Curated list of my favorite tools for all my little goblins out there
(No seriously it's a list of free and open source tools to make illustrations, comics, 3d prints and video games !!! And also of cool/helpful websites)
Introduction
I'm making this list as a 4th year art student, having seen many friends struggle with proprietary and data-hungry tools.
This is a list of the tools I use. They respect your privacy, are most of the time sign-up free and totally free.
(FOSS means Free and Open Source Software)
Tools !
To draw (and animate in 2D):
- GIMP left bad memories to many, but with the 3.0 release, it LOOKS good and WORKS good. Basically photoshop but FOSS
- Krita is photoshop, tailored for painters, illustrators and animators !! It's very capable, gets out of your way and just lets you do stuff. It could also be "advertised" as ProCreate for everyone (and not just ios users) and free.
- Inkscape is Adobe Illustrator, but better (no no, really) and totally FOSS :D
- Pixelorama is a pixel-art photoshop made using the godot game engine (which I'm a fan of). There is even a web version !!
- PixelEditor is a fresh, promising vector+raster(pixels) image editor, that is non-destructive and node-based. It resembles graphite but more user-friendly. It can also do procedural animation (but regular animations as well). The project is approx 5 years old ? So really still really fresh. I don't use it atm but keep myself updated about it.
- LibreCAD is a FOSS CAD 2D software !! (CAD is all about geometry and mathematics :D)
- FontForge is a software to package vectors into fonts ! (lets you make your own fonts)
To make books (indesign alternatives):
- Scribus is an Indesign alternative. It does the job but god knows its ugly and old-looking... Only real problem for me is that exporting in booklets is not supported, so we will need another tool for that !
- Booklet imposition software ; here is a link to a page referencing them, as this very simple-looking modification seems to be very hard to do, in fact, and very much not cross-platform. I did it using different softwares, and yyou try them out yourself :D the website I linked is very good. But look up pdfjam too.
To 3D model (and animate, etc):
- Blender is the goat. If you don't know it yet well you need to, it does EVERYTHING basically, from modelling to animation.
- The rigify plugin for blender helps in rigging and generating a control rig for your characters and creatures.
- Material Maker is an alternative to Substande Designer, made using godot !!
- FreeCAD is a CAD software to make 3D models. It does the job but is a bit crashy sometimes. It should be better with the latest patches tho :D. Is very good to make parametric models, designing very need-to-be-useful objects.
- OpenSCAD is a script-based CAD software. You code the objects. Period. Is great because this way you can make adaptable, configurable models. I personnally ditched freecad for openscad hehe. Is also very useful for group projects, the script-based nature of the creation making it very easy to roll back and merge multiple changes into one file. Prusa used it to design their 3D printers.
- Monster Mash is a web-based balloon-based 3D modeller and animator that lets you do weird 3D models in seconds !!
- Mesh 2 Motion is mixamo, but open source !! And downloadable ! And there is a rigger and animation libraries for quadrupedes and birds and dragons too !! It's like 6 month old tho, so it needs some love and some new animations to grow !!
- OSM2World transforms geographic data into 3D landscapes. Add any city to your game, in minutes !!! (its low poly tho) (and here is the demo !!)
- EZ-tree makes it easy to procedurally generate trees for your games !! Also, here is the source code, if you want it downloaded on your device, and not just as a web app.
- Godot Pixel Renderer is a little software that lets you easily transform your animated 3D models into 2D sprites !! Can come in really handy in some projects. There is an already compiled version (paying) to support the dev, or you can just compile it yourself using the source code and godot (yes, it's a godot-made tool :D)
To 3D print:
- Orca Slicer is a slicer (a software to prepare a 3D model to 3D printing) that is just great. Lots of experimental features, very reliable, overall better than cura or prusa in my (humble) opiniated opinion :D
To make games:
- Godot is a game engine that is easy to pick up, and able to be used to make great games in both 2D and 3D, and even non-game apps (some godot-made apps are included in the list)
- Ren'py is a game engine tailored to make visual novels. Very easy to learn, great tutorials online ! Made my first games using this engine, so it holds a special place in my heart :D
- GDevelop is a no-code game engine which lets you make your own stuff from some presets. It's nice, thought very limited, and 2D only.
To work as a team:
- Etherpad is a pad that you can edit with multiple people. Here is a Wikimedia-hosted one. (Basically its google docs but without google).
- Excalidraw is a no-signup sharable white board taking place in your browser. Great to sketch out ides together. Be careful with the vector drawings tho, as they can quickly make the software really slow.
- CozyCloud is a good free alternative to google drive.
- NextCloud is a GREAT free alternative to google drive. Need to host it yourself or find a chaton tho.
- Codeberg is a corpo-independant git provider, and great alternative to github (which is microsoft owned). It lets you easily work with your pals on a software/game.
- Forgejo is a self-hosted git provider. This lets you work on your game-software with your pals without the need for an external server !
- Jisti is a self-hostable FOSS video-conferencing tool. If you cannot self-host, someone with a github account can create a room and the others can join without the need for signup.
- Matrix is a good alternative to discord. It is decentralized, federated (if you want your server to be) and secure.
- SimpleX is a no-signup option but it might be a bit hardcore and unpractical.
- Onion Share is a hardcore but user-friendly piece of software that lets you send or receive files, host a webpage, or chat with people, all throught the tor network. These services will only be accessible through the tor browser tho.
To move files from one computer to another:
- LocalSend lets you send files easily, from one computer to another if they are on the same network. Comes with a nice GUI.
- SnapDrop does approximately the same thing but is web-based.
