Free Tools & Resources for Modders

[JohnWordsworth]

I just wanted to post a few links really to free tools that seem to crop up now and again on these forums - along with a couple of extra ones that people might not know about that I have been using recently. Sorry if this sort of thing has been posted before - I don't think it has and I'm on my iPad, which makes everything web-based a tad less simple. Thanks to everyone below for your additional suggestions.

2D Graphics / Image Editing

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Paint.NET - What MS Paint should have been. Supports saving images as DDS textures. Is probably the simplest image editor that supports DDS. Relatively lightweight.

GIMP - Free. Works slightly better in Linux than Windows IMO. Lots of features. Slightly weird UI. Great support for DDS files. Strong all round open source tool.

Photoshop CS2 is not actually freeware. Removed from list - apologies.

Texture Generation

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Allegorithmic MapZone - Free tool to put together good 'base textures' by building a graph of procedural content. Pretty cool tool for putting together the starting piece of a unique texture for 3D models.

Genetica Texture Viewer - Allows you to open and tweak Genetica textures. You can use the default library of free textures, change the random seed setting to generates some variations and use them anywhere you want to. Download Texture Packs.

Wood Workshop - Free seamless texture generator for wood textures.

3D Modelling Software

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Blender - If you do 3D you will know what this is. Cross platform and powerful. Supports OBJ format for importing into the GMT and FBX for the 'coming soon' FBX import option.

XSI SoftImage Mod Tool - Free 3D modelling tool for modders. Cut down from real software. A bit old now, and has a few bugs you may need to get around if unlucky. A bit more like 3DS Max than Blender - which I get on with better. Exports to DAE which works with the GMT (be sure to check export normals), and also FBX.

3D Utilities

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Grimrock Model Toolkit (GMT) - Tool for re-texturing and converting 3D models to/from the Grimrock model format. Seems silly not to list it here!

NikSkope - While primarily for the 3D Elder Scrolls games, Nifskope supports OBJ format and has tools for UV Mapping, Material / Node editing and more. Also useful for converting content from Oblivion/Skyrim mods!

Audio Editing Software

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Audacity - Free and Open Source. Pretty simple to use track based audio editor. Very useful for converting audio to Mono / 44,100 for use in Grimrock. Supports OGG for dungeon ambiance too.

Free Textures / Texture Bases

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Free Stock Textures - Library of over 700 free textures that you can use freely in any projects you like. High Quality photos of real-life materials.

TextureMate - A good texture library of over 2800 textures.

CGTextures - The best texture library on the web IMO (LordYig!), requires a free account creation to unlock high resolution image and a limit of 15MB downloads per day. Thousands of images, high resolution available, lot of category to choose from, high quality stuff, regular updates with dozens and even hundreds of new textures every week...

Free Sound Effects / Music

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FreeSound.org - Freesound is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Great resource if you need audio samples for your mod.

Media College - Free Sound FX - A collection of nicely organised free sound effects that you are free to use any way you like (apart from reselling them!).

Sound Bible - Another database of sound files. This site is split into two sections, Royalty Free Sounds that you can definitely use in your mod, and 'Sound Effects' - which are all listed with different licences, but nearly all of them are simply Creative Commons or an attribution licence (so you might need to keep a list of the usernames of the people that made the SFX).

Partner's in Rhyme - Royalty free music and sound effects. Check the license for each sound before using though.

GR Sites Free Sound Effects Archive - Free for personal / non-commercial use.

Philharmonia Orchestra Recordings - Public domain recording of instruments by The Philharmonia Orchestra.

Free Music Archive - Mahric: It's where I got the music for my latest mod. The quality is good, but be sure to check the conditions it is released at. Almost all I saw where free for non-commercial use and only required to credit the author of the music piece.

Free Trials / Shareware

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FilterForge (30 Day Trial) - Photoshop Plugin for building custom features. LordYig: Very, very good software, lots of pre-configured filters, new filters regularly added by the community, create your own and re-use existing part of others filters if needed. It's worth to try the 30 days trials.

Genetica - Standalone seamless texture editor. LordYig: Another very good software, some of it's functionality are unique when compared to filter forge. Easier to use and see what you are doing than FilterForge, at least in the begining, IMO.

There's probably a bunch more, and I welcome any suggestions to add to this post!

[Neikun]

Thanks for these resources, John.
I'm going to pull something from the Super thread you can add to the list.
http://freestocktextures.com/
As the url suggests, these are some stock textures that modders can use without worry of credit or royalty.
They're pretty high quality, though limited.

