FREE GRAPHICS RESOURCES FOR CHEAP DIGITAL ARTISTS :P

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Featured Software

I wanted to start working on my art again, so I decided to share some software that has helped my in the past in my fields of art.

Image Generation and Manipulation

GIMP
GIMP is a feature-rich image manipulation software; the poor-man's alternative to Photoshop. Use GIMP for layers, masking, photo manipulation, image generation, and more! Open source code makes this program entirely free to use. Visit the forums and view the tutorials to maximize GIMP's capabilities.

SAI
SAI is a Japanese graphics editor developed by Systemax. Check here for a youtube vid using this software and here for the Japanese site.

FreeSerifSoftware
FreeSerifSoftware includes a variety of programs for image generation and manipulation, all free. PhotoPlus, DrawPlus, and 3DPlus are all found at this link for your digital artistry.

Pixia
Originally a Japanese program, Pixia has gained an intense following and is now available in ten languages. Paint, create, and manipulate. Create your beautiful digital art with this unique tool.

Rendera
A powerful painting program offering a variety of tools for the digital painter.

FaceOnBody
FaceOnBody is a program designed for mixing and matching faces and bodies.

Dogwaffle
Dogwaffle is a free painting and animation program for people who love to draw, sketch, animate and paint.


3D Graphics

Autodesk Maya
Maya is the powerful 3D digital arts studio used by the pros. You can have this incredible and super expensive 3D image and animation studio in your hands at no cost to you! Maya Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is a special version of Autodesk Maya software, which provides free access to Maya for non-commercial use. This is no dinky trial. Nearly all of the superb features of the commercial version are included. The learning curve is high, but the results are well worth the effort.

Blender 3D
Blender 3D is an incredible free tool for creating three dimensional models, images, and animations.

Wings 3D
Wings 3D is a powerful subdivision modeler for building static three dimensional images.

Sketch Up
Want some sketchup on that digital burger? Your conceptual designs pop in full 3D with this simple tool from Google.

POV-Ray
POV-Ray is a powerful three dimensional graphics tool free for your digital easel. You can also make use of Arbaro, the tree generator for POV-ray.


Animation

Blender 3D
Blender 3D is an incredible free tool for creating three dimensional models, images, and animations.

Dogwaffle
Dogwaffle is a free painting and animation program for people who love to draw, sketch, animate and paint.

3D Canvas
3D Canvas is a real-time 3D modeling and animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop approach to 3D modeling.

Anim8or
Anim8or is a 3D modeling and character animation program that includes the bare essentials for creating 3D animations simply.

MonkeyJam
A freeware digital pencil test animation program for Windows. It also has additional features that can be used for stop motion animation, clay animation, and more.

Vector Drawing

Inkscape
Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.


Texture Graphics

Texture Processor
Texture Processor is the unique program for creating various textures.


Fractals

Apophysis
Apophysis is a freeware fractal flame editor for Windows.

Double Fractal
Double Fractal is a program that creates fast and easily high complex images. No specific knowledge is needed to use this program, it is a program that can be run just for fun!


Other

Simply a compile of other free materials. More to come.


Anitvirus

I used Norton for many years and it was the best thing available until it got too big for its britches. Now it's a hulking resource hog that fails to get the job done.

That's ok, though, because the better alternative is free, unlike Norton with those obnoxious subscription fees. Keep your computer well protected and virus definitions up to date with these two better-than-Norton titles!

Avast! 4Home Antivirus
It is the opinion of the makers of avast! that the best way to protect their big paying customers is to prevent viruses from spreading at the individual level. There is no better way to accomplish that than to offer your product free to the little guy while charging corporations and organizations the big bucks. This is no piddly open-source hackjob; avast! is the real deal and the best thing going to keep your computer virus free!

