Do you use them? If so, which ones? Have you purchased a Mayang CD or joined CGTextures? If not, where do you get your textures and reference images from?
Take photos of your own textures. But outside of this, texture sites like CGTextures.com are absolutely invaluable to modern game development. There's absolutely nothing wrong in using them (so long as they're coming from these royalty-free, non-copyrighted sources).
I second cgtextures. I have a massive texture library I dont even use anymore, I used to guard that hard drive with my life...I dont even know where it is anymore.
I think we should start a Polycount texture library CGtextures is great, but its a little unorganized, I hate the download limit, and I wish some of the texture were a bit more game ready. A lot of the stuff makes great reference pics though.
Honestly, this thread was inspired by the "Become more efficient: Free or nearly free app's & websites to help us do our jobs..." thread. I was really wondering if anyone pays for the CD/DVD or membership, or if they get by on the free 15 images a day?
As soon as I can afford, i'm going to invest into a nice handheld camera to build my own texture library. I think the process of taking photo's, cleaning up textures (for tileable and photoreference) is paramount to understanding the material and how it applies on to models, etc.
As for sites, I really like cgtextures.com and of course, google.
yes i love free texture sites! they are a great tool - hell, they have helped me to land a job! but I think going out and finding your own textures is very rewarding + a better resource.
Over the years I've always relied on these texture sites..but as the days pass I usually only use the same textures over and over again because they end up being super reliable and clean and for some reason fit in a lot of what I'm texturing.
The only way I'd pay for a texture pack would be if its cheap $5-$10 for 100+ tillable 4098 textures with a nice set of custom decals that can work with or on a lot of textures. Oh and useful textures, not 30 brick variations.
I'd probably be more likely to pay a low yearly subscription to a site with massive content.
For a mostly-free site, it beats just about every other site out there. I was thinking of checking out environment-textures.com, but I hope their free samples aren't indicative of the quality and type of images they host, because they're not even as good as the free stuff on cgtextures.com, and would require a lot of work to be ready for game assets.
Shoot your own textures when and if you can if not no shame in allowing someone else to shoot them for you. So yea I think its fine, but I also think there is a danger that they start to get a little over used. It might be a great texture but if everyone under the sun is using it then its probably not really worth it.
At least when you shoot your own textures you know exactly what you're getting and that its probably never been used before. You never run into that issue of "if he/she had only taken one step to the left they could have captured that water stain perfectly" You're there take a step to the left, or come back on another day.
You also have the advantage of taking shots during different conditions, raining, snowing, even dusk or dawn for night time textures. It's always fun to go texture hunting and to go back and see how things have changed.
Be careful, someone might like your camera and follow you into that back alley. It's probably more fun and safer to travel around in a group.
Be polite but never give up your memory card to anyone who demands it, know your rights and don't let anyone bully you into giving up something you legally don't have to.
If you happen to live in an area that is nearly overcast all the the time then you've struck it rich and could probably start up your own texture site.
I use CGTextures all the time. I also take my own photos too. Sometimes CGTextures just doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for. I never usually need to use more than 15mb per day, but I may invest in a pay account soon. I've been using it more and more lately.
I think these websites are fantastic, especially for when shooting your own is out of reach. People in the city can't always go out and get good forest textures. I can't go down the street and find wrecked rusty car.
A character I'm making is sickly and required textures defining bad skin conditions, I'm not exactly going to go to a hospital and start snapping pics of sick people.
I love CGTextures myself. Back in August when I decided it was time to get cracking on some portfolio work, I talked to the owner about setting up an Educational account on there. We came to a very fair agreement, and I've been extremely happy with the site ever since! A lot of the textures I need are from derelict Russian areas that I obviously can't get to myself, although I do occasionally take my own textures as well.
i tried to run one ages ago on http://textures.pedramk.com but too much effort to grow it and keep it updated. plus my camera lens wasnt good enough nowadays i just google the material i need if its too time consuming to handpaint it.
Yeh cg textures is awesome
Also try Autodesk Area, there's over a hundred there, most are very high quality.
Taking your own photo's is alot harder though, you have to be in the right lighting conditions and have a very expensive camera to get the right quality otherwise they end up being for low opacity dirt and stuff < Have a massive folder full of these!
3dtotal.com recently added a free textures section which has some nice pics (hover over 'free stuff' and pick textures)
You could also install "piclens" as an addon for firefox, which does a quick image search from various outlets like deviant art, flickr, and google, etc. Sometimes "wood texture" or the like will get you decent results you can start from.
If you're using photos for texturing, taking your own photos only really makes sense if you have a decent camera. :X
I absolutely love cgtextures.com, they purchased mayang's library at my job, but I'll still go to cgtextures to grab a few things.
Toren3d- PicLens was renamed to Cooliris, but I love searching with that, it's really trippy. Google has a new image search in the works http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/
Sometimes people post up some pictures they've taken intentionally for 3d texturing on flickr, so that's worth checking too.
What about 3dsk. I've used references from that and it pees me off because everytime I use the people references they never have the view I want. Like I want a decent side image which matches the front image or I want a close up view of the side of the face. The pictures look like amateur photos masquerading as proffesional(dont know about the rest of the resources). They just appear to take random photos, instead of setting up static poses which are captured from several angles.
