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Boolean Operations Some two dimensional drawing and illustration tools allow the
user to combine two objects so that they create a third, more complex, object. Polygons can be intersected, trimmed and welded together with squares or other two dimensional shapes to form new objects. TrueSpace does
this as well, but it takes this one step further, or shall we say one dimension further. It allows for a similar combination of objects in three dimensions. The operations that can be performed on two objects in
TrueSpace are union, intersection and subtraction. The union of two objects is similar to grouping the objects, except that the result is one new object with no area of overlap. The intersection of two objects results
in an object that represents the area of overlap between the two objects with the excess removed. Subtraction, on the other hand, is what remains after you remove the area where the two objects had overlapped.These
operations allow for the creation of objects that otherwise would be impossible or take a long time to model using other modeling tools. For example, a cube and a sphere can be combined so that the sphere is inside the
cube. A subtraction operation on the cube by the sphere results in a cube with a hollow spherical center. How would this new object be modeled in other 3D modeling tools which lack Boolean operations? There are,
however, some limitations to the Boolean operations. Once in awhile when an operation is being performed on two objects, TrueSpace will complain and say that it is not possible for the operation to occur. There are
parameters which can be modified which help to execute the operation, but more information on what ought to be done in order to facilitate the operation would have been a useful feature. Scene Building While TrueSpace is a powerful tool for modeling objects which can be exported to
other 3D systems it is also capable of creating complex 3D scenes.  These scenes can be rendered using a number of rendering
methods, including ray tracing, which results in extremely realistic looking images. The ray tracing is surprisingly fast, but its speed depends on the complexity of the scene and on the
desired quality of the final image.An integral part to scene creation is lighting. The lighting of the scene is accomplished through the addition of
local, distant or spot lights. Each light can have different properties such as brightness, color, intensity, and falloff. A light is manipulated just like
any other object in TrueSpace. Moreover, the lighting is true to reality. In some modeling packages if you shine a spot light through a semi-transparent object all that you see is the semi-transparent object.
In TrueSpace you see the object and the path of the light through the object. Another example of this realism in lighting is seen when a light is projected through a transparent object which has a mapped image on
its surface: the light acts as a projector for the image. Positioning of objects to create a scene is accomplished through a series of views. When working in a 2D view (top, left, or front) the
positioning of the object is constrained to the 2 axes represented in the view. While working in the perspective view, an object's movement can also be easily constrained to a plane. This allows for quick positioning
of objects. Unfortunately, alignment of objects is somewhat limited. TrueSpace lacks a fundamental set of tools (or techniques) for quick and accurate alignment of objects. Objects can be visually aligned or
they can be aligned by entering absolute X,Y and Z positions, but this technique is cumbersome, inexact and does not permit the alignment of multiple objects on their bounding boxes, centers, by offsets and so on.
But all is not lost, as apparently this limitation is overcome in release 3.0 with an added tool called the Sticky Tool that facilitates accurate collision detection between objects.
Another limitation in scene creation is the inability to make objects invisible. When working with a complex scene, it is beneficial to be able to make an object invisible so that other objects can be manipulated
with greater ease through an unobstructed view. There are techniques that can be used to facilitate this, but they require moving the object away from the scene and then moving it back. |
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