[Radar6590]

Yeah. I knew about CS2. It's nice, but they literally did that right after I bought CS6 for a pretty penny. I was sad then. I'm fine with CS2 haha.

I figured I'd just add that there are some ok quality sound resources online as well. I'll like a few sites where, with a little bit of delving, you might find a good sound for whatever you need.

http://www.freesound.org/

http://www.mediacollege.com/downloads/sound-effects/

Most of the things on these sites should be free to use for non-profit projects and the like. Some on the media college even have full usage or public domain. This thread is a nice resource.

[Komag]

I've added this to the superthread (and removed the textures link from there since it's here now!)

[odinsballs]

nifscope can be added to this too since it has wavefront support and some very handy utilities for cross format model conversion uv map editing / wrapping , material editing, node editing and much more (also it converts nif formats to object wich would allow acces to various custom nif content from oblivion /skyrim mods (custom!,not vanilla content of course.)
heres the link to download page for nifscope:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftools/files/

[JohnWordsworth]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I have updated the original post with your links. I've moved to a 'use Spoilers for each section' structure to make the post more easy to navigate. Let me know if you prefer it the old way (just a straight up list).

@Komag: Thanks for adding to the Super thread.

@Radar6590: Heh, the last version I bought for £600 or whatever it was, was CS4 for OSX, and while there are a few improvements - CS2 is perfectly fine for everything I do with it. Heck, I used to use Photoshop 7.0 back in the day - that was a pretty powerful tool back then! At least with CS6 you get better performance on new PCs, and hopefully fewer bugs caused by the fact CS2 is designed for Windows XP or so. There are one or two things that annoy me when using it.

[Ryeath_Greystalk]

I downloaded paint.net last night. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but felt the need to post a warning.

There are a lot of links on the webpage that make it look like your downloading paint.net, but ends up being something else. Read carefully!

[LordYig]

This is a nice idea John.

Photoshop CS2 - very old version, but still good. Now freeware apparently! I have this running on Windows 8 and, as long as you install it to the correct place and don't mind the broken 'register' box popping up when you open it it works fine. You can download the NVidia DDS plugin to Save As DDS for free too.

Unfortunately Photoshop CS 2 and the Creative Suite 2 is not free at all.
There was a misunderstanding when Adobe's released the install source with product keys for the whole Creative Suite 2 pack a while ago.
You have to own a proper license to be able to use it legally.
Check the original link at Adobe.
Also, see this article for details, specially the update at the end of the article : http://lifehacker.com/5973750/download- ... r-for-free

Anyway I'll add my own set of suggested links, I hope it might help someone.

Textures base and Photos

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http://www.texturemate.com/ : a good texture library of over 2800 textures.
http://cgtextures.com/ : The best texture library on the web IMO, require a free account creation to unlock high resolution image and a limit of 15MB downloads per day.
Thousands of images, high resolution available, lot of category to choose from, high quality stuff, regular updates with dozens and even hundreds of new textures every week...

Sound Effects

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FreeSound.org and SoundBible have already been mentioned so...

Here are two sites usually providing public domain sounds, check the license for each sound just to be sure.
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml
http://www.grsites.com/archive/sounds/

Public domain recording of instruments by The Philharmonia Orchestra (based in the U.K. i guess...):
http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesounde ... s/library/

Procedural Texture Generators
Freeware :

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From Spiral Graphics :
Genetica Viewer : Use the default library of free textures, change the random seed setting to generates some variations and use them anywhere you want to.
Wood Workshop : simple wood texture generator, for floors and plane surface mostly.
Genetica Texture Packs : Use each library of free textures, change the random seed setting to generates some variations and use them anywhere you want to.

Shareware, but still nice to check at least once the trial period:

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FilterForge : A very very good software, lots of pre-configured filters, new filters regularly added by the community, create your own and re-use existing part of others filters if needed. It's worth to try the 30 days trials.
Genetica : another very good software, some of it's functionality are unique when compared to filter forge.
Easier to use and see what you are doing than FilterForge, at least in the begining, IMO.

Do you think that a tutorial section would be nice to add ?
I have a set of links to Photoshop or 3DSmax tutorials that could I share if needed.

[akroma222]

Whoa!? So many resources Nice one.... really keen for some new sound effects

[LordGarth]

Hello,

Is there anything to help with making new animations work with Grimrock.

Thx,

LordGarth