Recommended Resources

Summary:

I mentioned in passing to RB that it might be cool to have a recommended software list.

Recommended Software

PiscesMike 11 May 2014 03:03

Greetings all! I had mentioned in passing to RB that it might be cool to have a recommended software and resource list. Stuff we've found useful that might be free or relatively low cost. Thought I'd kick that idea out to you guys and see what everyone thought. So, here's the official list, as it gets updated:

3D:
Blender - http://www.blender.org/download/ - Completely free to use for anything you might want to do. However, the consensus is that the interface was created by insane drunken monkeys.
Wings3D - http://www.wings3d.com/?page_id=84 - A favorite and quick modeling program for testing things out, RBWitaker's favorite!
TurboSquid - http://www.turbosquid.com - This site features some free, and some low to mid range cost 3D models. You can also hire people to do custom content.
BlendSwap - http://www.blendswap.com/blends - A great collection of Blender objects, brought to us from Marcus

2D:
Paint Shop Pro 9.0 - This one is a little older and can be found on eBay for about $10, includes Animation shop 3 to create simple gif like animations.
Cool Text - http://cooltext.com - This is a website that generates text for you with some pretty cool effects. I use it a lot for menu text, etc.
Deviant Art - http://www.deviantart.com - Another website thats good for inspiration. Some of the work can be used, and I've hired an artist there.
Open Game Art - http://opengameart.org - This is a great 2D resource, I'm sure most of you probably are already familiar with it. Most art is free to use with proper crediting.

Audio:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net - Brought to us from RB!
Goldwave - http://www.goldwave.com - I've been using this program for what seems forever. You could probably find some older versions online somewhere..

Questions:
Stack Overflow - http://stackoverflow.com - Perhaps the largest forum for posting questions, it's rare when SO doesn't have the answer. If not, at least it can normally point you in the right direction.
MSDN - http://msdn.com - The MicroSoft Developers Network, where, literally, everything is documented. It might get a little heady sometimes if you look too deep, but for a quick reference it's unbeatable!

Thanks for your input, and I'll update things as we get suggestions!

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"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets

Last edited on 09 Feb 2015 04:42 by PiscesMike Show more

Re: Recommended Software

rbwhitaker 11 May 2014 03:07

I haven't ever used GoldWave, but for audio, I've used Audacity for stuff. I couldn't even begin to compare the features so take that for what it's worth. (I'm not all that great at Audacity to begin with, and this is the first time I've heard of GoldWave.)

Last edited on 04 Jul 2016 05:33 by rbwhitaker Show more

Re: Recommended Software

Marcus42 18 May 2014 02:11

I haven't heard of most of these, but I can definitely vouch for Blender and Turbosquid. The problem with Turbosquid is that a lot (read: most) of the models on there aren't for Blender or Wings3D - 3ds Max and Maya are much more common. Because of this, I tend to get more stuff from Blendswap. It has much lower quality models, but literally everything is free and for Blender.

Re: Recommended Resources

rbwhitaker 04 Jul 2016 05:37

Bumping because this thread seems useful, but has dropped pretty far in the list. Feel free to add your own recommendations on here if you haven't already.