FREE AND USEFUL TOOLS AND UTILITIES

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Hey guys, I didn't see any other topics such as this on the forum, so I figured I'd start one. Basically, it's going to be a list of programs that one could find useful for their games, whatever they may be. Some of these programs are actually used by professionals out there, too, so they may be worth giving a shot. :) Feel free to post any others that you know of!

3D Modeling/Animation:
Blender (http://www.blender.org): Multi-platform 3D modeling and animation package. Comes with two renderers, and is expandable through the Python language.

Image Creation/Editing:
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org): Multi-platform image editor. Not quite as powerful as Photoshop, but very close.
Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org): Multi-platform vector graphics editor.

Sound Creation/Editing:
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net): Multi-platform sound creator and editor. Can export to MP3s and OGGs (MP3s require the LAME library).
LAME (http://lame.sourceforge.net): Library used by a number of programs for handling the creation/editing of MP3s.

That's all for now; I'll update it when I get the chance. Right now, it's getting pretty late. :o
Paint.NET is my preferred image editor, I tried gimp and after using it I felt like I just went through a bad SMW hack. If I need to do batch image work or screen capture then I whip out Ifranview.

For audio work I like dbPowerAmp if I'm batch converting between types (you'll have to download the plugins to use anything worth spit) like converting from hoggy MP3 to sweet and sleek OGG. Audacity is the best tool for any sort of editing or stereo out capture though.

CamStudio is good for capturing on screen video (likes to puke with audio). Record with a lossless codec, punch it into VirtualDub, do required editing (doesn't do those flashy things like WOW PAGE FLIP EFFECT it does details) and encode using good codecs. Won't take WMV videos as input because WMV is garbage.
We kind of have this in the Art & Lit forum, too. But for now I'll move this to Help & Requests, since that's where we keep the rest of the topics like this.

EDIT:

Actually, this is VERY similar to the topic in Art & Lit.
http://www.rpgmaker.net/forums/index.php?topic=1649.0
Whoops, Arts is one of the forums I didn't check around much yet. I'll put updates in both threads anyway; if you guys want, feel free to remove this one.
Why wouuld a post that talks about tools and utilities useful for games be in the Art&Lit forum?

On that note, when planning stuff I put it all in wikid, pretty much a local basic wiki. It doesn't do fancy formatting, just bold, italics, and underline, but you can organize pages in a hierarchy and have easy links from one page to another that you can click on to zoom right there.
Like Tiddywiki?

I use notepad ++/wordpad as it's much easier to use and doesn't consume as much computer resources.
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