Description:
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
Features:
Interface
* Revolutionary non-overlapping and non-blocking UI delivers unsurpassed workflow
* Flexible and fully configurable window layout with as many screen setups as you prefer
* Undo support on all levels
* Anti-aliased fonts with international translation support
* Any window space can be easily switched to any window type (curve editor, NLA, 3D view etc)
* Built-in text editor for annotations and editing Python scripts
* Graphical user interface for Python scripts
* Custom themes
* Consistent interface across all platforms
Modeling
* A range of 3D object types including polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, PostScript, OpenType)
* Very fast Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces with optimal iso-lines display and sharpness editing
* Full multiresolution sculpting capabilities with 2D bitmap/3D procedural brushes (Paint, Smooth, Pinch, Inflate, Grab) supporting symmetry
* Modifier stack deformers such as Lattice, Curve, Armature or Displace
* Mirror modifier with middle vertices clipping and automatic deletion of inner faces
* Non destructive real time Boolean and Array modifiers
* Mesh modeling based on vertex, edge and/or face selection
* Smooth soft selection editing tools for organic modeling
* Python scripting access for custom tool
Rigging
* Fast skeleton creation mode
* Interactive 3D paint for vertex weighting
* Fast envelope based skinning
* Automatic Skinning that really works (heat equilibrium based)
* Mirror editing (bone creation and weight painting)
* Double Quaternions reduce shrinking and other bone deformation errors
* Volume deformer uses a mesh cage to deform complex meshes with great results
* Bone layers and colored groups for better rig organization
* B-spline interpolated bones; forget about elbow twists
* Constraint stack for IK solver setup and other constraints
* PyConstraints; if you need something not yet implemented code it in python with real time feed back, no compiling needed
Rendering
* Very fast inbuilt raytracer
* Oversampling, motion blur, post-production effects, fields, non-square pixels
* Tile-based and fully threaded
* Render layers and passes
* Render baking to UV maps and object to object baking (full render, ambient occlusion, normals, textures)
* Render engine tightly integrated with the node compositor
* Halo, lens flares and fog effects
* Vector motion-blur post-process effect (using node compositor)
* Realistic defocus (DOF) post-process effect (using node compositor)
* Edge rendering for toon shading
* Interactive preview rendering panel in any 3d view
* Ambient Occlusion
* Radiosity solver
* Integral support for the Yafray render engine
* Export scripts available for external renderers such as Renderman (RIB), Povray, Virtualight, lux render, Indigo, V-Ray
Animation
* Armature (skeleton) deformation with forward/inverse kinematics with pole target support
* Auto IK allows posing FK chains easily
* Non-linear animation editor for mixing individual actions created in Action editor
* Automated walkcycles along paths
* Animated constraint system
* Vertex key framing for morphing, with controlling sliders
* Edit and create new blendshapes from existing targets
* Character animation pose editor
* 'Ipo' system integrates both motion curve and traditional key-frame editing
* Audio playback, mixing and editing support for sound synchronisation
* Timeline offers fast acces to many playback functions, autokey, help markers
* Python scripting access for custom and procedural animation effects
UV Unwrapping
* Conformal and Angle Based unwrapping methods
* Interactive transform of UV maps by vertex pinning
* Proportional falloff editing of UV maps for smooth transformations
* Seam based unwrapping
* Cube, Cylinder, Sphere, View projections
* Catmull-Clark subdivition of UVs for less distortion
* Minimize stretch tool allows to reduce area distortion
* Multiple UV layers
Shading
* Diffuse shaders such as Lambert, Minnaert, Toon, Oren-Nayar, Lambert
* Specular shaders such as WardIso, Toon, Blinn, Phong, CookTorr
* Node editor for creating and mixing complex materials
* PyNodes: write your own Python shaders with realtime feedback, no need to compile
* Material previews rendered by main render engine
* Fast, realistic subsurface scattering
* Blurry reflections and refractions
* Tangent shading to give any shader an anisotropic effect
* Versatile procedural textures system
* Reflection maps
* Normal, displacement and bump maps
Physics and Particles
* Particle system can be atached to any mesh object. Control methods include weight painting, textures, curve guides, wind and vortex effects. Particles can be deflected by moving geometry
* Hair strands can be created by a static particle system, supporting all particle control methods
* Fluid simulator with fully animated inflow, outflow, obstacle and fluid objects. Gravity and viscosity settings can also be animated. Supports vector blur and is integrated with the particle system
* Realtime soft body solver integrated in mesh, lattice, curve and text objects. Supports collision detection and particle field effects like Wind or Vortex, soft bodys can also be baked for faster playback/rendering
* Game engine rigid body physics can be easily baked into animation curves
Imaging and Compositing
* Compositor tightly integrated and aligned with the rendering pipeline
* MultiLayer OpenEXR files allow to store and reuse raw renderlayer and passes data
* Complete list of composite node filters, convertors, color and vector operators and mixers including Chroma Key, Blur, RGB Curves, Z Combine, Color Ramp, Gamma Correct
* Preview panel to define the portion of interest. A composite then only happens on this part
* Threaded and memory efficient (up to 8 processors)
* Near realtime sequencer can edit hours of video
* Waveform and U/V scatter plots
* Open and write many audio & video file formats using ffmpeg
* Can render using frameserver-support directly into foreign applications
* Supports float images as well as regular 8 bits images
* Curves tool allows you to create a mapping from the float range to a displayable result (for HDR images)
Physics and Particles
* Particle system can be atached to any mesh object. Control methods include weight painting, textures, curve guides, wind and vortex effects. Particles can be deflected by moving geometry
* Hair strands can be created by a static particle system, supporting all particle control methods
* Fluid simulator with fully animated inflow, outflow, obstacle and fluid objects. Gravity and viscosity settings can also be animated. Supports vector blur and is integrated with the particle system
* Realtime soft body solver integrated in mesh, lattice, curve and text objects. Supports collision detection and particle field effects like Wind or Vortex, soft bodys can also be baked for faster playback/rendering
* Game engine rigid body physics can be easily baked into animation curves
Realtime 3D/Game Creation
* Graphical logic editor for defining interactive behavior without programming
* Collision detection and dynamics simulation now support Bullet Physics Library. Bullet is an open source collision detection and rigid body dynamics library developed for Play Station 3
* Shape types: Convex polyhedron, box, sphere, cone, cylinder, capsule, compound, and static triangle mesh with auto deactivation mode
* Discrete collision detection for RigidBody simulation
* Support for in-game activation of dynamic constraints
* Full support for vehicle dynamics, including spring reactions, stiffness, damping, tyre friction etc
* Python scripting API for sophisticated control and AI, fully defined advanced game logic
* Support all OpenGLTM lighting modes, including transparencies, Animated and reflection-mapped textures
* Support for multimaterials, multitexture and texture blending modes, per-pixel lighting, dynamic lighting, mapping modes, GLSL vertexPaint texture blending, toon shading, animated materials, support for Normal Maping and Parallax Mapping
* Playback of games and interactive 3D content without compiling or preprocessing
* Audio, using the SDL toolkit
* Multi-layering of Scenes for overlay interfaces
Files
* Save all scene data in a single .blend file, even images, sounds or fonts can be packed for easy transportation
* Powerful built-in database system allowing instances, scene management, and dynamic linking multiple project files
* .blend format supports compression, digital signatures, encryption, forwards/backwards compatibility and can be used as a library to link to from other .blend files
* Read and write support for many other 2D and 3D formats
* 2D
TGA, JPG, PNG, OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, Radiance HDR, Iris, SGI Movie, IFF, AVI and Quicktime GIF, TIFF, PSD, MOV (Windows and Mac OS X)
* 3D
3D Studio, AC3D, COLLADA, FBX Export, DXF, Wavefront OBJ, DEC Object File Format, DirectX, Lightwave, MD2, Motion Capture, Nendo, OpenFlight, PLY, Pro Engineer, Radiosity, Raw Triangle, Softimage, STL, TrueSpace, VideoScape, VRML, VRML97, X3D Extensible 3D, xfig export
Requirements:
* Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista
* Mac OS X (PPC and Intel)
* Linux (i386)
* Linux (PPC)
* FreeBSD 5.4 (i386)
* SGI Irix 6.5
* Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc)
More information:
Blender
Download
Blender for Windows
Blender for Linux
Blender for Mac OS
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Blender v2.49 RC2
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
GeoSetter v3.0.14
Description:
GeoSetter is a freeware tool for Windows for showing and changing geo data of image files (e.g. images taken by digital cameras).
