Pixar Giveaway for 3D Artists

The Assets

Back on March 17, Pixar made available 128 repeating textures from their own libraries! Anyone can download them to use in their art under the Creative Commons license. For example, if you paint digital art, you can tile any of them across your background for a fun effect.

Mainly, Pixar had in mind game developers and 3D texture artists when they released this (or so I'm guessing). What do the textures look like? Here are some examples.

Since Pixar originally used these in 1993, the original images were smaller in resolution than most would like today. However, for this release, they increased the size of each to 1024x1024, more than enough for a texture that is going to be tiled over and over. They also come with normal maps, with will make it easy for any game artist or other texture artist to give them a bumped, 3D look.

Suggested Use

Repeating tiles are great for texture artists, whether the models are to be used in games, animation, or 3D still images. Yet don't let them be the be all end end all of your texture work.

Say you have created a wooden floor using one of the relevant textures. If you use just the tiled texture, it will lack variety and look boring. Many will be able to easily tell that it has repeating tiles.

Once you have laid the tiles out onto a UV map, work on the texture a bit. Add some scuff marks. or other bits of damage. Put a stain on the floor. Use the Clone tool to actually change the pattern a bit in places, if that works for the particular texture. In other words, give it variety, and it will look more believable.

As I don't have a lot of experience with game environments, I realize this might not work for them, but one should certainly use this technique for still images or animations.

Download at Renderman

You can download these assets immediately at the Renderman Community Site. Remember that since they are under the Creative Commons license, you will need to note somewhere (in your gallery or in your game or animation's credits) this: Some Textures (CC) Pixar Animation Studios. Have fun creating!