Top Community Renders from November 2018

December 13, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

It’s time for the monthly roundup of our favourite images shared by our community on ArtStation. Let’s go!

And the render of the month is…

Natural lighting and beautiful interior design are always a beautiful combo. As render of the month, Martin has won himself a year of Poliigon Production!

A big thank you to everyone who created works this month! It’s always a treat to see what the community is making.

How to feature here next month

Step 1: Make something cool using Poliigon assets

Step 2: Post it to ArtStation and include Poliigon in the ‘Software used’ section.

Step 3: Check the blog the following month to see if you were feature. The best render wins 12 months of Poliigon Production :)

Models: The new addition to Poliigon

November 15, 2018 by Andrew Price in Releases

Big news: Models are now permanent addition to the Poliigon library.

Watch the announcement then read on…

Two Big Reasons to Use Poliigon Models

#1 The First Multi-Compatible Library

Typically when you buy a model it only works with one software and one renderer. This means wasting 10-20 minutes configuring shaders to work with your software and renderer. Nobody wants that.

So we’re pleased to say that our models work in all 15 of the major software and renderers.

Just select it from the dropdown to download a model in that native format.

#2 Consistent High Quality

Sometimes purchasing a model feels like playing Russian roulette. You load it into your software, praying that it looks good. But overly dense meshes, poor texture maps, and other shader hackery is rampant.

So we created the library using an industry standard asset pipeline:

Mesh Detail: Not too little, not too much. Each mesh has just enough detail to create the proper silhouette, and everything else is baked.
Baked Maps: All the finer mesh details are baked into the normal map. Gloss, Reflection and Albedo maps are also inclusive, ensuring you won’t have to touch your shader. It just works.

At the time of launch, there are three model collections available now…

1: Interior Scene Fillers

This is the stuff that you don’t want to model, but are necessary for an interior to feel lived in.

Stuff like a TV remote, newspaper, coffee, water bottle, soda can, headphones, notepad, glasses and much, much more.

2: Kitchenware

Because you always need more models for a kitchen than anyone ever has time to model, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you.

Utensils, knives, pots & pans, dishes, bowls, appliances and more.

3: Food

Photoscanning is the only way to capture the detailed shape and texture of food, so that’s what we used.

Fruits, bread, cakes, cheese. Available individually, or as a platter ready for dropping onto a counter.

Demo Renders

We went all out in our testing, so please enjoy this image gallery made using the new models:

This is just the start….

We’re adding more models in the future. What would you like to see next? Let us know in this short survey.

Browse Models

Top Community Renders from October 2018

November 13, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Here’s the monthly recap of the community’s work, from October 2018. Almost all architecture related!

Render of the Month…

Absolutely LOVE this bed. The wrinkles and the velvet material are superb. The plants around the room are a nice touch too.

For his amazing render, Marcin has been awarded a year of Poliigon Freelancer.

How to feature here next month

Step 1: Make something cool using Poliigon textures
Step 2: Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description.
Step 3: Wait till end of the month to see if you feature on the blog.

See you next month!

Top Community Renders from September '18

October 19, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Super late post, but here’s what the community created last month using Poliigon assets:

And the render of the month is…

Such an ambitious character! Somehow you made a mafia lizard man look believable. Really great texturing in the face.

As Render of the Month, David has won himself 12 months of Poliigon Freelancer.

How to feature here next month

See you next month!

New Stone & Marble on Poliigon

October 06, 2018 by Andrew Price in Releases

39 Stone Walls

New stone materials in a range of different hues, wear and rock species. Especially good for European and Middle-Eastern styled exteriors.

29 Marble & Granite

Perfect for your next kitchen and dining table renders.

12 Tile Laminate & Vinyl

Not every client can afford tiles, which is when these laminate and vinyl materials come in handy.

12 Split-Stone Ledger

Split-stone is the perfect material for adding visual contrast to a bland space. Very popular for exterior entertainment areas walls.

Hope you like the new selection! As always, if you make something cool, post it to ArtStation with the words “Textures from Poliigon.com” somewhere in the description and if we like it we’ll feature it here :)

Top Community renders from August '18

September 04, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

The bar gets higher every month! Here's what the community made in August 2018 using Poliigon assets:

And the winner is...

As an artist who has also attempted rainy scenes before, I can tell you; this ain't easy! It's not only beautiful, but it tells an easy to understand story. Very emotive. For being awarded image of the month, Vittorio has won himself a year of Poliigon Freelancer!

How to feature here next month

See you next month!

Top Community Renders from July 2018

August 22, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Every month we do a roundup of the top renders by the community, found on ArtStation. Here's the cream of the crop from July 2018!

