Category Tools

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. The choice of art software is usually very subjective, or is forced upon the artist by the studio pipeline. Expense is usually not a concern, given the ratio of cost vs. saved time and effort.

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

These packages are used mostly for 3D modeling, though they often have additional features as well.

3D Animation Software

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.

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:

Other 3D Software

2D Tools

Main Concepting And Texturing Software

Concepting Software

Vector Software

3D Tool Information

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.

• Max and Maya: Similarities and Differences - by Paul Neale
• MAXScript for MEL users - by Borislav Petrov
• Max plugins archive Polycount thread

Mari

Best known for: being used in the production of Avatar film, and can handle multiple 32k resolution textures. Mari is an unreleased 3D painting app that is expected to retail for $800 and may have technical capabilities far surpassing its competition.

• Mari thread on Polycount: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71484
• 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 v1.01 their is no way to preserve the paint if one decides to go back into sculpt mode.

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'

2D Tool Information

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

Plugins and tools:

• Color Picker Shortcut In Photoshop CS3 and CS4 - by Mathias Scheutz<
  >This setup allows you to set up a hotkey for the Color Picker in CS3/CS4 (CS5 supports it natively).<
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• Painter's Wheel an HSV Color Picker for Photoshop CS4+ - by Len White<
  >Using a Flash widget that customizes the color picker into a Painter-style color wheel.<
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• d1v save archive - by Andrew 'd1ver' Maximov <
  > Two scripts export multiple TGA files from a single PSD, using Group naming conventions, saving either in TGA or JPG format. To download the scripts, open the JPG attachment with an archive program like Winrar.<
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• Photoshop Scripts - by Mark Verkerk <
  > These scripts export multiple TGA files from a single PSD, using Group naming conventions, with an optional resize amount for each Group. See the Polycount thread.<
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• qSave - by Ariel Chai <
  > A set of scripts that each save the visible layers to a single image file. Each script allows a custom output filename, can save TGA or PNG, and can be bound to its own hotkey. <
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• vTools: Scripts for Photoshop - by James 'HarlequiN' Taylor <
  > A set of scripts, including TGA export from named Groups, cavity mapping from a normal map, create hexagonal and plasma patterns, etc. See the Polycount thread.<
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/!\ Note: prices are accurate as of June 27, 2010