Leigh can people still make money making textures?

[DeathBrain]

Yea Leigh...i directed Dark Alchemist to this forum, i know you're the best for textures :D
This is (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88671) his first question thread :beer:

[kleinluka]

Well the first and most important thing you need is talent and artistic skills. You need an eye for color, depth, shade and shape.

Most texture artists use Photoshop or Painter and a Wacom drawing pad. (www.wacom.com)
You might also want to get a digi cam if you plan to use photo source in your textures rather than painting them all from scratch.

As for the selling part... that's a tough one. As far as game textures go you could probably apply at a game studio and get your work in a game. Or you could try hooking up with some mod teams and get your work out there. Make contacts, talk to people, convince them of your abilities etc etc.....you get the point. As an example, I do remote texturing work for Valve and it's been a long way to get there.

An other possibility would be to sell your textures on CDs over the web. One of the most popular texture CD set is "Marlin's Textures" - try looking that up on google.

[Dark Alchemist]

Yep, seen Marlins work and I want a piece of the pie, hehehe. What I want is to grab patterns with my camera and manipulate them to seamless if I can.

1) Take a photo of the grime, dirt, object, whatever
2) Include the original photo in a zip/pack/CD
3) Work with the photo to make seamless
4) If 3 can be done stick this in the zip/pack/CD
5) bumpmap if possible
6) Charge a fair price

#3, 5 are the hardest aspects with #5 being the hardest since so many want different things from it and I have no idea what to give them.

[leigh]

Hello :)

Yeah there is a market for free textures - I presume you are talking about generic type photos of metal, woods, that sort of thing?
In which case yeah you can make money BUT you have to do it properly. For instance, in many texture collections the photos all have lighting hightlights and shadows in them, and the "bump" maps are simply desaturated versions of the color map - this is crap. The photos have to be taken with controlled lighting conditions, and if any highlights or shadows get in, then they must be removed.

[Dark Alchemist]

Thanks for the reply and as I figured too much for too little. Seems to me, in this fooked up day and time, that the only way to make money at anything is if its a tangible item. The days of making ANYTHING from a virtual product is over. So, on that note I will forget this endeavor and go find something I can make some money at (probably nothing using my camera though).


BTW: I sure wouldn't want to take pictures of the real world if I would have to drag out $1500-3k worth of lighting equipment
so I could capture it in a "controlled lighting condition". Sorta takes away from any realism but then I digress.

Thank you again for your help.

[EricChadwick]

I wouldn't get discouraged from these comments. You CAN make money from internet-only content, you just have to make sure it is something people need, and can't get easily for free.

There are soooo many free sites for textures of metal/wood/brick/concrete/grime. I wouldn't even consider purchasing any of these.

What IS difficult to find are good vegetation pictures. Branches with leaves, properly alpha masked, and with good Bump maps to match. Things like this.

You don't need fancy camera equipment. Proper lighting can be found on an overcast day, as long as it isn't raining, or hasn't rained already. Don't want shiny water drops on your surfaces. You also weant to try and control the bkg behind a texture, so you can easily crop it out.

A decent digital camera does fine.

I think the real trick is learning what people need, and providing it. You can really only learn that by doing texture work yourself, or by hanging around those that do. Then you'll see what bugs us about bad photo source. What we would have to paint out or fix. What we would have to create from scratch, etc.

Typed a bit more than I thought I would. Good luck in your venture...

[Dark Alchemist]

Well, if I do a branch of a tree with leaves and then go to crop out all the other stuff (alpha mask) how can I get a bump map? The limb with the leaves would be too far away to get any bump map. So, how would one do this? Plus, with all that labor involved I can imagine the cost of such a product.

Thanks.

[EricChadwick]

Start with a high-res picture. That's how I do it.

But yeah, to make good textures takes time. No doubt.

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