Programs

In this page you will find a lot of 3D programs that will permit creating, modeling, texturing static meshes (aka SM) or simply create textures (diffuse, specular map, normal map, etc) so you can import them into UT3 / UDK editor (aka UE).

I don’t model myself or use any of the programs listed. Still, I know many peoples who use them for different purposes & those programs are the most common used. I think that by listing them here is a good place to start if you intent to create your own stuff to import them into UE

3ds Max and 3ds Max Design ($$$)

3ds Max and 3ds Max Design software share core technology and are data and plug-in compatible. Choose either 3ds Max for games design, film, and television content or 3ds Max Design for architects, civil engineers, and 3D visualization specialists.

Blender (free)

Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite. Everything can be modeled & then export into UE. If you intent to use the program, make sure to visit Odedge Blender tutorials list Also, MCampagnini as made a Blender to ASE export script so make sure to grab it. This script is a feature-rich, updated version of Richard Bartlett’s ASE Export script. The limitations of the original script left a good amount to be desired as it was not written for the Unreal Game Engine. Now, this Blender add-on allows for multiple materials, multiple UV sets, collision objects, and smoothing groups. The script has been updated to be fully compatible with Blender 2.59 and will be updated for future releases of Blender.

GIMP (free)

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. If you intent to use the program, make sure to visit Odedge GIMP tutorials list

Maya ($$$)

Maya 3D animation software delivers an end-to-end creative workflow with comprehensive tools for animation, modeling, simulation, visual effects, rendering, matchmoving, and compositing on a highly extensible production platform. Whether you work in film, games, television, advertising, publishing, or graphic design, Maya offers state-of-the-art toolsets, combined into a single affordable offering designed to help meet today’s demanding production requirements. Maya delivers new toolsets for previsualization and game prototyping, extended simulation capabilities, and improved pipeline integration.

Mudbox ($$$)

Mudbox 3D digital sculpting and digital painting software gives you the freedom to create production-ready 3D digital artwork without worrying about the technical details. Designed by professional artists from the game, film, television, and design industries, Mudbox combines an intuitive user interface with a powerful creative toolset of stencils and brushes for ultrarealistic 3D character modeling, engaging environments, and stylized props.

Photoshop ($$$)

Photoshop redefines digital imaging with a strong focus on photography; breakthrough capabilities for superior image selections, image retouching, and realistic painting; and a wide range of workflow and performance enhancements. You can also grab those free nice plug-ins made by NVidia. It include texture tools + normal map filter + DDS plug-in + mipster + cube map shuffler.

xNormal (free)

xNormal is a program to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh (complete texture transfer, even with different topologies). Includes too an interactive 3D viewer with multiple meshes and textures format support, shaders and realtime soft shadows / glow effect. It comes with some useful tools like height map, normal map, cavity map, occlusion – tangent/object space and spherical harmonics tools. All these computations are done using multicore/multithreading, distributed/parallel rendering.