most the stuff here looks new

beautiful is boring has no charater no soul to it.

wheres the battered armor ?

the rip n tatered cloths ?

the destroyed cityies ?

the burned towns ?

dirty faces ?

How is swords-woman Vicky supposed to look realistic in her halter-top breastplate if it doesn't have dents, scratches and rust? All the historic sources represent the armor of sword wielding maidens as being less than perfect in its appearance. 

From the perspective of a long time content producer, I would say that typically shiny, clean, fashion wear looking stuff just sells better. It's never stopped me from focusing on dirty, wacked out monstrosities, though, because that's what I love so that's what I do. We might break down and do a piece of shiny clean stuff on occasion for one figure or another, but what you're talking about is our stock in trade. We just don't have tons of it for sale here on Rendo right now, but we plan to be rectifying that soon enough. -Les

For ruined cities check MRX3010's Shattered World series in the marketplace here and Stonemason has some great ruin models over at daz.
Look for "theschell" on share cg or in freebies here for a nice ruined Norman village, his WWII series and I think MrSparky has some ruined/bombed buildings out there somewhere, VP perhaps

If anyone knows of more ruins I'd be glad to hear about them too

magneto1969 has a bunch of destroyed vehicles over at share cg.

http://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=magneto1969&division_id=0&s=dd&pn=1

I agree with the OP, I'm forever trying to find ways to make my stuff look like it's been used, rather than straight out of the box. I do most of it with shaders for dirt on skin, Vue materials are good for decaying metals and stuff and transmaps for rips, dents are a little bit harder but not too bad if you use the morph tool sparingly inside Poser.
Rebekah, can I take it then that you will be selling here soon from your comment?
How soon?

Stonemason's stuff always looks somewhat battered and well worn.

For the OP, what's wrong with playing in the Material Room and cooking up some of your own worn out  textures?

RDNA have some rust shaders to get you started.

 Can someone post how to create a shader for dirt on skin? I'd like that, too!

Maybe it's a good tip to content producers to provide at least a few dent or tear morphs and some dirt and rust textures.

Quote -  Can someone post how to create a shader for dirt on skin? I'd like that, too!

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=67705&keyword=wet

Quote - I agree with the OP, I'm forever trying to find ways to make my stuff look like it's been used, rather than straight out of the box. I do most of it with shaders for dirt on skin, Vue materials are good for decaying metals and stuff and transmaps for rips, dents are a little bit harder but not too bad if you use the morph tool sparingly inside Poser.
Rebekah, can I take it then that you will be selling here soon from your comment?
How soon?

We actually have a couple things here right now; the Cerberus and the Dragonette I think.... but yes, we have plans to bring a lot of stuff back here soon, it's just a matter of getting appropriate product imagery together that conforms to the store requirements. That is a bigger PITA than I think people might realize. If you know anyone who might want to help us out with that, let me know. -Les

 Many thanks, jefsview

IIRC there is a tutorial here to make clothes look older and worn.
Try this : http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=835&page=2

Attached Link: http://www.leighvanderbyl.com/tutorials.html

Oddly enough was just having this discussion over lunch.  Dirty is harder.  You need more detail in your texture maps and nodes, you need to model in some of the bigger dents and broken bits.  Flood-fill rust textures just don't make it.

It does feel like shiny and new is more attractive to the buyer, though.  Even though, to make a shiny and new object look nice, you still have to apply some fingerprints and small blemishes and so forth!  (My current set has material nodes that add a bit of dings and other noise).

If I was sure it would sell, it would be my choice to at least offer, if not design around, a more battered look.  For some things, this does seem natural; I can't see anything Old West looking like it just came off the Wells Fargo Wagon from Sears, for instance.

But I'm making some musical instruments right now, and I can't see many customers really being attracted to the dented, broken valves, duct-taped joints look.  Certainly not as a primary.  But is there really enough interest in the market to even make this sort of texturing and detail available as an alternate?

Quote - Oddly enough was just having this discussion over lunch.  Dirty is harder.  You need more detail in your texture maps and nodes, you need to model in some of the bigger dents and broken bits.  Flood-fill rust textures just don't make it.

It does feel like shiny and new is more attractive to the buyer, though.  Even though, to make a shiny and new object look nice, you still have to apply some fingerprints and small blemishes and so forth!  (My current set has material nodes that add a bit of dings and other noise).

If I was sure it would sell, it would be my choice to at least offer, if not design around, a more battered look.  For some things, this does seem natural; I can't see anything Old West looking like it just came off the Wells Fargo Wagon from Sears, for instance.