3dsk as some awesome turtle, reptile, elephant, and rhino refernece that are useful in many ways. Super high res too!
The sites are great, but sometimes they're just "one time use" for me. Go there, download images to reference folders, leave. I kinda wish there was a service you could subscribe to, like dropbox, that would sync your directory with theirs, allowing you access to their new stuff without having to visit the site again.
I kinda wish there was a service you could subscribe to, like dropbox, that would sync your directory with theirs, allowing you access to their new stuff without having to visit the site again.
Great idea, but that folder could get HUGE quick. Might eat up a ton of bandwidth too.
If you happen to live in an area that is nearly overcast all the the time then you've struck it rich and could probably start up your own texture site.
Seattle
I've gone out a few times with my D40 & Tripod. I really need to do it more often though.
All for free + anything goes + commercial use no problem, seems to be the best from my point of view.
That sounds cool, but doesn't that mean (if GPL) that you can't copyright the textures/images that you used in a game? Wouldn't it stay in public domain?
I'm not sure but I believe once a photo has been processed into a texture it's considered something different.
Though at the last studio I worked at they were really scared about where the artists were getting their textures, so officially google image search was essentially off limits.
If you can copyright textures from a game, and considering all the games that are using textures based off of the same old photos from CGTextures, Mayang, etc... then are there potentially a lot of copyright violations going on?
I second this. Environment-textures.com is a nice alternative,
A small bump, but having a little problem accessing said website above.
I'm no longer able to log-in to this website using a free account, or make a new account and get authorised. There is also no password recovery either, so I'm unsure whether my actual account there is having problems logging in because of that.
I've also emailed them twice over the last two weeks and I've got no response. Carlo_c has also tried to make an account there and still no authorisation for him either.
Anyone else having problems logging in there or making a free account?
Replies
As for sites, I really like cgtextures.com and of course, google.
I'd probably be more likely to pay a low yearly subscription to a site with massive content.
-Photoshop
-3DSMax
-Crazybump
-xNormal
-CGTextures.com
For a mostly-free site, it beats just about every other site out there. I was thinking of checking out environment-textures.com, but I hope their free samples aren't indicative of the quality and type of images they host, because they're not even as good as the free stuff on cgtextures.com, and would require a lot of work to be ready for game assets.
At least when you shoot your own textures you know exactly what you're getting and that its probably never been used before. You never run into that issue of "if he/she had only taken one step to the left they could have captured that water stain perfectly" You're there take a step to the left, or come back on another day.
You also have the advantage of taking shots during different conditions, raining, snowing, even dusk or dawn for night time textures. It's always fun to go texture hunting and to go back and see how things have changed.
Be careful, someone might like your camera and follow you into that back alley. It's probably more fun and safer to travel around in a group.
Be polite but never give up your memory card to anyone who demands it, know your rights and don't let anyone bully you into giving up something you legally don't have to.
If you happen to live in an area that is nearly overcast all the the time then you've struck it rich and could probably start up your own texture site.
A character I'm making is sickly and required textures defining bad skin conditions, I'm not exactly going to go to a hospital and start snapping pics of sick people.
oh and I uh... don't have a camera.
3Dtotal also now has a free texture collection that they are building up often. http://freetextures.3dtotal.com/
Also try Autodesk Area, there's over a hundred there, most are very high quality.
Taking your own photo's is alot harder though, you have to be in the right lighting conditions and have a very expensive camera to get the right quality otherwise they end up being for low opacity dirt and stuff < Have a massive folder full of these!
You could also install "piclens" as an addon for firefox, which does a quick image search from various outlets like deviant art, flickr, and google, etc. Sometimes "wood texture" or the like will get you decent results you can start from.
I absolutely love cgtextures.com, they purchased mayang's library at my job, but I'll still go to cgtextures to grab a few things.
Toren3d- PicLens was renamed to Cooliris, but I love searching with that, it's really trippy. Google has a new image search in the works http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/
Sometimes people post up some pictures they've taken intentionally for 3d texturing on flickr, so that's worth checking too.
The sites are great, but sometimes they're just "one time use" for me. Go there, download images to reference folders, leave. I kinda wish there was a service you could subscribe to, like dropbox, that would sync your directory with theirs, allowing you access to their new stuff without having to visit the site again.
Great idea, but that folder could get HUGE quick. Might eat up a ton of bandwidth too.
I've gone out a few times with my D40 & Tripod. I really need to do it more often though.
That sounds cool, but doesn't that mean (if GPL) that you can't copyright the textures/images that you used in a game? Wouldn't it stay in public domain?
Though at the last studio I worked at they were really scared about where the artists were getting their textures, so officially google image search was essentially off limits.
If you can copyright textures from a game, and considering all the games that are using textures based off of the same old photos from CGTextures, Mayang, etc... then are there potentially a lot of copyright violations going on?
I'm no longer able to log-in to this website using a free account, or make a new account and get authorised. There is also no password recovery either, so I'm unsure whether my actual account there is having problems logging in because of that.
I've also emailed them twice over the last two weeks and I've got no response. Carlo_c has also tried to make an account there and still no authorisation for him either.
Anyone else having problems logging in there or making a free account?
-Flicker.com
-ENVIRONMENT-TEXTURES.com