Relatively cheap texture CDs

Community Forums/Developer Stations/Relatively cheap texture CDs

Skitchy(Posted 2003) [#1]
http://www.marlinstudios.com/products/products.htm#specialty

According to the site, some of their textures have been used in the Matrix sequels. Not that it makes any difference - but you have to assume they're high quality.

Prices from $100->

They have downloadable samples if you want to try some out :)


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#2]
The sci-fi ones I saw were pretty poor.

I'd gladly pay for expensive texture CD's, if they were good, but you're going to find much better stuff at polycount and planetquake, for free.


Skitchy(Posted 2003) [#3]
I thought the sci-fi ones would interest you Josh. You're right, the samples were VERY poor. I think the photo-realistic ones are better though.


Gabriel(Posted 2003) [#4]
It's a shame there aren't more high quality texture cd's. Marlin's cd's are about as good as most of these get. I've seen some of Dosch's stuff ( a friend bought one of their cd's ) and it was very poor. I've seen a couple of others too ( Art something was one of them ) and they were even worse than Dosch.

Of course you're going to find much better stuff at PolyCount and PlanetQuake.. a lot of those guys are professionals in the Games Industry, and many of the rest will be one day. You'd be very lucky to get them to work for you though, and you wouldn't get their textures at Marlin prices.

If a few of those guys were to get together and form a "coalition" and sell their cd's on a joint website, they could make them avaiable at favourable prices and could probably do very nicely out of it. But none of them seem to want to do this.


sswift(Posted 2003) [#5]
I used to sell a texture cd photoreality on 3dcafe.com, but I stopped because the woman who ran it kept forgetting to send the checks, forgetting my address, and forgetting to return my phone calls.

I have a new texture CD that I'm selling though. It's $99, and it's got over 1500 images on it, which is way more than Marlin Studios' CD's have on them. About 560 megs of texture. Most images are 1280x1024 in size, though a few are smaller. Most images are NOT seamless. This is because most professional artists can make textures seamless themselves and it's better to have the original image to go from if you want to get a certain effect than to be forced to use some bland generic version of the image I come up with. The images are also for the most part not color adjusted or corrected. Most look just fine, but some could use some touch up.

If what you want is premade textures you can just stick in your game, then this is not for you. But if you want a huge collection of images which are very well suited to making game textures WITH, then this is probably just what you need.

As for what textures are contained in the CD...

Rocks
Dirt
Leaves
Grass
Moss
Shiny metal
Rusted metal
Oxidized metal
Bent metal
Painted metal
Electronics
Rock debris
Brick debirs
Brick walls
Tile
Brick walkways
Cobblestones
Tires
Snow
Beach
Signs
Brick buildings
Stone walls
Concrete
Concrete rubble
Metal scraps
Metal roofing
Metal siding
Shingles
Wood
Skies
Fire truck

And much more. Tons of images in each of the above categories. Images taken from around the ocean, around a junkyard, my house, in a city.

This collection represents 2-3 years of photographing textures, and there's a ton of stuff in here which isn't easy to come by if you just go out on a jaunt in the city with your camera for a few days.

Take note of my price compared to Marlin's stuff. Forget the "bump maps" he promises you. They're just greyscale versions of the images with the contrast turned down. Pfft! You'll get maybe 200 images on one of his CD's, half of which may be these supposed "bump maps" and even if they're seamless they may not even be SQUARE so you have to retouch them anyhow for use in games. And you'll pay more. So why not go for a huge collection of photos by a texture artist who knows what texture artists are looking for in textures?

But like I said, if all you want is generic sci-fi textures someone has made for you, this is not the collection for you.

I haven't got a website up with thumbnails yet, but I'm sure just about everyone will find a ton of images in here which are useful for their game.


sswift(Posted 2003) [#6]
Here's one of the textures, exactly as it appears on the CD:

http://sky.prohosting.com/scswift/

Warning, 700K image, 1280x1024!


Ruz(Posted 2003) [#7]
yeah most of the polycount stuff is done for mods and I very much doubt if they would give it to you for free.