But I'm making some musical instruments right now, and I can't see many customers really being attracted to the dented, broken valves, duct-taped joints look.  Certainly not as a primary.  But is there really enough interest in the market to even make this sort of texturing and detail available as an alternate?

Tour the bigest 3D sites

All the main C4D,XSI,Lightwave ect ect sights,what do you see ? alot of clean cars n houses

turbosquid what do you see ? alot of clean cars n houses citys and a lot of 1//2 ass untextured charaters that would never sell.

sites like CGTalk galleries what do you see clean clean clean made with main 3D apps & Zbrush.

Zbrush gallery what do you see ? clean monsters have no idea as to why.

sites like Renderosity gallery clean clean clean every thing.

if you was the boss of a hollywood studio, what would you think ?

what Artist would you hire.

the artist with the 1/2 ass untextured charater for $500 ?

the Artist with the pretty ferrari probably not mapped just shaders.like the othere 10,000 ferraris

or the artist with the ugly clean monster ?

took skills to make that monster, but it's a monster where the drool n blood running from his mouth & the snot running down his nose. ?

one of the bigest sellers at  Renderosity is Aerysoul.

thay have killer origanal stuff for a female mesh you can't buy, that i will never get.

thay only sell female stuff so if ya want a sceen with a girl kool

but if ya want a dude that matches the girl ya just out of luck , huh.

sad that one of the best artist around does not complete the sceen.

alot of mechants make a killer orginal out fit for a girl but none for any dudes out fit so ya can't use it in a full sceen.

any movie i ever saw every frame was a complet sceen.

people that buy merchandise think just like a boss from a hollywood studio.

cause there the boss of there own home grown renders.

that's more important then any thing hollywood ever spit out.

merchents have it ruff i know

thay bust there buts to make stuff that thay may never make a penny on.

the ones spending there time selling frys with big macks, at least ya know thay got to eat.

what ever you do , do it all the way.

what would ya do with just a guater ?

ya need every thing you see at a concert all of it from the coliseam to the stage ,lights over head,insterments amps,preformers ect ect

all the way to the croweds with the lighters burning in the air to the braws n panties flying on stage.

if ya going to make a monster have him blody n drolling with a 1/2 tourn apart corps at his feet.

what ever you do ,do it well

if it's top qualaty it will not be ignored.

what ever you do , be original and most of all be real.

completed top qualaty orgianail scenes.

these are the Artist that have earned respect.

thay have the right to set at the table with the Masters.

Actually, back in the day, Hollywood made things look really clean, especially sci-fi...it was only after Star Wars and a few other things (Blade runner, etc) that 'dirty' became 'respectable'..;)
There's oodles of dirty textures out there you can apply to models, RDNA, Devian Art, etc., though some of the conditions are a bit onerous...;)

It's so funny coming from a theater background, where we almost always dirty it up...or at least add some texture.  Heck, even back in my model railroad days, it was all about weathering...you didn't consider your new rolling stock done until you'd stained, added mud splashes, and so forth.

The second product I sold here had layers and layers of sun-bleaching and staining in the texture maps.  Oddly, no-one made the slightest comment (pro or con).

But, yeah, that's something that was drilled into us in theater and is in every 3d texture book I've ever read....no flat colors, no flat colors, no flat colors.  You always break it up a little.

(And, yes, I realize that's not the same thing as being dirty and beat-up.  But good weathering will always be about naturalism.  Mud doesn't splatter on the tops of your boxcars, after all.  It gets thrown up from the wheels.  Regardless of whether you are going for "nearly new" or "practically abandoned" you have to follow the history of what happened and how that dirt and those dings got there.)

The buildings at Cornucopia3D are appropriately dirty. 

It could be argued that providing a perfect version of a model allows the user a greater variety of options since it's pretty easy to simulate dirt with a material editor, but I think a building should look weathered unless it was just finished. 

I would love to have armor that is shiney and new with the option included to dent and dirty it up by degrees so it can be used throughout the battle not just before and after.

I have many such shaders going into my book. ;-)

Quote - Actually, back in the day, Hollywood made things look really clean, especially sci-fi...

Most scifi art of the time depicted pristine worlds. The future represented hope for a better time often without war and disease. We live in a more pessimistic world now and the future looks like more of the same and probably worse. Even before Star Wars, Alien, and Blade Runner, science fiction authors were already turning to less optimistic visions of the future.