Hi, I've been shooting a lot of photos for background and texture use, and want to put together either some CD's or smaller collections. I wanted to get some feedback from those of you who occasionally buy textures. 1) What's your preferred resolution? Is it always the bigger the better? I can shoot textures at 2560 x 1920. Is that good, or too big? 2) Do you prefer square textures, or is rectangular fine? 3) Do you like to have bump maps/opacity maps included, or are they not needed? 4) I am assuming that everyone prefers textures that tile (are seamless) yes? 5) What is your biggest complaint with textures you've bought in the past? 6) What type of textures are you most likely to buy? Thanks, -Eric Gooch www.cybergooch.com

to the Showcase Forum where you will hopefully get more useful answers

1. Bigger is better. One can always reduce the size. 2) I don't care. ;) 3) Bump maps are always good. 4) Not totally necessary, but can be a plus for those who want tiling textures. Many times one can get away with only part of the source texture over an entire surface. Be forewarned that seamless tiled textures are difficult to create (from real-life subjects). 5) As a "furniture modeler", my biggest complaint is wood (!). The collections that I've seen for sale are very broad and very few, many times adding wood textures that are more wood floor tiling (parques) and bark. Also, they rarely specify the actually type of wood (which can be a necessity for getting the proper look on recreated furniture). What I'd like is plain-cut and quarter-cut plus cut ends of particular woods (cedar, oak, birch, redwood, teak, etc.). Finishes can be "simulated" with transparent color overlays (in Photoshop) and the proper reflective/diffuse/specular maps. 6) Hmmmm... ;) I hope that helps somewhat.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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Attached Link: http://www.tonylynchdesigns.com/

Kuroyume, If you use Bryce at all you should look at Tony Lynch's work and wood materials on his site. If nothing else, his shaders are a very nice illustration of hundreds of different types of woods. And of course, he also makes furniture models.

Bigger is better. Rectangular vs. square doesn't matter, especially if the textures are seamless. Bump maps are great. I'm most likely to buy seamless nature textures - tree bark, ground cover, leaves, snow, etc. I've also bought some fabric and lace textures. I've been happy with most of the textures I've bought. I was disappointed in one pack of fabric textures; all the textures were the same, except different (solid) colors. I was hoping for more variety.

Getting even lighting on textures so as to make them tileable seamlessly is tricky. If you can manage that, you are a step ahead of the game. If your texture doesn't tile, there should be a worthy reason. For example, a collection of Navaho rug textures wouldn't be tileable because their patterns don't work that way. Having proper ID is critical. If you are shooting rare woods such as Koa and Rosewood and Purpleheart, say so, and make sure that the grain is distinguishable. (Putting a purplish tint to Oak doesn't make it anything but badly stained Oak.) Make your packages distinctive, with something we can't readily get in the freestuff sites. I already have carpet and terrycloth towel textures galore... probably because everyone with a camera knows where their towel is! Do you have a friend who collects kimono? Or a neighbor who wears Arican tribal patterns? Or know the owner of the Scottish shop with 150 authentic tartans? Getting good clean identified references is very valuable! Anybody with a paint program can throw red/green/yellow lines on a square, but that doesn't make it a tartan. If you have historic patterns, the better. Bonnie Prince Charlie ought to be wearing "the right stuff". (pun intended) Don't try to sell a package of 20 textures, where you only have 1 pattern in 20 different colors. That is a waste of bandwidth... and we know better. Do try to sell unified packages on a theme. 20 different furs, where you photographed every dog, cat, rabbit and guinea pig in a 6 block radius and chose the best variety of curl, sheen, and fuzziness would be great, because we could change the hue once you offered pattern and texture. Carolly

Great answers, thanks. I'm making notes of all these responses. There's a free brick texture in my "freebies" section. If anybody would be interested in downloading it and responding on the quality that would be great too.

1..bigger the better 2..don't care 3..don't care 4..don't care 5..Haven't bought any coz of royalty restrictions 6..see 5 :o)...Same as kuroyume0161 for me, i am desperate for good wood textures, pics of big sheets in good and bad condition. old narly floors, grounds like dusty tracks, deserts, parking lots....oh the list is endless, basically if i can use it on a model i sell and i can't take the pic myself in the UK i'll buy it, not just textures but good scene shots we can work from too...Steve