Favourite tools for content creation?

What do you lot use for landscapes, models, textures, animation? i’m really out of the loop (like 7 years of not even having time to play games, let alone mod (and now trying to make) them, i’m a one-man team whos been writing music all that time.

Just wondered if there are new boys on the block, I use Max, Zbrush, photoshop & am going to try my hand at substance painter

Anything else I should check out? Especially if they have integration well with UE4.

Animation is my weak spot - has there been any new ground made with things like IK solving and other animation techniques for someone like me?

Maya seems to be the “best” integrated tool with UE4 (they have an auto-rigging tool you can get for free). For modeling, MODO is also popular, but ZBrush is still standard.

For Characters take a look at Adobe Fuse, MakeHuman.

SpeedTree or TreeIt for tree meshes

Check out this thread for more tools - https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?57471-Community-List-Free-Software-Tools-amp-Resources-List

Hope this helps!

Maya and 3ds Max have the best support for FBX. While Epic has a rigging tool for Maya, it’s not necessary for 3ds Max because it already has similar tools like Biped and CAT. Modo is getting better support so if you want to jump ship from Autodesk that’s not a bad option.
Things like Substance and Quixel Suite are becoming much more important to development so learning either will be helpful.

Nice, thanks for that. Quixel is having a 40% off, and SP is a monthly for indie so I get to try both.

Speedtree I’m already aware of, been demoing the new one today. will try treeit & i’m used to max up to about 2010 so i’ll keep with that.
@CoquiGames, thanks for the link, yes that helps!