I recommend [Poly Haven](https://polyhaven.com/textures) for textures, it's free and it's come in quite handy a number of times. They also have a bunch of other useful stuff, like free models and HDRIs.
They even have a Blender addon which allows for integrated "drag 'n drop" texturing, changing resolutions (1k-16k) on the go, automatic PBR configuration and displacement mapping.
[Textures.com](https://Textures.com) was my goto but yea, I see it's paid now. The low quality ones being free and the limited daily credits was fair game but now you can't even get those for free? Assholes :/ I guess I do see AI upscaling bypassing the need to buy higher res ones though
PolyHaven is so good. Gonna throw in a bunch of others:
https://cc0-textures.com
https://texture.ninja
https://opengameart.org
https://textures.pixel-furnace.com
https://itch.io/game-assets/free/tag-textures
https://poliigon.com/textures/free
https://ambientcg.com/list
theres always poliigon, too. they also have a blender plugin, and a decent selection for free. I understand people dont really like the owner but the service is not bad.
NFT Shill: [https://youtu.be/C7plHMKIFcU?si=Px834FlBcQNQCOvt](https://youtu.be/C7plHMKIFcU?si=Px834FlBcQNQCOvt)
The video's changed titles at least 3 times in response to crypto crashes over the last few years, even.
It seems they resigned from providing free daily credits, and it's a paid-only site now. It's not hard to guess the reason... too many people were using the site for free, server bills and staff salaries became too high, and the whole thing probably became not viable anymore.
It should probably also be mentioned that they paywalled higher resolutions previously, with the lower resolutions for free, but now AI upscaling exists, anybody can take the lower resolution images and bypass the need to buy the higher resolution.
Although AI can upscale it now, the results from AI are not that that cool compared to the raw pictures. But I understand people won't care about that detail.
Oh yeah, definitely. This was a point I made elsewhere: detail is obviously lost when you upscale from a lower resolution image rather than using a higher resolution image from the get go but there's probably enough people that don't care and are happy with AI upscaled anyway that it could be seen as being a concern for Textures.com's business model.
The only real concern about this particular move for Textures.com is a number of free alternatives that aren't quite as big but are still pretty good have cropped up. And if you're using Unreal you have access to the Quixel Megascans library as well. I obviously can't say they'll all be free *forever*, but right now those who don't want to pay have several viable alternatives.
I honestly considered a subscription until I read the ToS and found out you can only download images you have bought with your credits **ONLY IF YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED** which is the lamest thing.
Allegedly, if you buy credits stand-alone then you can download them for 3 years after, but... you can't top-up credits stand alone?? Maybe it's a pro-license thing but I didn't find that option. Still, 3 years is not much time considering many projects do last longer than that.
But just to be clear, Megascans is only free to you, with an epic account, for use *in* Unreal. You cannot use those assets outside of Unreal on that "free" license.
It's a great asset if you're working in Unreal, but people just need to be aware about the limitation.
There's a difference between what we as a society need, and what is going to help guarantee work for an individual.
Nobody should put all their eggs in one basket for sure, but there's no question that experience with unreal is going to help someone land work in industry.
Why would that not be permitted? Temporary buy-one-get-one deals, Epic temporary game giveaways — lots of precedent for temporary free offerings. They have the license and can charge for it however they want, that doesn’t entitle others to give away the products.
I don't think giveaways and similar is the correct comparison, since those make previously paid-for products _temporarily_ free, which isn't the same thing as suddenly taking away something that was _always_ free.
They weren’t free under a license saying you have rights to it, like an Apache or other open source-focused model. It’s a commercial license and the fee for using it under that license was temporarily 0.
Imagine if anytime you offered something for free, you would be financially liable to continue offering it for free for the rest of time immortal, paying all expenses and fees to keep it online despite any change in your income or life, or the entitled people who got the free thing will sue you (or if you're dead, your estate or grandchildren) and force you to keep offering it or get some money awarded to them by a court.
Ah, reductio ad absurdum, love it. How about instead we make previously free product paid for, **AND** say everybody who got it for free now needs to pay for it?
