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Best Freeware Programs Thread

Nice! I tried a bunch of freeware animation programs a month back. I couldn't find anything good and it drove me up the wall... Would blender be good for animating cityscapes, or creating a futuristic city look? I'd prefer to mess with an existing public domain photo than create something from scratch.

I'd love to be able to create a low rent Bladerunner-esque city-scape. It wouldn't have to be excellent... just something I could flash up on screen for half a second or so.

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Oh... not quite freeware, but www.Ivona.com has excellent computer narrators. The British voices are good... Emma's the best.

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Pixlr
http://www.pixlr.com/editor/
Pixlr is a free web based image editor. It has some cool functions to be something that requires no download or installation.

Open Office
http://www.openoffice.org/
I refuse to put M$ Office on any of my machines and this is an awesome alternative.

Celtx
http://celtx.com/
This is a free script writing app. Its great for screenplays, comic books, or anything you need a formatted outline for.

SketchUp
http://sketchup.google.com/
Google's SketchUp is kind of a CAD package and kind of a 3D modeling package. This in combination with Google's huge 3D object library makes this a great resource.

Skype
http://www.skype.com
Phone, web conference, screen sharing, fax, etc, etc.....

KMplayer
http://kmplayer.en.softonic.com/
I hate Windows Media Player. This is a good alternative....

Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/
A photo viewer and media manager. I use this in place of windows picture viewer so I can scroll through pics with my mouse wheel.

Thunderbird
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
My email app of choice. Tabbed emails rock.

7Zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
Compression utility that works on just about everything...zip, rar, tar, iso, etc...

FontFrenzy
http://www.sdsoftware.org/default.asp?id=5936
Removes and stores all fonts except those that were present when Windows was first installed.

GXTS Screensaver
http://goheer.com/products/GxTS/
Displays how long it has been running along with other vital system information (network traffic, discs, mem, etc). Very low CPU load 0% -4%

Teamviewer
http://www.teamviewer.com
The easiest remote desktop solution I have found. You dont even have to install it.

CDburnerXP
http://cdburnerxp.se/
CD/DVD burning software.

Trillian Astra
http://www.trillian.im/
Instant messaging...includes aim, yahoo, msn, facebook, irc, etc......





Reaper
http://www.reaper.fm
A digital audio workstation: a complete multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment.
v3-headss.jpg
 
People have done some incredible stuff in Blender. A cityscape is probably pretty easy. I've been able to build a car and map a texture to it, so yeah, if I can manage that, and you've got the time to learn it, I think you could make a really nice looking city. :yes:

I don't know, having never used the real thing, but from what I can gather, it's like a free version of Maya! Powerful stuff!
 
Thanks for those additions yall.

Great thread, how do you sticky it?

Indietalk is the head janitor around here, you'll have to ask him. I'm new to film but I made a couple of useful threads for newbs. 'Youtube Film School' is the other one. Between those two threads, you could get a start in film for next to nothing. If they were stickied, I'd be more inclined to keep them up.
 
FFMPEG - it is a command line program for transcoding multimedia files. FFMPEG is what runs in the background of Handbrake, Handbrake is a GUI for FFMPEG. Once you learn the ropes, it is powerful using the command line as it allows for whatever outputs you want

Cinelerra - is a prosumer non-linear video editing system. It is designed for the Linux operating system.

Synfig - 2D animation program

LMMS - is a free software digital audio workstation and is available for the Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems. in Mac OS X through WineBottler, a fork of Darwine.

Hydrogen - an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux, OSX, Microsoft




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Thanks Indiebudget,

I'm a big Handbrake fan. One day I hope I can compress without the interface.

I'm always looking for good drum machines too... someone gave me a mac the other day so I'll
get it for OSX.
 
MPEG Streamclip by Squared 5

MPEG Streamclip is a powerful free video converter, player, editor for Mac and Windows. It can play many movie files, not only MPEGs; it can convert MPEG files between muxed/demuxed formats for authoring; it can encode movies to many formats, including iPod; it can cut, trim and join movies. MPEG Streamclip can also download videos from YouTube and Google by entering the page URL.

Fantastic for batch conversion to ProRes when working with DSLR files and Final Cut, but a solid all rounder for transcoding video clips in both OS X and Windows.
 
Fantastic for batch conversion to ProRes when working with DSLR files and Final Cut, but a solid all rounder for transcoding video clips in both OS X and Windows.

I wonder if this'll help me convert an ogg file I have sitting around...

I'm always looking for good transcoders. So many are poor quality. It's a bitch watching your hard work turn to blocks and pixels. Thank God for Handbrake....
 
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OOPS - I correct myself, Handbrake is not the GUI for FFMPEG, it uses some of the same libraries in Linux. When installing in Ubuntu they recommend getting the latest FFMPEG to insure you have current libraries
 
Has anyone ever heard of or used FREEMAKE VIDEO CONVERTER? I'm about to start using it, as it seems incredibly handy for converting formats and this program looks amazingly simple to use.

The free part is also very appealing.
 
VideoPad for basic nuts-N-bolts editing, fade, cross fade, text, and other weenie things.
http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html
(BTW, I'm looking for a free NLE that allows layering/compositing, like a After Effects-lite version. TY!)


Free Audio Editor to record sounds straight from your computer, filter, edit & simple tweaking.
http://free-audio-editor.com/


Leawo Free 3gp Converter converts cellphone video to a usable format.
http://www.leawo.com/video-converter/free-3gpconverter.html


AV MP3 Player Morpher does a fair job of tweaking voices lower and other silly stuff. Not so good making girl voices out of guy voices, though.
http://download.cnet.com/AV-MP3-Player-Morpher/3000-2140_4-10201978.html


SPEEDbit Video Downloader lets you download vimeo vids to do whatever you want with 'em.
http://www.speedbit.com/video/vimeo/
ITREF
 
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Would anyone consider Imovie as free software? It comes as part of the deal with an Apple Computer. That is one of my favorite Imac programs and it came with my Imac.

Windows Movie Maker is WAY to limited for me. Vegas is too much of a comfortable shoe.
 
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