ID:1703212
 
Here is a nice and handy list of freely available tools for each area of development and advertisement. This list contains both freeware and open-sourced projects.


Image Editing/Tools:
GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/
Description: This particular image editor was mentioned on the BYONDBwicki several years ago. So, I thought I would give it a nice relist for this wonderfully free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. As was mentioned years ago, it may have a learning curve in regards to the interface. One nice advantage is you can use all sorts of freely available plugins.

Blender - http://www.blender.org/
Description: Excellent 3D modeling tool that can easily be used in place of several very expensive modeling tools. Reason why I list this one is because some game developers have used it for pre-rendered 3D models (a technique found in early 3D games that are still in a 2D environment). Even someone BYOND have used this technique.

Inkscape - http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1703212#comment13893073 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: Professional quality, yet free vector-based software that can be very handy for creating vector graphics.

Paint.NET - http://www.getpaint.net/features.html
Description: http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1703212#comment13896796 (Actual Link Provided)

Spriter - http://www.byond.com/ forum/?post=1703212&page=2#comment19968933 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: A 2D Sprite Animation tool that can be used to animate in a modular way. There is a free version that is available.

Piskel - http://www.byond.com/ forum/?post=1703212&page=2#comment22450874 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: Another online 2D sprite tool that can be useful for creating sprites and later export them as PNGs.

JPixel - http://www.byond.com/ forum/?post=1703212&page=2#comment22450874 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: Another tool for creating pixel art and animation.

DragonBones - http://www.byond.com/ forum/?post=1703212&page=2#comment23485585 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: A nice free animation platform for creating nice animations.


Audio Editing/Tools:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Description: A very handy audio editor for BYOND developers everywhere. Most experienced teams (or developers) should know this particular one.

OpenMPT (Open ModPlug Tracker) - http://openmpt.org/
Description: A module tracker that is very handy for creating chiptune module files. For any interested in such music, feel free to give this program a go.

SFXR - http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1703212#comment12673323 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: A randomized sound generator that can be quite handy for creating sound effects for games.

REAPER - http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1703212#comment16744025 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: A powerful digital audio workspace that can provide quite handy for creating audio. While currently an evaluation version, you can apparently use it (if you're feeling generous, go ahead and pay them) without limit even past the date.

Anvil Studio - http://www.anvilstudio.com/
Description: A nice MIDI editor that allows creation of songs either through mouse or even a supported MIDI device (such as MIDI keyboards, USB keyboards, and more).

SynthFont 1 - http://www.synthfont.com/
Description: Very handy tool for converting MIDI files into raw audio of various formats. You can even attach different sound fonts to give off different sounds. Make sure to download SynthFont 1.x as SynthFont 2.x is not freeware. If you feel generous or want to own SynthFont 2.x, go ahead and purchase it.

Cakewalk - https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk
Description: Recently discovered that this piece of software went free as of April 2018. Very powerful digital audio workstation for absolutely no charge; the only requirement being you need a Bandlab account and download Bandlab Assistant to acquire it.


Video Recording/Editing/Streaming/Broadcasting Tools:
Open Broadcaster Software - https://obsproject.com/
Description: A very nice program for recording from about any source ranging from programs to desktop screens to even certain capture devices. Another handy feature is being able to stream to websites such as Twitch.tv. One thing about using this great software is there might be a slight learning curve since you must know how to setup bitrates and other settings. Other than that though, it is very handy.

Shotcut - https://shotcut.org/
Description: A freely available non-linear video editing tool that can be useful for screen capture as well as using capturing from external input devices. It also provides very handy tools of opening files of many formats that can later be converted. Files can be exported to a very wide range of formats (even WebM VP9, perfectly YouTube compatible). Of course, it can also be used for adding effects if desired.


Install Creation Tools:
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System - http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page
Description: A very useful scriptable install system that allows creating installation files through scripting. Various people on BYOND have known about this tool and it was even in use by BYONDexe.


IDEs/Text Editors:
Notepad++ - http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Description: A very versatile, yet freely available text editor. You can do many things with it such as loading different compilers for different programming languages. It can even be used to compile DM code if setup right. Not only that, but you can also compile NSIS scripts for creating installers.

Sublime Text 3 - http://www.sublimetext.com/3
Description: Another very versatile text editor with a nice IDE. Can handle any programming language if desired. While currently an evaluation version, it does not appear to be intrusive for the time being.


Font Editors:
BitFontMaker2 - http://www.pentacom.jp/pentacom/bitfontmaker2/
Description: A handy online font editor creating bitmap fonts. Plus, it even allows you to import from TTF files.

