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Shaper 0.99 Released (Available for Purchase)

Name:	Alexander Luddy
Date Posted:	Aug 18, 2006
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Blog post

I recently released the 0.99 version of Shaper. It is available here.

Also I have finally organised the payment system so Shaper is available for purchase. The price at this point is a special early adopter price of 25 USD. The price will increase in the future.

Unfortunately organisation of the payment system has sucked up a lot of time in addition to other commitments. I have had not as much time as I would have liked to devote to Shaper. On the plus side I am planning to take a week off from everything in a couple of weeks. During that week I plan to crunch hard on Shaper. I am very much looking forward to it. Here are a few things on my list.

- Organise professionally made icons.
- Finalise support for the .X file format.
- Have individual view windows be resizable.
- Add smoothing group support.

For those interested I am using Software Passport for key encryption and Share It for actual payment processing and key delivery. So far I have no complaints. Software Passport does not integrate off the shelf with Share It meaning an actual key generator needs to be made. This task is pretty painless as the Software Passport API is sensible and well documented.

For those not familiar with Shaper.

What is Shaper?

Shaper is a 3D modelling, texturing and animation package developed by Inverse Software. It includes support for the Torque engine.

Shaper is presently in the beta phase of development. The latest version can be downloaded from here.

More information on Shaper can be found here.

What has changed since the last blog post?

0.98 - 9.99

New Features

- added reset view tool
- added frame selection tool
- added frame all tool
- added functionality to support registration

Feature Changes

- render type menu options are dynamically disabled and enabled dependent on validity

0.97 - 0.98

Bugs

- fixed region calculation code (affects unwrap and extrude tools)
- fixed crash when exporting a mesh without a material to MilkShape 3D ASCI
- fixed rare incorrect bone rotation when exporting to MilkShape 3D ASCI
- fixed cancelling save dialog causing a garbage file to be saved
- fixed view focus being triggered after export
- fixed crash on bone deletion
- fixed keyboard shortcuts such as undo and redo not working on texture coordinate editor

New Features

- user is given option to save when exiting or reseting with unsaved changes

Feature Changes

- title bar shows if file needs to be saved

Recent Blog Posts

List:	07/16/08 - Shaper Mac 11/26/07 - Shaper 06/23/07 - Shaper 1.05 01/01/07 - Shaper 1.03 11/01/06 - Shaper 1.01 09/28/06 - Shaper 1.00 08/18/06 - Shaper 0.99 Released (Available for Purchase) 06/20/06 - Shaper Version 0.97

Submit your own resources!

Aaron Ellis (Aug 18, 2006 at 11:38 GMT)

Alexander,

This is great news. I just placed my order. Shaper has always been a valuable tool. Thank you for making such an excellent product.

Fucifer (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:15 GMT)

I not sure if this has been ask but will shaper support dif in the future.

Jonathon Stevens (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:16 GMT)

So Shaper is a 3rd party tool that does the same stuff Constructor does?

Fucifer (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:28 GMT)

I would say no, Shaper is a 3d modeling software and Constructor is map builder. I am just hoping you can build maps in Shaper and convert them.

Jonathon Stevens (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:29 GMT)

Constructor is a map builder? I thought constructor was a modeling program for building interiors?

Fucifer (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:43 GMT)

I could be wrong but everything I have read on it, say it is a map builder for Torque. You will be able to place dts file with in your map to be export out with the map itself. Building are interiors and interiors are maps. Most software call them map. Torque game engine refer to them as interiors. Dif is the format that Torque support for the map. I hope this will help you. To me you can never have to much information.
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=962

Have one question for Alexander Luddy? Once we buy the Shaper will the 30 day still be there.

Jonathon Stevens (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:57 GMT)

@Michael - Interiors are things you PLACE in your world such as buildings and trees and such. A map is generally referring to the terrain and world itself, which you still would use your world builder to create/modify.

Jason Granum (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:58 GMT)

Are there ever any plans for a OS X release?

Sean H. (Aug 18, 2006 at 16:15 GMT)

shaper sounds like a very useful tool. shapers good because it can import, export, and modify dts models. showtool can only import dts for inspection and other modeling tools can only export to dts. shapers the only modeling tool ive heard of that can import dts files and textures.

Ed Averill (Aug 18, 2006 at 16:51 GMT)

I've been playing with Shaper for a while and like it better than other options that are in my price range, so.. sold! :-)

Now if only Constructor would ship, I'd be a totally happy camper... ;-p

Alexander Luddy (Aug 18, 2006 at 23:21 GMT)

Thanks for the kind words.

There are no plans to support the dif file format. Shaper is intended to be used to build characters and in game objects - not entire maps.

@Jason - Yes. Shaper has been built using Qt which is cross platform. Expect to see a Mac version within 6 months.

Alexander Luddy (Aug 18, 2006 at 23:37 GMT)

For those that have purchased Shaper I noticed that there is a missing DLL preventing the installation of a registration key. This has now been fixed. Please download Shaper version 0.99 again. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Edited on Aug 19, 2006 01:39 GMT

Ramen-sama (Sep 14, 2006 at 23:23 GMT)

Hmmmm it seems like theres a problem with how it exports ascii text files.
I loaded up the default player.dts that comes with torque.... export it as a txt, then import that same file.

The skeleton gets all messed up.
Seems like the right leg is going thru his head, and i can't tell what's up with his arms...

Can you confirm this works for you?

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