Software for 3D/2D Artists, Designers, etc.

[Dark_Knight]

Intro:
I've been trying to do my small part in the Linux community by helping out as much as possible. In doing so I created this extensive list of software which are used by studios and freelancers. The list is intended to be for working professionals so I try to avoid listing to many hobby software and instead focus more on the highend.

Film/Broadcast/Game Design:
Highend software that is ported to Linux such as some of the ones mentioned below are typically supported by their developers only for use with Red Hat and Novell distributions though this shouldn't stop you from trying other RPM based distributions (ie: Mandriva Linux, etc). Don't be surprised to find some production studios working in a cross network with Linux, Windows and OSX.

Due to individual copyrights, support issues and time involved the method of converting proprietary software files so as to attempt to work on Debian based distributions (ie: Ubuntu, Linspire, etc) is typically not considered a viable option. When speaking to studios and artist's it's understandable considering tools such as Alien are still in the experimental stage so software developers will not support them at this time. So if you're serious about entering this field and intend to use highend software then I suggest using RPM based distribution offerings from developers such as Novell or Red Hat. Both developers mentioned have obtained LSB certification ( see http://www.linuxbase.org/ ).

Graphic/Web Design:
Typically for web/graphic designers and illustrators the platform of choice is OSX due to Apple's dominance in that particular market. Though for designers and illustrators using an Intel or AMD system on Linux you can opt to use Wine (see www.winehq.com or www.codeweavers.com) to run software such as Adobe Dreamweaver that are not yet ported to Linux. There are also other software ported to Linux for designers so freelancers and design studios can consider Linux as a viable alternative to cut cost. In this case you're less restricted than production studios in that you have the choice of using either a RPM based (SLED, RHEL, Mandriva Linux, etc) or Debian based (Ubuntu, Linspire, etc) distribution.

Conclusion:
Choose the right tool for the job. No matter if it's software or hardware the entire pipeline should compliment the end user and projects. Also, ensure to check individual developer system requirements prior to purchase and/or installation.

Previz:
Storyboard Lite http://www.zebradevelopment.com/

2D Animation:
US Animation http://www.toonboom.com/products/USAnimation/
MOHO http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/
Synfig Studio (OSS) http://www.synfig.com/
KToon (OSS) http://ktoon.toonka.com/

3D Animation:
Maya http://usa.autodesk.com/
XSI http://www.softimage.com/home/
Houdini http://www.sidefx.com/
Blender (OSS) http://www.blender3d.com/
Cinema4D (XL & Studio bundles) http://www.maxoncomputer.com/
Lightwave (Works on Wine) http://www.newtek.com/

Lip-sync for animation:
Papagayo (OSS) http://www.lostmarble.com/papagayo/index.shtml

Camera Tracking and Match Moving:
Boujou http://www.2d3.com/
3DEqualizer http://www.3dequalizer.com
Mokey/Monet http://www.imagineersystems.com/
Matchmover Pro http://realviz.com/products/mpro/index.php
MMTrack http://realviz.com/products/mmt/index.php
Maya Live (Included with Maya Unlimited - See Maya link above).

Compositors:
Inferno http://usa.autodesk.com/
Flame http://usa.autodesk.com/
Shake http://www.apple.com/shake/
Flint http://usa.autodesk.com/
Nuke http://www.d2software.com/index.html
Halo http://www.sidefx.com/
Combustion (Works on Wine) http://usa.autodesk.com/

Render Software:
Mental Ray http://www.mentalimages.com/
Renderman https://renderman.pixar.com/
Pixie (OSS) http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~okan/Pixie/pixie.htm
3DElight http://3delight.com/index.htm
Open Render (OSS) http://openrender.sourceforge.net/
Aqsis (OSS) http://www.aqsis.com/
Radiance (OSS) http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/
Gelato Film Renderer http://film.nvidia.com/page/home.html
PovRay (OSS) http://www.povray.org/
Air http://www.sitexgraphics.com/
Yafray (OSS) http://www.yafray.org/
RenderDocC http://www.dotcsw.com/rdc.html
Discreet Burn http://usa.autodesk.com/
Turtle http://www.illuminatelabs.com/
Qube! http://www.pipelinefx.com/
Muster http://www.vvertex.com/
Rush http://seriss.com/rush/
GRender (OSS) http://grender.sourceforge.net/
DrQueue (OSS) http://drqueue.org/
PovMosix (OSS) http://povmosix.sourceforge.net/

