TrueSpace4 matches "high end" 3D software feature by feature and is the only 3D authoring tool with an integrated, hybrid radiosity renderer. At the same time it blazes the trail with the next generation true 3D interface which takes full advantage of 3D acceleration.

Powerful Rendering Engine

TrueSpace4 includes a brand new photorealistic renderer based on Lightworks Pro rendering engine from Lightwork Design. Its features are truly impressive:

Hybrid Radiosity
Radiosity provides the ultimate realism in computer generated images. TrueSpace4 seamlessly integrates an advanced radiosity renderer with traditional rendering techniques such as ray tracing and phong shading.

The idea underlying the radiosity technique is to model the distribution of all light energy in an environment. This is in contrast to the ray tracing technique, where only the light entering the camera is modeled and diffuse light transport is ignored.

Radiosity is important in the quest for realism because many surfaces in an interior environment are lit by no direct illumination at all, and are visible only by light reflected diffusely from other surfaces. Also, a surface that is illuminated indirectly may appear to be a different color than it would appear to be if lit directly, since color from one surface can ‘bleed’ onto another. With radiosity, all the light in the image is taken into account, instead of just part of it.

Volumetric Rendering Volumetric shading allows you to create effects like fog or smoke in a scene with scattered light. It uses true, mathematically correct volume sampling so it can generate physically accurate and consistent results, including effective volumetric shadows.

Adaptive Anti-aliasing
In addition to oversampling, you can choose adaptive anti-aliasing which works only on the areas which require it.

Area and Projector Lights
You can create realistic soft shadows with a penumbra effect by using area lights in conjunction with radiosity. You can use projector lights to project images onto other illuminated objects.

Advanced Shaders
truespace4 materials are composed of four component shaders: color, reflectance, transparency and displacement. Additionally, there are background and foreground shaders and post processing shaders.

Examples of shaders include:

• Color: Plain, wrapped image, blue marble, chrome, simple wood, solid clouds, polka, wrapped polka
• Reflectance: Matte, metal, phong, plastic, chrome, mirror, anisotropic
• Transparency: Plain, eroded, wrapped mask, wrapped grid
• Displacement: Rough, bump map, dimple knurl, tread plate
• Background: Image, graduated, clouds
• Foreground: Depth cue, fog (including ground fog), snow, light scatter
• Post processing: Lens flares, depth of field, motion blur

Anisotropic Reflectance Shaders These shaders simulate the appearance of anisotropic reflectors (which reflect light differently according to the angle of incidence) such as brushed metal.

Layered Materials
TrueSpace4 materials can be multi-layered. You can combine the effects of two or more shaders in order to create incredibly realistic effects.

Multi-threading
The TrueSpace4 renderer now supports multiple threads on multiple processors.

True 3D Interface

TrueSpace interface elements have made it into our competitors products, and while imitation may be the "sincerest form of flattery", we decided that the time has come for Caligari to pave the way with the next generation UI.

In TrueSpace4, 3D widgets are augmenting more traditional control elements such as buttons, panels, and sliders. Thus, the interface itself becomes part of the 3D work space and is fully accelerated by 3D hardware. Using 3D widgets, you do not have to worry about coordinate spaces or X, Y and Z axes, since the widgets always position themselves in 3D space to clearly indicate their function.

3D widgets and menus make the user interface simpler, more self evident and maintain constant size regardless of screen resolution. Of course, if you prefer the existing tried-and-true 2D interface, it is still there. You can also combine 2D and 3D interface elements.

Born to Accelerate

The real-time capabilities of TrueSpace4 rival those of first class video games. The quality of the real time rendering, particularly transparency, is much higher and the speed of D3D acceleration is 3 to 5 times faster compared to TrueSpace3 on an identical 3D card.

Even if you prefer wireframe, TrueSpace4 will run several times faster with hardware acceleration. As an added benefit on cards that support it, TrueSpace4 can display anti-aliased lines.

Bones

Skeletons and deformable skin allow you to create and animate realistic characters with Caligari’s trademark ease of use. Simply make the skin transparent and adjust the skeleton, skin or the level of skin deformation in real time with direct manipulation. There is also an extensive selection of skeleton building tools, starting with the basics of simply drawing the skeleton right in the workspace.

NURBS

Most TrueSpace modeling tools now work directly on NURBS surfaces. Even better, you can simply drag the direct manipulation widget and see the NURBS surface deform in real time. You can also change the smoothness of a NURBS surface or the gravity of control points (locally and globally) with the same real time feedback.

Rapid prototyping with Scripting

Using simple Python language and a built-in editor, you can create custom animation and modeling effects. More importantly, you can create a simple interactive application or game prototype entirely inside TrueSpace4 with a minimal amount of coding -- simply by copying and editing TrueSpace objects with direct manipulation.

Scripts have access to the same internal functions as plug-ins, so you can add to TrueSpace functionality without the need to purchase a compiler and learn C.

Since scripts are shared in source code form, we hope that they will become a truly public property. We expect thousands of Caligari customers to create, share and customize the scripts to their own needs. To stimulate this development we have included scenes with scripts for Pong, Space Invaders and a simple Doom type game right on the TrueSpace4 CD. A Script has also been added to Caligari's Web site.

Advanced Selectors

Use Lasso or rectangle tool on any object and watch how the faces are selected, even while you draw with the lasso tool. Then apply the sweep, paint or UV space to your selection.

The Drawing tool allows you to draw directly on an object’s polygonal mesh. You can also copy faces and insert them on an object’s surface.

Function Curves

The ability to fine tune animation parameters via direct manipulation of splines inside the Key-Frame editor brings you the high end controls you asked for.

Per face texturing
Simply select any set of faces and apply to them a new UV space. Great for game design.

Multilevel Object Collision
In addition to box and mesh level collision, Voxel based collision provides more precise physical simulation and more intuitive real time interface.

Better 3DS and AI compatibility