This is my second set of textures with a dark science-fiction theme (think ‘Quake’, or similar games). Lots of metal plates and piping, and a few lights and control boxes thrown in. All the textures are 512 x 512, and you can view them all at the Texture Gallery.
To buy this set, either visit the main store in-world, or the XstreetSL page:
It’s always been difficult to provide a good way of letting people preview a texture set before they buy it. I put samples of the textures on the Xstreet pages, but these only show a few textures, and tend to load slowly (possibly because of the amount of traffic that the Xstreet servers are dealing with). I have vendors in-world which display all the textures, but this being Second Life it can take quite a while for them to rez, so going through an entire set can be tedious.
Well, I now have an alternative, in the form of Texture Galleries on this web site. You should see a list of the Galleries down the left-hand side of this page. Each gallery will display a set of thumbnails. Hover your mouse over any thumbnail, and the full-size image will be displayed. Click the thumbnail to be taken directly to the Xstreet page for that texture set.
Enjoy!
Not one, but two new releases. They are closely related though — one is a set of Medieval Village textures, and the other is a Medieval Farmhouse which makes use of some of those textures.
The Medieval Village texture set consists of 34 textures, including both transparent and non-transparent versions of the four textures which incorporate windows. (The Farmhouse uses the non-transparent versions, in case you were wondering).
Note: These are the same textures that were freebies in the recent TextureMania hunt. The only difference is that the thatch texture has been replaced, and the transparent windows have been added.
The farmhouse is a small prefab, only 22 prims, and covering 16m x 16m, so it should fit comfortably even inside a small 512m parcel (unless it is a very oddly shaped parcel).
A few samples:
As usual, they are available in-world at the main store, and on-line on the Xstreet website:
Templar Creations Main Store (look outside for the Medieval Farmhouse)
XStreet – Medieval Village Textures
XStreet – Medieval Farmhouse
I recently completed a small commission project, building an exhibition hall for the Geneva Motor Show:
I created a number of textures specifically for this, and I’ve taken these and improved them a bit (I think!), added some additional ones, and am now releasing them as a new texture set.
Here’s a few samples, and an example of them in use:
As usual, you’ll find them on XStreet, and in-world at the Main Store:
An explanation and an announcement
Charity Tearfall posted a brief, complimentary review of the Victorian Interior textures on XstreetSL (thanks!), but suggested that it would be good if the windows were transparent.
Well, she’s right, it’s always useful for windows to be transparent!
Unfortunately, and as you are probably aware if you are a resident, Second Life has certain ‘issues’ with transparency, especially if one transparent texture is in front of another (and especially if they are slightly at an angle). There’s more about this in a previous blog post of mine, if you want the gory technical details. (Scroll down that post to read about “the dreaded Z-order bug”).
These days the situation has been made worse by the fact that many (most?) of the recent hairstyles in Second Life make use of transparency. I’m sure you’ve seen the odd effects which happen when these hairstyles get in front of windows or other transparent prims.
For that reason I’ve started avoiding transparency whenever I can.
But other builders in Second Life might (and obviously do!) have different views on this. So for them I’ve released a second version of the Victorian Interiors texture set, this time with transparent windows.
As usual, you will find it in-world at the Templar Creations store:
You’ll also find it on XStreetSL, here:
Victorian Interiors – Set 1 – with Transparent Windows
And if you are in search of the original set, with opaque windows, you’ll find that here:
I hope that’s transparent enough…
A new texture set! This time it’s a collection of 30 wall textures in a Victorian style, suitable for the Victorian gentleperson at home, or for Steampunk inventors in search of a stylish interior for their latest vehicle!
As usual, you can get the texture set from XStreetSL, or in-world at the Templar Creations store.
Templar Creations is participating in the Building Blocks Hunt, which will be running all through March. I think it might be a first, because it’s a hunt aimed specifically at builders — all the stores in the hunt are suppliers of scripts, sculpts, or textures.
It’s being run by Mandi Blanco, and she has a blog for the hunt, where you can get up-to-date info, hints, landmarks, and other useful stuff.
Don’t miss it.
Oh … and if I’m not at the store, it could be because I’m out hunting! 🙂
A new set of textures, and a collection pack that brings together all 60 textures from the Castle Texture Sets 1-3 in a single set at a reduced price.
First, a quick preview of the new set, Castle Textures – Set 3:
As usual, you will these in-world at the Templar Creations main store, and on XstreetSL:
My Christmas break was a bit longer than anticipated, but now I’m back and with a new texture set! This is the second in the new collection of castle textures, and this one adds windows and doors to go with the walls from the previous set.
Here is a quick preview:
Visit the store to see the full set.
As usual, you can also buy the set from XStreetSL ,and you can also buy it from the MetaLife website:
Some hints and tips that might make working with textures quicker and more efficient.
1. Instantly apply a texture
…without even opening the Build dialog! Simply drag a texture from your inventory onto the surface that you want to texture. The texture will instantly be applied to that face. Obviously this will only work on prims that you have modify permissions for.
2. Applying a texture to multiple faces
In the Build menu, tick ‘Select Texture’ as usual, and select the first face. Then hold down the Shift key and click on any other faces that you want to texture, even on completely different prims. Then apply the texture that you want, via the Texture tab. The texture will be applied to all the selected faces.
The only catch to this is that sometimes Second Life is a bit flaky about actually texturing all the selected faces, so don’t unselect straight away, and simply re-apply the texture if it doesn’t ‘take’ to all the faces.
3. Using the dropper
On the Texture tab, click the texture image to bring up the texture selection dialog. There is a small ‘dropper’ icon at the bottom of this. Click this icon, then click on any other prim face, and the texture from that face will be selected for the current face. This will only work to pick up textures that you have copy permissions for.
4. Choose between the texture selection dialog or your inventory
There are two ways to directly get a texture onto the texture tab (and hence on to the selected prim or face), either by dragging a texture from your inventory onto the texture image, or by clicking the texture image to call up the texture selection dialog.
Both have their pros and cons.
The Texture Selection dialog will search through your Inventory, and will only show you the textures or snapshots that you can apply as a texture. It will hide everything else, including textures that you cannot use (probably because you don’t have copy permissions for them). This is useful, but if you have an
inventory of any size it can take some time for the list of textures to fill up.
If you use your inventory instead, you don’t have this delay, but of course you will be shown everything, including textures/snapshots that you cannot actually use. If you try to drag these onto the texture image, the cursor will change to a ‘stop’ icon to show that you cannot use them.
5. Use the Library
Down at the bottom of your inventory is a folder called Library, which contains a default collection of stuff that Linden supplies to every avatar (they sometimes add to this collection, so it’s a good idea to take an occasional look here for new things). It includes a useful and varied collection of textures. Before you spend your hard-earned Linden Dollars buying a new texture, look here first, to see if there is already something which suits your needs.
6. Use the Library’s default transparent and media textures.
If you need a fully transparent texture, or a texture to display videos on (a subject which is beyond the scope of this blog entry), the Library has default textures for these (they are at the top of the Library ‘tree’, not in the Textures folder). The advantage to using these is that they are very likely to already be in the viewer’s cache, and hence won’t need to be downloaded, which means that they will rez much faster.
8. Use the bumpmaps and colors
I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but it’s worth repeating: experiment with the bumpmaps option on the Texture tab. Using bumpmaps, and applying colors, can create good textures without making use of a texture image at all (simply change the default ‘plywood’ texture to ‘blank’), or can create useful variations of existing textures.
Also worth repeating is the example to illustrate this technique:
