Tools

This category describes software used by artists for game development.

Popularity
There are no accurate publicly-available data sources about which art software packages are the most popular for game development. There is only a loose consensus about which tools are used the most often (see Maya = Modeling? or Chances of working with 3DS Max vs Maya in the industry? on the Polycount forum). The choice of art software is usually very subjective, or is forced upon the artist by the studio pipeline. Professionals agree on one thing though... the best way to find out which is best is to give everything a try.

Expense is usually not a concern for employed artists, due to the ratio of saved time and effort vs. cost. For hobbyists and students however, low-cost alternatives can be found in the forum thread Free or low cost 3D and 2D apps.

3D Tools


Main 3D Software Packages
These are "complete" 3D packages with a wide variety of art tools. However external packages are often used in conjunction with the main package, since some of the included tools are often not quite as efficient or strong as external specialized packages.

3D Modeling Software
Most modeling is done in the Main 3D Software Packages. Sometimes artists will use specific modeling tools, to speed up their workflow. These packages are used mostly for 3D modeling, but they often have additional features as well.

3D Modelling Software is the old modeling tools page, with links that are probably out of date.

3D Animation Software
Most animation is done in the Main 3D Software Packages, though here are some tools that specialize just in animation.

3D Sculpting Software
Digital sculpting is the process of creating a high-resolution 3D model with a series of painting strokes, using a pressure-sensitive tablet or screen. Usually the details from these models are baked into a NormalMap for a lower-resolution in-game model. Often these tools include 3D painting as well.

Decimation Software
Decimation means to reduce the triangle count of a highly-detailed model, often created via digital sculpting. This makes the model easier to load, manipulate, and render in other applications. Decimation tools should preserve the model's essential form without degrading texture coordinates or material boundaries.

Re-Topology Software
Re-topology means creating a new mesh surface from scratch, that conforms to an existing "messy" mesh, often created via digital sculpting. Messy meaning that it either has too much detail or has a topology that's not the best for texturing, shading, or animation. The details from the "messy" mesh are transferred to the new re-topologized mesh by baking a DisplacementMap or NormalMap. The new mesh can either be used directly in-game, or it can be used as the control cage for a subdivision surface. For opinions/reviews of re-topo software, see retopo tools for Max? on the Polycount forum.

Conform Software
These tools are for conforming an existing mesh to another mesh. Two finished models can be shrink-wrapped to one another, for example to fit a new mesh layout to the size/shape of an existing model. If the models have a different vertex count and order, a conform-style tool must be used instead of a morph tool.

3D Paint Software
Many of the main packages include bare-bones 3D paint tools (partial list here), and most sculpting software also has 3D paint. The Blender site has a list of 3D paint programs here. The following tools are dedicated to 3D paint:

3D Normal Map Software
These packages are used specifically for creating normal maps from 3D meshes. See also 2D Normal Map Software.


 * Kaldera by Mankua is a commercial baking plugin for 3ds Max, but it hasn't been updated since 2005.
 * Melody by NVIDIA is a free baking application, but it hasn't been updated since 2005.
 * NormalMapper by ATI/AMD is a free baking application, but it hasn't been updated since 2004.
 * ORB (Open Render Bump) by Martin Fredriksson and C. Seger is a free baking application, but it hasn't been updated since 2003.

Also, the Main 3D Software Packages and the dedicated 3D Sculpting Software each usually have their own integrated normal map creation tools.

3D Texture Coordinate Software
These packages are specifically for creating for a 3D mesh.

Special Effects Software

 * Indie Tools & Utilities – 2010 Update An extensive, ever growing list of free, cheap or simply "so good they need a mention" tools & utilities for typical development jobs.

Main 2D Software
These are "complete" 2D packages with a wide variety of art tools for photo manipulation, texturing, concepting, etc.

Texturing workflow - software Polycount Forum thread has discussion about the texturing tools game artists are using.

Wikipedia has a nice table comparing the features of multiple 2D editing packages.

2D Concepting Software
These packages are most often used for painting concepts and illustrations.

2D Normal Map Software
These packages are used specifically for creating normal maps from 2D images. See also 3D Normal Map Software.