Online Render Services:
Render Rocket http://www.renderrocket.com/
ResPower: http://www.respower.com/
RenderNOW http://www.rendernow.com/
EFX http://www.efxone.com/renderfarm1.htm
Rendercore http://www.rendercore.com/
Render-it http://render-it.co.uk/

NLE Software:
Jahshaka (OSS) http://www.jahshaka.org/index.php
Smoke http://usa.autodesk.com/
Piranha Cinema http://www.ifx.com/piranha/
MainActor http://www.mainconcept.com/
Cinelerra (OSS) http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

Online NLE Services:
Rainmaker http://www.rainmaker.com/
Eyespost http://www.eyespost.com/
Post Producers http://www.ppd.ca/
Imarion http://www.imarion.com/

Audio Editing/Mixing:
Wired (OSS) http://bloodshed.net/wired/
Ardour (OSS) http://ardour.org/
Rosegarden (OSS) http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
LMMS (OSS) http://lmms.sourceforge.net/
Hydrogen (OSS) http://www.hydrogen-music.org/

Paint/Image Editing:
GIMP (OSS) http://gimp.org/
Cinepaint (OSS) http://www.cinepaint.org/
Pixel http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/
IFX Amazon Paint http://www.ifx.com/amazon/
Photogenics http://www.idruna.com/index.html
Pixologic ZBrush (Works on Wine) http://pixologic.com/index.cgi
BodyPaint 3D (Works on Wine) http://www.maxoncomputer.com/
Panorama Tools (OSS) http://panotools.sourceforge.net/

Film Color Correction/Mastering:
Da Vinci http://www.davsys.com/
Speedgrade http://www.speedgrade.com/
Lustre http://www4.discreet.com/lustre/
Film Master http://www.digitalvision.se/
Data Conform http://www.digitalvision.se/

Video/Audio Conversion:
Konverter (OSS) http://www.kraus.tk/projects/konverter/
AudioKonverter (OSS) http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=12608
AudioMove (OSS) http://www.lcscanada.com/audiomove/index.html

Video Playback:
Framecycler http://www.iridas.com/framecycler/
JahPlayer (OSS) http://www.jahshaka.org/
MPlayer (OSS) http://www.mplayerhq.hu
Xine (OSS) http://xinehq.de/
Helix (OSS) https://player.helixcommunity.org/
RealPlayer http://www.realnetworks.com/
MoviX (OSS) http://movix.sourceforge.net/

Vector Drawing/Illustration:
Inkscape (OSS) http://www.inkscape.org/
Sodipodi (OSS) http://www.sodipodi.com/
Skencil (OSS) http://www.nongnu.org/skencil/index.html
Adobe Illustrator (Works on Wine)

Web Design:
WireFusion http://www.demicron.com/wirefusion/index.html
Macromedia FlashMX (Works on Wine)
Flash For Linux (OSS) http://f4l.sourceforge.net/
Macromedia DreamweaverMX (Works on Wine)
Macromedia StudioMX (Works on Wine)
NVU (OSS) http://nvu.com/index.html
Quanta (OSS) http://quanta.sourceforge.net/
Bluefish (OSS) http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

CAD/3D Modeling:
VariCAD http://www.varicad.com/
Cycas http://www.cycas.de/
gCAD3D (OSS) http://www.cadcam.co.at/freiter/gCAD3D.htm
ARCAD 3D http://www.lx-office.com/LX/products...cad/index.html
Equinox-3D (OSS) http://www.equinox3d.com/
Wings 3D (OSS) http://www.wings3d.com/
ZBrush http://www.pixologic.com/

Asset Management:
NXN Alienbrain http://www.alienbrain.com/
File Maker Pro http://www.filemaker.com/
Discreet Backdraft http://www4.discreet.com/backdraft/
Gwenview (OSS) http://gwenview.sourceforge.net/
Showimg (OSS) http://www.jalix.org/projects/showimg/
KPhotoBook (OSS) http://kphotobook.sourceforge.net/
Rushplay http://www.heuris.com/hollywood/AboutRushplay.htm
F-Spot (OSS - Like iPhoto) http://www.gnome.org/projects/f-spot/

[Juan Pablo]

That's a nice list! I have always liked doing digital art when in Windows before I moved to Linux, this list is just great for me, thanks!

The Garfield movie was done with OSS, with Sun workstations and KDE

[Dark_Knight]

That's a nice list! I have always liked doing digital art when in Windows before I moved to Linux, this list is just great for me, thanks!

