Finding Textures in the Very Tiny

If you are ever stuck for interesting textures, try setting your camera to macro, get on your knees and start shooting away!

I live in a city. Worcester, Mass. I finally dusted off the mountain bike last week when we had a warm, summery day. I didn't ride far before finding a trail behind the "Super Stop & Shop" grocery store I've been shopping at for years. I've lived here for 13 years, actually, yet never noticed this before! There's not only a trail, but conservation land, who would have known?? Now I've already got plenty of textures of tree barks and dirt (these will end up on future texture CDs), so I got off the bike and started snapping digital photos of rocks, moss, and tree bark, but VERY close up. I use a Nikon Coolpix 995, and it's got a great macro lens. Check out the interesting abstract textures I got! These are not retouched, except for doing an "Auto levels" on them in Photoshop. Playing with the colors would produce many permutations which would make unique textures unto themselves...

A Puddle of Toxic Waste	A Rusty Piece of Metal
Funky Fungus on a Rock	Extreme Close-up of Organic Growth on a Rock
More Indefinable Growth on the Surface of a Rock	A Patch of Moss (White Balance Set to Incandescent)

Make them Tileable, Create a BUMP Map I can either use them as is, or make them tileable, and create bump maps for them, so I can tile them onto objects in my 3D program. I'll cover exactly how I do these steps in an upcoming newsletter. Feedback Your feedback is critical, as it drives the content on this site. Did you find this tutorial useful? What would you like to see here next? Let me know.... carl@carlsart.com. Just write me a note with your "wish list", and you may be surprised to see a custom tutorial written just for you in an upcoming issue! Submit Your Artwork to Win a Texture CD Just send me your best 2D or 3D art. Each month the winner will receive the CarlsArt paid texture CD of their choice. (OK, there's only one now, but I'm working on more!) Simply send your 100K or less (640 pixels wide or less) image to me at carl@carlsart.com, to be entered to win. Provide a brief summary of how you accomplished the image, what software or special techniques you may have used, etc. Your image will be seen by thousands of 2D and 3D professionals. Be sure to include your web address if you'd like a link to your site!