- Some tools - updated 25/07/08 -

Just some tools I use to make my code look better for the user
Because visual is a big part of the first impression you could have when you test an demo.

Tree[d]
Make some good animated Tree for your environnement.
At start it was just an pluging od Giles[d] but it’s now an external application.
Export format :
B3D | Blitz3D
X | DirectX Mesh

Direct Download link : -setup300.exe"]Tree[d] 3.00
Official link : Tree[d] the return

Giles[d]
Global illumination renderer.
For me one of the most simple and perfect usefull tool in 3D dev to make my scene look good
Giles is actually in dev for the new 2.0 version you could try the beta for a fully 30 day test.

Export format :
GLS | gile[s] scene file - import+export, full support
X | DirectX Mesh - import+export, full support for static geometry and hierachy
3DS | 3d studio - import+export, supports smoothing groups*, material settings, lights, and more
ASE | 3ds max ascii scene export - import+export, supports smoothing groups*, vertex colors, material settings, lights, and more
B3D | Blitz3D - import+export, full support for static geometry and hierachy, and all material settings
DBO | Dark Basic Object - export only, full support for static geometry and hierachy, and all material settings
LWO | lightwave object - import only, supports static meshes, material settings, textures, and more
OBJ | Alias Object File - import only, supports static geometry, smoothing and material settings
AC | AC3D, import only - supports all major aspects
MA | Maya Ascii File - export only, supports static meshes, material settings, textures, and more

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Official link : Giles[d]
File format of Giles[d] scene : *.gls

There is also loot of pluging that have been made for the first version of Giles[d].
Some of them are now part of the next version.
You could find lot of them in the forum of Giles[d] like the Terrain one :

Terrain pluging : Direct download
Terrain pluging : Official Topic

I hope this could help some of you to make your environnement more realist.

3D Object Convrtor

The must have tool for read game file format and convert it in an more
readeable format to work with.
Actually support 508 formats (517 in dev).

Export format :
A lot just see the file format list.

Direct Download : 3d convertor 4.20
Official Web Site : http://web.t-online.hu/karpo/

Anim8or

A classic polygonal modeling tool.
Support bones for animation.
I use it to animate some model quickly.
Not bad but lack of some file format support for game dev.
You could write script to support the format you need.

Export format :
3DS | LWO | OBJ | AN8 | C (opengl) | VTX

Direct Link download : Anima8or v97a preview
Official Web site : Anim8or

Delgine

Really good 3D world creation tools.
You could use it as a world editor or a modeling tools (not the easy way for me, i use it as a world editor).
It support lot of function and ligh mapping maker in the pro version.

Export Format :
DAE | X | OBJ | 3DS | and more (pluging)

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Direct Download : Delgine Lite Version
Official Web Site : Delgine

Dryad
An other procedural tree make.
Personnatly i prefer Tree[d] but this one is really good too.

Direct Download : Dryad v1.1 win32 and Dryad v1.1 mac
Official Web Site : Dryad

EarthSculptor

Really goo and fast terrain editor.
Support lightmap creation and could be renderer in Panda 3D :https://discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=4536 thanks to weihuan and pro-rsoft.

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Direct Download : Earth Sculptor 1.05
Official Web Site : EarthSculptor

KWorld
An world editor.
Not the bestbut not the bad too.
The only thing it’s really good it’s the world that is stored in an XML file that you could parse easily in python.

Direct Download : Earth Sculptor 6
Official Web Site : KWorld

LithUnwrap

LithUnwrap is a free Windows tool for mapping and editing the
UV coordinates of low poly models. It can unwrap a 3D model and
export the UV map to a bitmap which can then be painted.

Official Web Site : LithUnwrap

Ultimate Unwrap 3D

Is the next version.
It’s very powerfull and support a lot of game format file (more than 80).
Very good tool.

Official Web Site : Ultimate Unwrap 3D

MapZone 2

The must have tool for generating procedural texture.
Really good one.

Official Web Site : MapZone 2

Nem’s Mega 3D Terrain Generator

An other good tool for generating terrain.

Official Web Site : Nem’s Mega 3D Terrain Generator

Wings 3D

Procedural and polygonal modeling tool.
For me the best modeling tool.
Quick, easy to learn.
You could create an model and texturing it as quick as you imagine it.
An really MUST HAVE TOOL.
Actually the only things that mise is an animation module.
Personnalty i create all my model in wings3D and animated them in other soft.

