Free Textures on TextureMate.com

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Here’s a useful texture repository that popped up in a comment yesterday beneath our ‘List of free texture sites‘ blogpost. Enjoy!

From their ‘legal stuff’ statement:

The stock textures and any other photographs available for download on this site are completely free and may be used in commercial or non-commercial applications. The only exception is that they cannot be redistributed commercially in their unedited form. Credit to texturemate for use of available textures is appreciated, but not required.

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    • redbyte

      Nice! I’m curious though, with all these free texture sites, how exactly do they make money and continue running?

      Paying photographers and hosting fees ain’t exactly cheap.

    • Pawel

      @ redbyte
      I don’t think most of them actually hire photographers. With about a dozen textures in each category, it’s most likely a one-man job. And hosting fees aren’t that high with current competition.
      Which doesn’t change the fact it’s GREAT people do offer free textures…

    • chrisey123

      Nice! It will help alot with my short

    • Jaqueline

      It is fantastic that people provide this stuff for free! As to what redbyte says, I haven´t seen any of these free sites offer third party copyright protection, so if I use these photos comercially I think that I would be nervous that a third party suddenly made his claims…
      this makes me wonder if anyone knows a cheap commercial template site? I only know istockphoto.com which is fantastic but extremely expensive, if one needs a commercial(=extended) license???
      But again, the above site looks great!

    • chad

      Jasqueline, if I read this right, you can use the textures for commercial purposes, you just can’t redistribute the “unedited” textures. If you use the texture in Blender, it’s edited.

      from the site:

      Legal Stuff
      The stock textures and any other photographs available for download on this site are completely free and may be used in commercial or non-commercial applications. The only exception is that they cannot be redistributed commercially in their unedited form. Credit to texturemate for use of available textures is appreciated, but not required.

    • Pawel

      @chad
      Do you really assume a texture is “edited” when it’s used in Blender? That wouldn’t make much sense, otherwise the images offered on the site wouldn’t be called “textures” but just “images”. The term “texture” presumes its use in an 3D (or other) application. Otherwise what would they be useful for? For your website background? And even then, when they’re tiled, you could assume they’re “edited”.

    • chad

      @Pawel
      I do assume that they are “edited” (or would at least be considered to be) once used in Blender… but, you could always edit the texture in Photoshop or where ever first. Or write the owner of the site and ask. The agreement looks like many stock photo agreements.

      I may be wrong, but I think the purpose of the legal statement is to keep people from taking the textures and reselling them as a library of textures. The legal statement clearly states “The stock textures …. are completely free and may be used in commercial or non-commercial applications.”

    • Frechette Keith

      According to the FAQ on TextureMate’s web site:

      ======
      Can I use your textures in 3D modeling software?
      Yes, these textures may be used for rendering surfaces or tiled in 3D software. Using these photographs in 3D software changes their appearance and is consequently allowed. Have no worries using these textures in programs such as 3DS Max, Solidworks, CAD, and Blender.
      ======

      So, it looks like they consider use in Blender to be a modification of the textures, and thus is allowed and encouraged.

      – Keith

    • designer

      Wow, great mention of the site on Blender Nation! I am one of the photographers for the texturemate and you are correct, it is encouraged to use them in 3D modeling packages such as Blender. I’d love to see some of them used!

    • http://www.anthonyoliver.net Anthony Oliver

      My friend actually built and runs the site. Yes they are free. It isn’t his career, just a hobby for him. He is quite gifted when it comes to graphic design, he just makes a lot more money setting up vision systems. Another example of people wondering about free issues, just take open source into consideration for a minute. You can support him through other ways, either donations or buy one of his canvas prints through ascended arts. ;-)