Great collection of some stone/brick walkways to use in your projects. Click here to download the zip file and use as you wish. Texture are 2592px by 1944px.

Many more textures over on TextureArchive.com

What’s included in the zip:

TextureArchive.com was one of the first major projects I created with a good friend a few years ago now, we have seen decent success and our ZBrush Brushes have been a huge hit with the ZBrush Community. Interestingly enough we have more people downloading our brushes than we do our textures but both have been pretty successful.

We have recently started collecting feature ideas for the next version of TextureArchive, we have let the site get stagnate over the years and we really want to rejuvenate the site again into a thriving Digital Art community.

I decided to open up discussions with you to help us understand what kind of features you would like to see on the new site, we are open to anything but won’t guarantee anything either. We are building the site from the ground up, completely new backend, completely new frontend, everything is new. We are looking for any ideas you may have that you haven’t found on other digital art websites, what do YOU want to see and use?

Do you have a LinkedIn account?
We have created a group over here: LinkedIn – TextureArchive Group where we are also collecting ideas, we’d love to have you join up as well.

We are also on Facebook: Click here

Looking forward to your feedback!

I wanted to take a moment to thank some of the top referring websites to TextureArchive.com. Thought it would be nice to give these websites some recognition for pushing new visitors to my site, hopefully I can send some back your way. Here are a few sites in no particular order:

• zbrushcentral.com
• Allan Brito
• BlenderArtists.org
• BlenderNation.com
• Marcofolio.net
• C4Des
• Feeblemind
• SineFX
• VTutorials
• FreeTextureSite.blogspot.com
• 3D Station
• PlanetPhotoshop.com
• BlenderGuide.org
• CG-Links

Thank you also to anyone who has ever linked back to TextureArchive.com, we appreciate it and hope you will continue recommending our site to others.
Micah

In my last posting I talked a bit about the new ZBrush that is coming out within the next couple of weeks, today I wanted to carry that theme on once again and remind everyone who uses ZBrush that I offer nearly 80 free brushes over on TextureArchive.com (One of my own sites).

Below are a few examples of what the brushes look like, you can view the full page here. Note that there are actually two pages worth of brushes, the second page can be found here.

Hopefully these brushes will help you out, if you use them, post a link to the artwork you created in the comments, I would love to see what you are able to create.

UPDATE: I have had 60 more brushes waiting to be added to the site, but I wasn’t going to do it until the new site was done. Since it will be a while before that happens, I have quickly updated the site with Set Three, they are also much larger than the previous ones, these are 1024px by 1024px. Enjoy!

Set one Examples:

 
Set two Examples:

Set Three Examples:

I am super excited to see that Pixologic is releasing a new version of ZBrush at the end of August according to this thread on their forums. Last year at Siggraph I decided to purchase a copy of ZBrush (version 3.2 I think) before the price went up to what it is today. According to the thread 3.5 and 4.0 versions of ZBrush will be available FREE to all registered users with existing copies of ZBrush, looks like I made a great purchase!

Despite the fact that I have a legit copy of ZBrush, I actually rarely use it and my  experience with it is still quite limited. However, with Windows 7 and now an updated ZBrush coming out I’m planning on getting my computer setup with a nice clean install in a few months. Once this has been completed I hope to start digging back into ZBrush and experimenting with the new tools and features as well as getting a good handle on using the software.

Here is a list of some of the features they have already announced:

• Multiple texture, normal and displacement maps per Tool (by using subtools), with enhanced displacement and normal map options such as native export of 32-bit displacement maps.
• High-Definition displacement and normal maps from HD geometry.
• Improved perspective with a floor grid.
• Reorganization of the Tool sub-palettes to coordinate with selected SubTools.
• The ability to merge all visible SubTools and optionally weld the seams.
• The new PUVTiles mapping method, which represents the most efficient use of UV space yet.
• PolyPainting and masking have now been enhanced to 16-bit from the previous 8-bit.
• New navigation to work with the virtually unlimited zooming.
• Right-Click Navigation.
• New sliders added to Project All, providing more control over your results.
• Memory management enhancements give the capability to subdivide your models to higher polygon counts.
• New ambient occlusion masking, which can create an AO texture for use in other applications.

In addition to these great features, it sounds as though they have a few other tricks up their sleeves and have a few other features that have not yet been announced, however they have discussed two very powerful tools that will also be coming out soon.

“ZSpheres” is a very primitive looking tool yet it is quite the powerful modeling tool which allows you to quickly create forms and basic structures of a 3D concept or design. In 3.5 they have announced that they have improved upon ZSpheres and are calling it “ZSpheres II”, click here to view a great video showing the power of ZSpheres. I have yet to learn or even understand how ZSpheres work and how well they fit into a production pipeline, but from the video they have it looks like it will be a pretty seamless experience.

GoZBrush
One of my biggest frustrations with ZBrush is figuring out how to get your work from Maya into ZBrush and back again while maintaining structured files, texture maps, etc. across both pieces of software. It seems I am not the only person who has these same frustrations and Pixologic has developed what looks to be a great solution to this problem. The software is called “GoZBrush” click here to learn more about it and to watch a video of how the system works, this is probably the most exciting element of all the updates getting released in the next few weeks.

ZBrush is an extremely powerful application and my limited knowledge of it merely scratches the surface of what it can truly do, if you are into organic modeling and working with clay, I highly suggest getting a copy and start learning it today. There is certainly a large learning curve but it will be completely worth it in the end.

Micah