Features:
* Reads and writes the formats JPEG and TIFF as well as camera RAW formats DNG (Adobe), CRW and CR2 (Canon), NEF (Nikon), MRW (Konica Minolta), PEF (Pentax), ORF (Olympus), ARW, SR2, SRF (Sony) and RAF (Fujifilm)
* Uses ExifTool from Phil Harvey for writing data
* Shows existing geo coordinates and tracks on embedded Google Maps map (requires internet connection)
* Setting geo data by using embedded Google Maps map (requires internet connection) or by entering known values for coordinates and altitude directly
* Automatic filling of location IPTC fields and altitude values (requires internet connection)
* Editable IPTC data (IPTC-NAA/XMP)
* Possibilty to change taken date of images
* Synchronization with track files (NMEA, GPX, PLT, Sony LOG and others)
* Synchronization with already geo tagged images with buddy images (e.g. between RAW images and their corresponding JPEG images)
* Google Earth export
* Synchronization with locr.com (new)
* Localizable user interface - English, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Russian and Norwegian language is available at the moment
Requirements:
Microsoft Windows
More information:
GeoSetter
Download
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
GPSBabel v1.3.6
Description:
GPSBabel lets you move data between popular GPS systems such as those from Garmin, Magellan or a large number of map programs.
GPSBabel is Free Software. You are free to use it within terms of the GNU Public License. The punchline of this license is that it lets you modify the program and redistribute it, but you also have to share your modifications with others.
Requirements:
* Windows
* Linux
* Mac
More information:
GPSBabel
Download
Monday, April 20, 2009
DarkWave Studio v2.7.3
Description:
This program is designed for the composition, synthesis and recording of digital music.
It is great as a production tool and is also very suitable for live performance. If you have a little knowledge of music composition and sound design you will have no trouble making great music with DarkWave Studio.
Features:
* Virtual Studio - Wire Machines Together As If You Were Using Real Hardware
* Pattern Editor - Quickly Create And Modify Musical Notes In A Piano Roll Interface
* Sequence Editor - Arrange Patterns Into A Song
* Multitrack Hard Disk Recorder - Record Multiple Tracks To Disk For Post Production
* 32-bit Floating Point Internal Audio Path - High Quality Sound Processing
* SSE and SSE2 Optimizations - Blazing Performance On Recent Processors
* Assembly Language Optimizations - Blazing Performance Even On 32-bit Systems
* Native 64-bit and 32-bit Platform Support
* VST PlugIn Support - Limitlessly Expandable With Virtual Instruments and Effects
* ASIO Audio Driver Support - Low Latency Output For Live Performance
Bundled PlugIns:
* MIDI Input - Play Instruments From A Music Keyboard
* ES Mixer - 8 Track Stereo Mixer With 2 Auxilary Tracks, For Mixing And Production
* ES DGenR8 - Synthesize Drum Beats With Roland TR-909 Flavour
* ES BassHead - Top Notch Virtual Analog Subtractive Synthesizer
* ES SpatialVerb - Realistic Reverb Effects With The Smoothest Sound
* ES Stomp - Synthesize That Classic Techno Thumping Kick Drum
* ES AntiAlias - Filter Digital Audio To Make It More Like Analog
* ES QuadDelay - For Trippy Echo Effects
Requirements:
Windows Vista, XP, 2000
64-bit Windows and Multi Core CPU Recommended
More information:
DarkWave Studio
Download
Download DarkWave Studio 2.7.3 [ ExperimentalScene ]
Download DarkWave Studio 2.7.3 Source Code [ ExperimentalScene ]
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Free Zune Video Converter v1.1
Description:
Free Zune Video Converter is an absolutely free application which converts the most popular video files (AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, MPG, WMV, MOV FLV, MP4, 3GP, MKV, VOB and other) to Microsoft Zune compatible video format (WMV, MP4, M4V, MOV).
