Hi, im starting a level 2 game dev course next month, we will be doing 2d and im looking into some programs with 2d art/animation now so i will have an idea on how to use some software for when the course starts.

I dont think i will use photoshop as i will have to pay for it to use at home (so i believe), so im looking into Gimp. But can Gimp be used to create animations for 2d and textures for 3d models in the future? As in the future i will be using Blender for 3d.

Also are Gimp and Inkscape pretty much same thing?

Basically i dont want to learn 3 programs that individually do each thing so photo editing, 2d models and 2d animation when 1 program would do all of that.

Also the engine im pretty sure were using is gamesalad, though in the future (like the level 3 course) i will be using Unity, if it makes a difference to supported file types.

I dont think i will use photoshop as i will have to pay for it to use at home (so i believe), so im looking into Gimp. But can Gimp be used to create animations for 2d and textures for 3d models in the future? As in the future i will be using Blender for 3d.

Yes you will have to pay for Photoshop. Gimp is a great alternative as it can do 90% of what Photoshop can when it comes to making art assets, I have Photoshop and still use gimp for fast editing.

Photoshop has a patch tool that is great for making tiled textures and removing artifacts and is the only reason I believe it's better than Gimp.

Photoshop and Gimp can make animations however it isn't the best tool for the job, that is why so many 2D animation software exist.

If you are learning Blender then you can use it for your 2D animations, you will just do your rendering in 2D. Blender is a better animation tool than some payed 2D animation software and is the best free 3D animation software.

Also are Gimp and Inkscape pretty much same thing?

No Gimp uses pixels and Inkscape uses vectors.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32597/whats-the-difference-between-pixels-and-vectors/

Basically Incskape is between Blender and Gimp.

Vectors are great for making the base of a texture as you can scale it and define basic colors and gradients for your texture.

Basically i dont want to learn 3 programs that individually do each thing so photo editing, 2d models and 2d animation when 1 program would do all of that.

Just think how huge such a program would be.

Photoshop is attempting to be that software with all of it's addons, it can be expensive to buy the addons and you won't use them allot. With each addon the loading time of Photoshop increases up to a point where you don't use it because it takes forever to start.

At the moment I only have the Quixel addon and still when just inverting a texture or adding some thing simple I use Gimp instead. When I open Photoshop it means I am doing textures and nothing else.

In the end you will be using lot's of different software, you stop noticing it, Gimp and Blender is the best staring software there is.

For making game assets I recommend: Gimp, Blender(3ds Max if you are rich and don't know about 3D software.), Photoshop, Zbrush(Not necessary), Marvelous designer and Krita(For stylized textures).

Sketchup is good if you struggle with other 3D software.

Sometimes using multiple tools is required. Sometimes the choice is between a single tool that can do everything poorly, or separate tools that do one thing and do it well.

For myself, I use PaintShopPro (it costs money, but nowhere near Photoshop's cost) and I also use MSPaint, often with both open at the same time, because they are good for different things.

Depending on the type of art you do, you might want to check out Paint.NET (which is free). And if you use a Wacom-style tablet and stylus for drawing, you might try Fire Alpaca.

I use Clip Studio Paint (costs around 10-40 $ depends if you're able to get it during discount times) and/or PaintTool SAI for drawing (around 40$ if I recall correctly) then I use Spine for 2D animation (around 300$ sigh... but all worth it and it has updates forever, built in texture packer and great flexibility)

A great free alternative for drawing 2D assets and making textures is Krita. Though I stick to the programs I already bought the licence of. ;) but well, I plan to use them to keep illustrating and animating, if it's just for a course and maybe you're not into these two topics but more in programming you should definitely go for the free options (: