Free graphics resources for game developers
Creating game graphics single handedly is huge task and it requires so many tools as well. Unfortunately the best tools in the industry costs high as well. So if you’re tight on budget then you’ve to look for freeware/open-source alternatives tools that perform similar tasks.
Here is list of free graphics related tools.
Vector-based drawing tools
Vector graphics is represented by points, lines, curves and surface instead of pixel as within bitmap graphics.
Inkscape is having interface similar to CorelDraw. It is basically an SVG editor.
This is another vector drawing application. It’s interactive and flexible interface makes it good tool for illustration, diagrams and other graphics purpose. Unfortunately, it’s not for windows users.
It’s also an SVG editor like Inkscape. But its interface is more like GIMP (image manipulation program).
Synfig is more of a 2D animation tool so it also fits in the category of vector illustrator tool.
Raster-based drawing tools
These tools are more for bitmap drawing tools.
GIMP stands for gnu image manipulation program. It is free/open source software that you can use for raster drawing as well as picture manipulation as well.
This software started as replacement for MS paint. But later more features incorporated in it.
It is included in Koffice suite so if you’ve KDE installed on your linux box then chances are that this tool comes installed with Koffice suite. It has features similar to GIMP.
This is another KDE application for linux users. It has interface similar to MS Paint.
There is freeware version with some limited features available. You can use freeware version to carry out graphics work of game.
Terrain & Map editing tools
For 2D & 3D there are few free alternatives for terrain & map editing tools. Some of them are listed below:
Tilestudio is geared more towards 2D games. It has following features: Level editor, Sprite editor, Map editor, output in multiple programming languages.
3D level designer with limited functions in lite version.
A tool for rendering landscapes, good for background graphics.
3D modeling
There are plenty of open source/freeware tools available for 3D modeling.
This is very famous 3D modeler around. It is free, open source and has game engine as well. It is even used to develop commercial quality animated movies with this tool.
This is another powerful 3D modeler used by many open source games.
It is also free and comes with steep learning curve. If you like working with blender then you’ll love this tool as well.
This is also 3D modeler which supports many file formats and allows skeletal animation.
This software supports Modeling, animation, rendering and it is free as well.
This list is work in progress. If you know any free-resource in any category not listed then please feel free to post about it in comments.
Great compilatiom of free/open source resources for game developers. Good job there. Here’s a link that for more game development related resources. Visit here: http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html