The Render of the Month:

Amazing! It's not often you find a night time scene with good lighting, but Thomas has pulled it off fantastically.

As the render of the month, Thomas Berard has won himself a year subscription of Poliigon (Freelancer)!

How to feature here next month:

Create something awesome that uses Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description (so we can find it).
At the start of the month, return to this blog to see if you were selected!

Changes to Credits

July 11, 2018 by Andrew Price

When we launched Poliigon 2 years ago, we approached it with a very simple system: every download would cost 1 credit. And while this worked well for a while, it quickly exposed three big problems:

Not every download was worth 1 credit. For example a treeline backdrop took upwards of 10 hours to capture, clean and produce and cost 1 credit. Yet a color variation for a pattern took barely 10 seconds to create, yet it also cost one credit. Same price, but completely different values to you as an artist. The former was a bargain, the latter a ripoff.
It made re-downloading difficult. We want you to be able to revisit the assets you've previously purchased and download them for free again. But if you only downloaded say 2 of the 8 maps for one material. You only own 20% of the asset. This makes re-downloading difficult, both from a logistical and a usability standpoint.
It's incompatible with new asset types. We already have HDRs and Brushes which have differing credit values. And later this year we'll be introducing models - all of which have differing amounts of files attached to them.

So obviously we needed a new system. After lots of number crunching, we've come up with a new system that solves all these problems and makes acquiring new assets much easier.

The New System

Poliigon has now switched to a flat cost system. Here's how it works...

Regardless of how many files are included in each download it will have a flat cost defined to it.

Once you've acquired the asset it's yours to keep! It will then appear in your My Assets section, which you can revisit and redownload at any time, for free!

Here's the new pricing:

Surface Imperfections & Patterns = 5 credits
Brushes = 8 credits
HDRs = 10 credits
Photoscanned or Substance made: 10 credits

Finally, as a gift to our existing customers, if you previously downloaded any part of texture (eg. one diffuse map): you have now been gifted the entire asset for free.

Click "Acquired Assets" in the side bar to see what you currently own :)

New Metal Textures

July 04, 2018 by Andrew Price

The textures theme for July is Metal. We spent the last few weeks designing and capturing all sorts of metal, from industrial, to imperfections to remastering some old ones. They are live now.

Let's dive in! First up...

Designer Metals (17 New)

Apparently designer metal is *in* right now: Interior designers everywhere are finding creative ways to infuse metal into more parts of the building.

With this new batch of 17 Designer Metals you can stay ahead of the hypetrain:

Some up close renders:

Go to the Designer Metals

Plain Metals (30 New)

Along with the designer metals, we've also added a collection of PBR accurate metals - with tiny, subtle imperfections to help push realism even further!

Industrial (5 New, 43 Remastered)

We've noticed an influx of industrial designers coming to Poliigon. So we're happy to throw a bone their way with some new metals for visualizations. Plus, we've also gone through and remastered 43 of our existing metals. So scratches and rust can look even better :)

Explore all Metal

Combine that with the previous metal release, and you've got plenty of options for your next scene!

As always, tweet your artworks to @PoliigonHQ - we love sharing what you make!

Top Community Renders from June '18

July 03, 2018 by Andrew Price

As is the monthly tradition here at Poliigon, we rounded up all the renders posted to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" in the description, and chose our favourites. The best render of the month will be awarded a year of Poliigon free!

First, the runner's up:

Render of the month:

Absolutely gorgeous! A superb use of the photoscanned snow and wood textures. As render of the month, Adam has been awarded a free year of Poliigon Freelancer!

How to get featured next month

At the end of every month month, we round up our favourite images and award the artist with the best image a year of Poliigon (Freelancer plan). Here's how to win or get featured:

Make something cool that uses at least 60% Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description
Wait till the end of the month to see if you were one of our favourites (or better yet the winner!)

Top Community Renders from May 18

June 20, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Every month we collect all the images post to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" in the description, select our favourites and share them here.

Here's what we loved from May...

Our Favourite:

Congrats Antonis! For this beautiful archiviz render, you've been awarded 12 months of Poliigon (Freelancer).

How to win a year of Poliigon

Every month we roundup our favourite images and award the best image a free 12 months of Poliigon (Freelancer plan).

Make something cool that uses at least 60% Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description
Wait till the end of the month to see if you were one of our favourites

Big Texture Release!

June 06, 2018 by Andrew Price

Over the last 2 years we've been collecting your texture requests and quietly building them. Today we're pleased to release a big batch them.

So as per your request, here's what's now available in the library:

#1: Bamboo

We've had exactly 20 user requests for bamboo! Which makes sense, since it's extremely popular for asian inspired architecture, AND very hard to find online since so thin and difficult to capture.