Lot of video tutorial too on youtube : Wings 3D on Youtube
Official Web Site : Wings 3D

Xnormal
xNormal is an application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / parallax displacement and relief maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh ( complete texture transfer, even with different topologies ).
Includes too an interactive 3D viewer with multiple mesh and textures format support, shaders and realtime soft shadows / glow effect.
To finish, comes with some useful tools like height map - normal map - cavity map - occlusion - tangent/object space tools.
Really good tool to see too

Official Web Site : Xnormal

Light Map Maker

Generate Light Map using radiosity, raytracing ect…
Good freeware tools.

Export format :
B3D | AC3D | X | Morfit World | Terragen Terrain | VRML97 | Blitz3D | OBJ | DXF | sse plugin

Official Web Site : Light Map Maker

L3DT thx to pro-rsoft

An other terrain generator that could make huge terrain generation

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Official Web Site : L3DT

HemaHema
Really good and exellent FREE tool to use with panda3D to generate really big map.

I’ve make some try with it and the result is really quick and impressive to render big map with an free tool
nota: the web site have also good resource for game (3D or 2D models and other tools ).

Official Web Site : HemaHema

World Machine 2
Huge terrain edition that make you use terrain as tile for making infinity world.
Lot of tool and option with it.
The free version let you use 512x512 map.

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Official Web Site : World Machine 2

Artweaver
An exellent 2D editor.
Freeware, Opensource, pluging, LUA scripting and more.
Well Really perfect and fast for doing your texture.
It’s to simulate natural brush tools. It is therefore suitable to leave your creativity free run. Artweaver offers you a clear program window, which can be used without training immediately.

Official Web Site : Artweaver

Pixia
An other exellent drawing program that have the feeling of the hand draw technique.

English Site : Pixia

Terrain Texture Generator
An little free tool to generate texture terrain.

Official Web Site : Terrain Texture Generator

Character FX

CharacterFX is a character animation tool, created for gamers, artists, modellers and hobbyists. It allows you to breathe live into your meshes using skeletal animation and advanced tools like Inverse Kinematics or Weighted Vertices, but still it is easy enough to use for all levels of computer graphic artists.
CharacterFX is especially usefull for game developers who need an affordable animation solution.

Official Web Site : CharacterFX

fragMOTION

fragMOTION is a powerful 3D modeler specifically intended for the creation and animation of characters. fragMOTION is intuitive and easy to use and contains many features that are only found in top of the line modelers. And if that’s not enough for you, the event driven scripting system makes it a breeze for you to add your own features

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Official Web Site : fragMOTION

Ultimate Unwrap 3D

Ultimate Unwrap 3D is a specialty Windows tool for unwrapping 3D models. It includes an easy-to-use UV coordinate editor, a standard set of UV mapping projections such as planar, box, cylindrical, and spherical, as well as advanced UV mapping projections such as face mapping, camera mapping, and unwrap faces for those difficult to map areas on a model. It is ideal for gamers, artists, modellers, and hobbyists, and easy enough to use for all levels of computer users.

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Official Web Site : Ultimate Unwrap 3D

MilkShape 3D

MilkShape 3D is a low-polygon modeler, which was initially designed for Half-Life. By and by many file formats and features have been added.

MilkShape 3D has all basic operations like select, move, rotate, scale, extrude, turn edge, subdivide, just to mention a few. MilkShape 3D also allows low-level editing with the vertex and face tool. Standard and extended primitives like spheres, boxes, cylinders, etc. are available too.

MilkShape 3D is a skeletal animator. This allows to export to morph target animation like the ones in the Quake model formats or to export to skeletal animations like Half-Life, Genesis3d, Unreal, etc.

Official Web Site : MilkShape 3D

True Space 7.6

The most easiest interface and power tool NOW FREE.
ALL YOU NEED FOR PANDA !!!
Yahou !!!
Free video tutorial ect…
For those who know at GameSpace this is the same interface but more powerfull !!!

Download it QUICK !!!
http://www.caligari.com/

Free Tutorial and ressource

PS: sorry for my bad english, i’m french and not an very good writer

…wow, I was already looking for good tools to do stuff like trees and global illumination for some time, but these tools look/sound awesome! Thanks very much for sharing this!

No pb.

I’m new in Panda3D dev and with python coding but i’ve an list of usefull tool for coder that could help and not depending of an specific engine.

I’ve to learn much on python and Panda but if i could help the community by sharing good infos or tools i’ll do it with pleasure

Those look like good tools indeed - thank you for sharing them!

I may well end up looking for a tree generator at some point in the (hopefully not too distant) future - hopefully I’ll remember to look up your tools again at that point.

if you need other tools tell me maybe i know some usefull tools like those one.

Thank you.

I don’t think that I’m yet familiar enough with Panda to want for any particular tools at this point (that I don’t have access to already, that is).

