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Blender cannot communicate with the editor of the fifth Heroes game, so this is not the point. Objectively, a modder for the fifth game cannot avoid using Maya.
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Well, I hope both goals of mutual education have been achieved.)
Well, you can buy it)), although it's not a certainty. Version 6.0 is probably no longer available legally.
But theoretically, I think it might be possible to rewrite the scripts we have to work with another program? But that's probably quite difficult.
In any case, I mentioned Blender as an example of professional (because some studios use it) and free 3D modeling software.
Regarding Paint.NET, I simply don't know enough about the subject to objectively prove anything. In the end, Photoshop is more of an auxiliary program for me, and I've opened Paint.NET maybe twice. So, unfortunately, our conversation wouldn't have revealed whether Paint.NET is really worse than others or if it's actually a good free alternative. But you defend it quite convincingly, so I'll probably stop criticizing it.
The only thing is, I advise everyone to be more careful when choosing software. Things like the availability of tutorials online are also important. Although, as far as I understand, Paint.NET doesn't have any problems with that. If you plan to work with something related to it later or just want to add it to your resume, it's important how popular the software is among professionals. Here, you don't need to explain for a long time that Paint.NET is no worse than others (and who knows, maybe it is), but among both ordinary users and professionals, in my opinion, a different opinion has become established.