Another one bites the dust

[Bruce Lehmann]

Better git it while you can, according to Caligari;

"Dear Caligari customer,

You may have heard that Microsoft Corporation, reacting to difficult business conditions, has been evaluating many of the products it produces and making the difficult decision to reduce investment in certain areas.

It is with regret that I have to tell you that trueSpace is one of the products affected. As a consequence, you will see reduction or elimination of services offered for trueSpace. For example, there will be no phone or email support offered for trueSpace by Microsoft, and our web site may also be affected. While the dates are not absolutely fixed, some services and contacts may come to an end as early as Friday May 22nd 2009, while others will continue as long as possible with no firm cutoff date available yet.

While we are working to minimize negative impact for the community, here are some things you may want to plan for in near future:

1. For those who have purchased and paid for Caligari products, download a copy of all purchased software from the repeat downloads area.
Please log in with your username and password at:
http://cart1.caligari.com/ebuy2/enterdownloads.asp
If you have forgotten either your user name or password, please visit:
http://cart1.caligari.com/forms/memberform.asp

Ensure you keep the copies and information in a safe place, as they may not be available for download again. Be sure you also have a copy of all required serial numbers, as there will be no support staff to assist you after a certain date.

2. For those who have downloaded trueSpace7.6 since it became free, if you do not already have a copy of the installer kept on your hard drive or on CD / DVD, you may wish to download the trueSpace7.6 installer and keep a copy in a safe place.
Please log in with your username and password at:
http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx
If you have forgotten either your user name or password, please visit:
http://cart1.caligari.com/forms/tsmemberform.asp

3. Download a copy of any training that you wish to keep from our main website.

4. Download any useful plug-ins you wish to keep from the forums."

5. Download any useful information, training, tips etc from the forums that you wish to keep.

6. Contact any Caligari staff or forum users who you wish to keep in touch with, and arrange to have an alternative email address to contact them.

As a community you may decide to set up a new forum or meeting place. Please use the existing forums to announce the location of that new meeting space, and we will also strive to put that information onto our main website. I personally plan to visit any such meeting place to keep in touch with you and hear about your new plans.

All of us here in the Caligari team would like to thank everyone in our community for your long-standing support of trueSpace and Caligari. Our community that is, all of you were truly one of our best assets, and you have created incredible work, and we hope you will continue on to do even more amazing things.

I personally want to thank all of the Caligari staff for their amazing contribution to development of trueSpace and building of this community. During 25 years of trueSpace history the product made a difference in lives of many people and the world is a better place for it.

Roman Ormandy,
Caligari Founder

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

The crisis is really doing damage on all free products. Google has also canceled lots of projects.

[Peter Sommer]

I just understand that trueSpace was not as free as people were guessing.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Yes, someone has to pay the bills.

[Bruce Lehmann]

Isn't the first time and won't be the last. Remember Ray Dream Studio, Simply 3D, and in VRML Cosmo Worlds and Platinum VR Creator. All gone by the wayside or shelved by the aquiring company.

[Tito]

Wow, I was not aware Caligari was owned by Microsoft. Well, Microsoft did say a few months ago that they were laying off about 5,000 employees, maybe this Caligari thing of it being shutdown is part of it. Anyway, I already signed up and downloaded TrueSpace 7.6, the PDF manual and the video tutorials. Well lets see what happens next, maybe Adobe or somebody else will buy Caligari off Microsoft's hands before it gets shut down for good.

[Bruce Lehmann]

Tito said:

Wow, I was not aware Caligari was owned by Microsoft. Well, Microsoft did say a few months ago that they were laying off about 5,000 employees, maybe this Caligari thing of it being shutdown is part of it. Anyway, I already signed up and downloaded TrueSpace 7.6, the PDF manual and the video tutorials. Well lets see what happens next, maybe Adobe or somebody else will buy Caligari off Microsoft's hands before it gets shut down for good.

Maybe not Adobe. Remember what happened to Atmosphere?

[Larry Rosenthal]

sorry to hear.
\
but again it goes to show that the "creative design community" cannot continue to put its faith and lively hood in the hands of tech driven companies built in systems that cant allow for non technical disiplines to evolve to flourish. One day soon Adobe might be making a similar anouncement or autodesk. think about it.

Truespace made a jump into the immersive building metaphor before most, and it will be remembered for that, but it honestly came with too much baggage and although the MS buyout was good for some, and presented the "possibility" of furthering networked realtime 3d as a mass media for "others" to use creatively or for business /profit use as an "industry", it's clear that this again wont be.

Its a shame, truespace wont be hanging on for the mainstream 3d proccessors to catch up to it's usage and vision.

Well maybe folks will wake up in another 25 years.;)

[Doctor]

Bruce Lehmann said:

Isn't the first time and won't be the last. Remember Ray Dream Studio, Simply 3D, and in VRML Cosmo Worlds and Platinum VR Creator. All gone by the wayside or shelved by the aquiring company.

I think Ray Dream Studio still survives under a different name. See the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dream_Studio
http://www.daz3d.com/
http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/carrara_5?