Creating textures from scratch vs. using free textures from websites?
This is something that I've been wondering for a while. I've been browsing several 3D model marketplaces and I don't remember seeing a single model that mentioned using textures from any of the various texture websites.
Does practically everyone create their own textures from photos? I'm slowly coming to the point where I'd like to start creating commercial models but I don't own a good camera or a tripod so creating my own textures would be quite hard.
I know that at least CGTextures.com allows their textures to be used in commercial 3D models if you include a short paragraph that their textures have been used. I'm most likely going to entirely rely on this website in the future but I can't help but to wonder if seeing that short paragraph makes the customer think that my model is somehow not as good as another similar model that doesn't mention any texture sources. (Implying that the texture was created by the 3D artist.) Public domain textures are also few and far between.
I also don't see how you could paint realistic textures with just brushes. I don't own a good tablet either nor I can't afford to buy a fancy camera and there's no guarantee that I can even find a certain types of materials in the general area of where I live. We don't exactly have palm trees up here in the north.
In essence where do professional people get their textures? I think that larger corporations have their own texture databases but they probably have people hired to do just textures. What about indies and some of these amazing artists I've seen around the site? (Who are not working in large companies.)
Does practically everyone create their own textures from photos? I'm slowly coming to the point where I'd like to start creating commercial models but I don't own a good camera or a tripod so creating my own textures would be quite hard.
I know that at least CGTextures.com allows their textures to be used in commercial 3D models if you include a short paragraph that their textures have been used. I'm most likely going to entirely rely on this website in the future but I can't help but to wonder if seeing that short paragraph makes the customer think that my model is somehow not as good as another similar model that doesn't mention any texture sources. (Implying that the texture was created by the 3D artist.) Public domain textures are also few and far between.
I also don't see how you could paint realistic textures with just brushes. I don't own a good tablet either nor I can't afford to buy a fancy camera and there's no guarantee that I can even find a certain types of materials in the general area of where I live. We don't exactly have palm trees up here in the north.
In essence where do professional people get their textures? I think that larger corporations have their own texture databases but they probably have people hired to do just textures. What about indies and some of these amazing artists I've seen around the site? (Who are not working in large companies.)
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Also... "good tablet"? You can paint some really good stuff with a $50 monoprice tablet. The only thing you gain in spending more money is usually slightly better resolution and more buttons. Pen tilt if you get an intous or better but most people don't use it and you certainly don't need it to paint textures
Usually when people make realistic textures from scratch a lot of the detail is made by using masks generated from a sculpt which makes it much easier to paint
Usually when photosourcing you use elements of a photo or texture that you like. Like if you want dirtstains or rust from one part of a picture and watch what happens when you overlay over another. Usually colors are heavely modyfied aswell.
If i where you i would look for any old gun making tutorial and watch how they make textures using photos.
Thanks for the link, that was a good read. The general consensus seems to be to do whatever works best for you and then do it efficiently. Most posts on photosourcing techniques match what I'm doing quite well. I suppose it's all just a matter of buying a license for the textures.
I'll probably have to find one of those public domain sites since I really can't afford anything as an unemployed student taking baby steps into the world of commercial art.