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Blender Blender is intended to make high quality animations. Two obstacles usually prevent users from this type of applications. First and foremost, there is money, because 3D-rendering programs are prohibitively expensive for many users.
Second, there is usability since using these tools requires a lot of expertise. Luckily, Blender is free, so that leaves only the second barrier left. This means that if you are not willing to spend long hours learning to use it and consulting the multiple tutorials available in the web, you had better look elsewhere, because this program is not for you.
Blender has a necessarily complex user graphic interface. Otherwise, it would have been practically impossible to include so many functions. However, the tools, functions and property dialog boxes packed into the interface do not interfere with working on the images. If you are already familiar with other similar software as 3D Studio, you will probably find many similarities. This could noticeably soften the learning curve.
Blender includes all the tools that are necessary for creating and animating 3D objects. They allow you to create meshes, polygons and shapes, which you can resize by simply dragging handlers or providing the exact measures. In addition, these objects can be animated in a time-line style, using the tools grouped under the headings: Modeling, Interface, Rigging, Animation, UV Unwrapping, Shading, Physics, Particles and Rendering.
Perhaps, some users would underestimate its potentialities because of its being free. Nothing to fear: Blender is in absolute terms one the best 3D-rendering applications. Multiple sample projects are available on line that prove how powerful its animation engine is. The program can be successfully used to create 3D animations, games and concepts.
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Sweet Home 3D Sweet Home 3D is a home and interior design program that can help you to place all your furniture, walls, doors and appliances in minutes and gives you a real time 3D preview of all your plans.
You can create walls of desired dimensions and directions, use textures for your walls, hang paintings on them and much more.
Sweet Home 3D is designed with novice users' abilities in mind. You don’t need any prior knowledge to use this program. In fact, you will think that everyone can become an interior designer after using this wonderful program. You can use the available furniture that is given with the program or download more from the official website for free.
The best feature of this program is its support for 3D .obj files. It means you can import any 3D object file or furniture to use with your home plans. You can design any object or furniture using other 3D design tools and use it in your plans. Additionally you can export the plan to a 2D PDF file for future realization.
The program is not very flexible, so it may not be preferable for professionals, but the easy user interface is surely attractive. It makes interior designing as simple as dragging and dropping.
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LEGO Digital Designer Lego is one of the most popular toys in the world, and it is played not only by kids, but by grownups too. It is regarded as an important learning tool for young kids and for persons with special education needs.
Also, many people use it as an artistic expression tool. The Lego Digital Designer is like having a virtual Lego with an unlimited amount of blocks and accessories. You can use it to design any project you have in mind, or modify any of the predesigned projects included in the program.
The program allows you to use all the types of blocks and parts available in the real toy, of course, in all the colors available; thus, custom colors or components are not allowed.
Far from being a disadvantage, this limitation keeps the spirit of the toy, since part of the fun and the challenge is precisely to construct things with the limited resources available. A very interesting feature of the program is the fact that you can create automatically a custom box with all the parts needed for constructing your project with real Lego blocks, and send it to the Lego shop to purchase the actual pieces to construct your project in the real life.
Thus, you can try an unlimited amount of combinations using the program before purchasing the definite set of parts. And, if all that were not enough, the program is absolutely free to download and use.
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DraftSight DraftSight is a free, professional-grade 2D CAD product that provides users with a better way to read, write and share DWG files. DraftSight generally takes a few minutes to download and runs on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft® Windows XP®, Windows Vista® and Windows® 7 (Mac OS and Linux support will be available later this year).
DraftSight is available for all users, including CAD professionals, students and educators.
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3D Rad 3D Rad is an excellent tool for creating 3D animations not only for being a free program, but also because it doesn't require you to write any code to create outstanding 3D animations.
The program is easy to use, it has a visualization window, where it shows the objects added to produce the animation. These objects are also listed in a frame, where each one is considered as an individual item.
The key of the program is to know how to work with the objects. You can adjust their parameters to enhance their aspect, e.g. you can add physical layouts, change the image, etc. The program includes some buttons called "Transformation buttons", which can be used to move a certain object to a preferred position, angle, etc. The objects can be also linked to other objects, e.g. you can add a Terrain object, a G-force object, a car object, and link the terrain and the G-force to the car (If the G-force or the Terrain weren't linked to the car, it would be floating when running the animation). You can add a camera and adjust the translation or rotation speed to follow an object.
The program includes different preloaded objects, but you can also include your own 3D models.
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Game Editor Game Editor Pro is a game creator / editor. It can be used to create old-style games, like Mario, Dave or Pitfall, etc. It is not a professional game creator or multimedia tool. It is a small application. Anyone can create a small game easily.
But there are a lot of settings you need to set, when creating a game.
Each character or object in the game can be customized in a lot of ways. This software presents us with a collection of presets or game samples and more can be downloaded from its website. We can drag and drop our Mario (or any character) anywhere. All that we have to do is add obstacles like water, walls, snakes, dragons, etc. - anything we like.
We can add an "actor" and design it by creating actions for how it will jump, move, etc. All the components have a special area (or box or wireframe) in which it is enclosed. We can add animation importing it from a file that we have already designed (with other software, maybe like Flash).
The program supports some formats that it can export to - like the usual Windows EXE, Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Linux, etc. Well, the program is very easy to learn and use, and you can create a small 2D game without much effort.
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Construct Classic Construct Classic - a tiny application, the main function of which is creation of 2D animated reels, catoons and games. The main principle of the constructor is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Got). That means you don’t need to waste time going through pages of programs manuals looking for any information how to create your own animated reel.
Everything is much easier, - add any object, switch on animations for it and it starts moving.
Construct Classic application is free. Moreover, it has an open code, that’s why different designers and program professionals can configer it as they like.
The application designers themselves haven’t been supporting this branch of their own program for rather long period of time. They’re creating now software maintenance of Construct Classic v. 2x and let things slide with Construct Classic itself. However existance of open code and user friendliness of this program still attract independent programmers and small game firms.
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