Graphic Programs
3d Programs
Autodesk 3D Studio Max
This full-featured 3D modeling, animation, and rendering solution is used to produce top-selling games and award-winning film and video content. It’s the tool of choice for quickly generating realistic characters, seamless CG effects, jaw-dropping games, or top-quality film and television content. Enhanced toolsets let you create your 3D environment the way you want, manage complex scenes, and take advantage of improved software interoperability and pipeline-integration support.
Leaders in the game development, television, film, and digital publishing industries will want to explore this latest release of the best-in-class 3D modeling software.
The award-winning Autodesk® Maya® software is a powerful, integrated 3D modeling, animation, visual effects, and rendering solution. Because Maya is based on an open architecture, all your work can be scripted or programmed using a well-documented and comprehensive API (application programming interface) or one of two embedded scripting languages, the Maya Embedded Language (MEL) or Python®. This level of openness, combined with an industry-leading suite of 3D visual effects, computer graphics, and character animation tools, enables you to realize your creative vision for your film, television, game development, and design projects.
LightWave 3D® is a complete modeling, animation and rendering solution. Its native renderer is unparalleled and serves as the centerpiece in the production pipeline of many facilities both large and small. Render nodes are free and set up is quite straightforward
LightWave Modeler excels both as a subdivision surface and a polygonal modeler, fast, efficient and again, straightforward in functionality. In addition, an industry leading node-based texturing and shading system allows you to create any look you desire – quickly and easily. You’ll find LightWave is the most complete and robust 3D system right out of the box anywhere at any price. It is a thriving, dynamic system, ever evolving to meet the needs of our users. We work closely on a day-to-day basis with LightWave artists so that we know exactly what you are trying to accomplish. The LightWave renderer is first class and infinitely easier to set up and use than any other, not to mention the fact that unlimited render nodes are free.
We take great pride in the fact that LightWave artists have won more Emmy Awards than those using any other package. We are proud of the fact that our user community is the most passionate, most active and most helpful in the industry. LightWave is more than a 3D program, it is a business, it is an art form, it is a film, it is a game, it is realistic, it is cartoonish, it is moving, it is still… it is whatever you make of it. LightWave is in the midst of a major renaissance driven by the needs of 3D artists worldwide. Vast improvements have been made to the system in the LightWave v9 development cycle. LightWave v9.6 boasts new capabilities, such as improvements to animation, rendering, and workflow, with FiberFX cloning, Layout snapping, and automatic drag-and-drop file loading. More than 625 feature requests and reported issues have been implemented and resolved between 9.6 and previous version 9.5. LightWave v9.6 is the fifth free update in the LightWave v9 series.
Autodesk Softimage 7.5 (formerly SOFTIMAGE|XSI) is a complete 3D software for visual effects and game production. Built on a new, highly extensible architecture, Softimage gives you the power and flexibility to bring your creative visions to life quickly and profitably. Softimage features Interactive Creative Environment (ICE), a new platform for building effects and tools visually using a node-based paradigm. Powering ICE is a high-performance parallel processing engine that takes advantage of multi-core workstations, giving you the utmost performance and scalability. The result is a giant leap forward in production efficiency and consistency that culminates in higher production standards.
Argile is a new artistic studio dedicated to visualize, sculpt and retouch 3D models. Its flexibility and ergonomics will turn Argile into the indispensable companion to create morphs, to sculpt a model and paint it in real time. Along with the complete set of classic features (automatic detection and selection of points/vertices/faces, rotation, dilatation, displacement, constraints…) etc. In a couple of minutes you will get used to this powerful and intuitive original toolbox.
Poser 7 and Poser Pro,are a cheap alternative to creating and animating characters in 3D. You can create your own characters, choose from thousands of pre-made characters (at ContentParadise.com), or you can even customize pre-made templates. You can also export directly to 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, or Lightwave.
Daz3D are the makers of Bryce, Carrara, and Daz Studio (some of the low end 3D modeling applications that can get the job done, but don’t give you the high level of detail and control that the higher end applications do). Bryce is a landscape and terrain editor, Carrara is a modeling application, and Daz Studio is a character building software. All three together give you a nice little studio for making some cool things, at a price that is very easy on your pocketbook.
Another digital sculpting application (similar to Zbrush), is Autodesk “Mudbox”. Designed specifically for character sculpting, modeling, and texturing, it is a great application to integrate into your workflow with Maya or 3ds Max (considering that they are all Autodesk applications).
