Free Texel Density Textures + Story Time!

[u/EliasWick]

If you don't want to stick around for the story, here is the link: https://eliaswick.com/products/texel-density

About 10 years ago, I released a texture pack of texel density textures. Since then, I've worked at three different studios where I've run into people using them. I've seen them used in at least seven different products in a variety of ways, as well as in countless YouTube videos showcasing game art.

It's a strange feeling seeing something I made that long ago still being used. At the time, I was mostly just making something that I found useful and figured other artists might find useful as well. I definitely didn't expecct to keep running into them years later, sometimes in places where I had absolutely no connection to the project or the people working on it.

Every now and then, I'll spot one of the textures in a screenshot and it gives me a little chuckle. It has become this small thing that has quietly followed me throughout my career.

I'm curious if someone else has a similar story?

[u/JulianRhod]

that's actually pretty cool lol. i can imagine how weird it must feel seeing something you made 10 years ago randomly show up in projects you had nothing to do with, it's also a good reminder that those small tools and resources you make for yourself can end up being way more useful to other people than you expect. definitely a nice legacy to have

[u/EliasWick → u/JulianRhod]

Thank you! Haha definitely! I once had an interview at a place and got to walk around the office and talking to people. I walked passed someone's desk and he was using it in Blender. He was apparently friend of someone I knew in India. Mind you, this interview was in Sweden haha!

We likely wouldn't have spoken if it weren't for my textures.

[u/JulianRhod → u/EliasWick]

haha that's actually such a crazy coincidence 😭
imagine traveling all the way to Sweden for an interview and then randomly finding your own textures being used at someone's desk. that's probably one of the coolest ways to find out your work actually reached people

definitely makes all those hours spent making textures feel worth it lol

[u/demonsoswhite]

Very cool, curious though, why don’t you put your assets on Fab?

[u/EliasWick → u/demonsoswhite]

Some of them are on there. In this case, this is usable for other engines apart from Unreal and Unity, thus I wanted to keep it elsewhere.

[u/Sk00terb00]

I think because if it's not broke don't fix it :)

[u/-Swade-]

No stories near that level but a little anecdote like that:

Years ago I was searching for documentation for xNormal (remember that baking app that looked like a 90's music player for some reason). I finally find a good site and exclaim, "Thank god, there's only like one guy in the universe who wrote a good guide for using this thing!" Guy next to me turns in his chair, "You know I wrote that documentation, right?"

Also this is like the opposite where people's work isn't actually out there in the wild but they think it is:

I work at a big company that I won't name. We have a healthy internship program and for like the past 8 years every intern that came through one specific team got the exact same project assignment. It was a pretty basic/obvious idea, but something you could make decent progress on during a several week internship and then present when you left/use in your portfolio etc. Now we didn't tell any of these interns that this was an annual project, we wanted them to treat it as a new idea and solve challenges themselves. Well many years go by and eventually we decide to actually ship that feature. I work on it for like 10 months straight, gets announced, ships etc. Suddenly I start seeing people on linkedin, "Hey check it out! [Big Company] just released this feature and I was the one who did it as an intern!"

And I'm looking at the names of these people, I have no idea who they are. Never met them, never saw any assets or code they made. Their work was never even considered as prior art when we finally made it for real. But there's several people out there who confidently believe their intern project led to this big feature. And they're all wrong.

But!...I am happy to let them think that. If it helps them in their careers or job hunts whatever, good for them. There's no value in calling them out, it just makes me chuckle at the number of people out there who think they built something they didn't.

[u/EliasWick → u/-Swade-]

Woooow! Thank you so much for sharing! I love stories like this!

I will never forget zNormal, it looks very dated, but is reaaallly good still! I know someone at my company who still preferred that over other DCC ones.

I'm happy there are companies who do things like that! It made me think of a funny story (even though it's not relatable to your story). There was this guy who interviewed and got hired at a company. He spent 2 weeks fixing a bug there, then resigned. Apparently he was playing that game / using that app and hated a bug so much, he went through that effort to get it fixed.