Graphic Design Blog

Are you thinking of getting started in computer graphics? Here I have provided a collection of freeware, open source graphic software, and some commercial software comparisons and some reviews that will hopefully provide enough information to you to help you decide. This article is aimed at beginners or just the plain curious so I purposely tried to keep technical details light. If GEGL or JPEG2000 doesn’t mean anything to you, you’re in the right place.

2D Graphic Programs

Now if all you are interested is doing 2D graphic work, there are a wide variety of programs to choose from, but I think I have narrowed the choices down to just a select few focusing on Photo Editing and Painting.

The first program people usually think of when talking about graphic programs is Photoshop. This program basically covers the entire 2D graphic market, and for good reason. Photoshop is good, and can pretty much do whatever you need. This program is so well known, is an industry standard, and covers so much ground I am not going to try to review it with only a paragraph or two. Photoshop is costly, but it gets the job done and there are TONS of tutorials and brushes available on the Internet. The following is a good review by CoolPsTuts.

BUT, did you know there is a free alternative to Photoshop? It’s a program called GIMP. GIMP stands for the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is THE most popular alternative raster image program to Photoshop. While it may not cover everything that Photoshop does, it does enough. A lot of Photoshop tutorials can be followed in GIMP. The biggest stumbling block for new users to GIMP is the interface. GIMP incorporates floating windows, separate from the canvas area. I was working on a video overview of the GIMP interface, but I can across this video tutorial by Robert’s Productions and he did a much better job than I did.

If the interface really bothers you there is a modification you can do called GIMPShop, this modifies the GUI into something more comfortable for Photoshop users. To increase the usability of GIMP, I recommend searching for and getting plugins. Being Open Source, there is a large community out there that writes and shares their plugins. The largest collection can be found at the GIMP Plugin Registry. One of the most useful plugins I have found for GIMP is Layer Effects.

This plugin copies a lot of Photoshop’s Layer Effects; Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Satin, Color Overlay, Gradient Overlay, Pattern Overlay, and Stroke. With this plugin 90% of Photoshop tutorials can be followed (thats a guess, not an actual statistic). Another fantastic addition for GIMP is the GAP, GIMP Animation Package. GAP is useful for making, what else, animations by animating layers is specific order and based upon the controls you set. While you won’t be making any Saturday Morning Cartoons with it, you can make decent animated .gifs and small movies.

Another great freeware program I must mention is Paint.NET. Paint is not as robust as GIMP, but like all software it has its strong points. It is great for photo tweaking and enhancement, with a simpler interface than GIMP’s.  Like GIMP, there are plugins available to extend its use and capabilities.

If you are interested in painting on the computer, Corel Painter 11 is the first program to come to mind. I honestly haven’t come across anything else that combines digital painting and the feel of natural media like Corel Painter does. Before I discovered computers I painted with the old fashion physical brushes and palette for 15 years, so for me the feel of the media is very important. It comes with over 400 brushes, and you can customize and create even more. Even though it has a steep learning curve, it is one of the industries best at mimicing natural media behavior, from chalk to oils.

But, thanks again to the OSS community there is a free alternative that I like also, MyPaint. Like most painting programs, it is best used with a pressure sensitive graphic tablet. It comes with a wide variety of brushes and media, and basic layers. There are a variety of OSS painting programs available, but I chose MyPaint both on personal use and because it is one of the design packages being used in the Project Durian Movie by the Blender Foundation (see 3d Graphics below for more information).

For vector graphics the most popular commercial programs are called CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4. These programs are supported industry wide, and almost every graphic designer/artist I know uses them. Vector graphics software creates images through the use of mathematical equations and geometric primitives (shapes, lines, and curves). Raster images are based on pixels, like the image from a digital camera. One of the main advantages to vector graphics is the image can be enlarged or zoomed in indefinitely without lose of quality. To help clear up the confusion of the differences between raster and vector, check out the following video by dnrhossain from MetaCafe.

Key Illustrator Vector Graphics – More amazing videos are a click away
But, if you are not sure if vector graphics is for you and want to try it out before investing hundreds of dollars in programs, there is a free alternative called Inkscape. Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format (same as Illustrator). Although Inkscape does not have all of the capabilities of Illustrator, it is an excellent learning tool and free alternative for basic use.

Quick Money Saving Tip: When I bought my Wacom graphic tablet, it came with copies of Corel Painter Essentials 4 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. While these are not the full blown commercial versions, they are excellent for testing out. And if you are going to do any art or design on the computer, a graphic tablet should be near the top of your shopping list.

