Let us discuss free CG software in general

[esimacio]

Ace,
well carrara and bryce is long time ago outdated. I was focused on 3D Studio that they do update as you say. And why this negativity towards them? you do not need to use their software. Yes it is true that they focus on producing "dolls" as you call it, but hey why not.
You can use their softvare without spending a cent on content.

[ambi]

@esimacio: Krita is the obvious one. It's great piece of software.

[YAFU]

Hi.
I just visited this thread to mention other OpenSource software:
Natron, G'MIC, Kdenlive, OpenShot, Darktable, RawTherapee

[cgCody]

As much as it might mean I don't get to play with all the cool toys, I believe in capitalism. However, as an artist that wants to concern himself with art and not politics, it's very simple for me: If I can afford it, then that's what I use.

I'm a long time user of 3ds Max. It'll always have a special place in my heart, but Blender (with the exception of a few much desired features) does the job at a much better price. The same thing goes for GIMP and Inkscape. I'd love to own Photoshop and Illustrator, but $0 wins.
So my main FOSS software:
- Blender
- GIMP
- Inkscape
And of course there are also various one-trick-pony apps. To name a few:
- sIBL
- Luminance HDR
- xNormal
- Verve Painter
- PNGGauntlet

On the paid side of things, I have Zbrush. For what it's capable of, $800 and free upgrades is more than reasonable to me. Considering their prolificacy, I think Pixologic could charge much more if they wanted.
I also have Substance Live. $20 per month, rent-to-own is just a flat out no-brainer for what the software can do.

[basse]

to add a couple that I didn't see mentioned before..

- GLMixer for live video performances
- LMMS for making music
- scribus for desktop publishing
- Bombono for DVD authoring
- Mypaint another painting program especially good for quick sketching.
- Grafx2 when you don't remember where you put your Deluxe Paint
- Playscii for ascii art, animation and even game creation..

oh, and ofcourse, if you don't find the tools, just make one yourself Python, Qt...

.b

[Ace Dragon]

Ace,
well carrara and bryce is long time ago outdated. I was focused on 3D Studio that they do update as you say. And why this negativity towards them? you do not need to use their software. Yes it is true that they focus on producing "dolls" as you call it, but hey why not.
You can use their softvare without spending a cent on content.

DAZ has developed a reputation for being a place where software goes to die (unless it's critical for virtual doll/character content of course). They purchased the company behind Cararra, Hexagon, and Bryce and that spelled the end of their development. I don't really see how the argument that they were outdated would fully work here as Blender was considered outdated in numerous areas at one point (but one by one those areas are being modernized).

Though in a way, the BF can actually thank DAZ for taking out the competition in the hobbyist/low-cost space (Blender right now is literally the only actively-developed, fully featured DCC application that hobbyist users can easily afford (and if Lightwave ultimately goes down, you're talking a 1800 dollar gap until you get to the next complete 3D suite).

[apoclypse]

From what I can tell, UE4 is free for commercial use until you get past 3000 USD in income, then you have a royalty payment based on how much you earn.

It may sound like a good deal, but then you find how money tends to be very tight among many indie studios and the money spent on the payment can mean having to make painful cuts (because you don't have enough to sustain operations). So far, the sale of Epic Games to the Chinese has not seemed to seriously impact its userbase (what seems to have the greater effect is the fact that feature development appears to be far more centered around what Epic needs for their games rather than based on what users want, noting that it's becoming a tactic for users to try to sell their pet feature as useful for the company's projects in order to get it included).

If you want a modern engine with no strings attached, then Godot 3.0 is your best bet (the only requirement as far as I know is to mention the Godot engine somewhere in the game like in the credits screen).

Other good free pieces of software is Audacity for audio-editing and VLC for media content, Krita has also become powerful for painters and Inkscape is starting to get to where it looks really useful.

I'm going to have to disagree on your assessment of UE4's asking price. Epic asks for 5% of every $3000 made quarterly which translates roughly to 600 bucks. If you are making $12,000 for you game a year then $600 bucks is not going to break the indie bank. That's assuming anyone would want to pay for your game to begin with otherwise you get to use the engine for free with very little strings attached.

I also disagree with your assessment of UE's development. EPIC has been very responsive to user requests while still balancing what they for their own games. Personally I think it's a good thing the EPIC eats their own dog food where other products (Unity, Godot) don't even make games and in Unity's case don't even release the stuff to the public that is in their fancy demos like EPIC does. You can access everything that EPIC is working on from github at anytime, no special features made for one game or hacked to look good in a GDC trailer.

