User:Torley Linden

Torley is a Community Developer of Communications with a personal blog.

Amplifier for fellow Lindens' and Residents' success. Also makes free textures for you. Happy!

What do you recommend to make textures?

I absolutely implore you to explore these softwares:

ArtRage 2 - 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. Has a FREE version, but the paid upgrade is only US$19.95... and 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.

PhotoSEAM - 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!

... they're the mortar-and-pestle of my texture-making existence. And rising fast, be sure to check out:

Filter Forge - 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 (hey, why does that sound familiar?) 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)

If you're curious, my graphics tablet is a standard Wacom Intuos3 6x8. I'd like a 6D Art Pen next.

Developers Resource Matrix - It's kinda hard to find on our website, but it's got lots of helpful links I refer to regularly. If you're a content creator or looking to Do-It-Yourself, bookmark it and keep it close.

PacificRim Exchange's Learning Page - I've seen a lot of resource link lists, and this one is teh trump. Categorization is lovely, and it includes a lot of helpful highlights. Thanx to Claudia Linden for lettin' me know.