Art Software

This is a somewhat complete collection of all the software commonly used by professional 3D artists, categorized by which step of the workflow it’s used for. Software marked with a lable are solid options, all of which are worth learning, and often see use in studios be it games or films industry.

Modeling and Sculpting Software §

• Blender (Multi purpose)
• ZBrush (Multi purpose with focus on Sculpting - PC & iPad)
• Maya (Multi purpose with focus on Animation)
• Plasticity (CAD)
• Fusion 360 (CAD)
• 3ds max (Multi purpose)
• Cinema 4d (Multi purpose)
• Modo
• Mudbox
• Kodon (VR Sculpting)
• Nomad Sculpt (Tablet & Mobile Sculpting)
• Spline (3D for Websites)

Texturing Software §

• Substance Painter (Texturing, Baking)
• Marmoset Toolbag (Baking, Texturing, Rendering)
• 3d-Coat (Hand Painted Texturing)
• ZBrush
• Substance Designer (Procedural Texturing)
• Mari (A very powerful texturing software great for high resolution and realistic texturing. Mostly used in the film industry.)
• Material Maker (Procedural Texturing)
• Bodypaint 3D
• Procreate (Hand Painted Texturing. iPad)
• Quixel Mixer (Texturing, Baking)
• Materialize (Generate other maps from one image)
• NormalMap-Online (Can extract normal, displacement and AO map from height or image map)

Clothing Software §

• Marvelous Designer

Hair Software §

• Fiber Shop
• Hair Strand Designer
• Xgen (Requires Maya)
• Ornatrix (Supports: Maya, 3ds max)

Environment Art Software §

• VUE (World generation)
• Gaia (World generator)
• World Creator (World Generator)

Other Software §

• Houdini (Proceduralisms, Simulations, VFX)
• Topogun (Retopology)
• Cry Engine
• Adobe After Effects (VFX)
• Clarisse IFX (Rendering, Lighting)
• Nuke (Node based compositing and visual effects)
• RizomUV (UVs)
• Shotgun (A review and production tracking toolset)
• Keyshot (Rendering)
• Katana (Rendering, Lighting)
• Light Wave

Render Engines §

• Cycles X (Blender’s)
• Eevee (Blender’s)
• Octane
• Redshift
• V-Ray
• Arnold
• RenderMan (Pixar’s, supports: Blender, Maya, Houdini and Katana)
• Corona

Digital Drawing Software §

• Clip Studio Paint
• Photoshop
• Procreate (Apple only)
• Krita
• Medibang
• Artstudio Pro
• Infinite Painter

Video Editing Software §

• Davinchi Resolve
• Filmora
• Adobe Premier

Game Engines §

• Unreal Engine
• Unity (Don’t underestimate Unity, it’s more and more able to achieve graphical fidelity on the level of Unreal Engine)
• Godot (Used a simple to learn Python like language, better suited for indie and 2D projects)
• Bevy (A relatively new and quite interesting game engine, with a focus on indie, but it brings quite a lot of innovation to the table)

Personal Reference Art Libraries §

• Eagle
• Adobe Bridge
• Your OS File Explorer :)

Reference Art Boards §

• PureRef
• VizRef (For iOS devices)
• Milanote (Feature rich and running in the cloud, making it quite portable)
• Opti
• Kuadro
• RefCanvas (For iOS & Android devices)
• DroidRef(For Android devices)
• BeeRef

Color Palette Creators §

• coolors.co
• Adobes Color Picker

Software Used in Studios §

This chart gives a nice feel of what software is used, but be aware, that one doesn’t need to be proficient in all the software a studio uses, to be hired there, as studios mainly hire based on skill as an artist and less so what software one is good at, one can always learn new software on a fly. Riot Games for example mainly uses 3D Coat for texturing, but there are artists at Riot, that use Substance Painter for hand painted texturing instead because that’s what they’re more familiar with. Studios also often vary the software based on the project at hand.

I won’t mention ZBrush and Photoshop, as every single studio, no matter if game or film uses them.

Game Studios:

Studio	Software	Engine
Riot Games	Maya, 3D Coat, Photoshop, Rizom UV	Unity
Ubisoft	Maya, 3ds Max, Substance Painter & Designer, Blender, Rizom UV	Anvil, Dunia
Massive Entertainment (Ubisoft)		Snowdrop
Capcom	Rizom UV
CD Project Red	Rizom UV
Blizzard	Rizom UV
Guerrilla
Square Enix
From Software
EA
Naughty Dog
Atlus
id software

Other 3D Studios:

Studio	Software
Axis	Maya - 3Ds Max - Blender - Mari - Arnold - Houdini - Nuke - SideFX - Marvelous Designer - Substance Painter/ Designer - Marmoset Toolbag - 3D Coat