Setting Up a Java 8 Game Development Environment - Beginning Java 8 Games Development - page 22

satility to the new media production workstation that you have built up to this point. It
is important to note that you have already saved yourself thousands of dollars that
would have otherwise been spent on similar paid content production software packages
in the process of doing all this extensive downloading and installing. I guess you could
say my motto is, “Do it right the first time, and be sure to go all the way,” so let me tell
you about some of the other free, and even some of the more affordable, new media
content production software packages that I have installed on my own content produc-
tion workstations.
One of the best values in open-source software, aside from the EditShare Light-
works package, which used to cost six figures back in the day, is a business productiv-
ity software suite that was made open source by Oracle after it acquired Sun Mi-
crosystems. Oracle transferred its OpenOffice software suite over to the popular
Apache open-source project. OpenOffice 4.1 is an entire office productivity software
suite that contains six full-fledged business productivity software packages! Because
your content production agency is actually a full-fledged business concern, you should
probably know about this software, as it is an exceptionally solid open-source software
offering. You can find it at www.openoffice.org ; this popular business software
package has been downloaded by savvy professionals such as yourself more than a
hundred million times, so it's no joke, as they say!
A great complement to the Audacity digital audio editing software is Rosegarden
MIDI sequencing and music composition and scoring software, which can be used for
music composition and printing out the resulting scores for music publishing. Rose-
garden, currently in version 14.02, and being ported from Linux to Windows, can be
found via Google Search or at www.rosegardenmusic.com .
Another impressive audio, MIDI, and sound design software package is Qtractor
If you are running the Linux OS, be sure to download and install this professional-level
digital audio synthesis software package by doing a Google search or going to ht-
tps://Qtractor.SourceForge.net .
For 3D character modeling and animation, be sure to check out the 3D software
packages from DAZ Studio ( www.daz3d.com ) when you have the chance. The cur-
rent version of DAZ Studio Pro is 4.6, and yes, it is free! You have to log in and sign
up, like you did for EditShare Lightworks, but that is a small price to pay! There is also
a free 3D modeling software package on this web site, called Hexagon 2.5 , and a pop-
ular terrain generation software package for less than 20 dollars, called Bryce 7.1 Pro .
The most expensive software on the DAZ Studio web site is Carrara (150 dollars) and
Carrara Pro (285 dollars). DAZ Studio makes most of its revenue selling character
models of one type or another, so take a look, as it is a force to be reckoned with in the
3D content (virtual) world!