapes!
- Revolutionary new cloud lighting technology that lets local lights affect spectral atmospheres and clouds!
- Create true-to-life thunder storms, search lights or illuminated fly through clouds.
- Render spectral atmosphere animations significantly faster thanks to the optimized spectral atmosphere anti-flickering technology!

Download the v6i, 6.5 update here

gaming.rage by id

First trailer looked like a motorstorm rip off but the second trailer that just got released looks damn sweet and i have to say that rage might put id back at the driver seat as far as gamers are concerned and not just as a powerhouse when it comes to 3d engines.

vue. at siggraph, 6.5 in the works

i usualy dont post vue related news that isnt publicly available, but this is already spreading so vue 6.5 will be showcased on siggraph and will feature even more and better atmosphere features, the interim .5 upgrade is free of charge for all v6i users.

rage and quake zero, id quakecon speech

Quake zero is virtualy QIII for free and with the new tech 5 engine, so big thumbs up, could prove to be a major dm,tdm,ctf game.

rage is id´s new IP and is still a fps game but alot more open and it will feature open landscapes and tons of driving aswell, think mad max meets motorstorm to make out with unreal tournament and quake in a foursome :)

Some highlights

- tech5 wont make use of dx10 atleast not yet, since according to carmach, we´re not even close to maxing out dx9.

- rage will hit pc, ps3 and xbox 360

- rage will make use of blu-ray and dvd, but unless costs is transparent it wont be released on hd.dvd.

- rage will have co.op

- tech5 games will have it´s own physics engine and not make use of havoc, which carmack never wonted to do with quake4 since he thinks using havoc is a bad idea.

- id prefers the open platform of ps3 compared to xbox´s closed down philosophy but finds the ps3 more challenging, but believes that in the end, the ps3 tech 5 engine will be even better.

media creation. ozone 3.0 ple edition

ozone 3.0 ple is on it´s way and it will feature the hyper real atmosphere´s from v6i straight inside max,maya,lightwave,c4d and xsi.

Ozone 3.0 will feature all the atmoshpere technologies that e.on supplies to the world with it´s industry leading v6infinite and Xstream apps, inlcuding spectral atmospheres.

vue. ple and general stuff

Decided to post about the vue6.ple edition, a completely free of charge version, featuring the latest incarnation of vue, so for anyone into 3d, scenery, landscape creation, art and movies and mattepainting, just go ahead and download vue6 ple, it´s not a time limited or feature nerfed demo, it´s a fully functioning personal learning edition and as is common when it comes to ple´s it´s free of charge.

Vue is as of today used not just for arch viz projects and by artists and landscape designers it´s used in mainstream movie´s and a common piece in ilm´s pipeline, web and ad firms make good use of it aswell because it´s simple to get into but with plenty of depth and tons of quality features.

Another reason im doing a post about it now is that the v6 ple edition now supports xsi aswell.

vue6 ple