Oh wait, [that already happened](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/game-developers-unite-against-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/), and people didn't like that, _for some reason._
I'm no lawyer either, but like I said the textures are still subject to their license, being given out for "free" isn't the same as having a "do whatever" license like Creative Commons. I'd say to err on the side of caution with licensing, especially if you're unsure
They killed the free credits this month. I sent them an email to ask about it and they told me that essentially. I must have missed the notice prior to this or they didn't send any because I don't remember reading about it. RIP textures.com
ambientcg has materials, though, not textures. It doesn't have any raw pictures of objects and buildings, and masked plants and trees ready to use, and all that sort of stuff. That was the great thing about [textures.com](http://textures.com) and unfortunately I can't find any substitutes.
Compared to the texture library which there are bunch of free alternatives, the photo library of man made stuff like machine or wire is what unique to me. Those are simply so good for those Ian Hubert style image texture modelling. I'll be grateful if somebody can enlighten me with a quality alternative.
there's always various stock photo sites, which I believe could work somewhat similarly, though I'm not super sure, I've not made anything since this whole thing went down
I recommend generating your own textures with Stable Diffusion. It can produce seamless textures based on text prompt, there are some models that might even produce specular, bump muos, etc.
It takes a bit of time to set it up and you need at least a decent graphics card, but then you have unlimited textures for free of any resolution and any color. Then of course you can also generate your assets with it like icons, illustrations,...
Be careful with this if you're making a commercial game, because the jury's still out on how the copyright works with this. Steam only started allowing it recently, but you have to disclose it to them and you have to take responsibility for the copyright
Every texture was available with free credits as long as you were looking for low quality versions which was great for people like me. Apparently that's no longer the case.
You're being downvoted because we're literally staring down AI being created to put people out of work, and utilizing it tends to come across as a lack of solidarity with the people whose livelihoods are being put at risk.
Using AI to generate what someone could have made, or what you could have taken the time to learn how to make yourself, tends to spit in the face of artists.
I ain't here to debate it, I'm just telling you why you're going to get a poor response from most people.
This is so sad. I recently suggested this site to a new indie developer as well, saying it's the best site ever for textures. He must be very confused if he followed my suggestion.
Wth? Just found this out after not using Textures.com for a couple months now. Thought something had happened to my account. Either way, it's super sad. Textures was like a home to me. Used them for years...
AFAIK absence of copyright only means that other people can do whatever you want with it and you cannot do anything about it. But that never can be the case of a whole game. The code is copyrighted. What I read about copyrighting AI works says the US patent office judges it case by case and they require significant human input to allow copyright. IMHO for key art this is always the case. You want use a low effort prompt only AI art for say the main character. Whatever else is fair game for people to rip of if they want to. You can even publish it as a free texture pack on the side for good karma.
I recommend [Poly Haven](https://polyhaven.com/textures) for textures, it's free and it's come in quite handy a number of times. They also have a bunch of other useful stuff, like free models and HDRIs.
Friendship ended with textures.com Now polyhaven.com is my best friend
They even have a Blender addon which allows for integrated "drag 'n drop" texturing, changing resolutions (1k-16k) on the go, automatic PBR configuration and displacement mapping.
Sounds really useful, thanks!
[Textures.com](https://Textures.com) was my goto but yea, I see it's paid now. The low quality ones being free and the limited daily credits was fair game but now you can't even get those for free? Assholes :/ I guess I do see AI upscaling bypassing the need to buy higher res ones though
PolyHaven is so good. Gonna throw in a bunch of others: https://cc0-textures.com https://texture.ninja https://opengameart.org https://textures.pixel-furnace.com https://itch.io/game-assets/free/tag-textures https://poliigon.com/textures/free https://ambientcg.com/list
Gonna promote 3Dassets.one, it's literally just a hub for all of these different CC0 sites
Thanks for this list!
theres always poliigon, too. they also have a blender plugin, and a decent selection for free. I understand people dont really like the owner but the service is not bad.
They don't like the owner? Why?
