Truespace 3D Modeling Tutorials

The process invloves rendering an existing animation as a FLC or AVI animation file out of Truespace and loading the file into a paint program like GIMP 2 and saving it as a GIF animation or another application called AVI to GIF and converting the AVI to a GIF animation. Either method will produce a usable animated GIF file. The AVI to GIF method looks far cleaner then the FLC method.

I attached a zip file for the AVI to GIF converter. Unzip and run the program to load any AVI movie to create an animated GIF. I suggest you set the Truespace render animation to AVI file rather small say 100x100 if you plan to use the GIF as a forum avatar as most sites set a rather small size limit.

The way it works is fairly simple. Make the model and keyframe it how ever you like in Truespace. Playback the animation and readjust it until you're happy with how it looks in motion. Then select the render to file icon and select the size you want to render mine was 128x75 and name the file and choose the FLC file format and in the Animation box select Modeler and select Render. TS, will render the animation to the FLC file. Now open up GIMP 2 and open the FLC file. Then to export it as an Animated GIF file select the save as option and select the GIF format option. Gimp, will pop up another options box where animation can be selected and hit Export. GIMP, then converts and exports the animation to an animated GIF file. GIMP 2, will load both animated FLC and GIF animations as well.

The centipede model I used was a stock TS model that was already animated, but you can create your own models in TS and animate them to do the samething yourself. Have fun! BNG.

Reference: The FLC format was originally developed by Autodesk and is a compressed RLE format. Truespace, supports two types of animation rendering the other format is various versions of the Microsoft AVI format use primarily for rendering models out of Truespace. The AVI method is a render option in Truespace 6.6 under the TS 7.6x software installation.

The AVI method is prefered as you can choose the compression method to reduce the over all file size.