 * Photoshop nDo Normal Creation Toolkit is a plugin that costs $99. Windows only.
 * Photoshop NVIDIA Normal Map Filter is a free plugin.
 * Convert a grayscale image into a NormalMap or DuDvMap, many options available. Windows 32bit only.
 * Photoshop NVIDIA DDS texture compression plugin is free.
 * Same as the NVIDIA normal map filter, but lets you create the best-quality Mip Maps for a normal map, by filtering each mip independently from the original source image, rather than simply scaling down the normal map. Windows 32bit only.
 * Photoshop Xnormal filters is a free plugin by Santiago 'jogshy' Orgaz.
 * Five filters for Photoshop: Dilation (see EdgePadding), !Height2Normals (see NormalMap), !Height2Occlusion (see AmbientOcclusionMap), Normalize normal map, !Normals2Cavity.
 * GIMP normalmap plugin is a free plugin by Shawn Kirst.
 * NSpace is a free converter from Diogo Teixeira that can convert Object Space normal maps into Tangent Space normal maps. The tool is discussed in this thread and Osman "osman" Tsjardiwal has created GUI for it as well.
 * Normal Map Actions for Photoshop by Will "sinistergfx" Fuller
 * Overlay: Levels blue channel of current layer to 128 and sets the blend mode to overlay. Used for overlaying additional normal map detail.
 * Normalize: Just does a nVidia normal map filter normalize on the current layer.
 * Normalize (flatten): Flattens the image and does a nVidia normal map filter normalize.
 * Rotate 90 CW: Rotates current normal map layer 90 degrees clockwise and fixes your red and green channels so that it doesn't break your normal map.
 * Rotate 90 CW (inverted Y): Rotates current normal map layer 90 degrees clockwise and fixes your red and green channels so that it doesn't break your normal map. For normal maps that use the inverted Y convention.
 * Rotate 90 CCW: Rotates current normal map layer 90 degrees counter-clockwise and fixes your red and green channels so that it doesn't break your normal map.
 * Rotate 90 CCW (inverted Y): Rotates current normal map layer 90 degrees counter-clockwise and fixes your red and green channels so that it doesn't break your normal map. For normal maps that use the inverted Y convention.
 * Rotate 180: Rotates current normal map layer 180 degrees and fixes your red and green channels so that it doesn't break your normal map.

2D Vector Software
These packages are used for creating vector graphics, commonly used for or print media.

2D Image Overlay Software
These tools are helpful for overlaying reference images, drawing quick review comments on artwork, remote collaboration, marking animation reference points, etc.

Image Browsing Software
These packages are used for browsing image collections and for displaying reference imagery while an artist is working.

Tiled Texture Tools

 * Filter Forge ($) procedural tiled-texture editor.
 * PixPlant ($) texture tiling tool.
 * Seamless Texture Generator ($) texture tiling tool.
 * Seamless Workshop free Photoshop filter that fixes tiling errors by blending edges.
 * sdvTile free Photoshop script that expands the canvas 3x and repeats your texture across it.
 * Tiling Texture Tester Tool free 2d tile previewer. Great for viewing tiled textures while painting. Drag-n-drop your texture into a HTML page, refresh as needed.
 * Texture Frank free 3d tile previewer. Great for viewing tiled textures while painting. EXE shows textures on meshes, drag-n-drop, auto refresh, diffuse/normal/specular/displacement maps, multi-layer PSDs, etc. Many options!
 * Wood Workshop free procedural-wood tiled-texture editor.

Sprite Tools

 * ShoeBox by Hendrik-Jan "renderhjs" Schoenmaker tools for working with transparencies and sprites.
 * SpriteSheet Preview free tool for viewing multi-frame sprite sheets.

Tablet Utilities
These are tools that help with using a tablet or Cintiq.

3DCoat
Best known for: Voxel sculpting for topology-less sculpting, and advanced retopology capabilities including auto-retopology which can generate all-quad meshes using nothing more then a few basic guide splines drawn by the user.

3ds Max
Best known for: the power of its modifier stack for modeling. Features powerful viewport shaders such as Xoliul's Shader and the 3Point Shader. lists some popular shaders and has articles about how to make new ones.


 * 3dsmax Basics - Solving the Preferences - by Sascha Henrichs
 * Max and Maya: Similarities and Differences - by Paul Neale
 * MAXScript for MEL users - by Borislav Petrov
 * 3DS clean - 3ds Max 2009 customized for speed
 * <3 3ds Max 2009 - more tips for customizing 3ds Max.

