Music

I am not much of a music man, so I have limited input for this area. The two apps I have found that are free/cheap and create music are Anvil Studio and Melody Assistant. Both of these are MIDI based apps, and allow you to either compose with a MIDI keyboard or by point and clicking notes and selecting an instrument. Melody is the more pwoerful of the two, allowing exports to many different formats, and high quality sampled instruments.

Also, there is Buzz. Buzz is a free soft-studio that is something like an entire synth, sequencer, effects... basically, every piece of hardware a techno guru might have, done in software. I have to say... I have yet to get the hang of it, but it looks quite good.

Software Directory

Name	Category	Pricing	Comments	Sample	Screenshot	Score
3d Exploration	3d Converter	$39 Basic, $199 Enterprise Edition	Converts file formats, adds texture maps, renders pics	N/A		4
3d Win	3d Converter	30 Euro	Converts file formats	N/A	Not available	3
Amapi	3d Modeler	Freeware	Older version, but still good	Not Available		3
Anim8or	3d Modeler	Freeware	Great for animation	Not Available		4
Anvil Studio	Music Composer	Freeware	God for getting started	Not Available		3
Blender	3d Modeler	Freeware	Tricky to use, but extremely powerful	Not Available	Not Available	3
Borland CPP 5.5	C++ Compiler	Freeware	Don't forget to read the docs!	N/A	N/A	5
Buzz	Music Composer	Freeware	Interesting, techno-ish music software	Not Available	Not Available	4
Cygwin	C++ Compiler	Freeware	Win32 port of the well known GNU toolchain	N/A	N/A	5
DevC++	C++ IDE	Freeware	Compatible with Cygwin and MinGW	N/A		5
DJGPP	C++ Compiler	Freeware	DOS compiler	N/A	N/A	3
Forte	Java IDE	Freeware	Sun's official IDE	N/A		4
GIMP	2d Graphics	Freeware	Best of the bunch			5
JCreator	Java IDE	Freeware	Resembles Visual Studio; Win32 exe, not a Java app	N/A		5
JDK	Java Compiler	Freeware	You need this to do anything with Java :)	N/A	N/A	5
LithUnWrap	3d Texture Mapper	Freeware	Excellent for texturing			5
Melody Assistant	Music Composer	$15	A lot of good sampled sounds.. Exports to a lot of formats	My test		5
Milkshape 3D	3d Modeler	$20	A great modeler			5
MinGW	C++ Compiler	Freeware	Like Cygwin, but smaller	N/A	N/A	3
Paint Shop Pro	2d Graphics	$79	An excellent 2d art program			4
Pixia	2d Graphics	Freeware	Similar to PSP	N/A		3
sPatch	3d Modelling	Freeware	A simple Bezier patch modeler	Not Available		3
VIDE	C++/Java IDE	Freeware	Lean and mean. Integrates nicely with the Borland compiler, and the GNU tools	N/A		3

Well, it isn't a prefect list, and it doesn't go in depth very much, but this should give those of you who are like me (poor) and need some tools to get gaming. Questions and comments to Rykard.

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