Free software you may want in your tool box

There are three major free software packages out there that you may want in your tool box. If you love doing digital painting modeling and animation or now even sculpting you don't have to buy the expensive Software out there especially if you are just beginning and want to learn.  They are open source which means they are free to use for commercial use as well, you may just have to mention the software or developers names in your project.

The first one if you are into 3D animation, or modeling some of you may already know is a program called Blender it is a very well developed open source program that has been used to produce animated shorts that look very professional just like the big boys Maya and 3DSMax. This is always being developed and updated. The user interface may take a little getting use to, but you can take your projects to completion from modeling, UV layout, rigging and animating. For you game developers and video editors that is possible as well.

The animation above was an open source project that was created through the Blender foundation a few years ago, but it was created in Blender.www.blender.org/‎

The next open source software that will be great to use is Gimp.This one also has an interface you may have to get use to. Gimp is a photo editing software similar to Photoshop. If you are into digital painting this is for you. its simple to use and best of all its free! It handles different file formats such as JPEG. PNG, GIFF, AN TIFF, so this is a valuable tool to have as well, if you are a photographer you can edit your photos, you can use it to texture your 3D models and of course as I mention before you can paint digitally.http://getgimp.com/lp/index.php?pk=6542

The last and third free software which is fun to use, is Sculptris its free from Pixologic the creators of Zbrush.

You can digitally sculpt humans, animals, monsters, or what ever you desire to get your ideas out. This is a baby version of Zbrush were you can be an artist and just create freely without the technical side of other modeling packages. Its has a symmetry mode that allows you to work on both sides of your sculpture. There are a hand full of  brushes and painting tools such as alphas, bump painting and other materials you can use  to add detail to your sculptures. The other good feature is that you can integrate it with Zbrush with the GoZ feature, but you have to have both Zbrush and Sculptris installed on your computer. http://pixologic.com/sculptris/features/

Well take a look at these open source software, if you are planning to work on a project , want to learn or even just want have fun creating, I'm sure you will be satisfied with the result, and remeber best of all they are free!