Don't have the chash to spend on 3dsMax or Photoshop? Then here are some free alternitives.

3D Programs

Blender

Blender is a 100% free 3D moddaling/scripting/textering program. Infact, it is rather powerfull, with full games and animated moives being made in it to show off what you can do.

http://www.blender.org/


Texture/Pic Edit Programs

The Gimp

The Gimp is a free Photoshop like program. It is a bit differnt in how it dise some things, but it is a very powerfull tool once you know how to use it.

http://www.gimp.org/

NifSkope

Texture editor for .nif files (Thanks to Chaka ZG for the link)

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope


MapZone

Procedule Texture Genarator. (Thanks to TheMagician for the link)

http://www.truancyfactory.com/portals/mapzone/mapzoneIndex.html


Plugins

Gimp DDS
This is a plugin for GIMP version 2.6.x. It allows you to load and save images in the Direct Draw Surface (DDS) format. (ThanksBwillb for the link)

http://code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/

Any more to add to the list? Post it with a link and what it dose. XD

Bumbed for uesfullness.

The GIMP is a wonderful image editing software that's modular and ridiculously user-friendly. I've been using it for more than a decade and I've never needed to pay for an image editor.

Sumones shuld stickie this. Otherrwise it wuld be forgetten.

Note that 3ds max has free versions for university students with a .edu e-mail account. Photoshop may also. A lot of people don't know that.

Third party programs that are basically essential considering how broken the CK is right now are TESSnip, SkyEdit, TESAnnwyn and Wrye Bash.

http://code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/ DDS Plugin for GIMP

I can second that, they don't have Photoshop availble for free, but pretty much everything else Adobe makes. Here's the link to the full list with download: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center

I personnaly use 3ds because of its compatibility with nifskope, but they got maya too. For free.

Cheers!

I prefer paint.net over GIMP as it is much easier to use.

Nifscope

http://www.truancyfactory.com/portals/mapzone/mapzoneIndex.html

Highly underrated procedural texture generator. A steep learning curve, but an excellent (free) tool.

Bumped For Editz

Vote for Sticky or adding to the Wiki. Thanks for the link list.

Bumped for Sticky plox? lol

Bumped for lolz

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2889, by Maboroshi Daikon.

This lets you make multilingual plugins. Works wonderfully!