Just this GDC Epic has added tons of features that imo make the engine the best in class hands down. In-engine animation rigging, immediate mode physics, you can now edit cloth right in the engine without using APEX. I don't see EPIC prioritizing their own stuff over the userbase. You also have to think of what constitutes EPIC's userbase. It's not some random people on a forum, it's actual studios using the product to make games and that is where EPIC focuses their energy while still actively participating and listening to forum users, imo.

Also Godot 3.0 isn't even out yet. How do you know it will be good?

[Ace Dragon]

Also Godot 3.0 isn't even out yet. How do you know it will be good?

They have monthly status reports on their official website
https://godotengine.org/news

You can also explore what is in 3.0 right now with these daily builds (though they ask you don't actually try to make games yet, use only for testing and report the issues you find to their Github page).
http://www.purpleorangegames.com/godot/

A major reason for Godot is how lightweight it is, the download size is small and it won't ask for too much hardware power out of the box (though it depends on how complex your scenes get). The new builds also have Visual Scripting like Unreal does (but is specifically designed to be used in conjunction with GDscript files).

That's another thing, GDscript is very easy to learn and use (I know the Unreal users say you can just use Blueprints, but every serious developer I've read about on their forum eventually winds up making heavy use of C++ because of its limitations, that to me gives the impression that the artist-accessibility aspect is misleading at best).

[BeerBaron]

Personally I think it's a good thing the EPIC eats their own dog food where other products (Unity, Godot) don't even make games and in Unity's case don't even release the stuff to the public that is in their fancy demos like EPIC does.

Godot was an in-house engine used on actual games. Unity may not have a background in gamedev, but if they did, their engine most likely wouldn't be as accessible. No game studio at the time would've thought to use .NET, for instance. They do work together closely with some of their customers.

EPIC (or id) may have made games, but they made very specific game types (mostly FPS), so unless you followed their footsteps you don't profit all that much from their dogfooding. Also, EPIC obviously has to split its resources between their game-specific development and their general engine work.

Both approaches have tradeoffs.

You can access everything that EPIC is working on from github at anytime, no special features made for one game or hacked to look good in a GDC trailer.

Is that really true? I'm under the impression that they release source for some of their demos after a while. I don't think we ever got our hands on the SVOGI version of the Elemental demo, for instance.

Unity also releases sources for some of their demos, also some of the assets show up for free on their Asset Store, independently.

[apoclypse]

Godot was an in-house engine used on actual games. Unity may not have a background in gamedev, but if they did, their engine most likely wouldn't be as accessible. No game studio at the time would've thought to use .NET, for instance. They do work together closely with some of their customers.

EPIC (or id) may have made games, but they made very specific game types (mostly FPS), so unless you followed their footsteps you don't profit all that much from their dogfooding. Also, EPIC obviously has to split its resources between their game-specific development and their general engine work.

Both approaches have tradeoffs.


Is that really true? I'm under the impression that they release source for some of their demos after a while. I don't think we ever got our hands on the SVOGI version of the Elemental demo, for instance.

Unity also releases sources for some of their demos, also some of the assets show up for free on their Asset Store, independently.

That is incorrect. Epic no longer just makes FPSs and they work with studios and have offices around the world that they work with to make their product better. They've particularly hit a boom in the Asian markets (with Japanese studios like Capcom, Namco, Squeenix) and have made huge in-roads and have made the tools better as a result. The only FPS that EPIC has been working on recently is the next UT which I don't even think is out of beta. EPIC has really tailored the engine to be more all purpose rather than game specific over the last two years.

I don't know about the SVOGI version of the Elemental demo, that's engine specific and I think SVOGI was removed from the engine altogether a while ago. Sweeney thought it was too expensive and decided to go another way. That Elemental demo was made before the features for the engine were set. However the Elemental demo is available in their marketplace.

Some of the Unity demos like the Adam demo, you can download the individual assets but not the full cinematic demo in engine. Also some of the features included in the demo have not made it to the full version of Unity. When I meant sources I was talking about code. You can play with almost everything Unreal presented at GDC right now. If you are brave enough to compile the engine from github.

[apoclypse]

That's another thing, GDscript is very easy to learn and use (I know the Unreal users say you can just use Blueprints, but every serious developer I've read about on their forum eventually winds up making heavy use of C++ because of its limitations, that to me gives the impression that the artist-accessibility aspect is misleading at best).

