Going Open Source?

"Going Open Source?"

This was my first question in my mind when i think about the drawbacks of using commercial softwares such as Maya, adobe photoshop, after effects etc. that are currently installed in my computer.

Our school has also insights ever since on using free open source softwares that made me think, why not use open source software out there. Ive found out that there are almost open source alternatives to expensive softwares that we can't afford to buy here in the philippines, that render us to buy pirated cds of the said commercial softwares.

But as it goes, ive found my windows being infected by a virus just a week ago that made me reformat my hard disk, Ive come to think on using open source softwares available on the net. Just want to share some cool open source software ive found out that can be alternatives for commercial softwares out there:

Modeling

BLENDER - Blender is modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and video post-processing 3d software package in one. (alternate for Maya, 3dsmax, other 3d commercial software)

Wings 3D is a subdivision modeler inspired by Nendo and Mirai from Izware.

SharpConstruct is a 3D modeling program that paint depths on to polygon models in real-time. Unlike traditional modeling programs, SharpConstruct makes it easy to model organic shapes. (alternate for Zbrush)

Make Human is a free open source 3d tool for 3d models character modelling and animation.

Texturing and 2D

The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a free software raster graphics editor. The GIMP product vision sees GIMP as a high-end program for the editing and creation of original images, icons, graphical elements of web pages and art for user interface elements.

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Sound and Lip Sync

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

JLipSync is a program for creating timesheets/x-sheets/exposure sheets to sync animation to a pre-recorded audio track. The X-sheet can be exported in various formats, among them .csv and pdf-format.JLipSync is similar to the commercial program Magpie, which unfortunately no longer is available. The software has been substituted by Magpie Pro.

Video Editors and Compositing Softwares

Wax 2.0 is a high performance and flexible video composition and special effects software. The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video composition and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease every time. Wax can create 2D & 3D special effects and can work in two modes - as a standalone application and as a "plug-in" to video editors/NLEs.

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Video Playback

VLC Media Player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac ...) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a media converter or a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on networks.

Media Player Classic is an extremely light-weight open source media player for Windows. It looks just like the good-old Media Player v6.4, but has lots of nice extra features.

Collaboration

COLLADA COLLAborative Design Activity for establishing an open standard digital asset schema for interactive 3D applications. It involves designers, developers, and interested parties from within Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) as well as key third-party companies in the 3-D industry. It defines an XML database schema that enables 3-D authoring applications to freely exchange digital assets without loss of information, enabling multiple software packages to be combined into extremely powerful tool chains.

Verse is a network protocol that lets multiple applications act together as one large application by sharing data over a network. If one application makes a change to shared data, the change is distributed instantly to all the other interested clients. The protocol and associated data format are both heavily optimized for sharing data suitable for 3D graphics.

Other Miscelleneous Tools

OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. (an alternative for MS Office)

InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. (an alternative for Nero)

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools. (an alternative for windows)