[PIGMI] Texturing software

[Steven Webb]

After lurking for several years on the pigmi list I'm finally making my 
first game, although it's a very slow process due to the number of 
things to learn.

I've started playing with textures in OpenGL, and I'm wondering what 
tools people use to create textures for their models. To save time I 
don't want to restart up my game every time I change a texture. I was 
thinking about creating them using the gimp, and then having some sort 
of rendering software running on a second monitor that will re-render 
every time the file is updated. Does anything like this exist already? 
Is there a better way? Blender?

I'm a linux user so I would prefer to stick with Free/OSS software since 
that will make installation easier; however, I'm happy to pay for good 
tools if they are worth it.

Any related or unrelated comments or suggestions welcome :)

Cheers.

Steve.