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Abstract: This thread will be an overview of currently available free (as in freedom) technologies useful for creators.
Free software
Many creators I had the pleasure to meet in Civ community use commercial software to design their units/leaders heads/etc. Not only it is financially unsustainable; proprietary commercial software imposes severe restrictions on your basic freedoms ("locking in" with a single vendor) and gives you little value (e.g. quality) for your money.
Of course, you can use evaluation versions of proprietary software, e.g. Paintshop Pro, Rhino 3D, but this is only a temporary "workaround" - after all, your evaluation period will run out after 30 days, or even worse - 30 file saves.
What is free software? It is either software that doesn't cost you money (freeware), or unrestricted software giving you the freedom to use it, and modify it to your liking - I will concentrate on the latter.
Very often, free software is of much higher quality than their proprietary counterparts. Thousands of enthusiasts (including programmers, artists, writers, etc.) work very hard to bring you the best they can do.
Let's start with 3D software:
Rendering/Raytracing
POV-RAY - a state of the art, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux.
Raydiance - highly accurate ray-tracing software system for UNIX computers that is licensed at no cost to users for non-commercial use.
Rayshade - an extensible system for creating ray-traced images
AniTMT - a flexible application to create photorealistic films
jawRay - a portable raytracer written in C++. Images are generated by following rays of light recursively through the scene, calculating shades and lighting contributions and recording the final color. Raytracing produces very realistic images for scenes that contain few diffuse but many reflective objects.
DragonRay
Lightflow
Synpic
Tachyon
Modeling/Rendering
Blender - professional quality modeler and renderer with easy to use interface.
Modeling
3dom - 3D Solid Object Modeler, designed to be independant of the renderer back-end. Highlights include constructive solid modeling, reality-based material representation, a flexible plugin system, scripting through Python bindings and a constraint solving engine. In other words, you can make it work for you by writing simple automation scripts.
Art Of Illusion - Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. Many of its capabilities rival those found in commercial programs. Some of the highlights include subdivision surface based modelling tools, skeleton based animation, and a graphical language for designing procedural textures and materials.
Extreme Wave - an ambitious project to create a feature rich, extensible 3D modeling environment
FAMP - The Free Animation and Modeling Project for short, is a project to create a full featured 3-Dimensional Modeling and Animation System.
Giram - a Persistance Of Vision (POV-Ray) oriented modeller.
gSculpt is an Opensource 3D modelling application. gSculpt is planned to have features for drawing polylines, using translational sweep (extrude) and rotational sweep (lathe/spin) to construct meshes from polylines, and transforming/deforming polylines and models.
Innovation3D is an Open Source, 3-dimensional modeling program developed for Linux. The goal of Innovation3D ( I3D ) is to provide a modeling tool that allows an artist to utilize a variety of techniques. Polygonal modeling is currently the focus, but there is some preliminary support for NURBS curves and surfaces, as well as basic animation.
There's much more! Watch this space for updates.
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Free software
Many creators I had the pleasure to meet in Civ community use commercial software to design their units/leaders heads/etc. Not only it is financially unsustainable; proprietary commercial software imposes severe restrictions on your basic freedoms ("locking in" with a single vendor) and gives you little value (e.g. quality) for your money.
Of course, you can use evaluation versions of proprietary software, e.g. Paintshop Pro, Rhino 3D, but this is only a temporary "workaround" - after all, your evaluation period will run out after 30 days, or even worse - 30 file saves.
What is free software? It is either software that doesn't cost you money (freeware), or unrestricted software giving you the freedom to use it, and modify it to your liking - I will concentrate on the latter.
Very often, free software is of much higher quality than their proprietary counterparts. Thousands of enthusiasts (including programmers, artists, writers, etc.) work very hard to bring you the best they can do.
Let's start with 3D software:
Rendering/Raytracing
POV-RAY - a state of the art, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux.
Raydiance - highly accurate ray-tracing software system for UNIX computers that is licensed at no cost to users for non-commercial use.
Rayshade - an extensible system for creating ray-traced images
AniTMT - a flexible application to create photorealistic films
jawRay - a portable raytracer written in C++. Images are generated by following rays of light recursively through the scene, calculating shades and lighting contributions and recording the final color. Raytracing produces very realistic images for scenes that contain few diffuse but many reflective objects.
DragonRay
Lightflow
Synpic
Tachyon
Modeling/Rendering
Blender - professional quality modeler and renderer with easy to use interface.
Modeling
3dom - 3D Solid Object Modeler, designed to be independant of the renderer back-end. Highlights include constructive solid modeling, reality-based material representation, a flexible plugin system, scripting through Python bindings and a constraint solving engine. In other words, you can make it work for you by writing simple automation scripts.
Art Of Illusion - Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. Many of its capabilities rival those found in commercial programs. Some of the highlights include subdivision surface based modelling tools, skeleton based animation, and a graphical language for designing procedural textures and materials.
Extreme Wave - an ambitious project to create a feature rich, extensible 3D modeling environment
FAMP - The Free Animation and Modeling Project for short, is a project to create a full featured 3-Dimensional Modeling and Animation System.
Giram - a Persistance Of Vision (POV-Ray) oriented modeller.
gSculpt is an Opensource 3D modelling application. gSculpt is planned to have features for drawing polylines, using translational sweep (extrude) and rotational sweep (lathe/spin) to construct meshes from polylines, and transforming/deforming polylines and models.
Innovation3D is an Open Source, 3-dimensional modeling program developed for Linux. The goal of Innovation3D ( I3D ) is to provide a modeling tool that allows an artist to utilize a variety of techniques. Polygonal modeling is currently the focus, but there is some preliminary support for NURBS curves and surfaces, as well as basic animation.
There's much more! Watch this space for updates.
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