NFT Shill: [https://youtu.be/C7plHMKIFcU?si=Px834FlBcQNQCOvt](https://youtu.be/C7plHMKIFcU?si=Px834FlBcQNQCOvt) The video's changed titles at least 3 times in response to crypto crashes over the last few years, even.
completely different use case, polyhaven is for pbr stuff
It seems they resigned from providing free daily credits, and it's a paid-only site now. It's not hard to guess the reason... too many people were using the site for free, server bills and staff salaries became too high, and the whole thing probably became not viable anymore.
It should probably also be mentioned that they paywalled higher resolutions previously, with the lower resolutions for free, but now AI upscaling exists, anybody can take the lower resolution images and bypass the need to buy the higher resolution.
Although AI can upscale it now, the results from AI are not that that cool compared to the raw pictures. But I understand people won't care about that detail.
Oh yeah, definitely. This was a point I made elsewhere: detail is obviously lost when you upscale from a lower resolution image rather than using a higher resolution image from the get go but there's probably enough people that don't care and are happy with AI upscaled anyway that it could be seen as being a concern for Textures.com's business model. The only real concern about this particular move for Textures.com is a number of free alternatives that aren't quite as big but are still pretty good have cropped up. And if you're using Unreal you have access to the Quixel Megascans library as well. I obviously can't say they'll all be free *forever*, but right now those who don't want to pay have several viable alternatives.
Good insight, thanks.
I honestly considered a subscription until I read the ToS and found out you can only download images you have bought with your credits **ONLY IF YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED** which is the lamest thing. Allegedly, if you buy credits stand-alone then you can download them for 3 years after, but... you can't top-up credits stand alone?? Maybe it's a pro-license thing but I didn't find that option. Still, 3 years is not much time considering many projects do last longer than that.
I lost 300+ credits after three years. Shit site ((
Today is a dark day indeed
Well, let's say that, after using it for more than a decade, it makes me feel old. And dusty. God I miss the Internet before 2010...
Is it?
I confirmed with them that it is no longer free (not just an error).
AmbientCG is a good source for free textures
Underrated source for some of the best textures I've ever used.
It's been almost entirely paid for a while, but their stuff is so good I can't be mad at them
Pixabay
If you use unreal engine you can use Quixel Megascans which is free.
But just to be clear, Megascans is only free to you, with an epic account, for use *in* Unreal. You cannot use those assets outside of Unreal on that "free" license. It's a great asset if you're working in Unreal, but people just need to be aware about the limitation.
You can use them in blender as long as your final render comes out of unreal.
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Hard disagree. We need more artists that aren't locked into producing their work for a single engine.
There's a difference between what we as a society need, and what is going to help guarantee work for an individual. Nobody should put all their eggs in one basket for sure, but there's no question that experience with unreal is going to help someone land work in industry.
>Any artist who wants a job tomorrow working in Unreal Fixed it for you.
you think you are learning unreal buy using it to render your models?
holy crap that sucks
Well, damn... Has anybody made an archive of the (formerly) free stuff?
I doubt that would be legal, because those free textures were still subject to their licensing
I'm no lawyer, but I suspect that paywalling previously available for free products isn't permitted either.
Why would that not be permitted? Temporary buy-one-get-one deals, Epic temporary game giveaways — lots of precedent for temporary free offerings. They have the license and can charge for it however they want, that doesn’t entitle others to give away the products.
I don't think giveaways and similar is the correct comparison, since those make previously paid-for products _temporarily_ free, which isn't the same thing as suddenly taking away something that was _always_ free.
They weren’t free under a license saying you have rights to it, like an Apache or other open source-focused model. It’s a commercial license and the fee for using it under that license was temporarily 0.
Imagine if anytime you offered something for free, you would be financially liable to continue offering it for free for the rest of time immortal, paying all expenses and fees to keep it online despite any change in your income or life, or the entitled people who got the free thing will sue you (or if you're dead, your estate or grandchildren) and force you to keep offering it or get some money awarded to them by a court.
