WebDev3000 » Textures

BgPatterns

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:24:05 +0000

I really like to start every new week by discovering something cool, and today I had a big revelation. What kind of revelation? Well, first of all, some time has passed since we talked about any kind of online background generator… and second, I really don’t know how did I manage to miss BgPatterns for so long!

BgPatterns obviously comes from “background patterns,” but I really like this site a lot, because it offers more than just some patterns to save and then use for your own projects. In this case, you have a bunch of images to choose from (categories available include scrolls – my favorite, stars, flowers, hearts, trees, and more), as well as the ability to choose pattern and background colors, canvas type and size, and finally to rotate the pattern image in your work of art.

Using BgPatterns is really straightforward – all you need to do is mess with each of the elements I mentioned above, and finally download you work (you can also get a free account on the site and save it there, or just apply the background image to the background of the site itself). Awesome!

Just one more thing – BgPatterns is free for any kind of work you may have in mind, but if you really like this resource and make good use of it, I suggest sparing some bucks for a little donation…

Compatibility: I played with BgPatterns in Opera, IE, Chrome, and even in FF with my script blocker turned on (warning: disable such tools to see the tool working properly, all right?) – everything worked just as expected!

TextureZ

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:23:50 +0000

Since the weekend is almost here and some time has passed since we talked about a texture generator or free texture resource I found, now is the right time to take a look at TextureZ, don’t you think?

Sure, there’s not much to say about a free textures site, right? I can’t deny that, but those few words could make the difference between clicking that link above and discovering a great resource for your design needs and missing that chance. Here’s what you should know about TextureZ…

All categories are available from the front page of the site, and we’re talking about exactly 20 categories here, from Brick, Concrete and Fabric, all the way down to Water or Wood. When talking about textures, size DOES matter, and I was really happy to notice that most textures available here are about 3000X2000 pixels large, and nicely compressed, since the JPEG files are usually around 3-4MB in size.

Each image can be previewed and then downloaded as a ZIP file, and the only thing that I can see as bad about TextureZ is that you can’t add desired files to some kind of download basket and get’em all with a click. Well, I guess you can’t have everything for free, so you should work your way to downloading this entire site, after all – unless you’re going to use some kind of download manager…

Compatibility: any browser you may use, probably even text-based ones (none available here to try that, sorry…)

Tartan Maker

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:44:52 +0000

Some of the best things in life are the easy ones. The best things in life are also the simple ones, like… generating simple tartan designs!?! I know, it may sound strange to you, but if I really have to wear something with more than just one color, then crisscross designs are my favorite, so let’s take this story into the field of Web design, shall we?

Tartan Maker is one of those free design tools that may seem to be not enough for a serious designer, but the truth is a bit different. Sure, you can easily fire up your Photoshop copy (Gimp and a bunch of other programs can also get the job done, of course) and come up with a nice tartan, but why not enjoy Tartan Maker and also share your work with the rest of the world? I repeat, this may not be something for the design guru, but it’s surely a pretty useful and fun website!

At last, you should also take a look at the gallery and enjoy the social part of the site – you can sign up for a free account, share your tartans, see them being voted and climbing up the ladder leading to the Hall of Fame.

Oh, yeah, there one more thing I should tell you – once you finish playing with your design, the texture can be downloaded as a PNG file with the tiny resolution of 36X36 pixels (at least that’s what I got on my first try), but depending on the settings, it can get as high as 600X600 pixels.

Compatibility: I tried Tartan Maker with Opera, Firefox (3.5 already), Google Chrome, IE, Maxthon, and I only had problems in FF, because of my script blocker… so everything’s just great

Urban Dirty

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:18:21 +0000

I love textures, especially when they come for free, or when I have some free tool at my disposal to generate them. Sometimes, I even got out and take some shots with pieces of concrete, grass, marble, and so on, then turn them into seamless textures with just a little bit of work. While I won’t show you how to create seamless textures, I will help you by pointing out a new resource for those looking to download free textures from the Internet…

… and its name is Urban Dirty. The story behind it? Well, no big story, just a photo library that currently features 524 images for use in your design/artwork projects, and I think that some of them can easily be employed as website backgrounds, too, without having to bother making any modifications to them.

Each image is available in small, medium, and large sizes, with the large ones going above 2500X2000 pixels in most cases (3027 x 2304 pixels at 180 dpi maximum). Obviously, they come as JPEG files. That’s all, folks!

Compatibility: Urban Dirty can be accessed using any browser you can think of, but I didn’t have the chance to try it in some text-based ones (anyway, I can’t imagine someone messing around in a terminal who needs textures to work with… in text mode!)