Ultimate Textures Feedback Tier2
Hello,
After alot of good feedback from this forum we have changed our page a bit and once again are ready for some more feedback.
As said before we are trying to create a good texture resource for artists and developers and need feedback to do this.
Our website currently include Complete Textures (tileable textures including diffuse, normal, spec and heightmaps etc), Source Textures which can be used to create tileable textures and Inspirational Images.
Keep in mind that our library still is a bit limited but we are uploading images all the time. Most of the content on our page is free (except complete textures) but you can buy a membership and get access to more images as well as bigger download limit.
You are welcome to give us feedback on everything from image quality to prices.
www.ultimatetextures.com
Thanks,
After alot of good feedback from this forum we have changed our page a bit and once again are ready for some more feedback.
As said before we are trying to create a good texture resource for artists and developers and need feedback to do this.
Our website currently include Complete Textures (tileable textures including diffuse, normal, spec and heightmaps etc), Source Textures which can be used to create tileable textures and Inspirational Images.
Keep in mind that our library still is a bit limited but we are uploading images all the time. Most of the content on our page is free (except complete textures) but you can buy a membership and get access to more images as well as bigger download limit.
You are welcome to give us feedback on everything from image quality to prices.
www.ultimatetextures.com
Thanks,
Replies
Yea!
Not so crazy now is it!
But I agree, great stuff, pricing is a bit crazy but every site is different.
http://www.cgtextures.com/
http://www.imageafter.com/
( just some examples )
I don't find 9 dollars a month too expensive for their full library..
Keep it up Menorian!
UltimateTextures do seem like decent quality images and the fact that there are normal and specular for the complete section is kind of cool. Honestly I think some people might just use the nvidia plugin or crazybump to get a similar result in a short amount of time and then they wouldnt need to pay anything.
it's a very nice and big library though but the quality isn't there imo.
i wish ultimate textures could have their whole library for free and limit the downloads instead of having member only images, since the image quality is better than cgtextures.
i'm not sure about the prices thuogh, i personally don't find $9 a month expencive, but maybe the complete textures are too expencive as this is something you easily can make yourself.
Like EricChadwick here says you have to look at the time it takes to create the texture compared to your billed time, that's what we tried to do when we did the price estimates, and then we lowered the price from the costs of what an average artist would be charged.
I find it a little hard to say that it takes 5 minutes to create these textures, as the process is a bit more time consuming.
First you need a good base image, and a good base image to be used with a realtime renderer that utilizes normalmaps and specmaps needs to be without direct light and shadows, meaning the only light / shadows that must be there for optimal quality and effect is ambient occlusion. Getting these images is not easy.
Second you need to create a normal map that actually fits the diffusemap and yes, you can use crazybump for a fast moch-up but to get variations and optimal effect you need to do a bit more.
Anyway, I would like to see the person who honestly can tell me that they are able to create this texture in 5 minutes.
http://www.ultimatetextures.com/files/samples/sample_pine_needles_01_preview.jpg
Also that wouldnt go ingame in most games unless you could afford to waste 5 texture calls for a tree , might look good, but doubt much games would do that.
The colours and values in a lot of the spec maps are questionable. These rocks for example, the spec makes them look more metallic than they should because they have a coloured spec.... rocks don't have that.
I think a lot of people will have to end up tweaking them for their target engine or just make one from the diffuse to suit their needs.
If you take a closer look at the normal map you will see that it is just not ran 1 easy pass through crazybump, secondly it has an alpha mask. Please check the mask out and tell me how to make it in 1-2 minutes. If you can I'll pay you dearly.
Thirdly this needle texture is based on the same principle as speedtree textures (ever heard of it?). Here is a link for you to check out and you will see that tons of games are using speedtree:
http://www.speedtree.com/gallery/index.php
If you do not use speedtree and want to decrease your draw calls (if that is what you mean by texture calls) you should gather your textures in atlases.
So your statement that few people are going to use it are obviously wrong.
You can download our sample textures here:
http://www.ultimatetextures.com/free_samples.php
TheSplash:
Yeah, I agree. We will try and fix that, it should be an easy fix to do. Now this is probably 2min work.
Another thing, is that really the resized texture pricing scheme is pretty rediculous. Did it take you guys twice as long to create the 1024 than it did the 512? No, it took 1 second to size the texture down from 2048 to 1024, and another to size it down to 512. I would ditch that system all together, and provide either just the highest res, or possible do it in reasonable, maybe 10% ? increments.
Now, really i think that the entire concept of selling singular textures is just a bad idea in generall. I would like to see more of a pack system, like making grouping 10 textures together. You dont make as much money per texture this way(if your prices are reasonable) but you almost garuntee you're selling more of your product. Maybe this shouldn't be the only option, but i believe it would be something to look into.
Something else that i'm not really sure about is membership, do you get access to the complete textures with membership? If so, then thats actually something that seems worthwhile to purchase, but if not, then i'm paying a monthly fee for something i can get free at other websites. Maybe the quality isnt as good, maybe it is, i'm not going to argue that because you guys are obviously going to be biased. The point is that you need something to really sell us on it, not just provide an alternate service.
I think the entire concept of charging what a production artist would make to create a texture is just completely insane, you're selling bulk textures here, not doing contracts for specific work orders.
Having said all that, its great to see you guys are actually trying to listen to us here, so keep at it!
Now this is the kind of feedback we really appreciate, constructive!
We knew before we started that it would be impossible to make all kind of art styles, this is why we went for the realistic look which is most commonly used. So if you are not going for a realistic looking game\application you are not in our main target group, yet. I think it is possible to stylize our textures anyways though, but it would ofcourse
require some extra work, which usually is the case anyways when you add a style to textures based on real photos.
Another reason for selling complete textures is that many companies lack artists that have a lot of experience\talent when it comes to making the different maps, like for instance normal maps. We tried to figure out what an artist would get for
doing the same work we did and we actually think that if you buy complete textures from www.ultimatetextures.com it would be 2-4 times as cheap (depending on where in the world you work) as hiring an artist that can deliver the same kind of quality in the same amount of time.
We also knew that poeple would have to tweak our textures to some extent to make it fit their engine, but this is usually done within the engines material system and is something you usually have to do anyways. It is far less time consuming to tweak a product than to make it from scratch, atleast in our experience.
We actually do exclusive freelance work, so if you want tailored textures that suit your specific needs contact us at this e-mail address: contact@frostsoftware.com
We will make packs later when we got a bigger library.
We are also considering making memberships for complete textures, we just have not figured out the details yet.
Thanks again!
No games?
So my game can't be modded if it uses your textures.
Strange limitation. If this was more specific to prevent usage in a trademark for a directly-competing service, then I could understand having this in the license.
Too vague. Value of a game is derived in part from its artwork.
Can't include them in a game then. Many games don't/can't encrypt their art assets.
Slum: Those are probably guys I have on MSN, atleast CaramelCamel. In my personal info from today I have a link here.
*EDIT: I ran through it fast now and corrected the issues EricChadWick pointed out, lemme know if there still are issues. Cheers!
This is still there, so I can't distribute ("otherwise transfer") a game that uses the content.
There are also grammatical errors that cause problems, like "You may only copy parts from or alter a complete-texture product in any way".
You need to get a real lawyer to write your contract. This won't pass a studio's legal review.
I have now contacted a proper lawyer and he is going to look at it ASAP. Thanks again!
To set up each material took me 5 minutes and you can tell by looking at the rock material picture that it's not very complicated.
Cheers!