- Lufi is a very secure encrypted way to send files. No signup required. This is run by volunteers so be sure to clean up after you're done.
- Wormhole send while not open source, it is a reliable no-signup way to send files to another computer.
- Magic Wormhole is a simple command-line app to send files thrue the internet, using a simple password system.
- Syncthing is a great tool to have if you work with multiple computers. You setup some rules, and whenever the 2 computers are on the same network they will sync. It's serverless and completely open source !!
To host/share the work:
--> I will talk a lot about decentralized federated networks so if you ask yourself what it is pls click here<--
- Itch.io is the Steam of indie devs. It has a game jam aggregator, lots of cool indie games and you can easily create an account and join in on the fun !! Here is my page for exemple. You can host web-based games on it. Many people also share game assets on it :D
- Linkstack is linktree but self-hostable and open source. Simply that :D Here is my page for exemple.
- Mastodon is a decentralized twitter/x alternative that is filled with nice people and where you can update people on your work. There are nice people but there are not MANY people tho. The nice thing is that you don't need an account to see the posts. Here is my page to give you an exemple of how it looks.
- Pixelfed is a decentralized instagram without the nonsense and where you can arrange your work into a portfolio. Great link to send if you want to quickly showcase your work. It's viewable via web or the app, without needing to sign in for the viewer. Based. Here is my page to give you an exemple of how it looks.
- Peertube is a great video hoster. No ads, decentralized, overall great ! Here is a cool instance I'm on and my page so you can see how it looks like. If you share short videos it doesnt transform them into youtube shorts, which is great.
- Printables is a prusa-owned place where you can host your 3D files for 3D printing !! And find some. It contains no ads and prusa gets money from manufacturing open source 3D printers so they don't need revenue from the platform, unlike thingiverse. Here is my page
- Manyfolds is a decentralized federated hoster for 3d models, which is very young (approx 2 years ?)
- NeoCities is an indie webpage hoster. You can make your webpage and host it via them easily !! Your page will even be findable using your favorite web browser.
To search the interweb:
- Firefox is not perfect, mozilla is trying to push more ai and stuff, BUT it's not google-made and THAT is amazing.
- Librewolf is a fork of firefox, fixing the privacy problems of it and coming pre-installed with ublock origin. All that at the cost of WEBGL tho. If you don't know what it is you probably don't need it anyways :D
- Duckduckgo is google but without the nonsense, and private. Just like that.
- Ublock origin (here is the chrome version) is the best adblock on the market. Works even on youtube !
- Ghostery (here is the chrome version) is an addon saying automatically "no" to the nasty cookies.
- Bitwarden (here is the chrome version is an addon keeping all your passwords encrypted and safe (and it's open source))
- Temp Mail Plus is a great website to subscribe to nasty websites asking for signup. It's especially great because you can choose your email name and so you can receive confirmations codes and stuff months after creating the account (if needed).
- RiseUp VPN is a no-signup vpn owned by nice people, who burn all the logs. You probably don't need a vpn anyways, but think about it when you go on the train station public wifi.
To modify a bunch of files at the same time (command-line tools):
- imagemagick is just magical (pun intended). Want to resize all your images to 100x100 pixels ? And you have 600 of them ? Or want to add a watermark to all of them ? ImageMagick lets you do that in seconds, just by typing a command... I personnally use it A LOT.
- pdfjam is imagemagick but for pdf. You can reorganize, impose in booklets, etc, just by typing a command inside a terminal.
- ffmepg lets you edit videos from the command line. Change the codec, crop it, bind two files into one, etc. Very powerful, used by many, including youtube (ew).
Websites with cool stuff (sounds, images, bits of code, etc)
For godot users:
My favorites godot plugins:
- Terrain3D ; a 3D terrain editor, super nice, easy to use and runs smoothly !!
- Limbo Console ; add a customizable console to help in developping and testing your games !! Spawn objects, teleport the player character, etc !!
- Goblin Toolbox ; well... I made a plugin, so might as well put it out there !! Still in construction but it's a library of a lot of useful bits of code that I use a lot, to speed up development !
- Ridiculous Coding ; well... just plain old fun, love it
To find fonts:
- Fontesk offers a large collection of free fonts. Be sure to check the license as some are only free for personal use.
- Velvetyne is an association working and researching on and about typefaces, which are free. A favorite among art students.
- Font Source is a repository filled with open source fonts. Enjoy !!
- Itch.io always have your back !
To find music n sounds:
To find 3d models for digital use:
- Polyhaven ; "the public asset library"
- Kenney's assets ; the creator of these assets seems like he really enjoys providing for the community !
- Itch.io ; once again itch.io is your best friend !!!!
- Smithsonian Museum collection ; we love when museums make the 3D scans of their collections public domain !!!
- Blend Swap ; blender files that you can modify and use !! Truly open source moment :D
- The Base Mesh ; collection of 3d base meshes for LOTS of objects
- Retro 3D assets list is a list, like this one, but for retro 3D assets
To find cool textures:
- AmbiantCG has a great collection of CC0 textures (photorealistic ones).
- Texture Ninja is another place to find great CC0 textures.
To find 3d models for 3D printing:
- Printables is a 3D models hoster owned by prusa. A better version of thingiverse in my opinion.
- Thingiverse is a 3D models hoster. The website is slow and there are ads, but there are lots of models.
- Manyfold is a decentralized federated 3D models hoster. Great idea but not many models at the moment. I love the project nonetheless.
Thanks for your attention !!!! Please message me on mastodon / open an issue if anything !!!