So we created the last batch of bamboo textures you'll need: individual stalks and a pre-assembled wall. All seamless!

See Bamboo Textures

#2: Roofing

Another hotly requested texture has been roofing! Specifically, european styled slates. So we've built exactly that:

See Roofing Textures

#3: Chainmail

This was a surprise to me, but evidently a LOT of artists have been wanting a chainmail texture for their medieval characters. So we've created 11 different chainmail types for bronze, steel and gold chainmail:

See Chainmail Textures

#4: Drywall

It's not the most exciting texture, but it's still in need! These 6 drywall textures are perfect for your next game level, environment art, or architecture:

See Drywall Textures

#5: Packaging Materials

While most of our users make architecture and environments, there's been a growing amount of industrial/product designers joining the site. So we listened to their requests, and released 13 new materials: packing foam, styrofoam, cork and paper:

See Packing Textures

#6: More Photoscans

Photoscans are here to stay. For bumpy surfaces like trees and grounds, photoscans are your ticket to realism.

So we've just added 9 large surface scans for your next outdoor scene:

See Photoscan Textures

#7: Solar Panels

As the world moves to renewable energy sources, more architects are being asked to include solar panels in their visualizations. So we're happy to say we've got you covered!

All seamless, and perfect for your next rooftop:

See Solar Panel textures

...and more.

These don't really fit into a specific category, but here they are:

Rubber Mulch (for playgrounds and outdoor settings)
Ice (for hockey and iced ponds)
Beach wave foam
Straw flooring (for barns)

The massive update is now live! Enjoy all the assets right now in the Poliigon Library.

See All textures

Top Community Renders from April 18

May 16, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Every month we collect all the images post to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" in the description, select our favourites and share them here.

Here's what we loved from April...

Our Favourite...

Phenomenal! Love that pose. We don't get many characters made with our textures, but they're always welcome! For his hard work Ninjason has one himself 12-months of Poliigon!

How to Win a Year of Poliigon

Every month we roundup our favourite images and award the best image a free 12 months of Poliigon (Freelancer plan).

Make something cool that uses at least 60% Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description
Wait till the end of the month to see if you were one of our favourites

New Nature Scans

April 29, 2018 by Andrew Price in Releases

When it comes to outdoor environments, you can never have enough textures. And as we explained in a previous video, the top tier textures are always photoscanned.

So we're pleased to announce a small release of nature scans!

There are 11 new Bark scans:

15 new Ground scans:

As well as 15 new flower and leaf captures:

Here's some eye candy to get your scene started!

Access the latest scans

Look forward to seeing what you make! Tweet your renders to @poliigonHQ and we'll retweet our favs :)

Top Community Renders From March 2018

April 12, 2018 by Guest User in Monthly Roundup

Every month we do a roundup of the best renders from the community, so here's March 2018! They were all found on ArtStation with "Textures from Poliigon.com" in the description.

Let's dive in...

Created by Bohdan Kryvetskyy, using the Grunge and Nature textures.

Created by Martin Wahlberg, using the Wood and Concrete textures.

Created by George Turmanidze, using the Wood and Fabric textures.

Created by Martin Kovacik, using the Concrete and Grunge textures.

Created by Helmy Ardiansyah, using the Rock and Wood textures.

Created by Vic Nguyen, using the Wood and Concrete textures.

And the Render of the Month is...

Created by Daniel Diaz Del Castillo, using the Wood and Fabric textures.

Gooooorgeous scene! Absolutely flawless. As Render of the Month, Daniel has received a free 12-months of Poliigon Freelancer!

How to win next month:

We award a year of Poliigon to the best render every month. Here's how to enter:

Make an awesome image that uses at least 60% Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description
Wait till the end of the month to see if you were featured here. Best render wins the prize!

Anyone can win, (yes even trial users)!

New Fabric Sculpting Brushes

March 27, 2018 by Andrew Price in Releases

Before the days of Marvellous Designer, most 3D artists would grimace at the thought of creating clothing. Because that meant using either slow glitchy cloth sims, or painstakingly sculpting fold by fold and (usually) failing terribly.

Then Marvellous Designer came on the scene and made cloth sims easy!

"Woo! Fabric is finally easy" -some 3D artist probably

Marvellous is now the industry standard tool for anything involving clothing.

But there's one thing Marvellous isn't so good at...

The downside to Marvelous Designer: Detail

While Marvellous Designer is good at creating the large scale folds and forms, it unfortunately struggles with upclose detail.

All those wrinkles and creases in the real bed? Marvellous won't be able to make that anytime soon.