Plugins and Scripts

 * Quad Chamfer Modifier {$} - better chamfer for SubdivisionSurfaceModeling.
 * PolyUnwrapper - many maxscripts for UVW Unwrap.
 * Advanced UV Normalizer - use custom Texel Density to normalize the UV Shells across different models.
 * TexTools - many maxscripts for UVW Unwrap.
 * IllusionCatalyst - Scripts - maxscripts for edgeloop modeling.
 * select every other edge on collapsed subdivided mesh - 3dsmax - maxscript to revert subdivided meshes
 * EdgeSmooth - Free, open source smoothing plugin - maxscript for defining hard edges like Maya does, instead of assigning Smoothing Groups manually.
 * Grabviewport 2.5 - capture high-resolution screenshots with passes (alpha, wire, ssao, etc.).
 * Max plugins archive Polycount thread

Blender
Best known for: being a free alternative to more expensive packages, and as a very inclusive package with it's own compositor, sequencer, sculpting system, and game engine.


 * Download
 * Release notes for the latest releases
 * Blender 2.5 Crash Course (Not For Retards) Polycount forum thread
 * How to set 3ds max default viewport controls in Blender Polycount forum thread

Mari
Best known for: being used in the production of Avatar film, and can handle multiple 32k resolution textures.

Mari is a 3D painting app that is currently only for Linux, but will be receiving a windows version before the end of 2010. It uses the hard drive heavily as a swap disk, and thus requires a significant amount of free space (250gb free recommended).


 * Mari - does anyone actually use it? thread on Polycount (the answer is, yes!)
 * Mari release thread on Polycount: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75224
 * Mari video: http://media.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-ep078.mov

Maya
Best known for: the speed of its marking menus while modeling, and ease of animation due to the versatility of attributes.


 * Guides for Transitioning to Maya - by Autodesk. Four guides to transitioning to Maya from: 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, or Softimage XSI.
 * How to switch UI styles in Maya 2011: Autodesk Maya 2011 Qt style switch
 * How to Inset faces like in 3DS Max: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1168816&postcount=14
 * How to Push like the 3DS Max modifier: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74491

Sculptris
Best known for: adding geometry to a mesh dynamically, avoiding worries about topology while sculpting. Sculptris is a powerful, easy to use, and lightweight sculpting app. Because you don't have to worry about geometry or using a base mesh, it is quickly becoming popular for roughing out and concepting ideas. Afterwords artists will retopologize their concept sculpt and take it into ZBrush or Mudbox for refinement. There are also painting tools for color and bump, but as of v1.02 their is no way to preserve the paint if one decides to go back into sculpt mode.

As of July 23 2010 Sculptris has been purchased by Pixologic, and its Developer (Tomas Petersson) hired by them. What this means for the future of Sculptris, its technology, and its 'free' status has yet to be determined.

For v1.01 :


 * Unofficial Mac port: http://drpetter.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=sculptris&action=display&thread=661
 * French translation: http://drpetter.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tech&action=display&thread=316

Softimage XSI
Best known for: the modeling toolset, and ICE (used for creating effects) is considered very powerful, plus tight Mental Ray integration. Even though Softimage XSI isn't as commonly used as in the games industry, there are big studios that use it as their primary 3D software. Some notable examples are Ubisoft (Assassins Creed), Lionhead (Fable series), Konami (Metal Gear Solid 4), Valve (Half life 2).


 * 3ds Max to Softimage XSI Transition Tips - by Stefan Didak
 * Max to XSI Jumpstart - by 'Vmpre'

World Machine
Best known for: Widely used in the game industry for creating terrains using natural erosion techniques. Great for creating height maps, textures, and texture masks.


 * has tutorials for World Machine.
 * World machine, advanced coloring macro - by 'Buzzcore'

Zbrush
Best known for: being well a supported and innovative sculpting package. Zbrush's Ztool system allows for minimal use of a traditional 3D package, while it's tools attempt to bring digital media as close to traditional, physical media as possible.


 * ZBrush Custom UI Showcase Polycount forum thread, people sharing their UIs and tools.
 * Custom Brushes using Zbrush and Max video tutorial by Michael 'Orb' Vicente
 * Free Custom Zbrush Brushes by Michael Dunnam
 * Nick's Tools - Zbrush Plugins by Nick 'nyx702' Miller
 * ZBrushCentral user forums, galleries, etc.
 * Pixologic ZClassroom video training

Alchemy

 * Alchemy thread on Polycount

Illust Studio

 * English language patch (unofficial)

Open Canvas
Best known for: The 'Network Canvas' feature that was present in its free pre-commercial version, which allowed multiple users to paint on a single canvas over the net or LAN (This feature was removed once Open Canvas became commercial software, but the free version despite its limitations and age remains popular to this day because of it).


 * Download the free version here.

Photoshop
See PhotoshopTools.

/!\ Note: prices are accurate as of June 27, 2010