Free 3D Graphics Software

Create 3D Content for Games, Videos, Film and Animation


Free 3D Graphics Software: Create 3D Content for Games, Videos, Film and Animation

The free 3D graphics software listed on this page provide you with the tools to create 3D graphical content and models that you can use for whatever purpose you wish, such as for making 3D games, creating your own animated file/video/movie, create 3D models of your house or some other architecture, and so on. The programs provide a large number of facilities so that you can model, shade, animate 3D objects, etc. (See the descriptions below for the individual software for more information on what each of these computer programs can do.)

Related Graphics Software: Note that this page only lists free or open source 3D graphics software. The other types of graphics software have their own pages:

Movie/Film Makers: If you are creating 3D pictures for the purpose of making your own movies or videos, you may also be interested in the following pages:

Game Makers: On the other hand, if you are designing 3D computer-generated images for the purpose of creating games (creating their cut-out scenes, etc), you may also be interested in the following pages:

Scroll down this page for the main list/descriptions of 3D graphics software. (I say this in case you got lost in all the related pages. Sorry, but there are so many relevant pages depending on what you want the program for. I know if I don't mention them, many people will not know that these free resources exist.)

Miscellaneous Related Pages

Free 3D Graphics Software: Create 3D Content for Games, Videos, Film and Animation

Anim8or (Windows)

Anim8or is a 3D modeling and character animation program that features a 3D modeler with built-in primitives like spheres, cylinders, platonic solids, etc, mesh-edit and subdivision, splines, extrusion, lathing, bevel and warps, support for TrueType fonts including 2D and 3D extruded text, the ability to import .3DS (3D Studio), .LWO (Lightwave) and .OBJ (Wavefront) object files, the ability to export .3DS files, a 3D object browser, morph targets, anti-aliased software renderer, the ability to output 3D scenes and animations to .AVI movie files or JPG and BMP images, texture support, OpenGL shaders for realistic previews, scripting language, plugins, etc. This is a Windows program.

Art of Illusion (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc)

Art of Illusion is an open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. It features a grid view and a realtime display modes (wireframe, smooth, textured). It has primitives like sphere, cone, cube, curve, tube, triangle mesh, spline mesh. Other features include a mesh editor, distortion track for effects like bend, twist and shatter, a keyframe editor, textures, a scripting language, etc. The software can import 3D file formats like .obj, .dem, .dxf, .geo, .lwo, .pov, .inc, etc, and export .pov, .obj, VRML, etc. For 2D file formats, it can import .ai, svg, etc, and export .jpg, .bmp, .png, .tif, .hdr, etc. (The feature list is too long to put here. Please check out their site for more information.) Art of Illusion is a Java program and so it works on any system with a Java runtime, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Blender (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc)

Blender is a 3D content creation software that allows you to model, shade, animate (etc) interactive 3D objects. Among its modelling features are its support for polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, OpenType and PostScript), Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces, multi-resolution sculpting with 2D bitmap and 3D procedural brushes, modifier stack deformers (Lattice, Curve, Armature, Displace), mirror modifiers with middle vertices clipping and automatic deletion of inner faces), non-destructive real-time Boolean and Array modifiers, Python scripting access, etc. If you are creating games, it includes collision detection, dynamic simulation, a variety of shape types (including convex polyhedron, box, sphere, cone, cylinder, capsule, etc), support for vehicle dynamics, OpenGL lighting modes, playback of games and interactive 3D content without compiling or preprocessing, multi-layering of scenes for overlay interfaces, etc. There are also numerous features that support rigging, animation, rendering, shading, UV unwrapping, image and composition, physics and particles (particle system, fluid simulator, hair strands support, etc), and so on, which are too numerous to list. The software supports a wide variety of file formats, including, for 2D: TGA, JPG, PNG, OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, Radiance HDR, Iris, SGI movie, IFF, AVI and Quicktime GIF, TIFF, PSD, MOV (Windows and OS X); and for 3D: 3D Studio, AC3D, COLLADA, DEC Object File Format, DirectX, Lightwave, MD2, Motion Capture, Nendo, OpenFlight, PLY, Pro Engineer, Radiosity, Raw Triangle, Softimage, STL, TrueSpace, VideoScape, VRML, VRML97, Wavefront, X3D Extensible 3D, xfig, etc. Platforms supported include Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (PPC and Intel), Linux (i386), Linux (PPC), FreeBSD 5.4 (i386), SGI Irix 6.5, and Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc). The suite is licensed under the GNU GPL (an open source licence).

K-3D: 3D Modeling and Animation Software (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, etc)

K-3D is a cross-platform 3D modelling and animation program that runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, and Solaris. and other Posix-type systems. It allows you to generate "motion-picture-quality animation" using RenderMan-compliant render engines (as defined by Pixar). You can create and edit documents in multiple realtime OpenGL solid, shaped, texture-mapped views, as well as model, animate, and interact with animations while they play back. Camera modes include pan and tilt, zoom, dolly, modelling and tripod. You can hide and unhide the geometry. Where modelling (US English: modeling) is concerned, 3D primitives like cone, circle, cushion, cylinder, disk, grid, paraboloid, polyhedron, sphere and torus are provided. You can apply boolean modelling operations, create duplicates without adding geometry to the scene, animate any value with an unlimited number of animation channels, script your work, do basic 2D compositing, etc. (See their feature list on the site for more information.) The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), an open source licence.

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