AVG Free
Working under a similar philosophy as the avast! people, AVG is a fully loaded anti-virus title free to the little guy. You can get a few more bells and whistles with the paid version, but the free version essentially does the same job as far as anti-virus protection goes. While you're there, pick up their free anti-spyware program and their free anti-rootkit program to maximize the health of your computer.


PDF converter

The best way to share documents and similar files that may change appearance in different programs or even different versions of the same program is to share them as pdf files. PDF files are WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and you'll never lose information or have your friends see trash where you made treasure when you share your precious documents in pdf format. Write pristine tutorials with all of your illustrations intact no matter who opens it!

PDF995
Don't bother paying hundreds of dollars for Adobe's converting software, you can get it all that functionality free. It installs as a printer driver, so anytime you want to save an item as a pdf file, it's as simple as clicking your print button, which will bring up a save box so you can title your new file. For the free version, an ad will pop up, but if you want to skip the ad, the ad-free version is $9.95 ($19.95 for the entire suite of pdf software including security and pdf editing features). That beats the hundreds of dollars you'd have to pay for Adobe's software.

I have some more links, however I have to work on something real quick.
YDS
member of the bull moose party
2516
I downloaded SAI and I must say, its a very nice and light program. I recommend for anyone who wants a simple program to practice their drawing on. Its not as fancy as Photoshop, but for a 1 MB program, its great, nice and simple. Even for people with awful computers.
This is an excellent post and I'd sticky it in a second if I could do so here. =)
I'm happy you like it. I think it have alot of useful tools, that help any artist old or new. Now I just have to get the pen and paper going :P
I'd just like to add TileStudio, for cheap digital artists working on 2D game resources like tiles and sprites. Sovan turned me onto this one and it's just the best I've used.

http://tilestudio.sourceforge.net/
NoblemanNick
I'm bringing this world back for you and for me.
1390
I am adding as well if that's alright. PhotoFiltre definatley my choice. GIMP is very complicated and weird for me but PhotoFiltre is low in file space and also has filter like photoshop and Masque which allows to make great renders.

PhotoFiltre
author=Karsuman link=topic=1649.msg26073#msg26073 date=1217639826
This is an excellent post and I'd sticky it in a second if I could do so here. =)
Wah wah wah!
lol nice - a little collection of some fun programs.
Wow, very interesting stuff here ! Thank you for the list.

Don't forget Sketchbook :p The full version of the software is not free but there is a trial version (in this version there are no layers).
I just noticed sai is a trial version O_o
Yeah, a fair few of these mentioned are trials.

As a side note, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro (Ody mentioned it) is pretty awesome stuff. Totally worth the money if you have it. It's got a really nice interface.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
post=35278
Yeah, a fair few of these mentioned are trials.

As a side note, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro (Ody mentioned it) is pretty awesome stuff. Totally worth the money if you have it. It's got a really nice interface.
I second this, it is indeed a great program.
Also, it happens to be one of the few good things that came out of a previous relationship. Her mother worked for Wacom, and they got copies for free.
I posted this in the RPG master helpful things topic, but here seems more appropriate. Terragen (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/16/28/) is great for making awesome landscape based panoramas and battle backgrounds. There's also a Terragen 2 which has loads more features, but uses a weird node based interface that I couldn't work out so I stick with classic.

Both have free versions for personal use so unless you're doing an Aveyond it should be all good.

You can make lovely desktop wallpapers with it too.
There are a couple of 3D programs that I found very interesting. I haven't tried them yet but I'm going to today.

Here's a link DAZ 3D
They have trial versions, too.
Link to official SAI Translation: Systemax.jp

It's only like $50-ish or so USD. Please support them instead of using the fan translated one.
It's really a great program, and there's nothing wrong with the official translation.
NOACCEPTANCE772
And the ability to summon the "Office Whores" to deal damage to the enemies.
553
Well,Paint.NET is an interesting sprite creation program.

Found: New Free animation manipulation software that exports Creature Creator animations.
Exports right, left, head on animations
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Why would you ever use Spore creations in your projects? x_x
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