Ho well! I'm tired of searching for something like this and get the same old results on Google, so I've decided to look here for guidance. I have extensive knowledge on PS too bad it's mostly web desing and basic stuff when it comes to real creative things, I can defend myself and I have done several "online tuts" regarding textures, but I'm looking for something more... dedicated. Like a texture generator, yesterday I found the Texture Maker a very old and outdated software, (last official update on the site was in 2004 o_O ) so I need something a little mroe advance, and btw there's no guides about the software, anywho the textures generated where good ... for it's time, but as a designer myself I can see the buggy inside. Many things wrong and missplaced with that software, it has good things too! But without the basics or tuts I can't do much with this new tool.

So it all boils down to find a new soft or a Photoshop Plugin, like a suite or something. I'm working on a new world space, from scratch got the land and statics working allright but I need a makeover, a new set of textures for my semi-tropical volcanic islands, and I need to create them myself, the problem with re-using textures is they never blend too well... and I want to make a breathtaking basic landscape.

Any help and suggestions are appreciated, I will check this topic often to see if anyone can give me a hand with this.

Thanks in advance!

The texture functions included in Texture Maker are available from a variety of software, both free and commercial.

For normal maps, you can convert grayscale bump/displacement maps to normal maps with the NVIDIA plugins for PhotoShop. You'll need their plugins anyway to load and save .dds files. If you want to go deeper into it, look at: ShaderMap Pro, CrazyBump, xNormal, and nDo. Or create the surface in a 3D modeler and bake it.

For creating procedural textures, see the http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=93. Although the list is quite long, it doesn't include the texture generators included with 3D modelers. Blender's procedural texture generator is now graphical node based. Arguably the most versatile free procedural texture/material generator is the one that's part of AOI (Art of Illusion). It has a very steep learning curve, but once you get past it, you can create almost anything.

If you are lucky enough to have an older version of PhotoShop that includes ImageReady, that will satisfy most of your seamless texture needs. If you want more, check Texture Studio and Seamless Texture Generator. If you are fluent in C++, the source code is available for Texture Studio.

About the only other thing that Texture Maker does is unskew images of surfaces that were photographed at an angle. You can do that with Inkscape which is also a good complement to PS for drawing/painting textures anyway.

Thanks for the info Vince I will check out that list to see what can I find for an affordable price, who knows maybe I can find something easy and for free, I'm not into 3D so forget about it, somebody told me about zBrush but is 3D and I don't have any training in that arena. Anyways, I do really appreciate your help!

Seeya

MaPZone is a pretty sophisticated procedural texture generator with a somewhat steep learning curve. I've used it myself for several textures. I started writing a http://www.truancyfactory.com/tutorials/mapzone.html for it, but it only covers the basics. You can create photo-realistic textures using it if you know what you're doing.

I can recommend http://www.filterforge.com/ and http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/index.htm.

Filter Forge is great because it has thousands of free user made filters... with more being added every day. So it's only going to get better with time. But the program itself is not free...

I also like Genetica from Spiral Graphics. It seems a little easier to use than Filter Forge, and it doesn't take as long to render images for me either. Their main product(Genetica) costs money, but the free Genetica Viewer and Wood Workshop are excellent, easy to use programs to get you started on texture generation.

Both programs are easy to use though, especially if you just use filters/content created by others. But if you want to create your own textures within these programs, it seems fairly complex... though certainly not impossible.