http://www.goodtextures.com/ Site News Fri, 18 May 2012 02:09:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 http://www.goodtextures.com/news.html Texture Update (27.04.2012) So my lovelies, earlier on today I uploaded 20 brand new tilable brick wall textures. I can't help but salavate just looking at these little beauties. I hope you like them and can put them to excellent use.I have quite a few other tileable textures waiting in the pipeline which I shall upload next week. After which, I shall commence work on some texture related tutorials which I am looking forward to unveil once I have a few written up. So keep your eyes peeled for future updates. Happy texturing! http://www.goodtextures.com/news.html News Update (30.04.2012) A few days ago I received a rather abusive letter from a gentleman I shall not name. I shan't go into details but amongst the verbal abuse, I was questioned as to why anyone should have to register here before being allowed to download anything. I was also accused of selling and profiting from your email addresses that I have allegedly sold to various advertising companies. First of all I would just like to take this opportunity of making it crystal clear that this is definitely not the case. The reason why you have to register here at all is primarily to protect your privacy and enable you to fully interact with this site in the not to distant future. The goodtextures website is currently half finished in terms of functionality and can only offer a fraction of what I was intially intending to do. There is no company or group of people behind this website, there is only me, a one man band so to speak. This little enterprise has been created and funded soley by me. If I could, I would love to be able to offer you more but unfortunately my finances dictate otherwise. Secondly, under no circumstances will I ever sell your email addresses to advertising companies. That goes against everything I stand for. Your privacy and loyalty is my top priority here which I will never abuse. I will not follow the path of many other greedy companies which aggressively collect information to then sell on etc.. I would like to end this by saying many thanks to all of the people that have taken the time to say thanks. It's much appreciated and motivates me to continue uploading new textures. Thanks :D Best Regards, Simon Murray P.S. Although this site is run soley by myself. The actual layout and design of this website was created by a very talented bunch of people at Webdezign.com to whom I owe my gratitude. Texture Update (27.04.2012) So my lovelies, earlier on today I uploaded 20 brand new tilable brick wall textures. I can't help but salavate just looking at these little beauties. I hope you like them and can put them to excellent use.I have quite a few other tileable textures waiting in the pipeline which I shall upload next week. After which, I shall commence work on some texture related tutorials which I am looking forward to unveil once I have a few written up. So keep your eyes peeled for future updates. Happy texturing! The End of Internet Privacy? From time to time I like to give my support to a site called Avaaz.org which supports a great deal of good causes and tries to make the world a better place. This time round they are attempting to stop a proposed law which would drastically reduce our online privacy rights. It feels like a never ending battle at the moment trying to educate the powers that be, that trying to censor and control how and what we view on the Internet will only prove counterproductive big time. They most likely do that anyway but to legalise their activities is not good to put it simply. If you would like to help fight this new proposed law of allowing agencies to spy on us via our emails, facebook accounts etc, just click on the following link: Privacy  Stop ACTA 'Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement' Last week the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills were successfully stopped in their tracks (for the time being anyway) Alas, it is time again to put on my virtual boxing gloves and try and hinder this equally horrid law, which in effect would give large corporations the power to control and censur the Internet how they see fit i.e. their best financial interests. If you're like me however and would like to do something about it; click on the following links and sign the petitions: Stop ACTAStop ACTA & TPP 6 Reasons to oppose ACTA1. ACTA locks countries into obsolete copyright and patent laws. If a democracy decides on less restrictive laws that reflect the reality of the internet, ACTA will prevent that.2. ACTA criminalizes users by making noncommercial, harmless remixes into crimes if "on a commercial scale" (art 2.14.1). Many amateur works achieve a commercial scale on sites like Youtube. ACTA, like SOPA, could mean jail time for the Justin Biebers of the world.3. ACTA ciminalizes legitimate websites, making them responsible for users behavior by "aiding and abetting". (art 2.14.4). Like SOPA, the founders of your favorite sites could be sued or (worse) thrown into jail for copyright infringement by their users.4. ACTA will let rightholders  use laughably inflated claims of damages (based on the disproven idea that every download or stream is a lost sale) to sue people. As if suing amazing artists, video makers and websites for millions wasn't hard enough!5. ACTA permanently bypasses democracy by giving the "ACTA Committee" the power to "propose amendments to [ACTA]" (art 6.4). In other words, voting ACTA writes a blank check to an unelected committee. These closed-door proceedings will be a playground for SOPA-supporters like the MPAA.6. Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a backdoor track that, even though it creates new laws, is miles removed from democracy. It's a secreative process that's tailor-made to serve politically connected companies. And the movie studios behind SOPA? They're experts at it. If we can't make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.From La Quadrature du Net As many of you will have already heard by now, US Congress is planning on administering a bill which supposedly will help crack down on online piracy. In reality this bill will cause much more harm than good to the Internet as a whole and damage or even cripple well established websites such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Reddit to name but a few.Below is a brief explanation from Google as to what SOPA and PIPA are proposing to do:More about SOPA and PIPAMembers of Congress are trying to do the right thing by going after pirates and counterfeiters but SOPA and PIPA are the wrong way to do it.1.SOPA and PIPA would censor the WebThe U.S. government could order the blocking of sites using methods similar to those employed by China. Among other things, search engines could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results. That's why 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law professors have expressed grave concerns about the bills.2. SOPA and PIPA would be job-killers because they would create a new era of uncertainty for