free software

[ad7venture]

I was just thinking today how much my computing has changed because of free software.  I don't use any commercial software except the Windows OS that came with my computer, and I've gradually been stripping out most of it's software and putting in free replacements.  I prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer, and VLC over Windows Media.  I use Gimp for image manipulation and Blender for modeling.  The game engine type software I use is all free.  It's amazing how the quality of it has changed.  There were always free programs around, but now they are excellent.  It really makes it nice for low income people.  It used to be you had this huge advantage if you had a lot of money in the computing world, but now it's hardly anything.

[NigeC]

The only real expense i have is Flash and theres no workaround as yet, there's a Linux project but thats a long way off and based around the source of Flash 4 or 5 which is no use to me really

Amazingly the free stuff works great on my Vista machine! Ironiclly the free version of Truespace works without any problems its just very dated
Daz3D and Bryce 5.5 are spot on also free
The key seems to be to find active projects, theres some great ones out there but people seemed to get bored which is a shame

[ad7venture]

The only real expense i have is Flash and theres no workaround as yet, there's a Linux project but thats a long way off and based around the source of Flash 4 or 5 which is no use to me really

That's the big one right now that doesn't have any kind of free software replacement.  I'm not really that "webby", so it doesn't bother me much, but it makes a difference for professionals and kind of keeps the freebs out of the picture.  I find the flash ads to be pretty annoying, but I like playing a flash game once in a while, and I wouldn't mind developing one if I didn't have to pay for Flash.  I don't have a web site other than a Filefront deal, so I couldn't host it anyway.  Java comes pretty close though, and is even better for 3d games.  This warning system on Vista is going to scare some people off, but they do have some kind of signed deal that doesn't try to scare you as bad.  Sun needs to work on their web interface for delivering java apps, too.  It looks really cruddy and it keeps saying that it stalls even when it hasn't.

[NigeC]

That Java 3D engine you mentioned (can't recall the name) was very impressive, but i have so much going on i darn't look into it otherwise i'll get bugger all done!

Adobe have Flash nicely tied up, the only  thing close is Swish Max but that doesn't support FLA which is the editable flash format, Swish isn't free either

[ad7venture]

That Java 3D engine you mentioned (can't recall the name) was very impressive, but i have so much going on i darn't look into it otherwise i'll get bugger all done!

It might be a little low level for your taste.   It's jPct, btw.  I'm still trying to get Eclipse set up so I can even try it out, actually.  I've just played around with the examples that come with the download.  I modified some of the models so it looks like the Blender export will work all right.  That pic I showed you was actually from the Blender game engine, too bad there aren't more people writing for it.  I'm a little more interested in Java right now, though.  It's kind of caught my fancy for some reason, and jPct looks like it will be fun.  It's really small, but it does quite a bit.  Just the kind of thing I like.

[Erwin_Br]

Speaking of VLC, I'm probably the only one with (slightly) distorted sound when I try to play anything through VLC... It drives me nuts, because my new speakerset enables me to hear every little crack. I'm forced to stay with WME, and I have no idea what player to use on my Mac. (If the distortion continues on the Mac with VLC, that is)

--Erwin

[ad7venture]

They'll probably get it worked out.  You should think about reporting it, but I never do that myself so I'm the last one that should mention it.  It's always worked great for me and is a lot more compatible with all the different codecs out there.  I started using it because I couldn't watch video's that people had made in Linux on Blender even though they were just mpgs.  I don't know if you've checked in the preferences, but there might be something you can do in there.

[Kickaha]

I do use quite a bit of free software, but I am happy to pay a reasonable amount for programs as well.  If shareware is useful I will pay a donation there.

One reason is the learning curve.  I don't have oodles of spare time to master the sometimes idiosyncratic interfaces free software comes with.  If I don't use something like Blender regularly I would forget how to use it anyway. 

[ad7venture]

If I don't use something like Blender regularly I would forget how to use it anyway.

A modeler is a weird cat.  It's like a paintbrush with 300 buttons on it or something.  It's not just Blender, any modeler is extremely hard to learn and once you learn one you want to learn a different one about as much as you want a trip to the dentist.  I get a little nervous when they do an upgrade.  It's a struggle to hold onto what you know, and then you have to keep learning more because they are just so complicated.  I still need to learn normal mapping and all kinds of things.  On the other side, though, I just model sometimes because it's very relaxing and rewarding in it's own way.
But yeah, documentation is a weak spot for free software.  It's better than it used to be, and the major software pieces have a lot of tutorials and what not on the net.  I've still looked at some smaller projects, though, where the documentation was nearly non-existent.  It's kind of a blind spot with authors that they think their code is so easy to read that it doesn't need documentation.  They put out a demo and figure that explains everything. 

[NigeC]

A modeler is a weird cat.  It's like a paintbrush with 300 buttons on it or something

That about sums up Blender for me, i have very bad short term memory recall so i have a rough time reading online tutorials at the best of times, by time I switch views to the program, i forget and need to go back and check the tutorial, it gets very frustrating..
The scary thing is i can tell you what a song is by the opening rift, i can remember what the next track will be on an album that i haven't heard in years, or a film by one shot of an actor thaat i saw as a kid, but give me a phone number or an address and it just goes in one ear and out the other lol

[ad7venture]

That about sums up Blender for me

It's kind of funny, because I had a version of Truespace forever on my hard drive and never managed to learn it.  I picked up Blender and was modeling in a couple days.  Everyone would tell me how bad the interface was and I couldn't figure it out.  The keyboard shortcuts just feel so much more intuitive than all those windows in windows in windows with icons that I can't remember what they represent.  I only have my favorite keyboard shortcuts I remember, though.  The interface works better for me also because it's words, not pictures.  I think those tutorials are hard on everybody.   I lucked out and found a flash tutorial that no longer exists that was just excellent.  The guy was good, he explained things well, and I could just rewind it a little and watch it a couple times till I figured things out.  I started out on a human face, believe it or not, which ended making me a character modeler.  I can model objects, but I don't enjoy it.

[BayStone]

IMO... Free/open source SW is great, but most commonly only to a certain point after which they become a nightmare to work with. But, that said, open source is an invaluable tool when it comes to SW evolution.

[ad7venture]

I think the learning curve is rough for software whether it's free or commercial, but commercial sometimes takes a little more care in introducing you to their way of doing things.  I'm going through it now trying to learn Eclipse.  I close windows and I can't figure out how to open them again.  I can't figure out how to close projects.  I can close them, but they just stay in the window, and this workspace thing I haven't adjust to yet.   It's like that for almost every piece of software there is.  You just have to keep playing around reading here and there  until you learn all their ropes, and then you want to skin them if they change anything.

[Kieran Millar]

As wonderful as GIMP is, it took me no end of time to learn most of what it can do and I'm still learning now after a year. Even things which I thought would have been relatively simple like viewing the palette in indexed images or adding in transparency was harder than I thought.

Of course, once you figure out how to do it, it all seems so obvious...

[ad7venture]

Gimp is another one that you hear people complain about the interface a lot, but I have a feeling most of the complainers are people that previously learned Photoshop.  It's hard for me, though, just because it does so much, like Blender.  Mostly I use it for painting my own textures because I don't like photo's on my type of art work.  I have that same problem with Gimp's interface though, I close a window and it never comes back and I don't know how to open it again because I don't know what it's named.  It never quite looks like it started but I manage, anyhow.