• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

Good free software for movies - need advices

I

Inarius

We are making a Sci-Fi short movie and use a lot of software like Ipisoft, Nuke, Modo and etc... But most of the software is trial, or free but not with all features. We liked The Foundry or Autodesk programs, but they are too expensive. What programs would you suggest that are free and good? Another problem is that many of them don't fully cooperate with each other, which causes bugs and performance issues. Those program issues slow our process really much.
What programs would you suggest for:
- 3D modelling (Maya, Modo, 3DMax or something else)
- UV texturing (Maya, Modo, 3DMax, Daz, Mudbox or something else)
- Camera tracking (Vodoo or something else)
- After effects (AfterEffects, Nuke or something else)
- Motion Capture (Ipisoft or something else)
- Calibration
and/or other purposes that you feel are going to be needed

P.S. Those technical issues are really annoying dealing with
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
But what is more advisable? Some software for all those tasks listed above, if not free then cheap software. Because we can't spend 10k+ dollars just for software (in total). What is more important that those programs will work with other software, and would not have us to use only the products of the same developer.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A seamless pipeline? For free? You are asking far too much. I work in VFX, and we spend an enormous amount of time writing fixes, hacks, and workarounds for these same issues.

If cheap/free software is a requirement, I suggest you collect/learn said software and put up with it's limitations.
It's a battle, but you can rest assured that you are not alone.

There are lots of free scripts, plugins and gizmos out there that will help you, as well.

Regards,

Thomas
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you're going for free or cheap, it's unlikely that the software will work together. You can use of Blender for 3d modelling, uv mapping, camera tracking, animating, and compositing. I've heard of motion capture addons, but never tried them.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yea blender is the closest thing you are going to get in terms of free software that can do most of what you will need. Once you get over that its not Maya its pretty great imo, besides its free and you can achieve pretty darn good results . Other than that though there is the Adobe suite. That is obviously not free but does have its own built in pipeline last time i looked which may help.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Inarius said:
Well, as I can see, many of you advise Blender. I'll check this software along with other programs you've mentioned. Thank you all!
Click to expand...

Blender is only going to get you a portion of the way, if you're setting out to need/use everything you quoted us. Expecting it to be free/cheap is like me walking into a Corvette dealership and asking 'What does 0 to 60 in 5 seconds and is less than $5,000?'

Adobe Creative Cloud is indeed your best bet, because it's fairly inexpensive, provides much of what you need, and if necessary, you can use a month-to-month plan to minimize expense if you only need it for a certain amount of time.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top