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Having made the leap from my dying desktop to a laptop, I'm now installing All The Things. So I'm wondering what other people consider to be must-have programs. I'm currently installing Unity, which is more... aspirational than something I use daily. Next up will probably Paint Tool SAI, which is my favorite sketching/inking program, and then Krita, which seems to be the more actively developed successor to GIMP.

What I need, and haven't yet looked into, is some sort of time-tracking software. Anyone have anything like that to recommend? Or other recommendations of utility-type programs that I might not be thinking about?

Ninite (https://ninite.com/) is a really great resource for fresh installs/new computers for all the basic software you may need. Click what you want, and it'll install the latest version of everything, and it skips adware and things of that nature.

Can't really give a rec of time tracking software, but these links might help:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_time-tracking_software

http://www.capterra.com/time-tracking-software/

Interesting! I have to say, I'm not quite willing to abdicate control of the update process, even if they claim to be keeping the adware out. If I planned to hop between computers often, though, I can certainly see how it would save time.

Avast?

Yargh! 

....pretty sure Avast was the one that rendered my desktop non-bootable. >_<

It's somewhat ironic that the antivirus killed your PC, no?

Yes, but that definitely falls in the category of 'funny once.' ;P

Nah, it's funny multiple times; for us. :P 

9_9

The scariest moment in the world: the clock strikes twelve; it's midnight. You sit at your computer, scrolling through long threads on forums so ungodly that it chills you to the core to read. In the darkness, nearly pitch black and only lit by your dim computer screen, you hear the sound of footsteps... Your heart begins to beat fast, faster and faster until you realize... It's your dad, getting up to get a snack. You breathe a sigh of relief, relaxing once again, but the horror is not done with you... It comes fast, in a flash, only taking four or so seconds to let out it's deafening screech though it does not need any longer: "AVAST! VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED!"

Haha, that used to happen to me all the time.

MalwareBytes?  AdBlock?  Mozilla?  Skype?

Firefox was my first download. ^_^

I do tend to leave ads on, though. Helps support the comics I read, & most of the ads on comics are A) more comics or B) targeted in a useful and/or hilarious way. 

Lots of ads are malicious. You can whitelist sites you trust or to support content creators. 

I also vouch for uBlock Origin.

Never had eyestrain, but good to know that's out there!

Blender!

I mean, it has nothing to do with time, but I'm not exactly sure what you're wanting anyway, so just get Blender, 'cause it's awesome.

Yep, I've installed Blender. Time to be a n00b all over again... :P

Sorry. I got a little over-excited, but I fell in love with Blender the first time I used it (I actually had to use an outdated version; I still have it on my computer, because I feel it is easier to make static models with it. For animation, though, I try to use the most up-to-date version).

I installed Unity a little while ago. I'm not too terribly impressed with the free license, and C# isn't really on the list of languages I want to learn any time soon. Nevertheless, it is something I've managed to overlook, and I have decided I should at least give it the BotD.

No need to apologize to the Twine evangelist for enthusiasm. I'm just grumpy to have to learn a new interface, when I've got over a decade of experience with Maya. But as an indie dev, I can't actually afford Maya. >_<

What's wrong with the Unity license? I admit I didn't take a super close look, but my general understanding is that they folded a lot of stuff that used to be pro-only into personal, and that 'personal' also doubles as 'indie,' up to 100k revenue. What did I miss?

You're an indie dev?

I didn't know owl was indie, but I knew about the "dev" part.

So what's in the works, Morgan?

...wish I could say. But it won't be under this name. 

I've been too careless here, talking about both where I live, and what I do professionally. Given the kind of anti-fandom one accrues if one makes the kind of games that self-identified gamers don't like... well, you can probably see why I'll be using a pseudonym.

You think you've been reckless with your identity.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. There's entire societies dedicated to hating literally everything, including and especially each other. Encyclopedia Dramatica, 4chan, Alt Rock Fans, The UK. At least with the psuedonymn they don't have as much access to your irl information. Although, to be fair, there were several errors on Whatserface's part during the big 4chan blowup that happened.

Personal does not allow for dynamic shadows. It forces users to take a survey before playing your game and forces you to use a Unity-branded start-up screen. Just a bunch of annoying little things that really don't matter in the scheme of things, but nonetheless make me want to consider other (even more labor-intensive) options first.

Damn, really? That's good to know. I don't mind a branded startup screen, but a survey? That's the sort of thing I hate as a player... and as someone potentially selling their work, it's really unacceptable. >_<

Here is a comparison of Personal and Pro licenses, just for reference.

I recall you mentioning that you occasionally work in Python. Irrlicht has a binding for Python. The binding is licensed BSD.Irrlicht is widely considered the best 3D graphics library for games, even more highly praised than Ogre, but it's animation system is problematic. That is, unless you like having your animation data inseparably bundled with your mesh data.

Hmmm. If I'm reading this right, the survey is for users of Unity itself -- that's the antecedent of 'Software' here, I'm pretty sure. They do, in fact, have a survey about your intended usage when you set up Unity.

Oh, okay. This is hardly the first time I've misread a license, but damn, I feel stupid. XD

Easy mistake to make, with the bit about the loading screen right before it.

I'm just glad they're not being TOO obnoxious. ^_^