Jimco Software Reviews - trueSpace 6.6 (continued)
The Interface
Have a look at figure 1. As you can see, trueSpace's interface is unlike any other application's. The two big sticks with cones on the ends are infinite lights. You can choose to not have them displayed or to have them displayed in wireframe if they distract you. In the lower-right corner is the View control. The View control lets you move and rotate your view in numerous ways. Once you get used to using it, it really does feel like a natural extension of your body.
Figure 1 - The View Control
The View control allows you to rotate your view and move the view in numerous different ways depending upon both where you click on it and which mouse button is clicked. When its operation is described, it sounds complex. In fact, it is, but it is extremely intuitive and simple to use in practice. The basic operation premise of the View control is repeated everywhere in trueSpace and is indicative of the skill of trueSpace's developers; the skills you learn in one tool are easily translated to numerous other tools. This is another fine example of trueSpace's intuitiveness on many levels.
As an example, in figure 2, you can see the Rotary control which is available for any object in trueSpace. The Rotary control works just like the View control except that it acts on the selected object instead of the active view. After you've used trueSpace for about 15 minutes, this paradigm becomes innate and you stop thinking about the tools. That's a key concept in working with trueSpace. For a 3D application to be truly productive, you absolutely must be able to remove yourself from the tools and concentrate on the objects with which you are working. trueSpace is the only 3D application I've used that has allowed me to do that.
Figure 2 - The Rotary Control
Another great feature in trueSpace 6.6 is the Magic Ring. The Magic Ring appears whenever you create a new primitive. (A primitive is an object such as a sphere, cube, cylinder, etc.) Using the Magic Ring, you can adjust many parameters of primitives. Perhaps the best way to understand the usefulness of the Magic Ring is to see if in action. I've created a simple video of the Magic Ring. Watch the mouse pointer in this video. Red rings when the mouse is clicked indicate a left click and blue rings indicate a right-click.
The Magic Ring is available only until the newly added primitive is deselected. Once you've deselected the primitive, the Magic Ring is no longer available. However, that doesn't mean that you can't manipulate the object any longer! In fact, trueSpace still allows for easy manipulation of objects via the Object Selector shown in figure 3.
Figure 3 - The Object Selector
Notice that when the mouse hovers over a portion of the Object Selector, the area turns yellow, the cursor changes to indicate the action that can be taken, and a tool tip appears telling you which mouse button performs which action. (You'll get this kind of feedback everywhere in trueSpace.) The Object Selector is available whenever an object is selected and it makes moving, resizing, and rotating an object quite easy.