In my most recent idea, a game involving living as a Sim of sorts in a small town, I decided the best way to be taken seriously by a programmer I'd want to work with would be to create the town in a 3d program, and in a presentation video have a character walk through the town. My understanding is the town might be created in software different from the software used for the animation. This way I could explain precisely the aesthetics/design I was going for, certain logistics.
I tend to pick up software very easily, and I've got ideas for software to use, but am figuring might be good to do a shout out, ask for tips on people with more experience in such things. I have the Adobe CS Master collection, if that helps any.