While we’re in the mood of talking about good tools, there’s this awesome terrain generator for large terrains, which generates pretty realistic results:
bundysoft.com/L3DT/

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Good tool too pro-soft

I’ve updated the list

Just add some little 2D program too for those who love the device “Small is beautiful”.

added some new tools.

I’m preparing a complet list with good definition.
Maybe an PDF version or web list to have an more clean and useful list.

The forum version aren’t allready clean.

I keep it untill i finish the clean one

I’m impressed.

(I’ve been looking for some good free tools like this, but I’ve never heard of some of these! )

ThunderZ, something good to include in your new “clean” list would be the terms of use, that is, if it is freeware or open-source or a demo or trial version, or if you have to buy it.

Also, any restrictions on use should be mentioned. The license for MaPZone, for example, allows you to use their textures even for commercial projects, but retains the rights to its media elements and requires you to clearly mention Allegorithmic’s rights in your project.

I don’t think that this particular requirement is such a big deal, but this kind of thing can be a real turn-off for some people.

Yes i want to make a list or table with more detail.
Free/Commercial (price) /License / …
If it’s open with an scirpting language for exemple ect…

I’ve other tools in my list to add to the list.

Good think for the special license added by the autor

I want to make a list for help people dev.
It’s in general the bad point of any free engine.
The pipeline part are very restrictif because in general the dev can’t support all the format.
So you will need to write your how convertor or have the good tools

Thanks.

Yeah, I know of some other pipeline tools you haven’t mentioned yet. (Maybe you already know about them, but I’ll tell you anyway.)

DAZ Studio is a freeware 3D virtual photo studio, but requires registration. (They seem to make their money selling the models.)

Bryce 5.5 is for landscapes and is also freeware that requires registration. (Bryce 6 costs money though.)

MakeHuman is open-source (GPL) program for making high-quality 3D human models.

Art of Illusion is an open-source (GPL) package for 3D modeling and texturing. It has many advanced features, and a pretty good interface. It has a pretty good procedural texture editor, but I don’t know how well it compares to MaPZone.

Project Dogwaffle (the old version) is freeware. It has some nice particle brushes among other things. Artweaver has a plugin called Dogweaver that allows you two send images back and forth between these two programs easily.

This looks like a pretty impressive list now!

(Albeit not exactly 56k-friendly. )

However, all of these tools listed, and no mention of Blender or GIMP? (That I noticed, at least.)

Finally, I’ll suggest Inkscape, a vector graphics program that I use, for the list.

perhaps a “cleaned up” version of this list could sort them by fuction as well as freeware/pay programs?

i’m quite interested in some of these tools. thanks for making this list

I’ll attest to the goodness of Wings3D and Blender. i feel so lucky to have a copy of adobe photoshop, though… goodness i don’t like GIMP. (great program, but I’m used to the way that photoshop works, and GIMP ses completely different shortcut keys and tool names…!)

But to be fair, GIMP has much of the same functionality as Photoshop. I’d recommend it to someone who is looking for a powerful, free photo editor.

You’ve got all reason.

Actually i concentrated my list in 2 way :
1 - not block buster tools in free (like blender, gimp) or commercial (maya ect…)
2 - good for game use (MakeHuma, brye or Daz are more usefulle for 3D creation)

What is on the way for the list :
Catégorie (animation, modeling, texturing ect…)
license + license comment (for special note dev)
scripting
format
link with Panda3D use (how to use this program with you pand3D app)
and more

And well after all the list will be evoluting by new tools or new schearch or what i prefer by new tool dev BY the community and FOR the community

I would suggest to add great ngPlant - open source tree generator ( easytreegenerator.info/ ). MakeHuman is a MUST for such list
Other things that could be useful additions are MeshLab ( shadermap.renderingsystems.com/ ). It is similar to CrazyBump that has recently became shareware.

Hehe all this tools are on allready on the new one
Some aren’t bad but not very usefull or hard to exploit in real time game.

I’ll try to do the list as quick as possible

I’m not quite sure of what you mean by this - could you clarify, please?

I’m guessing that you’re saying that you excluded commercial items, and items that aren’t “block busters” - is that correct? If so, I’m not sure of what you mean by “block busters” in this context.

If you’re referring to tool quality, then what do you feel is lacking in Blender and GIMP that they’re not of sufficient quality?

[edit]
Oh, and if I may make a suggestion:

Consider replacing the large images in the first post with thumbnails that, when clicked on, link to the full-size images.

This should make the thread less likely to be problematic for those with slow internet connections, allow for easier browsing of the list, and restore the poor h-scroll.

Just that when i start the list i don’t add big apps like blender or 3dsmax ect… because they are very popular and know by a lot of people (blockbuster apps).
Not cause of their license

Ya ya thumbnail is for the futur list