Texture Tools

The purpose of this page is to increase awareness of resources that'll help you texture better in Second Life. Texturing is a fundamental part of a building skillset.

This list includes but isn't limited to: programs, tutorials, and packs of textures themselves. I (Torley Linden) am starting with what I know and have actually experienced — please share what you've found useful!

Texture-making programs

• Filter Forge (30-day trial, US$249, with the possibility to it for free) - It's the very spicy (because it's so diverse), no-holds-barred plugin which allows you to make your own Photoshop filters! This isn't some crummy, unintuitive rubbish either: it's top-drawer, with a wealth of presets, many free filters already created by the FF community to download. I'm particularly hoping to see builds inworld use some wall and tile sets made from this. Have you done such a thing? LET ME KNOW OK? :o)

• PhotoSEAM (US$35, has demo) - Helps you make textures seamless like a superstar! Often, after sketching raw 768x768 chunks in ArtRage 2, I'll bring 'em into PhotoSEAM to master as 512x512s, with some buffer 'round the edges so I can cross borders smoothly. What's more, you can apply touch-up effects to come up with some radical variants of your source material. Caveats: it hasn't been updated in 6+ years and it's prone to crashing, but it's the best I've found thus far!

• ArtRage 2 (free edition, US$19.95 for full version) - Simple, superb, sexy. It's a painting program with a snazzy user interface and minimal controls. Nope, it doesn't even have Copy OR Paste, but the brush tones are lush. Did I mention the glitter tool adds so much amazing depth? I can almost feel the grains get layered down when working with it. On 2007-02-04, I created some free ArtRage canvases; they're based on some of my textures.