Freeware- The cheapskate filmmaker's dream.

I have rather ecently come across several sites that have some great freakin' graphics ware, and it's FREE! Note, this isn't like Kazaa or anything, we're talking legit, free software! Enjoy...


This is a christian site, but for some reason, it has great software. There is a god, .


Celestia. You may be familiar with Universe, a starfield generator...this is that to the tenth power. A real-time utility that allows you to plunge through the universe at your own pace, revolve in 3D, and, if this wasn't cool enough...you can take screengrabs. Oh, and if it wasn't cool enough...YOU CAN TAKE VIDEO GRABS! A must... this is fun., as well as occasionally useful.

Winmorph. A must for every effects artist, this freeware will morph between two objects or videos as it's own program, or as a Premiere plug-in. This is one of those programs that makes you wonder, "Why is this free?"

CamStudio. This great program is referenced to by a lot of people on this board, and that's all. So, for you you haven't heard of it, here it is. This will record video from your monitor , and put it into an AVI. Ever seen Ryan's tutorials? Same thing (different program, though.) Another one of those 'why is it free' proggys.

Blender. Ah, the ever popular Blender. A freeware 3D animation and modelling suite. And, this is the defining WHY ISN'T THIS SOLD AT (insert computer store name here)?!? A fully recognized program, this baby is all you could ask for in a 3D suite. And, forget not, it's free. (Also, check BlenderWars for great Blender models, tutorials, and plug-ins.)

Terragen. Short for terrain-generator, this prog supposedly is one of the best for environment creation. I haven't figured it out, yet, but hey, I'm not the brightest guy in the universe. The world, maybe, but not the universe.



...if you know of any others, or have questions, post away.

 

Wow... This is a good list. Some of these programs, like Celestia, I'd never heard of before. Thanks a bundle!

-Paul

 

The GIMP - Open source Photoshop clone. Available for Linux and Windows.

VirtualDub - Not a full editor, but a very useful tool for doing stuff with video. Windows/AVI only.

Audacity - Great open source WAV editing program

OpenOffice - To uh, write your script. But OpenOffice is great. It's a MS Office killer, everybody should use it.

That's all the ones I have that would be related to fanfilm making. There are other free 3D programs, but none of them are as good as Blender.

 

I was gonna post GIMP, but ol' boy beat me to it. Never actually used it, but heard it was good stuff.

 

You people are biased. I see only one app that was posted is for Mac, Celestia, which I downloaded and don't see the point of it.

NO offense Fig, but that app has nothing to do with visual FX or animation or anything that has to do with making a fanfilm.

-KNick

 

isn't there generally more freeware for pc? what do you expect?

 

....I never said anything about effects or fanfilms, Nick.

 

Nick, Blender is also for Macintosh, and the purpose of Celestia would be to make a video shot of just moving through space then taking that and using it your film, or you could make a pretty neato science project with it, hehe, plus it's just fun to screw around with.

Good stuff, Fig! Keep 'em coming people.

 

Well, I've been away on vaction for only four days, and seem to have quite a lot to catch up on. Here are some lists to help start:

7 Links to free CGI software

2 Free Audio programs (plus several other audio links

9 free programs for video editing or effects

1 free pre-production planning program.

Have fun!

 

A short while ago I stumbled across this program:

Jahshaka

It's a free compositing and editing system, which is in continuous development (and not yet at a point where it would be called finished). But there's a new version available every now and then, and it looks REALLY promising. So if you want to do effects, and can't afford AfterEffects or Combustion, check out Jahshaka.

 

Three-Part Set. This page has all of the do-it-yourself camcorder accesories on the net (that 'he' has found), as well as these three pieces of freeware: a teleprompter utility (scrolls text over a screen), a AVI-to-FireWire transfer...no conversions needed, and an interesting looking utility that sends files to your camera...I may look into that, just cause the explanation isn't that helpful. (Click 'download' on the page.)

EDIT: Link.
EDIT: Explanation of link.

 

Well, since Macs make up less than 5% of the computer market...

Thanks for the list guys.
If I ever have time again, I'll start playing around.

 

How about free prgrams for doing crawls, lightsabres, and bluescreening? (Not counting Saber Light or Blender.)

That I'd like to see.

 

Look above:

Gimp and FilmGimp (aka CinePaint) will do composting and rotoscoping.

JahShaka will to compostiting and text animation among other things.

PadawanNick's links have a bunch of stuff that are cross-platform and free.

And there's a couple more, with detailed descriptions here

Sauja

 

I do highly recommend winmorph for all though.

 

I used gimp and Filmgimp for my fx test...

 

TECHTV did a story this week on VideoHub, free video editing software:

Free File: VirtualDub
Download this basic video editor and capture program, convert your movies to DivX.
By Craig Higdon

VirtualDub, a video capture and editing application, doesn't have the functionality of Premiere or Final Cut Pro, but it has one huge advantage over those big boys: It's free.

VirtualDub performs only linear video editing, but it's great for throwing together some clips or adding filters to your video. Here's why I like it:


VirtualDub supports AVI and MPEG-2 video formats and WAV audio files.

Since VirtualDub is free open-source software, there are loads of plug-ins available for it, including plug-ins that will convert your files into DivX. (Ooh, DivX, gaaaaaahhhhh.)

It's good for processing video (adding filters or effects) before editing it in one of the bigger programs.

VirtualDub is really powerful and versatile, but it's got a steep learning curve, and it isn't too easy to use. Although there isn't anything keeping you from creating your opus on it, the process would be tedious. The good thing is that there's plenty of support for it on the Internet. You'll find literally hundreds of sites about this free file.


You'd be hard pressed to find a video editor that beats the bare-bones functionality and cost (free!) of VirtualDub.

Download VirtualDub now

 

...linear editor? ....a computer-program linear editor? Huh?


/me is lost.


Figawiggle

 

Hey, don't shoot the messenger.

 

:::Shoots Semaj:::


Aha!


...but how does it work? Do you need extra equip for it?

 

FilmGIMP/Cinepaint

Not ready for prime time. But promising. Think Photoshop + frame-by-frame image sequence editing + Filmstrip-like effects handling = L337. However, the program in Windows has more bugs that Millenium Edition, and the Linux version has few features of the GIMP implemented. Basically like MSPaint for video right now, with some rudimentry filters.

 

How about free prgrams for doing crawls, lightsabres, and bluescreening? (Not counting Saber Light or Blender.)

I definitely have your answer. Check out BlenderWars to download Axogon Composer 0.93. It's the beta version of the product that became MainConcept's MainVision, and it's wonderful. Bluescreening tools are a bit flaky, but can be made to work well with some effort. Rotoscoping is right on with the "geometries" system making keyframing a snap. It can also function as a multitrack sound and video editor - whenever I rough-cut a scene to show to my cast, I do it in MainVision because it's the fastest, easiest tool I have. Check it out. You'll need not only the "Axogon Free Beta" file from BlenderWars downloads, but somewhere you'll have to scare up a copy of the Formats Update if you want to be able to edit video effectively. Alternatively, you could just PM me with your e-mail address and I'd send you a copy of the 84 KB file.

-Paul

 

My Mac friends, behold- Sound Studio! I have made my donation.

Edit: By the way, it's a sound editing tool for Macs.

Edit2: Well, I just figured I didn't need to day that. Oh well. Have fun!

 

wow useful thread

thanks all



btw i recomend blender to all beginers like said it FREE and its pretty damn good

 

Wow I finally got a working copy of Terragen from this thread and it's so cool! I highly recomend Terragen to everyone. Thanks everyone!