Free And Open Source Software
There is an awful lot of really nice free software and utilities out there. This is a list that is compiled against a great thread on CgSociety. I pulled things that I am looking forward to try out as well as things I have been using myself. All of the links on this page are Windows compatible as that is my main work environment.
As far as general free software, check out Ninite – a fantastic installer. Gather and install them all at once. It will skip toolbars and other junk that comes with installers. It will also get you the 64 bit version if available.
Tech artists in the 3d field today are enjoying life thanks to Python, Eclipse and a host of free libraries that empowers us (see my Eclipse Python and Maya post).
Now to the lists:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Sculptris | Z-Brushy |
| An Ivy Generator | Ivy Generator |
| Arbaro Tree Generator | Tree Generator |
| ngPlant | Plant Modeler |
| Blender | The most popular open source 3d package out there… |
| Wings3d | Sub D modeler |
| LuxRender | Physically based, unbiased render engine |
| Meshmixer | Compose new 3d models from existing meshes |
| ShapeShop | Drag-and-drop 3d parts to quickly assemble seamless smooth surfaces. |
| RenderMan | Renderman is now free for non-commercial purposes |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Gimp | Like Photoshop |
| PS Shortcuts for GIMP | Make it even more like Photoshop |
| MapZone | Owned by Allegorithmic. Procedural Compositing Graph Editor for file texture building. |
| Paint.net | Image Editor |
| Sumopaint | Open Sumo Paint – upload and paint right in the browser |
| MyPaint | Paint program |
| Irfanview | Image Viewer and utility |
| Picasa | Image viewer and utility |
| Luminance HDR | Open source GUI that provides workflow for HDR imaging |
| GiftedMotion | Simple to use Gif animation |
| Incscape | Like Illustrator |
| DJV Imaging | Professional movie playback for film production, VFX and computer animation |
| VLC | Multimedia Player (It plays everything) |
| Avidemux | Free video editor for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. |
| MediaInfo | Handy utility to display technical and tag info about a video or audio file |
| MiroVideoConverter | Super simple video converter. Easily get your stuff into Android, iOS |
| Fusion | High end node based compositor. Now free... |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| UnrealEngine4 | Now free... |
| Unity | Also Free... |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Audacity | Free cross platform sound editor |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Google Docs | In the cloud documents , spreadsheets, presentations, drawings and forms |
| Open Office | Office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphis, databases and more |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| CD BurnerXP | Burns CDs, DVDs, Blue Ray’s, Create ISOs |
| FileZilla | FTP |
| HyperCam | Screen Capture & Recording |
| SyncToy | Great tool for file syncing. Can be scheduled and command line run. Don’t back off because it is MS – it is good |
| Areca Backup | Open source back up utility |
| FileRenamer | Multi file re-namer |
| Bulk Rename Utiliity | Powerful multi file re-namer with a staggering amount of options |
I will do my best to maintain this list as I come across new, interesting (and free) software.
/Christian Akesson
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Nice list, that tree generator produces great results.
Also had a question about some of the screenshots in your technical art gallery for vanguard, did you hand paint the visibility of the different terrain materials or use a noise generator to do that?
Which tree generator did you try? Arbaro or ngPlant? Feel free to post link to result if you put any online.
In Vanguard, the terrain materials were painted. Each material had a layer with a mask for the 2 x 2 km chunk. You could open the resulting mask in Photoshop and run filters on mask/material borders and such for procedural results. With the size Vanguard was it would not have been possible to hand paint all the details.