American businessLaw-abiding U.S. internet companies would have to moniter everything users link to or upload or face the risk of time-consuming litigation. That's why AOL, EBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga wrote a letter to Congress saying these bills "pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation". It's also why 55 of America's most successful venture capitalists expressed concern that PIPA "would stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competiveness". More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress that PIPA and SOPA would "hurt economic growth and chill innovation".3. SOPA and PIPA wouldn't stop piracyTo make matters worse, SOPA and PIPA won't even work. The censorship regulations written into these bills won't shut down pirate sites. These sites will just change their addresses and continue their criminal activities, while law-abiding companies will suffer high penalties for breaches they can't possibly control.There are effective ways to combat foreign "rogue" websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that have made the Internet such an important driver of American economic growth and job creation. Congress should consider alternatives like the OPEN Act, which takes targeted and focused steps to cut off the money supply from foreign sites without making US companies censor the Web.What impact could this have on the Internet and non US website/companies such as goodtextures.com if these bills were to pass? First of all, due to the fact that citizens from the US download and use content from this site, theoretically this site could get banned if someone thought that I was breaking a copyright infringement by emulating another texture stock site for example. Secondly, seeing that the human race has not got the best track record of being or acting in a responsible manner regarding the use of power and wealth, I shall remain very sceptical as to putting my trust in the governing and corporate powers that be.If such a bill were to pass, would other countries follow suit and endorse censorship laws worldwide? A terrifying thought that could come to pass if we let it.Last but not least, here are a few links on the topic:http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Acthttp://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/ Happy New Year!I hope everyone survived Xmas and New Years without too many broken bones and minor family punch ups. The goodtextures site is currently experiencing an issue regarding the uploading of new textures which is causing great stress to the server. The problem is being looked into as I speak and I hope to be able to upload some great new textures soon.The next batch of textures will include some seamless wood, metal and brick textures.  I wish you all a great and successful year.  Texture Update (17.12.2011)What would Christmas be like without any seamless plaster textures. I shall tell you, absolutely rubbish! I am here to save the day by offering you some great plaster textures to get you through the Xmas period. Previous updates over the past weeks have included various seamless grass and snow&ice textures. I hope you like them and I wish you all a fantastic Chrimbo and New Years. Texture Update (26.09.2011) What a treat I've got for you today. I have just finsihed uploading 15 very sought after "Woodend" textures.You would not believe how many people have written to me pleading for "Woodend" textures. So, after spending the weekend running around the woods chasing after wild boar, I managed to find the time to take some fab photos of tree stumps.Other textures in today's update include: 11 Hay Bundle Textures 6 Stoney Ground Textures  Enjoy! Texture Update (25.06.2011)14 seamless grass and 16 snow & ice textures added.                For a short while now, Goodtextures has been offering high quality seamless textures for download. There will be weekly updates where I shall be adding new categories as well as adding more seamless textures to current ones. For those of you who are wondering what seamless textures are and what they can be used for, here is a brief explanation. A seamless texture is an image that can be placed side-by-side with itself without creating any noticeable boundries or seams between the two copies of the image. Seamless textures are especially important in 3D computer artwork, where large surfaces can be covered by a seamless texture without the appearance of any distracting seams. Seamless textures are almost always used within the computer gaming industry be it to create an interesting landscape, or scaly monster skin for example. Seamless textures can also be used to create a website background or even be used as a desktop screensaver. So you see, using seamless textures can offer a lot of flexibilty and save you a lot of time if you have them at your disposal.    Texture Update (11.04.2011) Hi Everyone,  It's been quite a while since I last made a news update. That being said, I have been busy adding new textures to the site as well as working on writing some texture tutorials.Last week I created the 'Tasty' page for those of you who are new to the site and are unsure what kind of site this is. The 'Tasty' page as stated will give you a little taster as to the quality of the textures.You can also download them without having to register first.Aside from finding new and exciting textures, I work work full time as an environment artist for the company BigPoint Berlin. Last week the game I have been working on 'Drakensang Online' went into the closed Beta phase of production. I am proud to say that almost all of the textures I created for the game originated from this website. If you would like to take a look, just click on the banner below and it will take you directly to the official website.As always, happy texturing Texture Update (13.11.2010) I have finished uploading a new batch of textures today They are as followed: 14 painted wood and 9 plywood new textures.More textures to follow. Texture Update (16.11.2010)9 Ornate border and 11 Bark deciduous textures. Texture Update (17.11.2010)I have spent today uploading various different textures to the site. They are as followed:3 ornate borders6 brick modern large block, 4 large mixed and 1 large bare texture7 industrial doors and 4 ornate doors8 vent textures as well as adding a new sub-category called containers2 ornate panelslast but not least 11 ceramic tilesI hope you like them.In addition to the textures on this site. It was and is my intention to write tutorials from my experiences gained working as an environment artist for many a year now. I thought I would start off with the basics such as how to quickly make a texture tileable (using Photoshop), moving on to more and more advanced techniques. I will also be adding a lot of fun stuff Photoshop tutorials, which in my opinion are important to do as they have opened my eyes and hopefully yours to the thousands of possibilities Photoshop can offer.On that note, bear with me a little while. As soon as I have got a few tutorials written up, I shall make them available to all that want to see them.RegardsSimon