Links
WORLD BUILDING RESOURCES
- BLDGBLOG
Geoff Manaugh has built one of the most inspirational Architectural resources online which has it's own exhaustive links list that fly off in all sorts of directions, most of them relevant to World Building.
- Pruned
A kind of sister site to BLDGBLOG but with a focus on Landscape Architecture.
- Mammoth
More architectural spinoffs in the flavor of BLDGBLOG with a leaning toward landscape. Lots of good stuff here.
- CG Textures
Probably the best texture resource online. It's free, unless you need to download more than 15MB a day, in which case you can buy a yearly subscription.
- Mayang's Free Textures
Another great texture resource.
- Forest Imagery
A healthy collection of photographs including some from Bialowieza Forest in Poland.
- Cascade Images
Waterfalls..
- BigPicture from the Boston Globe
A lot of great aerial photography makes its way onto this site. Be sure to check out the 'Martian Landscapes' post.
- Simon Norfolk: Photography
Lots of remarkable imagery here focusing mainly on warzone related locations from a distinguished photojournalist turned landscape photographer.
- Panoramas.dk
Full 360 degree views. A few worthwhile scenes to check out here.
- SleepyCity: Urban Exploration
My choice of the urban exploration sites. Check his Flickr page and his Links.
- The Vanishing Point
An urban exploration link not covered in SleepyCity's links section.
- World Machine 2
My choice of the Terrain Heightmap Generators.
- Game Art Asset Creation: Thesis by Markus Hofer
A friend's thesis which provides a good coverage of the basics.
- The Polycount Forums
Frequented by many in the Game Development Industry. A good place to go if you have any questions about tools and techniques.
- The Polycount Wiki
A lot of good information here about techniques used in Game Development.
- CrazyBump
The default tool for generating Normal Maps.
- Generating Random Fractal Terrain
A good explanation of what's going on behind terrain noise generation.
- Ken Perlin explains Perlin Noise
Based on a talk presented at GDCHardCore on Dec 9, 1999
- Robert Briscoe's Devblog
Excellent World Builder who is generous with his screenshots.
- Robert Briscoe Thread
Robert Briscoe details some of his process in the Unreal3 Engine.
- Polycount Wiki: What are Normal Maps?
Excellent page for understanding Normal Maps. Lots of links to follow.
- Doug Ellison
Unmanned spacecraft enthusiast. Some good links and Mars Surafce animations to be found.
- Adrian Lark
Another planetary surface visualiser. Lots to see here.
- FreeGeogrphyTools
Free Geography Tools is an exceptionally good site for “Exploring the world of free tools for GIS, GPS, Google Earth, neogeography, and more”. Kind of a BLDGBLOG for terrain imaging.
- Terrain Bender
Cartography cross platform application that gives exceptional control to the task of bending terrains via .asc files. I can see this being used to produce better backdrops. It's also a pleasure to play with, nicely presented.
- LandSerf
Of the many many GIS applications you might come across to open DEM files such as the .asc format, I recommend this as it's cross platform, lite and nice to look at.
- Avenza Photoshop Plugin
Enjoy the 2 week trial period of freely opening DEM formats in Photoshop.
- Terrain Models
Every other kind of terrain modeling covered here. Great site, check out the Eduard Imhof page.
- GIS previewer for MacOSX
Gives Mac users the abilty to browse and preview GIS data in finder windows.
UNITY3D LINKS
GUNKANJIMA LINKS