OTT & Transmedia : Some of the free software available for transmedia projects... by Mike Romoth

There has never been a better time to pursue your interest in 3-D modeling, animation, and game development. My own interest is in video games, but these different FREE software packages can be used for a range of interests, including green-screen effects; motion tracking for imported models in video production; making animated logos and titles; and image and graphic art production. Be warned. These software packages are guaranteed to seem intimidating at first. It looks like an aircraft cockpit. But you will be surprised how quickly you can learn with daily practice. YouTube has tons of tutorials. Facebook has tons of helpful groups. Both Blender and Unreal support active marketplaces where you can purchase (at decent prices, esp. on sale) props, characters, and settings so you can dive right into animating without needing to model, texture, or rig anything.

Blender: This free software package includes all the tools needed for 3-D modeling, rigging (putting in the skeleton used to animate the model), texturing (colors and surface effects), animating, compositing, rendering, and video editing. It is a one-stop package that allows every step from beginning to end of video production for an animation. Individual models can be exported to any game engine for use in video games. Blender’s 3-D models can be made to look like 2-D animations with different “toon” shaders, or you can make conventional 2-D style animations using the grease pencil tool. Lots of free and paid add-ons to rev things up even more, like the insta-castle builder, gears and machine makers, etc.

Unreal Engine from Epic Games: This is the big daddy of free game engines. If you have played video games before, you have played on Unreal engine. Unreal provides all the tools needed to make the models and animations imported from other software systems work together as a game. Unreal also provides important pro-level tools for the production of animation, special effects, and architectural visualization. Unreal offers a suite of pro-level particle effects tools that can be used to generate any type of special effects based on fire, smoke, explosions, water splash effects, magic spell effects, and the like. In addition to these features, the developers of Unreal have pre-released a human character generator that can make nearly lifelike models that come fully rigged for facial expressions. No more modeling…you can select the features you want and move along quickly. These models will be restricted to use with Unreal. It should be noted that Unreal is not completely free. After you make a certain threshold of sales, they want a reasonable and relatively small percentage or the profits.

Unity game engine: Although I do not have much experience with Unity, I have played several games made with Unity and it remains a popular alternative to Unreal.

GIMP: This is the free alternative to the most popular professional photo-editing software. I have never used it, but there are a ton of tutorials on YouTube. Very useful for making 3-D models look even cooler with a fantastic paint job.

Photogrammetry apps: These apps are constantly evolving, so there are several available and I have used none of them. Basically, this approach allows you to take a series of 60-or-so photos of a person or object, and the software will generate a 3-D model of that person or object. You can then use in animations, video games, or whatever. You can even make a 3-D print.

MakeHuman and similar sites/apps: These offer shortcuts to creating fast and easy characters for video games and animations. Basically, you use a character creator with sliders to make what you want rather than building the model from scratch. The MakeHuman models come fully rigged for animation. Great for background characters.