Here is group #3 of seamless / tile-able image textures for your own use, from myself.
Textures #1 – #3, all 2k in size.
Textures #3 (1k) and #4 (2k) were created solely in Photoshop.
Color/Diffuse map and Transparency/Alpha map.
Feel free to use these for your personal or commercial projects, whatever you want.
Enjoy!
My 3D version of “The Thinker” by photographer Hiromu Kira, all credit to him.
Original photo was circa 1930 taken at the Hollywood Dam.
My specs: Basically just a low-poly figure, a displacement map for the steps and a soft shadowed sun.
Sometimes simple is better, thanks Hiromu.
What I’m mainly going to do here is start listing any freeware 2D programs.
I’ll also make a list of retail 2D programs here, yet my main goal is to list those programs that would help out the 2D artist that doesn’t have much or anything to spend.
Lets begin;
Gimp – This is the main piece of freeware that rivals Photoshop. It actually does pretty much whatever you need, for free. Photoshop obviously has more advanced
abilities but Gimp does all the basics and a lot more than you would think, especially for being freeware. If you can’t afford Photoshop, Gimp is an absolute must-have, period.
Inkscape – Imo, this is the main freeware that rivals Illustrator for vector creation/editing. Must-have if you want to work in vector’s and you don’t have Illustrator.
Irfanview – This is the one and only image viewer I have used on all my computers for the last 15 years!
I’ve tried other image viewers but Irfanview is light, quick, and does way, WAY more than just displaying images.
Context Free – This is a cool little program that will create various code-generated images. There are tons of code presets to download and use. It’s kinda hard to explain, better to go look for yourself.
Freeware programs that work with HDRI (High Dynamic Range Images)
*While HDRI’s have been for use inside of 3D programs for creating lighting schemes, they are worth mentioning in this post. Here are a few that I believe to be a must-have.
HDRShop – This program will perform a number of operations to HDRI’s, most importantly converting to a different layout.
HDRView – A quick and lightweight HDRI viewer. Allows you to bring up an HDRI with just a double-click in explorer.
XnView – One of the few programs that can make thumbnails of your HDRI’s for easier reference and management.
I would highly recommend this as a great freeware program not only for your HDRI’s but for cataloging any and all of your images.
Retail 2D Programs – Check individual sites for demo’s (at this time, they all do)
Adobe Photoshop – The standard in 2D image editing programs.
Adobe Illustrator – The standard in Vector creation and editing programs.
Corel Painter – Can imitate very realistic looking traditional media (paint, pencils) It has been the king of painting for years yet it does have a bit of a steep price at $430.00
Artrage – The rival to Corel Painter and its version 3.0 is a very worthy contender, especially priced at only $80.00 – They even have a version for your iPad.
Thumbsplus – This is the cataloging and management software I have used for absolutely all my images for the past 15 years, love it.
ACDSee – Another great image cataloging and management program, widely used.
As always, if I ever think of any more or find new programs I’ll update this list.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to email them to me at kirkdunne@yahoo.com
It’s pretty much the law…if you play in 3D, apparently you must, at some point, create various “sphere” renders.
The most enjoyable part of this was what I always love doing and that was creating the texture (for the cardboard), it had to be quite large since I wanted it to not only stand up to rendering out large for print but also because the main sphere would be magnifying part of it. (small image textures rendered out large become visually pixelated and ugly)
At the time, I created the image texture at 4K but if I were to go back to this I would most likely re-ceate the texture at 8K because at the minimum, the render would be 3300 pixels across (for 11″ paper printing) and because of that big sphere’s magnification. Also, in case I ever made a poster print of it, it may be printed out 3 feet across (36″) which is 10,800 pixels. Add onto that, the main sphere magnifying the cardboard and I would really need a bigger image texture to stand up to that level of size so it would not look pixelated.
The best alternative to make sure there would be no pixelation would be to create a procedural texture to look like that ribbed cardboard and then make very large stencils of the typography and graphics that are “printed” on the cardboard and then use that to drive everything. Which would mean amazing quality of the image even when rendered out really huge.
It’s a thought…;o)
Here is group #2 of seamless / tile-able image textures for your own use, from myself.
Texture #1 is a leafy ground cover and the textures #2 – #5 are grass. All are 2k each in size.
Leaf #1 is off a tree outside my place. Yup, its from a tree even though it looks like a fern. 2K in size.
Color/Diffuse map and Transparency/Alpha map.
Leaf #2 is a scan of a Skeleton Leaf.
*Warning, these are BIG images! Both are 4k in size. (4,096 x 4,096 – 4.7mb each)
Color/Diffuse map and Transparency/Alpha map.
Feel free to use these for your personal or commercial projects, whatever you want.
Enjoy!
This was a simple scene I made for 3D World Magazine to show how stock atmosphere settings could be used in conjunction with HDRI lighting to attain a further level of realism as compared to just using HDRI lighting alone. All textures made from scratch in Photoshop as was post-work DOF blurring.
In creating either 2D or 3D CGI artwork, one must collect a number of resources images in which to reference the real world. If you want to paint or model say Machu Picchu, you are going to need to know what it looks like.
These are the free sites I use for finding reference photos. Not image textures per-say but photos to use as inspiration on a starting point.
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Google Image – Get imaginative with your keywords that you use in your search, the whole world is out there.
Deviant Art – This will take you to their Stock Images section, use the subcategories or the search option.
*Note: Using Deviant Art’s search option will only show up to 1,000 results, maximum. (no way around this, not even with a paid membership).
Flickr – Awesomely huge searchable database but as with all these sites, do mind any copyright wishes the photographers request.
Freerange – Free stock image site, requires free registration (worth it).
Stockvault – Free stock image site, requires free registration (worth it).
Stock.chng – Free stock image site, requires free registration (worth it).
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This list is a preliminary one, as I remember more useful sites or run across any new ones I will come back to this post and add them on.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to email them to me at kirkdunne@yahoo.com