Pro-artists know about this already, and fix the problem by taking the mesh into Zbrush and manually sculpting out extra folds and creases by hand.

But this is preeeeetty time-consuming.

I spoke with some character artists at Ubisoft and Blur Studios about this problem, and they said that the one thing that would make this easier is a set of brushes specially designed for fabric sculpting. So we made some...

Introducing Fabric Brushes

These 78 brushes take the tedious process of manually sculpting detail, and turn it into one brush stroke.

By just dragging them onto your mesh you're getting accurate folds, wrinkles and detail from real fabric scans and photo refs.

This means that with very little effort you can create some really nice results:

There are 3 types fabric brushes now available:

Folds - for adding small to medium sized folds to the existing folds in your mesh.
Wrinkles - for adding creases and permanent wrinkles commonly found in unironed fabric and bedsheets.
Seams - for adding stitches and seams.

Download the Brushes

How to Use them

Each brush comes with a .ZBP file, for Zbrush, as well as a .PSD file, for any other sculpting program like Blender. And for the seams, there is a special ID mask provided that works in Substance Painter.

Full videos and instructions are now available in the Help Center.

Watch Tutorials

More Example Renders!

Poliigon members can download the brushes now.

We look forward to seeing what you make with them! If you do make something cool, send it to us on twitter at @PoliigonHQ

Top Community Renders From February 2018

March 14, 2018 by Andrew Price in Monthly Roundup

Top Poliigon Community Renders From February 2018

Top Community Renders From January 2018

February 20, 2018 by Guest User in Monthly Roundup

We love seeing what the Poliigon community makes. Which is why every month we do a roundup of the best renders made using our textures.

Here's our favourite renders from January, posted to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description.

Created by Roman Kolyada, using the Concrete and Sky HDR textures.

Created by George Turmanidze, using the Marble and Metal textures.

Created by Serge Rodionov, using the Bricks and Fabric textures.

Created by Mateusz Wielgus, using the Metal and Surface Imperfection textures.

Created by .nul ., using the Grunge and Concrete textures.

Small note: If this was a photorealism competition, you would definitely win! Really well done :)

Created by Janus Larsen, using the Manmade and Concrete textures.

Created by Adam Radziszewski, using the Tiles and Grunge textures.

And the Render of the Month is...

Gorgeous interior! I love the choice of using natural materials like wood and marble to make the interior feel inviting. Really great job.

As Render of the Month, Daniel, you've been awarded 12-month plan of Poliigon Freelancer!

A chance to win every month:

We award a year of Poliigon to the best render of every month. Here's how to enter:

Make an awesome image that uses at least 60% Poliigon textures
Post it to ArtStation with the words "Textures from Poliigon.com" somewhere in the description
Wait till the end of the month to see if you were featured here. Best render wins the prize!

Anyone can win, (yes even trial users)!

New Studio Lighting HDRs

February 07, 2018 by Andrew Price

It's no secret that lighting is important. A simple change to the colour or lighting direction can completely transform a render from looking sad, interesting, creepy or artistic.

But that doesn't change the fact that lighting is really hard to do. When you finish a model you often end up dragging lamps around, not really sure if you're improving it or making it worse. And based on surveys done on BlenderGuru, I'm not alone in this.

A few years ago I decided to find answers in photography. Because unlike us, photographers don't get any bonus points for a "realistic render", they have to rely on important fundamentals like lighting.

I read photography books, attended photography courses, and even paid to visit a photographers studio, all to discover how they approach lighting.

What I discovered was actually a relief! Photographers find lighting equally frustrating. Because there's not one light setup that works everytime.

What works for one subject, often doesn't work for the next

Each new subject requires a period of experimentation, trying out many lighting setups and styles until they find something that works.

But for photographers, the most time consuming part of this process is in setting up and tweaking the physical lights, because even with assistants, it's tedious.

And that got me thinking... as 3D artists we're working digitally. There's no reason we should have to manually move and tweak our lamps by hand like they do. Why not let the software do it for us?

Introducing Studio Lighting HDRs

Instead of needing to setup lights yourself, this new collection of HDRs contain all the lights for you. So all you need to is add one to your scene and you've got instant lighting and reflections.

But the real power is when you load in more than one, then cycle through them. This gives you the same experimental workflow that photographers use, minus the tedious manual labor. And you'd be amazed at how often the best style is the one you previously wouldn't have tried.

The light setups aren't random either. Each one is based off lighting from cinematographers, famous photographers and artists.

And since Poliigon is all about realism, each of the lamps in the HDR was based off a real physical light source like a softbox or umbrella. So that if a light appears in a reflection it'll look real.