RealFlow is a particle-based fluid and dynamics simulator, and is quite possibly one of the best tools for the job on the market to date. Able to operate as a standalone application, as well as a plugin for Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage, Cinema 4D and Houdini, you can create beautiful fluid animations, and even other particle simulations (such as tornadoes, hair, or poker chips falling onto a table…to name a few). All of the particles that are created will work with (and against) each other, using real world physics parameters that you can modify in any way that you see fit.
Start with a sketch, drawing, physical model, scan data, or only an idea—Rhino provides the tools to accurately model and document your designs ready for rendering, animation, drafting, engineering, analysis, and manufacturing or construction.
Rhino can create, edit, analyze, document, render, animate, and translate NURBS curves, surfaces, and solids with no limits on complexity, degree, or size. Rhino also supports polygon meshes and point clouds. Rhino offers:
Uninhibited free-form 3-D modeling. Tools like those found only in products costing 20 to 50 times more. Accurately model any shape you can imagine.
Artlantis is the fastest stand-alone rendering application developed especially for architects and designers, ideal for quickly and easily creating high resolution 3D renderings, QuickTime VR Panoramas, QuickTime VR Objects and animations. A recognized leader in preview window technology, Artlantis is the rendering software used by architects, designers and urban design professionals in more than 80 countries.
Blender is a 3D graphics application released as free software under the GNU General Public License. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle, and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, including games. Blender is available for a number of operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Blender’s features include advanced simulation tools such as rigid body, fluid, cloth and softbody dynamics, modifier based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node based material and compositing system and Python for embedded scripting.
ZBrush is a digital sculpting tool that combines 3D/2.5D modeling, texturing and painting. It uses a proprietary “pixol” technology (see below) which stores lighting, color, material, and depth information for all objects on the screen. The main difference between ZBrush and more traditional modeling packages is that it is more akin to sculpting.
ZBrush is used as a digital sculpting tool to create high-resolution models (up to millions of polygons, and theoretically unlimited) for use in movies, games, and animations. It is used by companies ranging from ILM to Electronic Arts. ZBrush uses dynamic levels of resolution to allow sculptors to make global or local changes to their models. ZBrush is most known for being able to sculpt medium to high frequency details that were traditionally painted in bump maps. The resulting mesh details can then be exported as normal maps to be used on a low poly version of that same model. They can also be exported as a displacement map, although in that case the lower poly version generally requires more resolution. Or, once completed, the 3D model can be projected to the background, becoming a 2.5D image (upon which further effects can be applied). Work can then begin on another 3D model which can be used in the same scene. This feature lets users work with extremely complicated scenes without heavy processor overhead.
2d Programs
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program (also known as a DPP, Desktop Publishing Program) developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation software, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as “an industry standard for graphics professionals” and was one of the early “killer applications” on the PC.
Adobe’s 2005 “Creative Suite” rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8′s renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS4 is the 11th major release of Adobe Photoshop. The CS rebranding also resulted in Adobe offering numerous software packages containing multiple Adobe programs for a reduced price. Adobe Photoshop is included in most of Adobe’s Creative Suite offerings.
Photoshop’s popularity, combined with its high retail price, makes Photoshop’s piracy rate relatively high. Adobe countered by including SafeCast DRM starting with Adobe Photoshop CS.
Adobe® Illustrator CS4 software is a comprehensive vector graphics environment with new transparency in gradients and multiple artboards that invite you to explore more efficient ways to design.
Adobe Illustrator is the leading programm to projecting and creating the illustration. It offers the unrestricted possibilities of creating and unusual precision. He simplifies preparing, modification and improving graphic arts. He possesses advanced edytorskie, typographical functions and many new functions and tools havings on the aim of acceleration and improvement of the creator work, now also for needs of the creators of web pages.
Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 has everything you need to create stunning photos. The integrated Learning Center and a selection of one-click photo-fixing tools make it easy to correct common photo flaws such as red eye, color and sharpness. Unique makeover tools let you whiten teeth, remove blemishes and paint on a tan, so you can make everyone look their best before printing or posting photos online.
As your skills and confidence grow, you can harness the power of professional-quality features such as HDR Photo Merge, Histogram, Curves and Levels Adjustment tools to make precision edits. You can even get creative with artistic effects and filters to turn your favorite photos into fun projects to share with family and friends.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 delivers all the essential tools for today’s busy designer. Create powerful designs using intuitive vector illustration and page layout tools. Retouch and enhance photos with professional photo-editing software. And easily convert bitmap images to editable and scalable vector files. Whatever your project, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 will streamline your workflow and inspire you with new creative possibilities.
