Resource Roundup for November
I have found enough things of interest in the world of digital art and tech to write another one of these posts. Bit of a mixed bag this month. I haven’t put anything in any particular order, there are things for audio editing, digital art and business.
Useful Apps and Software
Ardour
Ardour is an open source audio recording, editing and mixing software.
Affinity 2
Affinity has released version 2 of its software suite (Designer, Photo and Publisher). I don’t know if I need to use the latest version I will probably stick with version 1 for a bit longer, however there is an introductory bundle sale on at the moment for version 2 which is nice for new users to the software. I like that it is not subscription based and a one off cost. It is also available for Windows, Mac and iPad now. Personally I’m in do I really “need” it or just “want” it mode.
Invoncify
I found a free open source app to help create invoices offline called Invoncify. I thought it was cool that it has end to end encryption as well as being offline. I used to use an online service called Wave for creating invoices but when they started to limit features and charge I stopped bothering. There are already inbuilt tools to create invoices or forms to take payment from people online so it wasn’t really needed anyway.
QPrompt
QPrompt is an open source free software for creating teleprompters.
Actorcore AccuRIG
AccuRIG is a free auto rigging program for rigging humanoid 3D models in an intuitive way. Similar to Mixamo but you don’t need an Adobe account.
FreieFarbe e.V
FreieFarbe e.V. is a non-profit association registered in Germany. They are sharing tips and tools for designers about color management between different applications.
Xournal++
Xournal++ is a useful free and open source cross platform application for taking hand written notes on the computer or mobile.
GInk
GInk is a free open source on-screen annotation software.
QOwnNotes
QOwnNotes is a free open source plain-text file markdown note-taking with (optional) Nextcloud / ownCloud integration.
Graphite
Graphite is an in-development raster and vector 2D graphics editor that is free and open source. It is powered by a node graph compositing engine that supercharges your layer stack, providing a completely non-destructive editing experience.
Rakurri Brush Tip Generator V1
Rakurri has made a brush tip generation software available for anyone who wants it. It needs a free application called Substance Player to get it working. Could be useful to any digital artist since it isn’t application specific.
Networking and Social
The Fediverse
I’m not a huge user of social media, but I do prefer the decentralized approach by the Fediverse rather than the being controlled by big corporation and government approach.
Here are some websites with useful information about the Fediverse.
ActivityPub plugin for adding WordPress Blogs to the Fediverse.
One interesting (and hopefully more ethical) alternative to Instagram is also part of the Fediverse and it is called Pixelfed. Keep an eye on their website over the next week (s) or so because the developer is going to be making it easier for people to decide on a server to join with a new website for that.
Other Options
As well as the Fediverse there are other emerging solutions such as Peergos and there are more private methods of communication such as Element. I’m not convinced Discord is the way to go personally since it doesn’t look as private as Element is, but it has a growing following with artists wanting to form communities away from Twitter.
My only concern would be the privacy issue, although platforms like Mastodon are not private either so maybe I should cut some slack (never use it for private messaging though, it doesn’t use encryption).
We could always go old school and use forums again or build our own websites and use these alternate communities as a way to network and share work away from peering eyes of the big corporations who want to sell all our data and manipulate us (just a thought).
Even the search engines are not really that useful anymore since they are owned by big corporations and censor results or manipulate what you see based on an algorithm, so it is a bigger challenge than it used to be to get found.
It will take more work to get it going again after the exodus to big corporation run platforms which has all but killed that off, but I think it would be better in the long run.
Anima.to
There is a new community for animators called anima.to.
Thanks for reading.