3D Graphic Software

My #1 recommendation for doing 3D graphics is Blender. Whether you are a beginner or experienced, Blender should be seriously considered a  alternative or addition to your workflow. In my opinion Blender is the Number 1 Open Source Software (OSS) for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and even game development. Being OSS it has a LARGE community, both for its development and use. As of this posting, a Google search for “Blender tutorials” yields 518,000 search results. The only drawback I have noticed to beginning in Blender is that since Blender’s development is constantly evolving due to its large community and the Blender Foundation, some tutorials become outdated pretty quickly and can become frustrating to try and follow. But this really only becomes a problem when learning some of the advanced features, as with most software the basics are the basics and most of those don’t change.

To begin learning Blender I highly recommend Super3boy’s Blender Tutorials. Last time I checked his Youtube Channel had 31 video tutorials for Blender. And also the User Manual, a comprehensive guide to Blender.
Almost no matter what area of computer graphics you are interested in, Blender could be a powerful tool in your arsenal. It has been used to make everything from movies to games. The Blender Foundation created the movie Elephants Dream a few years ago, a 10 minute short movie created entirely with Open Source Software.

Watch Elephants dream trailer in Animation |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

They also created Big Buck Bunny, another 10 minute short movie and are currently working on a new movie, the Durian Open Movie project.

Also they released, in my opinion, the best 3D Open Source game available, Yo Frankie!

The great thing about Blender is it is capable of fulfilling the needs of both amateurs and professionals. The following video advertisement I made myself. Keep in mind that I am completely self-taught in 3D modeling, animation, and video editing (which is probably obvious when you watch it, and yes I know it needs some background music). The entire video I created in Blender, from the animation to the rendering to the video editing using Blender’s built in video sequencer.

Another free 3D graphic engine is owned by Daz, is Bryce 5.5. Bryce focuses on 3D landscape modeling and animations. The retail version of it is Bryce 6.1. And this being the commercial version, it is a great program. It greatly simplifies the creation of 3D landscapes, both for art and animations.

Also for consideration is Wings 3D. Wings 3D is a subdivision modeler. If you don’t know what that means don’t worry about it. Just keep in mind that Wings 3D is for modeling only, you will need a separate renderer.

Here is a good preview of modeling in Wings3D by darkdonkeygraphics.

I am sure there are other free 3D graphic programs available, I simply have not seen any that can meet the capabilities of Blender so I stopped looking. If you know of one that I should look at, please feel free to contact me.

Another popular 3D graphics program is Daz Studio, the basic program is available for free but if you wish to access the more advanced features you have to buy DAZ Studio 3 Advanced. But the advantage to Daz is also their large community involvement. Even if you know nothing about modeling and don’t want to take the time to learn and only focus on creating images and art, Daz Studio has a very large library of models you can purchase from.

While Daz Studio comes with human figure models, and more are available for purchase, a popular alternative is MakeHuman. MakeHuman focuses on creating and posing fully customizable 3D human figures. Currently the most usable release is MakeHuman 0.9.1, development is currently focused on the 1.0 Release, with improved rendering, surfaces, and mesh tools. While it is possible to render images from within the program, MakeHuman comes with the ability for exporting a figure into a wide range of modeling and rendering engines. I have used it mainly to export into an .obj file to import into Blender. Premade human figures are extremely useful and timesaving, whether it is for an animation or just for a reference pose.

Another popular program for creating 3D human figures is Poser 7 English Full Version. But since it’s full version is expensive I have never used it. While it does have a very large following and is used extensively throughout the Computer Graphic industry, be warned it is also frowned upon by some “true artists” as cheating. Regardless of how it is used, it is a very useful program especially if you are not professional modeler. One thing that seems to be popular is using Poser to create Second Life avatars and animation. But if you are more concerned with creating images and art than learning how to model, there are plenty of props and model files available for download and purchase, one of the largest repositories is at Poser World. You don’t have to know ANYTHING about modeling, just purchase and download your selected objects and you are ready to start making images and animations (of course you will have to learn something about lighting and animating, depending on your project goals).

Quick Tip: if you are serious about modeling and wish to create your own human figures but don’t know anything about human anatomy, I suggest you look at the 3D Virtual Human Anatomy Studio by CloudStars. It is a very in-depth virtual 3D human on your desktop, with mouse over descriptions, shading, dynamic lighting, muscle indexing, and can be viewed 360 degrees.

Well, I hope I was able to provide enough information for you to get started. Granted, these programs are just the tip of the iceberg. There are TONS of programs available for computer aided design and art, both commercial and freeware. The downside is choosing which one to use, the upside is if you look long enough you will find a program that fits your work flow and style and will fulfill your needs.

Best of luck and welcome to the world of Computer Aided Art and Design!

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