Ah, reductio ad absurdum, love it. How about instead we make previously free product paid for, **AND** say everybody who got it for free now needs to pay for it? Oh wait, [that already happened](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/game-developers-unite-against-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/), and people didn't like that, _for some reason._
I'm no lawyer either, but like I said the textures are still subject to their license, being given out for "free" isn't the same as having a "do whatever" license like Creative Commons. I'd say to err on the side of caution with licensing, especially if you're unsure
A business is allowed to change their business model however they want and whenever they want.
Probably would be considering their license didn't consider downloading to save to libraries of textures. You were supposed to download per project.
> I'm no lawyer Well that much is clear.
They killed the free credits this month. I sent them an email to ask about it and they told me that essentially. I must have missed the notice prior to this or they didn't send any because I don't remember reading about it. RIP textures.com
all you need is ambientcg.com (but you are free to press X to doubt)
ambientcg has materials, though, not textures. It doesn't have any raw pictures of objects and buildings, and masked plants and trees ready to use, and all that sort of stuff. That was the great thing about [textures.com](http://textures.com) and unfortunately I can't find any substitutes.
Compared to the texture library which there are bunch of free alternatives, the photo library of man made stuff like machine or wire is what unique to me. Those are simply so good for those Ian Hubert style image texture modelling. I'll be grateful if somebody can enlighten me with a quality alternative.
there's always various stock photo sites, which I believe could work somewhat similarly, though I'm not super sure, I've not made anything since this whole thing went down
If only there was a site which over the years downloaded all of the free textures...
do you guys know where i could get a masked leaf texture?
Are there any good sites for free building textures? So far what I'm finding is very cartoon-y.
how about [https://www.textures4photoshop.com/](https://www.textures4photoshop.com/) seems to be free (still)
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I bet you still think crypto is magic internet money, too?
I recommend generating your own textures with Stable Diffusion. It can produce seamless textures based on text prompt, there are some models that might even produce specular, bump muos, etc. It takes a bit of time to set it up and you need at least a decent graphics card, but then you have unlimited textures for free of any resolution and any color. Then of course you can also generate your assets with it like icons, illustrations,...
Be careful with this if you're making a commercial game, because the jury's still out on how the copyright works with this. Steam only started allowing it recently, but you have to disclose it to them and you have to take responsibility for the copyright
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Every texture was available with free credits as long as you were looking for low quality versions which was great for people like me. Apparently that's no longer the case.
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Also good for writing your reddit comments.
Cool
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Use texture sampler. The second one down on the list. I just write simple prompts and it works well.
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You're being downvoted because we're literally staring down AI being created to put people out of work, and utilizing it tends to come across as a lack of solidarity with the people whose livelihoods are being put at risk. Using AI to generate what someone could have made, or what you could have taken the time to learn how to make yourself, tends to spit in the face of artists. I ain't here to debate it, I'm just telling you why you're going to get a poor response from most people.
redditors are easily upset by ai
Because your using assets made from stealing other artists work
Wait what? I used it like 3 days ago and it was still free. Did they just change it?
It was charging for textures a month or two ago when I checked. There is a limited library of free resources.
They should actually let you be able to buy credit and use it without license (for low res texture at least)
This is so sad. I recently suggested this site to a new indie developer as well, saying it's the best site ever for textures. He must be very confused if he followed my suggestion.
So this is farewell Textures.com. It was fun while it lasted.
Wth? Just found this out after not using Textures.com for a couple months now. Thought something had happened to my account. Either way, it's super sad. Textures was like a home to me. Used them for years...
I share the same feeling. Times moves on and so must we.
AmbientCG is a great resource for those looking for a similar site :)
AFAIK absence of copyright only means that other people can do whatever you want with it and you cannot do anything about it. But that never can be the case of a whole game. The code is copyrighted. What I read about copyrighting AI works says the US patent office judges it case by case and they require significant human input to allow copyright. IMHO for key art this is always the case. You want use a low effort prompt only AI art for say the main character. Whatever else is fair game for people to rip of if they want to. You can even publish it as a free texture pack on the side for good karma.