The Garfield movie was done with OSS, with Sun workstations and KDE

Glad you like the list. It took me a while to compile and I'm constantly trying to keep up with changes to software or even companies like when Autodesk acquired Alias. I have an extensive art and I.T. Support background. My main 3D software is Maya and I admit while it has a steep learning curve it's my favorite due to it's flexibility and tools offered. I'm familiar with other software such as XSI, Blender, Shake, etc. I also evaluate software for developers such as Jahshaka.

As for the Garfield movies completed by Rhythm & Hues they do use Linux extensively in the LAN. Though they weren't the only studio working on the film as Rainmaker also contributed to the production. If you're curious the 3D software used in production of the models and animation was Maya. VFXWorld.com has two detailed articles interviewing the VFX Supervisor, etc on the production of both Garfield films.

Oh by the way for those interested I recently received an email from Maxon and their production bundles Cinema 4D XL and Cinema 4D Studio are supported on Linux for both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel/AMD processors. Also for those that just plan on using Cinema 4D standalone license such as for freelancing it does run on Wine. I wasn't the artist that found that out but several artists verified that for me. I've asked my contact at Maxon to update the website to include information on what Linux distributions are officially supported. Most likely this will be the industry standard of either Red Hat (RHEL-WS/Fedora Linux) or Novell (SLED/OpenSUSE). Though hopefully they are open to offering more choices such as Mandriva Linux, etc.

[flipjargendy]

This post is a little old but i found it very helpful.

[stubbe]

zbrush, does version 2 works on wine? Let alone 3 is coming out soon

[Dalani]

edit: ...from the list are these OSS modelers:

http://www.equinox3d.com
very powerful for such a compact and free software
does powerful bezier and bspline parametric based modeling, HDRI photonmap renderings, some animation and real time raytracing. It has real potential..
and

Wings3D

works with POV and Yafray rendering. It does every thing Sketchup does and more. Just needs units and booleans. Otherwise I find it to be a very useful and handy and when used with Equinox (for curve modeling), the combination is awsome.

edit: caveat WIngs3D and Equinox are not commercial production apps..

[stubbe]

edit: ...from the list are these OSS modelers:

http://www.equinox3d.com
very powerful for such a compact and free software
does powerful bezier and bspline parametric based modeling, HDRI photonmap renderings, some animation and real time raytracing. It has real potential..
and

AFAIK Equinox isn't 100% opensource. To get the full plugins you need to pay. But nevertheless, the base package is working anyway.

Wings3D

works with POV and Yafray rendering. It does every thing Sketchup does and more. Just needs units and booleans. Otherwise I find it to be a very useful and handy and when used with Equinox (for curve modeling), the combination is awsome.

edit: caveat WIngs3D and Equinox are not commercial production apps..

Wings are neat, but too bad it's slow when dealing with many polygons (tested a model on a software, import it to wings and wings get crawl)

the best 3D animation package so far is blender. it's 100% OSS GPL, and pack alot of horsepower and ultra neat features (zbrush-like sculpt mode, render baking, integrated game engine, hair, fluid, soft body simulation, etc)

[tvilkov]

Just came across this post... Very usefull, thanks a lot!

P.S. - blender is THE BEST open source 3D modelling package!

[Dalani]

Does blender do booleans???
For scaled models can it handle units? (ie. chair seat is 18inches now draw table top that's 29inches high)

Tried blender way back in beta and the gui seemed counter intuitve. Has it improved? Can u draw or import a svg polyline shape and extrude it???

[Dark_Knight]

Does blender do booleans???
For scaled models can it handle units? (ie. chair seat is 18inches now draw table top that's 29inches high)

Tried blender way back in beta and the gui seemed counter intuitve. Has it improved? Can u draw or import a svg polyline shape and extrude it???

Dalani,

Your question would be best posted in a separate thread. Anyway, Blender features such as what types of modeling is supported can be found here http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/ Blender is the best low cost solution (being that it's open source and free) for those looking to enter the modeling/animation field with out having to pay several thousands of dollars on highend production software such as Maya or XSI. My preferred software for 3D work is still Maya but I have spent some time with Blender and find it a worth while addition to an artist's arsenal of tools to tackle both basic projects and complex ones.

As for your comment on the GUI seeming counter intuitive with the beta release. It's really unfare to judge any software whether open source or commercial based on a developer beta release. After all "beta" releases are meant to work out bugs and improve the software, not to be taken as what the final version will look or function. Blender 2.43 offers a flexible and configurable window layout allowing the user as many screen setups as the user prefers. This flexibility is seen in software such as Maya and XSI to allow ease of transition for artists either relocating to another studio or the studio migrating it's pipeline to different software.