Textures: Who to Buy and Not Buy From

I realize this is a can of worms. However, I like to fully support the content creators of SL. Now that I'd like to dabble in creating a bit more, I need to know where the honest sources of textures are (and sadly, dishonest so I know to avoid them).

I know of Textures R Us, Texture Art, LFox... but when I look for textures in SLX I find texture packs by people I don't recognize. They may have some textures that appeal to me, but I don't want to support them if they're ripping off the hard work of others.

So... can anyone who wishes to volunteer the information send me IMs in world of both legitimate texture creators and those who resell the hard work of others?

Thanks much.

Hay, all my textures are my textures, I made them. I'm just getting started, and only have a few packs up, but they are all mine and all original. I'll be adding more texture packs as I make them; and considering I can't upload anything today it may be a while longer.

But I can't actually answer your question because I don't need to buy textures, just upload them Sorry.

Laurens Tiling Textures and Espirit Decor are worth a look if you cant find things elsewhere.

(TRU) Textures R' Us is a vast resource--but you know about that already.

FYI--I do custom texturing, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for at TRU, hit me up in-world. I can also take a texture that is un-tileable/non-repeating, and make it seamless. I'm a custom texture junkie--most of the stuff I do is from scratch, or online tweekage.

A great site for massive-rez textures: www.mayang.com

Have fun.

I go to TRU.
If anyone asks me for a source I send them to TRU.

Life is so simple


I also have a set of Harbingers very extensive freebies for personal projects - going on the assumption (whoops?) that any stolen textures in such a profile place would have been stomped on by now.

Lilybeth. Seriously.

She does her best to run a clean shop, hires artists, and makes a serious effort even as full-mod textures are traded like ripped .mp3's out from under her.

She picked up the most amazing texture artist I know of in SL, bar none - Persephone Gallindo.

I know what Persephone does in RL, which I probably shouldn't share here without her permission, but if you knew you'd understand.

She has a little texture shop of her own called Architextura, which will rock your socks off. But with Lilybeth's distribution mechanisms her incredible talents are now visible to SL at large.

Just one man's opinion.

Nice article on her here, so she obviously doesn't mind people knowing her professional theater background:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/02/taterus_monday__2.html

full perm means full perm, right?

there is no 'kinda full' or 'full for you but please' its only

full = full



therefore you can not 'rip them off' they sold them 'full perm' they gave you the right to resale. full means full

Part of the issue there is the system. Some textures need to be sold full perm or they are of no use. The intention isn't to sell them as is to be resold, the intention is to sell them so they be used on another item and that other item sold on.

Intention is one thing, but it's not the way it works.

you can add whatever disclaimers you want does not change the fact that

the CODE is LAW

the LAW says FULL is FULL


EOF

Hopefully, some day the people who do all the work making our textures will have a way to NOT make them full perm, and we can still use them

Sorry, dead wrong. Yes, that's the way the code works. But the code is not the law. The law is intellectual property rights (IRL)...copyright law. While the permissions buttons don't have a setting for "this texture is sold for OEM use only. You may use it in creating other products, but may not resell the texture itself", that limitation is made every day...one example is the sale of so-called "royalty free" or "buyout" music for use in creating videos.

If the texture creator gets this in writing from the buyer, it's enforceable.

i would have to dissagree, whereas the fact that you are selling it full perm you are explictily giving the right to resell. thats the function of the button. if you choose to give away your 'ip' and mark it as 'ok to resell and or give away' you are explicitly giving that right away.



From the Knowledge Base

Before you go buying from stores, some of which are very expensive, I would suggest you go to 2 sandboxes - Dreams and Harbinger's. Both have hundreds of free textures and I would be lost without them.

At least then you can decide what is missing in your collection and go buy from a shop.


Full perm is essential, otherwise if you are planning on selling the items using those textures, you could only use them once and have to sell the original.

while those free textures are nice, they are limited and sometimes don't contain what someone wants. for example, i needed to create a stone wall, and i wanted trees and vines on it. i did find such a thing at a texture store in Rock, but it was a very very expensive package. but, i bought it, and use it, although i predict i could have made it myself in photoshop. but, to me, the price was worth the time i didn't have to put into making it.

i do not think it is full perm, and i suspect that for the price i paid, it should be. but i haven't checked. i just used it and went on my way.

what's the point of full perm textures? is there a way to change them after they've been uploaded? if so, i can see why mod abilities would be an issue.

Well buildings certainly. You're going to want to stretch the texture, copy it if it needs to go on another wall, maybe you want to brighten it.

Textures are us is ok but you will bog done hard in the lag there..always been worse then any club in sl lol
lFox has some really good ones and good prices to

I don't know if I am just not understanding a translation, or accent.... but I have no idea what you just said.

Lol I think he's saying that the lag is bad in the store he reccomended.

During my early SL existence I made the same mistake that a lot of newbies make and picked up a bunch of boxed freebie textures (among a lot of other junk boxes).

Out of literally 1000s of textures (I must've spent weeks wading thru all that stuff), I managed to find about a handfull of textures that were halfway decent.

Now, if I need anything, I make it myself. It's way less time and hassle.

Bottom Line: Stay away from anything free - it's not.

The code is not the law. The code is the code and the law is the law. The real life intellectual property law in this case.

Take textures and 3D content including textures sold for applications like Poser or Bryce. Just the same here: you purchase full permission textures. There's no copy protection mechanism whatsoever, simply JPEG files on your local disk. With each package comes a license agreement, stating that you're allowed to resell rendered artwork containing the textures / 3D models, but not the textures / models themselves. By using the package, you agree to the license.
Same goes for any other copyable RL product like music CDs, software etc.

if you have photoshop etc you can add things to textures by saving them to your computer eg: your wall that you wanted vines on say you already had a texture with vines somewhere and you have the stone from SL or maybe both are from SL. If your proficient enough in photoshop you can take the texture and put the vines onto the stone your using to make a stone wall with vines outside of SL. Then just upload your newly tweeked texture and use it. Also modify you need in order to adjust textures inside sl for dimensions etc as well in case you need to change repeats etc as not everything works in the default state for every application

Desmond - I can't find that shop. That sim loads very slowly for me, but even after waiting about 15 mintues I still don't see it where the landmark dropped me off.

Ah, Caledon has telehubs - You are probably smack downtown in Victoria City park. Architextura is 'south, central' in Caledon Victoria City sim, just outside of the big ring road.

You know, I now make my own textures for my products/homes, but when I was more new I would shop in SL for them. I found that many times people, even the "well known" texture shops, steal from things found on the internet. Yes, so many times I have seen textures online being sold on SL. Sometimes modified a bit, sometimes exactly the same. i had to contact a guy at one point to tell him majority of his game textures were being sold for RL profit in second life. Given the popularity of this texture shop, i was surprised. But the owners seemed to show great concern and said they were going to take his textures down.

Not only this shop, but ive seen free textures u can get online being sold in many other shops in SL. Sometimes its textures you can buy online that are ok to be used in your products, but they specifically say "do not resell as is"..and the reselling of them seems to be going on in SL.

One thing to do is google "Free textures" theres some nice free texture sites out there. Also turbosquid.com has some free ones which can be very usefull.

I found the safest way is to just make your own. Sometimes things sitting infront of your face at home can make for a good texture.