Your cd sounds nice sswift, but I stil think I can up with goods in terms of ready to use tiles at some point. have to wait and see.
I am thinking more now about making the models , then tetxuring them instead fo just making the textures by themselves.
Things like props, decos etc.


DarkEagle(Posted 2003) [#8]
http://www.planetquake.com/gg/

freebies, anyone?


Warren(Posted 2003) [#9]
sswift

Not to criticize, but that texture looks like photo source to me. The rusted border on the left tapers off at the bottom, and it has lighting coming in from the top right. Did you do anything artistically to the images or is it more of a photo source collection rather than actual textures?


sswift(Posted 2003) [#10]
They are photographs. Most are not edited at all. I call them textures because that's what 3D artists would refer to them as. You don't need seamless textures or even brightness corrected images when working in a 3D package.

Also, most artists would rather work from the original data as this gives you the best quality in the final image. If I color corrected the images, or made them seamless, that might compromise the final art if the artist needs the image to be different.

If this was a CD that had 1500 GAME textures on it, it'd be a hell of a lot more than $100. :-) Do you know how long it would take me to produce that many? Jeez... Unreal itself probably only has 500 textures in it. :-)


sswift(Posted 2003) [#11]
Here's a set of images each with 12 thumbnails of various textures on the CD:

http://sky.prohosting.com/~scswift/samples.zip


Mustang(Posted 2003) [#12]
Also, most artists would rather work from the original data as this gives you the best quality in the final image. If I color corrected the images, or made them seamless, that might compromise the final art if the artist needs the image to be different.


[edit] **** MARK - FIX THE DAMN QUOTE BUG! **** :) [/edit]

Agree. I like to work from original shots, non-cropped, non-adjusted raw source. "True readymade textures" are probably better for the beginner but as they are "finalized" you can not alter them easily. But of course it takes some skill and lots of time to do the game textures by yourself, even from good source material.


Ruz(Posted 2003) [#13]
Well I don't agree. if you could have a cd full of good seamless textures, people would surely more interested than having a cd full of stock photography.(not that I am dissing sswifts idea)

If i was a non artist or even a level designer and needed textures I would want ready to use stuff.
I believe dave is releasing a cd of 'textures', by which I presume he means seamless game ready textures.


sswift(Posted 2003) [#14]
Oh I'm sure that amateurs making games and such would want that but it's a ton of work producing game suitable textures.

Besides... I already produced a CD of game suitable textures once and offered it here and nobody wanted to buy it. So I just placed them online for free. Sphere Racer used a bunch of the textures, like the lens flares and some ground textures.

I probably won't be producing another CD since nobody wanted the old one.


sswift(Posted 2003) [#15]
And cause I know someone's gonna ask me where they can get the free texture pack, here it is. There's around a hundred textures in it.

http://sky.prohosting.com/~scswift/freetextures.zip


CyBeRGoth(Posted 2003) [#16]
http://www.3dtotal.com/services/cds_new/intro.asp

These are nice, high quality textures, tho aimed more at 3D Artists than at game development, still they are very handy.


Binary_Moon(Posted 2003) [#17]
I like Shawns idea. I think that is by far the best way to work. I have spent a reasonable amount of time trawling the internet looking for good photo references for use as base materials in textures. Something like this would be really good.

Unfortunately I recently spent my 'spare cash' on sswifts shadow and gui code... and what with Christmas coming up I'm a bit short of cash. However if all the textures are of similar qulity to those in these photos (just downloaded the sample pack) I would be very interested indeed.

Shawn - how are you going to distribute the textures? Gonna be burning the cd's yourself or getting bmtmicro/ shareit to do it for you?


sswift(Posted 2003) [#18]
Burning them myself for now. There's not a big enough demand to worry about BMT micro right now. Though I might consider that if the demand picks up. The textures take up about 560 megs of the CD.


Ruz(Posted 2003) [#19]
those free textures are nice sswift.surpised no one wanted em