This is an on going thread that lists links to cheap or free tools, assets, or knowledge that will aid in the developmeent of Blender Games. (Currently only listing Windoze apps) (Also not everything is categorized yet!) Please feel free to add! Thanks to those that contributed!
TorQ
This list is posted as is, use the information provided at your own risk. Please report duplicate links.
2D GRAPHICS AND VIDEO:
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The GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/ -
Irfanview - THE freeware imageviewer (like ACDC)
http://www.irfanview.com/ -
VirtualDub – video capture/processing
http://www.virtualdub.org/index -
DogWaffle - inexpensive natural media paint program
http://www.squirreldome.com/cyberop.htm -
CamStudio - capture video from screen activity.
http://www.rendersoftware.com/products/camstudio/ -
LiVES – video editor (linux)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~salsaman/lives/[/url -
Cinelerra – video editor/compositor (linux)
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 -
Cuisine – video editor (linux)
http://cuisine.bigasterisk.com/home -
DVDRHELP-a site with many tools for video
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/
EXECUTABLE TOOLS:
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IconArt-make customicons for your game .exe
http://www.conware.org/products/ia/about.php -
Icon Replacer - for custom .exe icons
http://www.8ung.at/s_w -
Setup2go and Installer2go-installer creators
http://www.dev4pc.com/products.html -
Autoplay Generator - make your .exe start when you insert your CD
http://www.technologismiki.com/hackman/index.html -
QuickMenuBuilder-create executable menus
http://www.quickmenubuilder.com/Menu.php -
Resource Hacker - Lets you extract/replace resources (icons, etc) from ANY exe file. Kool little util.
http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/ -
FMV-ed - Use real movie files (AVI’s, MPEG’s etc) as cut-scenes in your games!!
http://www.blender4ever.wcj.net/resources.shtml -
BGLauncher - Provides a GUI for launching Blender games with the Publisher runtimes and allows you to take in-game screenshots (stand-alone version is also available)
http://www.8ung.at/s_w/ -
Inno Setup - a very good free installer.
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php -
ISTool – Inno Setup uses a script language, but if you don’t want to do so much writing you can download this extension to help you create the scripts (very powerful!):
http://www.istool.org
SOUND:
- FindSounds-search the internet for sounds for your game
http://www.findsounds.com/types.html - A site with tutorials on making sound for games
http://www.planetquake.com/voxfeminae/
TEXTURES:
-
Over 3000 great reference pics to make textures with (free for both commercial and noncommerical use).
http://www.imageafter.com/ -
Shadegen - ShadeGen is a free tool to generate shade maps and shaded colour maps from height maps.
http://users.0800dial.com/rowan/download.htm -
texture creation program
http://www.atomixbuttons.com/ -
Wally - game texture editor
http://www.telefragged.com/wally/
ART HOW-TO:
-
A great step by step of a cool painting
http://www.imphead.com/about/blendboywip/bb1.html -
Some really nice art tutorials, great site to check regularly
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials -
Concept art technique
http://www.cardesignnews.com/studio/index.html -
Painting lessons (photoshlop)
http://www.gorblimey.com/tutorials/ -
Some great how-to draw
http://www.drawthrough.com/tutorials/index.html -
Nice painting stuff
http://div.dyndns.org/EK/tutorial/ -
Storyboarding
http://www.ffranceschi.com/midima/tutoen07.html
3D GRAPHICS
-
Wings3D - sub-D poly modeling
http://www.wings3d.org/ -
Milkshape 3d - shareware, exports to almost any game format imaginable
http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/ -
Crossroads - 3d converter, doesn’t support textures
http://home.europa.com/~keithr/Crossroads/index.html -
Accutrans - 3d converter, supports full materials and textures, shareware
http://www.micromouse.ca -
The converter’s paradise. If I want to convert something to another format, I look here first.
www.converters.tk -
FTBlender: Blender bitmap text tool.
http://www.blendergames.com/downloads/ftblend_win32.zip
MODELING TUTORIALS
-
Modeling a 5 minute car
harn12_24.htm -
Modeling a low-poly head
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~ops/tutorial/lowhead/lowhead.htm
-
Another technique for modeling a low-poly head
http://webreference.com/3d/lesson52/ -
low-poly terminology
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.18/totb/ -
low-poly modeling tips
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.18/totb/ -
A low-poly creature modeling tutorial
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.9/totb/ -
A low-poly monster modeling tutorial
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.13/totb/ (part 1)
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.14/totb/ (part 2)
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.16/totb/ (part 3)
TEXTURING TUTORIALS
-
Texturing rusted metal
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/metals.shtml (part 1)
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/rust.shtml (part 2)
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/corrosion.shtml(part 3) -
Texturing cloth and fabric
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/cloth/part1.shtml(part 1)
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/cloth/part2.shtml(part 2)
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/qbranch/tutorials/cloth/part3.shtml(part 3) -
Game character texturing tutorials
http://www.planetquake.com/skindom/tutorials/ -
More character texturing tuts
http://planetunreal.com/identitycrisis/tutorials/index.shtml -
A generic texture painting tutorial
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.19/gc/(part 1)
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.23/gc/(part 2) -
A low-poly character texturing tutorial
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.4/totb/ -
Heres an excellent tutorial on fixing textures, getting rid of annoying repeating patterns, using a high pass filter:
http://www.3dgate.com/techniques/2001/010625/0625hajba.html -
How to make a few metal surfaces
http://www.planetquake.com/hfx/tutorials.html -
How to paint various natural textures
http://div.dyndns.org/EK/tutorial/ -
Photoshop tutorials
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshoptutorials/ -
More Photoshop Stuff
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshopstyles/index.htm
ANIMATION TUTORIALS
-
A walkcycle animation tutorial
http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.22/totb/ -
Preston Blair animation book online(this one is awesome!)
http://www.freetoon.com/prestonblair/intro/frame.html
OFFICE SOFTWARE
-
Abiword-text editor
http://www.abisource.com/ -
OpenOffice-office suite
http://www.openoffice.org/
GENERAL GAME DEVELOPMENT
-
Game dev tools and utilities at gamehippo.com
http://www.gamehippo.com/gamedev/tools.shtml
http://www.gamehippo.com/gamedev/utilities.shtml -
A huge list of game resources, tutorials, and tools
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Forum11/HTML/001100.html -
Loonygames - game dev info. There’s lots of great stuff there, unfortunately finding it is very difficult because their pulldown menus of archived articles are no longer working.
http://www.Loonygames.com -
Game Development Search Engine
http://www.gdse.com/servlet/gdse.main -
A very good site with tutorials and other resources
http://xu1productions.com/3dstudio/
Crystal Space - opensource game engine
http://crystal.sourceforge.net/drupal/
A general repository of 3D tutorials
http://webreference.com/3d/
free software site
http://www.webattack.com/Freeware/
