Free....3D art program base and some 3D content

[Peshkwe]

A program I helped do a little beta testing on has just come out with the official first version.

DAZ3D for free 3D Content, and 3D Software (http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=513917442)

The base is a 3D rendering application they're giving away for free along with some starter content. Basically what they're wanting to do is get more people interested in doing 3D for a hobby or professionally so they'll be keeping the base and intro content free. What they're hoping for is that the new person who tries it out really likes it and then they'll buy more content to play with.

If you want to try 3D art or animation, or a kid you know wants to try, this is a good way to check it out without investing a bunch of money trying to figure out if it's something for your interests. You do have to sign up for the site so you can download the DAZ|Studio, but that's free as well.

[Peshkwe]

Here's a few more free art and 3D programs:


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The GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)

The GIMP is the 'GNU Image Manipulation Program'. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

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POV-Ray (http://www.povray.org/)

POV-Ray or "The Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer" is free and open source. From the documentation: "The Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer creates three-dimensional, photo-realistic images using a rendering technique called ray-tracing. It reads in a text file containing information describing the objects and lighting in a scene and generates an image of that scene from the view point of a camera also described in the text file. Ray-tracing is not a fast process by any means, but it produces very high quality images with realistic reflections, shading, perspective and other effects."


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Wings 3D (http://www.wings3d.com/)

This is an open-source (free), polygon mesh modeller inspired by Nendo from Nichimen/Izware. It is relased under a BSD style license. Wings is written in Erlang.

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Anim8tor (http://www.anim8or.com/)

Anim8or is a free 3D animation and modeling program. It can read and write .3ds 3D Studio and .lwo Lightwave files, create 3D models and characters, and output .avi movies


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Blender (http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html)

Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU Public License.


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UVMapper (http://www.uvmapper.com/downloads.html)

The UVMapper Classic version is free, it's a stand-alone texture mapping utility for the creation and modification of UV coordinates for n-sided polygonal 3D models.


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Project Dogwaffle (http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/index.html)

Version 1.11b is the free version, it's fully functional just without all the bells and whistles of the full version.

It is a Paint Program. Not a Photo editing program. Not an imaging tool. Not an image conversion tool. Even though it can serve many of these markets too, with various enhancement and conversion filters, special effects and color adjustments, the primary reason for Dogwaffle is for you to paint - without the mess. And no, at this time Dogwaffle does not work with popular filters from other image editing programs. Instead, we've focused on making our filters very fast and in many cases realtime. Additionally, there's an SDK so if you're a programmer and are interested in making more filters and plugins this will get you started. Much of Dogwaffle's functionality is in fact accessible through plugins. They are highly optimized for speed, and many of them operate in realtime.


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Fontmagic (http://www.mattcawley.com/fontmagic/)

is a free easy-to-use tool for creating 3D text. The wealth of options and direct manipulation interface allow you to create attractive logos quickly and easily.

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Terragen (http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/)

Terragen is a scenery generator, created with the goal of generating photorealistic landscape images and animations. It is available for Windows and the Mac OS. At this stage in its development, Terragen is free for personal, noncommercial use. If you want to yse it commercially there's a licensing fee.

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[Chos Pro (http://www.chaospro.de/)

ChaosPro is one of the most versatile fractal plotters. Unlike most of the other fractal generators it is a modern program, which constantly gets improved. It's not a day's work spread out into the world, it's a complete fascinating package.








Have fun! :)

[bratcat]

A new member here and artist who is thrilled to have some new toys!!! Thanks for the links! :)

[Peshkwe]

Oh geeze...sorry for not checking back!

You're welcome! :)

[bratcat]

Oh geeze...sorry for not checking back!

You're welcome! :)
For real.... I am totally hooked. Went lookng and found tons of related stuff and am loving it! Do you by any chance run Mac? I have some questions about the use of some of the files for Mac and find answers hard to find.

[Peshkwe]

No PC here, but go to one of the online 3D sites like Renderosity or PoserPros, and search their forums for info or ask the question there.

This is a most excellent site:

http://www.cgsociety.org/


all kinds of tutorials and just one ya need in your bookmarks.

[Peshkwe]

Here's a tree generator for PovRay

http://arbaro.sourceforge.net/