Hi I’m new to the whole making money off my games thing, and I was wondering if it was like plagiarism or something to get textures online for a commercial game.
I can understand it would be wrong to take drawn textures, and if I make a stylized game i always draw the textures myself, but what about realistic textures like stuff on CGTextures.com, where it’s often just a picture of a wall or something. I would take pictures for these textures myself, but it’s hard to find textures that fit with just the things I have around me.
I often have to bring the textures into photoshop and combine them and stuff to get what I need, but is it wrong to get the original textures online?
Is it illegal? frowned upon? or does everyone do it?
Thanks for any help!
It depends on the license for the source images. The license on CGTextures allows commercial usage (if you look closely you can find some textures from there in games like Assassin’s Creed). So if in doubt, read the license. If you don’t know for sure where the image came from, then it’s best not to use it to be on the safe side.
–Eric
By the way, if you want to get really into creating your own textures, use this:
http://www.mapzoneeditor.com/
However, it may be faster and cheaper/more efficient to use free textures online with a commercial license.
Also, you can even use free models that others have created for your own commercial reasons. However, this is where you have to be really careful and make sure you’re not breaking any copyrights/licenses (depending on the source).
As long as the license on the images permits you to do so. Many sites like Turbosquid.com exist for the exact reason you’re looking for, and many developers (and big companies) use them for quick assets.