They're are 4 different lighting categories, with 10 HDRs in each:

We look forward to seeing your awesome studio renders! :)

Download them now

How to Use Them

Blender

How to customize the Studio HDRs with Photoshop

Other applications

If you've used HDR lighting before, then these studio hdrs are used in the exact same way. But if you're not sure though, here's some helpful third-party tutorials to show you how this is typically done:

Welcome to the new Poliigon!

January 18, 2018 by Andrew Price

We've been teasing a "new website" for months. And while it took way longer than expected, we're happy to say it's finally here! Visit Poliigon to check it out.

Here's some of the highlights...

Faster speeds!

The most notable change is a site-wide speed improvement. While the previous site was sluggish, the new Poliigon has a completely rewritten backend optimized for faster loadtimes!

At times you can expect loadtime improvements of up to 92%!

Try it out in the gallery.

On-Demand Credits

By far the biggest feature request from users of Poliigon is On-Demand credits, and we're pleased to say that it's here!

For casual artists that only need a handful of textures every once in a while, you can now choose from a selection of credits packs.

And best of all, they never expire!

Credit Rollover

Another heavily requested feature: not losing the credits you don't use.

We're pleased to present credit rollovers for every plan:

Hobby: 1-month rollover
Freelance and Production: 3-month rollover

To hang on to your unused rollover credits, all you need is an active subscription.

Download Cart

When you're building a 3d scene, you often need to look through hundreds of possible materials. Which is why many users requested a way to save the materials they're interested in, in a cart system.

Now when viewing a texture, you'll see two buttons: Add to Download Cart or Download Immediately.

Clicking the Add-to-Download-Cart button will save your download to your cart (which you can view by clicking the cart icon in the top right corner of your screen). There you can see every texture selected and remove them if needed.

We're hoping this will make your texture browsing experience better :)

Select your maps to Download

Previously on Poliigon if you only wanted to download only three of seven maps, you had to download them separately.

But its much easier now thanks to a system that lets you choose the maps you want, at the resolution you want, downloaded in one zip:

Own them forever

This one is more of a UI improvement, because you could actually re-download your textures for free on the old site, but it wasn't stated anywhere.

So we want to make it crystal clear: when you download it, you own it and can re-download it anytime for free!

There's now a section in the sidebar called "Already Purchased" which takes you to the previously downloaded textures.

Note: In future clicking the sidebar link will display the items in the search results to make it easier.

Paypal support

When we launched Poliigon, we wrongly assumed that credit card support would be enough. But we quickly discovered that Paypal was the only option for many countries and age groups. That and some people just prefer it!

So we're happy to say that we finally support Paypal! :D If you want to change your billing details to Paypal, you can do so in your Billing Info settings.

Category sidebar

Browsing the old site was surprisingly frustrating, so we've added a permanent sidebar that shows you where you are in the library:

A future update will add sub-categories, an asset counter, and a library homepage (similar to the old site).

Visit the new Poliigon

From everyone here at Poliigon, we hope you find the new site easier and faster to use! If you have any questions, feel free to email us at support@poliigon.com.

What's your favorite new feature? Do you have a request that wasn't included here? Let us know in the comments!

And the render of the month is…

How to feature here next month

Two Big Reasons to Use Poliigon Models

#1 The First Multi-Compatible Library

#2 Consistent High Quality

1: Interior Scene Fillers﻿

2: Kitchenware

3: Food

Demo Renders

This is just the start….

Render of the Month…

How to feature here next month

And the render of the month is…

How to feature here next month

And the winner is...

How to feature here next month

The Render of the Month:

How to feature here next month:

The New System

Designer Metals (17 New)

Plain Metals (30 New)

Industrial (5 New, 43 Remastered)

First, the runner's up:

Render of the month:

How to get featured next month

Here's what we loved from May...

Our Favourite:

How to win a year of Poliigon

#1: Bamboo

#2: Roofing

#3: Chainmail

#4: Drywall

#5: Packaging Materials

#6: More Photoscans

#7: Solar Panels

...and more.

Here's what we loved from April...

Our Favourite...

How to Win a Year of Poliigon

And the Render of the Month is...

How to win next month:

The downside to Marvelous Designer: Detail

Introducing Fabric Brushes

How to Use them

More Example Renders!

And the Render of the Month is...

A chance to win every month:

Introducing Studio Lighting HDRs

How to Use Them

Blender

How to customize the Studio HDRs with Photoshop

Other applications

Faster speeds!

On-Demand Credits

Credit Rollover

Download Cart

Select your maps to Download

Own them forever

Paypal support

Category sidebar

1: Interior Scene Fillers