Create illustrations, logos, brochures, newsletters, flyers, signs, Web images and more.
Expand your creativity with Painter 11, the most inventive digital painting software on the market. By adding Painter to your workflow, you gain a full art studio that gives you the tools to create unprecedented artwork. Digital art tools let you experiment with color theory, composition and brush strokes, without the toxins, mess and expenses associated with traditional art. Support for the entire Wacom® product line, including industry-leadingCintiq® interactive pen displays and Intuos® drawing tablets, gives you the most responsive digital painting experience so your hand and brush work fluidly as one. Customizable paper textures give your art added artistic undertones, plus a level of texture and detail that no other digital painting or photo-painting tools can produce. Painter is changing what’s possible in art. Now it’s your turn.
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
Gimp is quickly becoming a free version of Photoshop.
Paint.NET is primarily programmed in the C# programming language, with small amounts of C++ used for installation and shell-integration related functionality. Its native image format, .PDN, is a compressed representation of the application’s internal object format, which preserves layering and other information. Excluding the installer, text, and graphics, Paint.NET is released under an MIT-like License. It was initially released as completely open source, but due to complaints by the lead developer about users changing the name of the application and selling it without giving the project credit as required by the license, all resource files (such as interface text and icons) were released under a Creative Commons license forbidding modification, and the installer were made closed-source.
SketchBook Pro, also referred to as SketchBook, is drawing software that features a gesture-based user interface. According to the Autodesk SketchBook Pro website at [[1>>. It was originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation, but is now owned by Autodesk.
SketchBook Pro has an uncluttered interface, and painting and drawing tools such as pencils, markers and brushes. Because it makes use of the pressure-sensitivity features of Wacom Tablets and Tablet PCs, it can help artists sketch and create effects similar to traditional materials.
Autodesk SketchBook Pro software also features a screenshot tool for annotation, allowing one to show content during a meeting and add notes as the content is reviewed. The Previous/Next buttons make it possible to create flipbooks or animations. The program supports layers with import and export of Photoshop (.psd) format. Other features include rulers, symmetry, the ability to customize brushes, create texture brushes, and rotate the canvas.
Paint is a simple graphics painting program that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows since its first release. It is often referred to as MS Paint or Microsoft Paint. The program opens and saves files as Windows bitmap (24-bit, 256 color, 16 color, and monochrome, all with the .bmp extension), JPEG, GIF (without animation or transparency, although the Windows 98 version, a Windows 95 upgrade, and the Windows NT4 version did support the latter), PNG (without alpha channel), and TIFF (without the multiple pages). The program can be in color mode or two-color black-and-white, but there is no grayscale mode. For its simplicity, it rapidly became one of the most used applications in the early versions of Windows—introducing many to painting on a computer for the first time—and still has strong associations with the immediate usability of the old Windows workspace.
MS Paint is often used for Pixel Art
Ulead PhotoImpact is a raster graphics editing program published by Ulead Systems.
Alongside its image editing capabilities, the program also features HTML tools, such as a rollover assistant, an imagemap assistant, an HTML assistant, a background designer and a button library.
PhotoPlus X3 Digital Studio – The professional digital image editing solution.
Whether you’re quickly resizing holiday snaps, removing flaws from portraits, adjusting exposure and color levels, restoring old images, importing Photoshop® documents, layering and masking professional artwork, or transforming photos with unique effects and artistic styles, PhotoPlus X3 Digital Studio has everything you need to achieve the highest quality results – fast.
Welcome to DrawPlus X3, the affordable, all-in-one, creative powerhouse for drawing, sketching, painting, designing, illustrating and animating!
DrawPlus X3 is your one-stop-shop for creative fun, realistic painting, professional logos, stunning interactive Flash® animations, layouts and plans, business diagrams and much more. With an abundance of impressive artistic power and a stack of exciting new features, DrawPlus X3 has something for everyone – from students to home users and business professionals, novices to enthusiasts and experienced artists!
It’s never been easier to wow your friends, family, colleagues or any audience with eye-catching designs. Quickly transform photos into sensational artwork with powerful new AutoTrace and Image Cutout Studios, paint with a new range of lifelike photo-quality brushes, enjoy the intuitive usability of the fresh user interface, and import artwork from anywhere with extended support for PDFs, digital images, EPS graphics, Adobe® Illustrator® drawings and CAD files.
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