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Texture source question

I know going on the internet and taking textures is a big no no (unless you have permission from the creator) but does that extent to images to use as a base to make a texture

I'm currently working on something that requires a stone brink texture but I'm having a hard time making it strait from Photoshop but I found a picture someone took of the structure close enough I can crop it and make the base of a texture (stone texture)

What are the rules about that ?

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  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    it gets pretty iffy, people use photos for photoref from cgtextures all the time, and usually after viewing the same ones over and over you can see which ones people are using, so if it's a photo someone took and it's on their personal site, I'd ask for permission, if it's on something like CGTextures, go for it..
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    if its from google or something like flickr its probably ok, most of the time you edit in some way shape or form anyways. if its from someones photo blog or something like that ask them but 99% of the time you should be ok.

    especially if its just personal work, you might want to be more careful if its for contract/studio work but as long as you change it , it shouldn't be a problem.
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    check
    http://www.sxc.hu/
    its has plenty of free stock art including many photos that can be used for texture creation
  • Michael Knubben
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    if its from google or something like flickr its probably ok, if its from someones photo blog or something like that ask them

    What?

    I fail to see why you'd consider a blog to be less okay (by however small a margin) than flickr? And google image search comes up with results from all over the place, so if something from that same photoblog suddenly turned up in an image search that'd be okay?

    Using photos is okay, especially since the more artsy pictures won't be of any use to us anyway. The ones that we'll find useful are the ones that are a 1:1 reproduction of something in reality.

    Still, I'm sure you realise it'll still need work to be useful to you, so you won't just be slapping a picture on your model. I admit, that'd be iffy.
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    if you can read german there is a case called "marions kochbuch"
    http://www.heise.de/ct/07/14/080/
    http://www.tutsi.de/marions-kochbuch-wieder-abmahnungen-fuer-tolle-fotos/2008/09/12/tutsi-blog-aktuell/
    http://www.blogtotal.de/netzwelt/180-euro-fuer-eine-schuessel-reis/

    it basicly is a website about recipes with some good photos,- sounds harmless at first but its not. Its main purpose is not about cooking or the recipes but acutally sueing people that used the photos from the website- or better said in 90% of all cases from google image search ;)

    The creators of the website made sure that certain ingredients from cooking would be in the top 10 of googles image search so that people would likely steal those images.

    I dont know the details but there are propably some advanced techniques used for tracking the photos (meta EXIF, invisble pixel patterns, digital fingerprint)- anyway usually the people were told to pay ~ $200 per picture- this could be even more expensive if used/abused for a commercial project.


    Btw. here is another nasty technology for everyone to check which website used picture X
    http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-06-10-n27.html
    watch the video to see how it works:
    http://tineye.com/faq


    edit:, another case:
    some idiots who did not understand the term internet even sued google because their images kept showing up in google image search
    http://www.clancco.com/art_law/german_artists_sue_google.html
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    MightyPea wrote: »
    What?

    I fail to see why you'd consider a blog to be less okay (by however small a margin) than flickr? And google image search comes up with results from all over the place, so if something from that same photoblog suddenly turned up in an image search that'd be okay?

    sorry, by photoblog I mean taking some thing from like a photographers portfolio site but you are right, images come up in google all the time from those.

    a better example would be say you need a texture for a framed work of art or photo or something and ripping say some copyrighted painting and slapping it into a game, I know on Socom we had to be careful of things like that, but it was pretty easy to work around.
  • Eric Chadwick
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    Always read the copyright/usage info. As mentioned, this site is an excellent resource.
    http://www.cgtextures.com
  • Harryscary276
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    Thanks alot, got a lot more information out of this than I originally thought I would get (defiantly avoiding German sites now lol)

    And Mightypea yea I know it is going to take some work, for one making it tileable but in the end it looks a heck of a lot better than anything I can create in photoshop from scratch lol

    Thanks again, need to check out that CG textures sight, get some ideas
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    its just that I read and hear alot about german recources but I am sure that even in crazy sue land USA things are by no means different.

    just another one I just googled regarding getty images (quite active trying to to be in the google image search list)
    http://www.designerstalk.com/forums/business/13853-getty-images-want-take-legal-action-against-my-client.html
    seems that they are searching and sueing as well- so in any case watch out with google images
  • Mark Dygert
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    It's best to just build up your own library.

    Get yourself a good camera (Nikon makes great cameras) go out on the weekends overcast days seem to work best, and snap all kinds of shots of anything and everything. Of course whatever you shoot is subject to the laws of whatever country you're in. But in general no one really cares if you take shots of grunge patters in some skeezy alley...

    You'll be able to get a lot of what you need without hours and hours of trying to butcher the same 3 brick patterns everyone else is using.

    You can also look into procedural based texture generation as a base to paint your own. Most of them are seamless already. They get a bad rep for looking "procedural" and its true when you're a hack and use only what it outputs without taking care to actually make it your own. Just remember that they are a good base to start painting on, not the end result. Some good ones are:
    Wood Workshop Free
    Genetica Not free but pretty amazing
    Filter Forge Not free but pretty amazing
    Don't forget about Material Libraries that come with 3ds and Maya
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