www.artist-reference.com

I came upon the site of Marlin Studios while I was searching for good designs I needed to build into my presentation. I won’t say I found all the textures that I needed but I certainly got the most of them. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by finding more, other than needed right at that moment. In addition to different variety of textures, they offer great animations in terms of videos which are very helpful, e. g. in game development. Marlin Studios claims to have been in the texture business longer than any texture publisher and with the number of over 70,000 images, this site definitely deserves at least a glance from the game developers, architects and artists who are engaged in daily designing.

On opening, the site doesn’t really look too tech-savvy to be honest. It is actually very moderate and simple in view. At first glance, I didn’t find it to be impressive. The website might seem little perplexing and incomprehensible. There is also no search engine available on this site which makes it a bit of task to search for the texture desired. Although the designs are divided into many galleries and categories, it does take a while to get to the exact image we have in mind. Lots of confusion plus no search engine rendered the website tough to surf and the searching time-consuming. This could discourage potential customers.

However, the Marlin Studio’s strength lies in variety and voluminousness of the provided content. This site consists of lots of 2D and 3D images included in 25 libraries. These are divided into sub galleries such as seamless textures, specialty gallery, 3D gallery and money saver gallery. Textures given on the site include various basic ones like tiles, wood, stone, skies and such patterns. Apart from these, one will also find animated people and different 3D models of buildings or vehicles. Surely, it is worth noting the specialty gallery and its special libraries like the People N Motion with animated people in both business and casual attire, Panoramas, Tree palms, Traffic etc. The 3D section gives a number of images which can be used to make 3 dimensional structures or models in game development. The samples shown here are full built modern houses with yards and also various other images which might be of use for corporate presentations. There is also a section for free samples to download available on the site as well. One can see through the list and get a look at some of them.

All libraries are filled with numerous images and textures to work with, yet it displays only a few best textures which represent the other samples in the category. This could be little disheartening as the user might want to see all the textures he is buying. One option given by the website is to try free samples before buying, which nevertheless are in half of the actual size. The full size images can only be seen after the user has bought it. The resolutions of the images that I happened to look at were mostly 1024 X 1024 pixels, but it varies according to type of image. This is good resolution but in contrast with environment-textures.com, where most photos are 4992×3360 pixels, it´s quite a difference.  Free samples are provided in half of actual size, as already mentioned.

Textures and models available on this site are offered at a low cost as compared to the other sites I have visited in the past. The charges given are on the basis of the resolution and type of the file. Some images are available for prices as low as 35 cents. Good quality images or most 3D models can be as much as 2 USD each. In addition there is a separate section in the galleries which offers special saver packs that include 2D and 3D images depending on the pack. This gives the buyer an opportunity to save some money. It is worth to mention the amount of money one can save – it ranges from 89 USD to about 1000 USD.

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In comparison to the other sites, which usually offer membership subscriptions, this one provides only pay and download option and does not put forward any membership plans. While buying textures and 3D models, one has to buy the whole package even if he wants to use only a few textures from the package. It means single image download is not possible over here. On the other hand, possibility of availing the whole package at discounts can be considered as an advantage.

Ordering the designs is really simple. There are some options for ordering. You can either download the design online or order a CD/DVD of the same. There are also different ways of paying for the same – you can use your online PayPal account for the transfer as well as pay by using your debit/credit card (debit in case if it is a US card).

However, it was quite difficult to get to the license policy information, whereas there is no section dedicated to this. I managed to find out that all the model & texture libraries offered by website should be royalty free and one could use them in their commercial artworks. But the content of the libraries cannot be distributed in any way, shape or form. The user would receive one license per order, with the option to make a backup copy. Nevertheless, I would recommend you to contact the provider and inquire before using bought images.

Overall, the website obviously has its pros and cons and it is up to the artist to reconsider expectations he is having from this type of site and decide.

Summary

+    great amount of textures and animations; money saver packages

-     no search engine available; perplexing and difficult to browse the website

Popularity: 22% [?]

Being an artist for long time in my career, browsing for new texture websites has always been my necessity as well as hobby. I happened to open this site once during my usual ventures as I was looking for good textures and 3D images. And I would like to say, that artists looking for some great material can definitely find a good collection on this particular website. While still under construction, this site promises to give the best of its collection of quality designs and images. TRU Textures stand by on the talk of unlimited downloads with no limits whatsoever. An artist looking for good and unique designs can surely go on to this. It is definitely worth giving a look at least once before deciding on the final textures.

This site shows off a collection of approximately 2000 sets of designs and textures. Each of these sets contains at least 10 textures. Most of them consist of more than 20 in them. Such a vast collection of textures gives the artist a wide variety of choices to choose from. Offered designs include metal, wood, nature, topography, etc. These are included in the basic section of the site. One can find interesting also 16 different 3D categories having Victorian, European and Middle Eastern themes as well as sets of seasonal themes including Halloween, Christmas and Easter. New textures are being added continuously on the site on a daily basis.

Having a fine search engine, like TRU Textures has, is one of the most important qualities of this kind of websites. To give the exact list of the designs and textures needed, one can type any name or design and the website lists out all those falling into that particular category. This eliminates the tough procedure of browsing through every list of designs for the required texture. Viewing through the numerous designs, it’s easy to look closely to each of them as the image zooms when clicked on it.

Different textures are available in PNG, TGA 24 or 32-bit file format. Depending on the posting time of the texture, its resolution may vary with initial textures having lower resolutions of 128 – 256 pixels. However, greater numbers of the textures are 512 pixels and even 1024 pixels, which are the most frequent sizes on the website. The older images with lower resolutions are however priced much lower than the routine price range.  Majority textures (up to 90 %) are seamless, designed to tiles. This site also offers 3D images, which are really helpful in building model designs for various construction purposes, so game designers, abstract artists and even architects can avail great designs from the collection.

One great feature about this site is that it does not have any flat membership fees. It offers unlimited downloads whenever you want and at a nominal price depending on the size and type of the texture as well as on type of license you choose. The prices are set per design and there are no restrictions whatsoever on the download limit. Payments are realizing via PayPal system and the website offers also credits, which can be purchased to avail discounts. One can purchase for example 1000 credits for 8 USD and avail 11% discount. If one purchases 5000 credits, he can get the same for 35 USD with 22% discount. There are varied such discount schemes on purchase of credits till 56% discount limits. Users of Second Life can buy some textures for Linden dollars.

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There are several license options to choose from according to customer’s usage intentions. The basic Second Life license is offered for using within Second Life environment only. With any world license, one will get the rights to use textures and images within any virtual world, Second Life included. Professional license and game developer license allow customer wider usage rights – for private or commercial use out of virtual environment. I would recommend you to read conditions of use carefully.

Overall, I would say this is a good source to get the latest and good designs. It is surely worth giving a look and ascertain.

Summary:

+       wide collection of themes, great 3D images, no download limits and nominal rates

-          the site usage limitation for non-second-life members – almost 35% of the images of the website are made available only for use in virtual Second Life environment

Popularity: 13% [?]