The Gear Fight - which Software should I get into?
- Aug 29, 2016
- 2 min read
Here's advice from someone who has seen everything.
Something that's nice about having that student status is that you get access to all sorts of costly things for less, or, even better, no cash at all. That comes in handy when you look at what software companies normally charge for a full version of their products. Don't have the 1000 bucks to afford the full Adobe Suite when you can barely afford your den in the dormitory? Look no further!Here are a bunch of useful links to set you up.
BLENDER. Made by Blender Foundation. The arch nemesis of every expensive 3D software out there, because it does everything they do for free. The downside: The program's user interface is probably the least intuitive out there.
UNITY. If Unity is too scary for you and you have no prior experience with programming game engines, try RPGMaker, Wolf RPG Maker or anything similar first.
PROCESSING. It's essentially Java programming for people who haven't had to delve ito programming yet and want to learn the logics of programming languages in a more visual way than just staring at blank code trying to imagine what it does.
AUTODESK MAYA / 3DSMAX. Maya is the oldest (and most convoluted) 3D software on the market. It's essentally the beast of the apocalypse - if you can find your way around Maya, you can learn every other engine there is. Period.
AUTODESK MUDBOX / ZBRUSH / SCULPTRIS. Like modeling without blocky shapes and wireframes? ZBrush lets you start off with a ball of clay you can shape using your tablet pen and feel like an artist instead of an engineer. Sculptris is ZBrush's baby sibling and comes with everything you need to sculpt stuff. It's free and easy on your CPU, so it's ideal to try out modeling.
PHOTOSHOP/AFTER EFFECTS/PREMIERE (VIA ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD FOR STUDENTS).
Learn those. SERIOUSLY.After Effects may be optional for those who don't want to go into compositing, but you WILL need to now how to crop pictures and put together at least basic showreels for your presentations. And get that 3D Plugin for Photoshop, even if you don't know what to do with it yet (you will thank me later).
HEADUS.Just install it. It'll come in handy once you're up and running with Maya and want to smash its UV editor against the wall along with your machine.OpenOffice Impress or whatever kids these days use to make presentations... try to avoid Prezi, their animations make the whole audience get seasick and have a tendency of proving Murphy's Law during presentation time.
GOOD OL' 2D ANIMATION EXERCISES. either on paper or using ToonBoom. It's freeware and Ghibli used it for their animations, so you're following up on good legacy.
PLAY GAMES. WATCH ANIMATED MOVIES.The more you sink in your busy project schedule, the less time you'll have to actually educate yourself on stuff that's coming out our came out before you were even born. There's a reason as to why some of our professors never referenced anything that was released beyond the year 2000. Let's face it- they have a stable job and kinda can afford to be oblivious about the current state of the industry - you don't.
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