Blueprints has been extended to do things it was never intended to do but you can make a full game using it with very little limitations or C++ code since about version 4.7 or so (maybe 4.9-4.10?). Epic designed the engine to use both C++ and Blueprints (remember it was designed with big studios in mind), a lot of users have been clamoring for more Blueprint functionality and Epic has opened it up considerably even going as far as to implement BP to C++ functionality for optimization and speed when baking your game. There is very little you can't do with BP. My only gripe with it is that it's hard to read and share code with others do the nature of it's GUI. In that regard I do prefer Godot.

Also there are code plugins for UE that allow you to use other languages, Javascript or Skookum. I haven't seen a Lua binding yet, someone was trying to implement a C# one but I don't think the benefits were there to be honest.

[Ace Dragon]

Also there are code plugins for UE that allow you to use other languages, Javascript or Skookum. I haven't seen a Lua binding yet, someone was trying to implement a C# one but I don't think the benefits were there to be honest.

The tricky part with plugins is that once the author stops maintaining it or abandons it to take on other projects, you are left high and dry. I would imagine that these types of plugins would be especially risky since your entire use of the engine is fully dependent on the author not doing what is implied in the first point.

This is not just my personal opinion, as a lot of people who use Unity and Unreal find themselves with the same concerns if they are dependent on a plugin for a core feature in their game. This is why a lot of people ask for more hardcoded engine features like a scripting language created by Epic itself (because at least they cannot go out of date or simply stop working).

[apoclypse]

The tricky part with plugins is that once the author stops maintaining it or abandons it to take on other projects, you are left high and dry. I would imagine that these types of plugins would be especially risky since your entire use of the engine is fully dependent on the author not doing what is implied in the first point.

This is not just my personal opinion, as a lot of people who use Unity and Unreal find themselves with the same concerns if they are dependent on a plugin for a core feature in their game. This is why a lot of people ask for more hardcoded engine features like a scripting language created by Epic itself (because at least they cannot go out of date or simply stop working).

Right but that affects any engine (or anything really) that allows 3rd parties to build on their platform. Unity is particularly nefarious in this regard because of what I would consider core functionality has to be bought from and maintained by 3rd party developers. In the case of the JS binding the dev has put that up on github so just like Blender if you have the know how then you can hack it work.

I don't think Epic is interested in making a scripting language other than Blueprints and this has been brought up on their forums before and they seem quite resistant to it. I can see why, they had a lot of issues with Unreal Script with UE3 /UDK and they don't want to repeat that. I would still prefer an official language other than C++ but at this point I stopped fighting it and I'm learning BP. To be honest UE's C++ isn't too bad either.

[BeerBaron]

That is incorrect. Epic no longer just makes FPSs and they work with studios and have offices around the world that they work with to make their product better.

It's not incorrect to say that id and EPIC made "mostly FPS". EPICs current projects are not very far from FPS (basically TPS), either. I'm aware that EPIC now is working on selling UE as general-purpose, but as far as dogfooding goes, it's still FPS/TPS.

It's not even so much about the genre, but the tradeoffs they choose. CryTek also develops FPS, but their engine is fully realtime, while EPIC's major titles all used lightmaps. In effect, CryEngine delivers better realtime graphics out-of-the-box, but can't compete with baked lighting in terms of quality.

Again, I'm not saying one approach is better than the other.

Also some of the features included in the demo have not made it to the full version of Unity. When I meant sources I was talking about code. You can play with almost everything Unreal presented at GDC right now. If you are brave enough to compile the engine from github.

You made it sound like they give you access to their in-development demos. Anyway, what's the point of playing with the code, if you can't see how it is used, and it's changing all the time? That's not being "brave", that's "wasting your time", especially considering the godawful compile times you get with a large C++ codebase like UE.

[Ace Dragon]

It's not incorrect to say that id and EPIC made "mostly FPS". EPICs current projects are not very far from FPS (basically TPS), either. I'm aware that EPIC now is working on selling UE as general-purpose, but as far as dogfooding goes, it's still FPS/TPS.

From what I've seen, their first major UE4 game (known as Paragon) is considered a MOBA (a genre which is incredibly popular right now and is currently seeing a waterfall of new titles).

They are now working on a mobile game. As for the comment that they are very responsive to user feedback, it is true that there's a lot of developer/user reaction, but then you see longtime ongoing threads about broken vehicle physics, the lack of attention on 2D game creation functionality, a toon shading patch that was never committed ect... (and this doesn't even count the recent controversial move of replacing the tonemap which is seen by some as a shafting of non-realistic game projects).

