   paint program suggestions
  I have the summer off from college and plan on programming 24/7.  Right now my skill level is mearly that of simple 2D games.  But through the summer I plan on progressing into 3D games.  Now I''m not sure exactly what kind of paint programs one needs for this.. (oh and I plan on using dx8) but I guess it would need to be able to make .x files.  I''ve heard something about modelers to but don''t know what that is..  Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone could suggest a good (free) paint program, cause I''d like to download it while I''m still at school before I lose my internet connection when I move back to no mans land.  Thank you,lao  
  What exactly do you need a paint program for? If you want to make textures, you should use photoshop. (You can probably get it from someone, although I don''t advocate piracy blah blah blah)It sounds like you''re new to 3D, so althought modeling sounds like fun, I''d suggest you take the summer to learn your 3D fundamentals. Linear algebra is a must, then write some small stuff. A particle system is a nice thing to code, and should teach you many of the basics.Learn how to rotate a cube, write a height field loader.If you want to load .x files, I think you can model something in 3D studio Max, and you can export to .x with that. Hope this helps a bit.  ;  A paint program and a modeller are two different things.  A paint program is something like Adobe Photoshop (horribly expensive and bloated), Jasc PaintShop Pro (my paint program of choice and very reasonably priced) and Gimp (a rather sad Unix-based attempt to copy PhotoShop, but free).  What you need is a paint package able to edit alpha channels.  Other than this, it is up to your personal choice.A modeller is something like discreet 3DS Max (horribly expensive and bloated, just like PhotoShop) or MilkShape (a shareware game-oriented 3D modeller).  Note that none of these export .X files as standard, but if you get the DirectX8 SDK then it includes exporter plug-ins for 3DS Max.    Steve ''Sly'' Williams  Code Monkey  Krome Studios