You can also extract audio tracks from video files to MP3, WMA, M4A or AAC format. The application allows you to convert full movie or selected range only. You can limit output file size and set many parameters used by encoder.
The most important features:
* Conversion from AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV, QT, FLV, SWF, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, MKV, VOB, VCD DAT to WMV, MP4, MOV, MP3, WMA, M4A or AAC.
* Supported video codecs: WMV 7, WMV 8, MPEG-4 AVC, H.264.
* Predefined profiles for all types of Microsoft Zune players.
* Don't need any installation. Just extract ZIP archive and click ZuneConverter.exe file.
* Portability. This program doesn't use system registry and can be run from portable devices. All settings are written to INI file.
* Supported languages: english, polish.
* 100% freeware! - for private and commercial use. There are ono limitations, watermarks, adware, spyware etc.
Requirements:
• Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP
More information:
Free Zune Video Converter
Download
The GIMP v2.6.6
Description:
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product.
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, or an image format converter.
GIMP is modular, 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.
Note:
You will need to download both GTK+ Runtime Environment and The Gimp installers. Install GTK+ before installing The Gimp.
Customizable Interface
Each task requires a different environment and GIMP allows you to customize the view and behavior the way you like it. Starting from the widget theme, allowing you to change colors, widget spacings and icon sizes to custom tool sets in the toolbox. The interface is modulized into so called docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. Pressing the tab key will toggle them hidden.
GIMP features a great fullscreen mode allowing you to not only preview your artwork but also do editing work while using the most of your screen estate.
Photo Enhancement
Numerous digital photo imperfections can be easily compensated for using GIMP. Fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt simply choosing the corrective mode in the transform tools. Eliminate lens' barrel distortion and vignetting with a powerful filter but a simple interface.
The included channel mixer gives you the flexibility and power to get your B/W photography stand out the way you need.
Digital Retouching
GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it's not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.
Hardware Support
GIMP includes a very unique support for various input devices out of the box. Pressure and tilt sensitive tablets, but also a wide range of USB or MIDI controllers. You can bind often-used actions to device events such as rotating a USB wheel or moving a MIDI controller's slider. Change the size, angle or opacity of a brush while you paint, bind your favorite scripts to buttons. Speed up your workflow!
File Formats
The file format support ranges from the common likes of JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF to special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files. The architecture allows to extend GIMP's format capabilities with a plug-in. You can find some rare format support in the GIMP plugin registry.
Thanks to the transparent virtual file system, it is possible to load and save files to from remote locations using protocols such as FTP, HTTP or even SMB (MS Windows shares) and SFTP/SSH.
To save disk space, any format can be saved with an archive extension such as ZIP, GZ or BZ2 and GIMP will transparently compress the file without you needing to do any extra steps.
Requirements:
• Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista
• GTK+ Runtime Environment
• Unix
• Mac OS X
More information:
GIMP
Download
* For Windows
* For Unix
* For Mac OS X
GPSS Baseline v6.92
Description:
Free GPS Software and mapping for navigation on Laptop, Pocket PC and Smartphone.
maps for 163 countries - to street level for all the USA; voice guidance in 12 languages.
See how to navigate with this GPS Software and a GPS . Then download GPSS and run it on your PC. It will give demonstrations of what it can do. Run it on a Laptop with a GPS, and this same GPS Software will work for real. Need a GPS ? click here for advice. Get free support, mapping for 163 countries and voice guidance in 12 languages. This includes free street level mapping for all the USA. Over 10,100 people who have tried GPSS with GPS are on the links pages. Those with a business interest in GPS should visit the business page.
Requirements:
* Microsoft Windows
* Pocket PC Windows Mobile
* Smartphone Windows Mobile
* GPS
More information:
GPSS Baseline
Download
