With my ongoing conversion to OSX I am now in need of a new 3D solution that will enable me to develop for both Unity3D and XNA (still cannot leave the MS grip), thus my initial thoughts are of Blender.
However whilst browsing some XNA resources I discovered that the guys over at Caligari have Released trueSpace 7.6 for Free download. All you have to do is register for an account, then download the software.
trueSpace7.6 is a fully-featured 3D authoring package that will let you model, texture, light, animate and render 3D content. As well as traditional images and movies, you can also make 3D content for online shared spaces, and for Virtual Earth.
An entirely re-written X format exporter lets you save your trueSpace creations to load into game engines such as XNA to develop games for Windows or the Xbox 360.
A real-time scene with several lighting set-ups (by Marcel Barthel).
trueSpace also supports import from a wide variety of formats, letting you take existing objects and use them in Virtual Earth.
Most of you probaby already know that Caligari was snatched up by Microsoft’s Virtual Earth team (keep an eye on their blog here — good hints and tips on modeling with trueSpace as well as how to integrate with Virtual Earth).
So it all looks good eh, but there is still the OSX issue, however as both Blender and trueSpace are free why not try both.
Blender also has an FBX Export and looking at the features breakdown caters for trueSpace. With this in mind its time for a play to see which is the best option, however I have a feeling that a combinational approach will prove to be the optimum solution for my needs.
Coming from years of using max at work, i reckon my evaluation of each is going to be… er fun. I just wish discreet / autodesk kept plasma going, I loved that package.
say what do you think