Commonly needed textures

# 1 09-05-2011 , 06:41 PM

EduSciVis-er
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Location: Toronto

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Since photography is one of my interests, I've recently taken a stab at shooting textures. I know there's loads of available textures on the interwebs, and I'm not going to try making a business of it or anything, but I thought starting a library for my own use can't be a bad idea, and if I can help others in the process, so much the better. I'm sure I'll learn more about both texturing and photography in the process.

With that being said, my question is about the types of textures that you commonly find yourself looking for. Both commonly needed textures, and textures that you really have to hunt to find. This isn't a request thread (meaning I'm not going to hunt down and photograph komodo dragon skin and send you an image), but I'm curious what it is in high demand. More like a combined theoretical shopping list and a wishlist, if you will.

I'm also curious about other textural elements that are needed and how they should be presented. If you work with dirt, scratches or rust layers, what's the best way to present those so they can be easily incorporated. Same goes for things like electrical outlets? leaves? eyes? fur? rivets? moss on rocks? Are these things even needed as photographed elements?

-stwert

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# 2 09-05-2011 , 07:40 PM

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First thx you and good on you .... very helpful.

Wood for floors is what I always seem to need - not the ruff looking tree bark or someones old fence or that fake crap made in photoshop and why do they always look always looks orange. My floor are not that colour and I have wood all the way though my house.

Also grim/dirt textures

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# 3 09-05-2011 , 09:04 PM

The thin red line
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Over the years stwert I have down loaded loads of free stuff to find that its all next to use less, I now do a lot of my texture in photoshop using filters. The one thing I might suggest is get references shots without specularity if possible..........dave

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# 4 09-05-2011 , 09:11 PM

The Nurb Herd
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i guess, whatever cgtextures doesn't have.

you should get a ring flash for the best results user added image

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# 5 09-05-2011 , 09:38 PM

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Tweety: Thanks for the suggestions. Regarding dirt and grime, is it best to have these elements more or less isolated so they can be layered on? Or does it really matter?

Dave: Do you mind sharing why they're useless? I'm looking to focus on things that are difficult to create proceduraly (is that what you mean by PS with filters?) Agreed on the specularity, the idea is to minimize or eliminate highlights, shadows, reflections, I guess anything that is contributed by things other than the color map.

Dom: I know cgtextures is a great resource, so it'll be difficult to compete (and with others), which I'm not trying to do, but I'll try to get stuff that isn't available to the same degree elsewhere... which is partly why I'm asking for suggestions. Ring flash.... ha, I wish... I'll just use cloudy daylight in the meantime.

-stwert

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# 6 09-05-2011 , 09:49 PM

The Nurb Herd
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you could submit your textures to cgtextures. not sure if they pay tho.

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# 7 09-05-2011 , 09:56 PM

EduSciVis-er
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They're not accepting submissions anymore. Good idea though. I don't have a full website up yet but I was just pondering the possibilities of a texture section.

-stwert

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# 8 10-05-2011 , 01:51 AM

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For characters I look for Skin, Cloth, hair, and pattern designs for clothing, for set pieces, brick, wood, tiles, dirt.
Hey! will you add bump maps to these textures too like "3dtotal"?

"From Concept to Completion"

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# 9 10-05-2011 , 02:24 AM

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Thanks and good on you stwert, I have done a similar thing though VERY limited and small. I have usually gone for bricks, stone, asphalt, sand, limestone etc...rust on tanks etc...good luck with it mate!

cheers bullet

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"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 10 10-05-2011 , 08:28 AM

The thin red line
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Useless may be a little unkind Stwert, I do have a lot of texture on my machine (not as much as my old machine) nine times out of ten I dont have the texture for a project I have in my mind, I end up looking on the net, making from scratch in photoshop or grabbing the camera myself. Shadows can be usefull in showing the depth of a object but with a soft lighting for organics harder light for hard surfaces. I use photoshop a lot for metal texture (method colour on layers then fiters,trying to do brass at the moment on the water bucket) also I use it for random patterns like rust dirt (method scatter brush and a number of filters)..........dave

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# 11 10-05-2011 , 08:45 AM

The Nurb Herd
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dave i think the best thing to do for these types of materials is to start with a photo. Of course it depends on what look you want in the end. If you want to do anything that looks real or almost real, i would suggest using a photo. Using photoshop to make rust seems pretty crazy to me. Its lots of hard work for a result -in most cases- that doesn't look as good as the real thing.
I also disagree about the shadows. Ideally there shouldn't be any shadows on a texture.

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# 12 10-05-2011 , 09:00 AM

The thin red line
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You a most likely right Dom but I do enjoy trying to create stuff in photoshop thats just me, the shadow thing I was thinking alone the lines of cracks, leaves and such. Give me a good kick in when I have finish that water bucket thing........LOL....dave

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# 13 10-05-2011 , 11:16 AM

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A tip for dirt and grime is to use desaturated dirty concrete which has had its contrast blown increased, then you can use them as an overlay and so on in PS

J

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# 14 10-05-2011 , 02:41 PM

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Funny thing that you made this thread. Good high res cloth textures are hard to find. I've been scanning in a bunch of samples from fabric store scraps and my old textile folder that I had tucked away forever, maybe I'll share some user added image

. Also, you can get some cool textures and brushes by scanning splatters, drips and scratches.

And Tweety you can make some pretty sweet wood textures from scratch in Photoshop if you put the time into it. But you're right there are some bad examples out there. I started in on this one and never finished it. Blogspot murdered the quality and the original isn't on this machine sooo.

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