Linux for Designers

Save for Web and JPEG 2000
I always using the "Save for Web" plugin of Gimp which is a good way exporting the images into standard formats like GIF, JPG or PNG for Web3D like X3D (get a *deb archive for Ubuntu). Ok, it is not the lates version 0.28 but it's still working fine. "Save for Web" appears in the "File" menu of the image window.
It could support JPEG 2000 to but you have to install the JP2 plugin for Gimp first. But this is still availbale as source and i failed compiling it. So i skipped JPEG 2000 support for Gimp (if anybody knows where to grab a binary let me know).
UPDATE: Save for Web 0.28.4 Deb package for Ubuntu

DDS and Normalmaps
The DirectDraw Surface (DDS) format is often used by realtime 3d and games. A DDS Gimp plugin is still available but for Linux only as source. So i downloaded a RPM package of the older 1.01 version (up-to-date is 2.02) and extracted the plugin into "~/.gimp-2.4/plug-ins".
The same way i installed the Normal Map plugin too. I didn't find any *.deb archive of it and so i extracted it from an RPM archive. But this time it was the newest published version.
To get both plugins running i have to create as root a symbolic link in "/usr/lib/" named "libGLEW.so.1.3" to "/usr/lib/libGLEW.so.1.4.0". In the file format list of the "Open"/ "Save" dialog i found now the "DDS Image (*.dds)" entry. At the image window i found "Normalmap" in the "Filter > Distorts" menu.
After the first disappointment of JPEG 2000 support i felt much better know.
UPDATE: Get gimp-dds_2.0.6-1_i386.deb here
The Normalmap plugin 1.2.1 ships now with Ubuntu Hardy

Texture generation helpers
The next i'd like to have were some helpers for generating and manipulating textures. This was quite simple on Ubuntu i have just to do two clicks in Synaptic to get "Gimp-Resynthesizer" and "Gimp-Texturize". By that i installed the Refocus plugin too. After it i went to the homepage of the Liquid Rescale plugin and downloaded a new fresh deb archive of it.
"Texturize" and "Resynthesize" showed up in the image window at "Filter > Distorts", "Refocus" could be found at "Filter > Enhance" and "Liquid Rescale" is located in "Layers". Wow, that was cool, nice and easy.

OpenEXR and HDR
Any other wishes? Yes, I'd like to have support for OpenEXR and Radiance HDR images. But Gimp is working in 8Bit mode only and can't support it really (what will changed in 2.6). The development of HDRTools has started but is only a first release and available only as source.

Realtime texture painting with Gimp and Blender
I thought that was all but then i remembered about a post that i wrote about the Verse project that allows you realtime texture painting. So i visit the webpage of it again. But it seems that all is a little bit out of date and the Gimp plugin is again just available as source.

At the end
...my Gimp is much better prepared for 3D and texture painting now. The most problems were that so much nice Gimp plugins are only available as source and often it's hard to compile them. I'm a little bit disappointed that i failed compiling the Verse plugin because painting with Gimp directly on 3D objects in Blender sounds most interesting to me.
If somebody got links for up-to-date binary downloads, wether it is deb or rpm, please leave a comment. Thanks.