Also having read the Unity forums over time, I really don't know if there is a clear correlation between dev/staff activity on the forums and development driven by user needs (many threads in the Unity forums for instance get saturated with posts from staff and developers, and yet there's still no sign of various features requested for many years).

[fablefox]

DAZ has developed a reputation for being a place where software goes to die (unless it's critical for virtual doll/character content of course). They purchased the company behind Cararra, Hexagon, and Bryce and that spelled the end of their development. I don't really see how the argument that they were outdated would fully work here as Blender was considered outdated in numerous areas at one point (but one by one those areas are being modernized).

Though in a way, the BF can actually thank DAZ for taking out the competition in the hobbyist/low-cost space (Blender right now is literally the only actively-developed, fully featured DCC application that hobbyist users can easily afford (and if Lightwave ultimately goes down, you're talking a 1800 dollar gap until you get to the next complete 3D suite).

Don't forget Shade3D :-)

[kayosIII]

The number one reason for me to use "free" software is I don't have to deal with licensing bullshit. Most software labeled "free" doesn't actually fit that criterion, however.For instance, to call Unreal Engine "free" is quite a euphemism. It's a gratis download, but that's about it. I don't like the idea of giving EPIC (a subsidiary of some chinese government-owned megacorporation) the right to "audit my facilities". That's literally communism. Paying royalties to communists? Bullshit! You gotta ask yourself, do I really need a AAA game engine for my hentai tentacle simulator? The freedom-loving patriot says: No!

[PEDANTIC TANGENT] I would have left this alone if you didn't say literally, I know that people culturally from the southern USA use terms like these very differently to the rest of the world but still. Communism is a means of distributing wealth in a post scarcity society. It's based on the idea that the society collectively owns the means of production rather than individual entities (socialism) and was a way of trying to solve the power equality between the members of society that provide capital and those that provide labour. What we have here instead is a form of contract law. They give you the tools, they ask for a share of the profit and they ask you for the ability to check that you are living up to your side of the bargain. Incidently Autodesk, Adobe and many other belong to organisations (the BSA in my part of the world) that will use the legal system to force an audit of your company if they think you are using pirated software. Generally I am with you though, the requirements of UE4 can be overly intrusive for some businesses and inconvenient depending on how your accounting is already set up. The specifics of the licensing should be taken into account when deciding on whether a tool is right for you.[/PENDANTIC TANGENT]I use a mix of commercial and free software, I like that more companies are offering tools that are individually affordable and for my platform of choice (I am looking at you algorythmic, agisoft).I don't like perpetual rent to own and will do that only as a last resort.I have been using opensource software for a long time now (since the 90s) and my main observation is that open source tools for creatives tend to do a lot better if there is means for at least one programmer to work on it full time. Which usually means some method of ongoing funding.The stuff I use in my day to day workflow.Blender (of course)Instant MeshesAwesome BumpKrita MakehumanDarkTableInkscapeLightwerks (720p only)ArdourMusescoreYoshimiRakarrakI own current licenses forSubstance Painter and Designer,MARI,Pianoteq,Komplete,Photoscan.and I probably would own a zbrush licence if they did a Linux version.

[BeerBaron]

@kayosIII
I'm joking. The joke is based around the following real world facts:

- The Unreal Engine License Agreement allows EPIC to audit your records
- Tencent, a chinese company holds a large share in EPIC
- The People's Republic of China is solely governed by the Communist Party of China
- The largest companies in China are state-owned (though Tencent actually is not)

It is also not uncommon to use the world "literally" in a hyperbolic fashion, for humorous purposes. For instance, most things referred to as Literally Hitler are not in fact literally Hitler - except of course for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

Having clarified that, I would still like to point out that Tim Sweeney has never denied being a member of the Communist Party of the United States.

Should you feel compelled to reply to me in the future, please consider the possibility that I might be joking beforehand. Also, please consider using paragraphs in your writing.

[esimacio]

I am Norwegian, an I am not going to comment on any politics in USA or China for that matter. We discuss FREE (free to use) software and not politics :-) so try not to go off topic.

" The Unreal Engine License Agreement allows EPIC to audit your records "

well well, let them, I have notting to hide. :-)

[esimacio]

Don't forget Shade3D :-)

Fablefox,
Now I am curious, what you mean by that. Is Shade 3D one of the softwares tha came in to DAZ claws to die? That is strange because they are very much alive. https://www.shade3d.jp/en/

The latest version 16 came out November 2016