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A treasure trove of textures

If you’re into such noble pursuits as geo-modeling or photo-realistic rendering, there’s a good chance that you spend a ridiculous amount of time hunting for photo-textures online. Flickr and other photo sharing sites are goldmines for content, but who has time to compile a folder of bookmarks that point to the best ones?

Our friend John Pacyga, apparently. He’s just posted a long list of his favorite texture sources — for both SketchUp and Photoshop. Some are free, some have Creative Commons licenses, and some cost money, but all are worth browsing. Set aside some time, though; this kind of thing is addictive.

If you’ve found a seamless texture (one that can repeat attractively when you paint it on a surface), here’s how you load it into SketchUp:

Instructions for Windows:

A treasure trove of textures

texture sources for SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

Instructions for Mac:

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUp

texture source SketchUptexture source SketchUp

I found the rock texture in the screenshots above on lee.ponzu’s Flickr Textures set. Want to make your own seamless texture images? These tutorials on YouTube are a good place to start.

About the Author

Aidan was a beloved member of the SketchUp team for ten years. He taught countless SketchUp classes, authored SketchUp books, and is a jolly fellow indeed.

Profile Photo of Aidan Chopra