I was thinking about getting an external hard drive with textures, my own library as opposed to cgtextures.
I have heard people use both texture and reference libraries. Is it worth making one or should I just use google images.
Also, what are some good texture reasorces to buy if choose to make them?
And, how should I organise it?
First: Make sure it is fast. USB 3.0 should be fine, but any latency when loading textures into ram will slow down every single render.
Second: A reference library is handy, but not critical. most of the time I need research, I’ll just go and find something on google, trying to pre-emptively collect good research can be a waste of time if you aren’t careful.
Third: Make sure you know how to edit and process your textures. Knowing how to make an image tileable and seamless will save you many headaches.
I’ve never purchased textures, so I have no advice on where to buy them. I’ll find CC0 images online, or take my own photos.
I have all of my textures in subfolders (wood, metal, plastics, plants, fabric, rock, etc) under a Textures folder. I make sure they are all up to snuff (tileable, high enough resolution) before I put them in there, and I make sure to name them sensibly. Also, pick a format and try to stick to it. I recommend .png for a general texture format, but if I need more bitdepth, I’ll use .tiff
I agree. I used to have one. It was a pure hard disk combined with this hard ware slot that read hard disk. So that instead of buying external drives, I just buy more hard disk. Besides, if any of my PC went kaput, I can still read its hard disk to copy any important files. Sometimes I save whole website using wget / whatever website saving app. Sometimes I save whatever I wanted only.
Personally the most important stuff is the copyright for each image. I download it from where.
I use both. I love CG Textures and other sources, but occasionally I find gems that fit a particular project on my travels. When I do, I get some pictures that are better, or more useful, than what I can find on line. You also have the advantage of being able to choose the best lighting and composition when you do it yourself.
As an example, I spent ages trying to find a decent worn iron texture online that could be easily tiled. I went outside and found an old bollard down the street with the perfect surface on it. Produce camera - snap - job done.
if you find good online (free) textures SAVE them
if you take pics SAVE them
if you make something awesome with ~neotextureedit’genectica,ndo or other ) SAVE them
once you have everything set up PACK the textures
[ok at some point you will have lots of duplicate textures and or huge blend files, but by an large that’s on a finished project so pack it away on dvd ]