Metafont - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafont
Description: A very interesting way of creating fonts done in a mathematical way. Handy for creating vector fonts.


Miscellaneous Tools:
Tiled Map Editor - http://www.mapeditor.org/
Description: A useful map editor for creating maps with it's own format. Due to recent webclient support, this editor can be very useful in that regard without too much work to setup

Developer Console for Internet Browsers
Description: This one is a special case as internet browsers normally by standard have a working developer console. Very handy for testing out Javascript code to make sure it all works. Even great for experimenting with HTML5.

Online Text Colour X-Fader - http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1703212#comment16740824 (Actual Link Provided)
Description: Handy tool for creating faded text in HTML and using it on just about nearly any project that uses it.


For any fellow posters, feel free to provide links to other free/open source software and I'll link it up to your post.
Nice list, although I feel that SFXR should be added
In response to Magicsofa
Magicsofa wrote:
Nice list, although I feel that SFXR should be added

Alright, I have officially added SFXR to the list. Included your post as a link provider to the real link. Also provided a description. :D
Inkscape should be added.
In response to PopLava
PopLava wrote:
Inkscape should be added.

I completely forgot that program exists. Thanks for making a mention of it. :D

It has now been added to the list with a nice little description.
Couple of programs that I think are pretty nifty tools:

Tiled - Map Editing Tool

Notepad++ - Impressive text editor with syntax highlighting and text macros

IE/Firefox/Chrome developer console (F12) - JavaScript, CSS, and HTML editor that can also be used as a calculator

Paint.NET - A lightweight graphics editing tool that is user-friendly and has support for plugins
In response to Mr_Goober
Mr_Goober wrote:
Couple of programs that I think are pretty nifty tools:

Tiled - Map Editing Tool

Notepad++ - Impressive text editor with syntax highlighting and text macros

IE/Firefox/Chrome developer console (F12) - JavaScript, CSS, and HTML editor that can also be used as a calculator

Paint.NET - A lightweight graphics editing tool that is user-friendly and has support for plugins


They have now been added to the list. :D
Missing Firefox's Firebug add-on that's 100x better than the normal developer tool.
In response to Mr_Goober
Can Tiled even be used for Byond?
In response to FKI
FKI wrote:
Can Tiled even be used for Byond?

Did some research on this matter; you can build an interpreter that reads TMX files (since it uses an XML format). Heck, it wouldn't hurt for someone to build a library that supports Tiled.

I too wondered if I should list it until I did some research as stated above. Due to that reason, I listed it.

In fact, I might even provide a link for whoever builds a functional library and make sure to provide proper credit. Plus, it might give BYOND a big boost by being listed on their page amongst ports.

And just to link their page on such documentation, here it is: https://github.com/bjorn/tiled/wiki/TMX-Map-Format
Sublime Text 2 has been added upon request by Kaiochao This
Here is something that I have been using for quite a while for BYOND related things

http://www.vex.net/~x/xfade/advanced.html

It is an HTML text color fader. very useful when working on Help Files & FAQs in Dream Maker for your game
I forgot about this thread, but I've always felt there to be a big lacking in decent quality Audio tools for a fair price. REAPER is a powerful Digital Audio Workspace and is excellent for producing quality audio on a budget. It has a 60-day free trial, but doesn't really break after that. It just kinda tells you that your free trial has expired and kind of asks you politely if you'd like to pay the extremely modest price of $60 for it. It doesn't even stop working, you can ignore the message and work normally. This is what leads me to believe that the developers are, in fact, Canadian.

It's a fantastic tool and I've even tried it out on occasion and loved it. Honestly if you find yourself using this thing religiously, go ahead and toss some cash their way. They really did a badass job making a great piece of software and do deserve it.
Alrighty, two new tools added to the list. I actually might add one more I have been meaning to months ago.
SynthFont 1.x and Anvil Studio have now been added to the list.
For Sublime Text, their evaluation license essentially just involves clicking a button every few saves. Nothing else, though, so you get all the features.

Other useful text editors:

Atom
vim
Emacs

Useful tools:

git, mercurial, svn -- Version Control. Seriously, any code-related project will *always* benefit from using one. Git is my personal favorite.

Will add more later.
I've been using Sublime Text 2 with Sublime Dreams for programming in DM. You can't include files with a checkbox, but doing it manually gives you control over the compile order.
Thinking about Git, I definitely use GitHub for Git-related repositories. :)

Haven't made much use of SVN though. Definitely have not use Mercurial except to grab some build of PCem. I'll look into adding the other text editors as well. ;)
Thank you very much! Very helpful!
In response to Psychii
You're welcome. Thought this thread would come in handy for finding freely available tools.
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