TriumphantArtists Classic Collection

Over the  half decade from the end of  2012 to summer 2018, I  was steadily building a vast personal collection of unique stock textures and video elements from photos I took. The original versions used no AI in any capacity but recent overhauls of that collection - later updates - use it to a limited degree. As in, part of the process for generation of more detailed depth maps, AI now used to add fine grained detail to maps that previously were fully hand painted, done with older non AI software methods.  Now the hand edits are blended with Substance AI output in some surfaces. Note that while this results in an 'AI' label here it does not mean making this was in any way easy or that any of the diffuse sources were generated by AI. The textures all started as real world photography and that's why they look as credible as they do. Hundreds of hours of manual *human labor* editing were put into them, which is why it is painful to have to label any of this 'AI' as that will leave the entire package ignored and filtered out by most people here on itch regardless of the sheer effort involved in making this collection.

The result, as once seen on one of my websites (TriumphantArtists.com) is an enormous assortment of materials useful to indie VFX and game artists, including:

- over 1100 total texture image files, including diffuse, normal, bump, and opacity maps, which could prove very useful for 3d artists and game developers. All textures here are seamlessly tiling. And as of 2024, massive updates to improve, expand, and overhaul the collection!

-A batch of 100+ decals   to make surfaces look more messy, grungy, and realistically detailed, plus a few overlays like dust, lens flares, water, etc, that can be layered over images or video with an 'add' or 'screen' filter. 

-Well over a hundred video clips, some lower-end SD, many in HD, often shot at 60 or 120fps high-speed and most of them at least in theory both useful and easy for VFX artists to composite due to black or blue backing. This is stuff that is now pretty much all accessible for free given the increasing uselessness of SD and 720p video in modern editing. 

The types of video elements include debris bursts, water effects, smoke, fire, and a bunch of explosions. Nearly all of this is actual physical effects work, shot for real. Only a few of the video elements included are old school 3d simulation, and they're separated in different subfolders than the real-world photographed effects. 

[Other notes - the files are all in folders, that have been zipped together into one massive .ZIP file in an attempt to make downloading simpler.]

There is a ton of material here you may find useful. But also a lot of it is aging badly and some is dated, there's SD video material in this mix from as far back as 2009-2013, which is why that video content has gone freeware - but all the texture content has been heavily reworked and is still VERY useful even now. 

SUMMER 2024 - phasing in some assorted subtle overhauls to the 1100 textures, original versions used no AI in any capacity and that form is still available. Many of the revised textures are adjusted to 'powers of two' resolution, and inconsistencies in seamlessness are now totally consistent. Basically a lot of careful work put in material by material, for 1100+ image files (!) and that update is now live [FINALLY!] which is pretty great. A recent file update at start of 2025 has added a few completely new textures as well to the overhauling of numerous old classics!

(AI issue clarification): Yes, this work was (mostly, almost entirely - very extensively and time consumingly) hand edited. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of human work, my work, went into that. Yes, it's still all based on and built from, photography from the real world.  Every single material here looks photoreal because it is derived and manually edited from real photos I took myself. There are in certain cases depth map layers blended into the simpler depth maps, depth detail passes using AI (Adobe Substance) to extrapolate depth more realistically from the source diffuse map. No, the initial diffuse maps and sources were not in any case or capacity made with AI. It all starts with real sources from the real world. A lot of meticulous editing. No, the depth maps are not all AI based, a lot of the layers there are made using traditional methods, but in some cases AI was used to add a detail layer pass on depth maps that in the broad sense were heavily hand edited and carefully hand drawn but needed fine grained surface details that would have been near impossible for anyone to do as well any other way. I am unsure how this specific usage or workflow fits into the itch AI policy. This - the refining of detailing on PBR depth maps on this specific asset pack - is the only case in any of my content anywhere where AI was used in any capacity at all. And it was used to add additional detail passes to depth maps, not to create the content out of nowhere more broadly. The materials look real and authentic because the sources were real. And because I did a lot of intentional work throughout.

I am not in favor of simply making stuff outright with AI in the way some do, because then you are dealing with a 'black box' and you lose realism and authenticity and control of the intended design. But for some of the smaller and subtler tiny details - yes, it is useful. I don't know what you think of that and I'm torn on the idea of how to label this. That said... This stuff mostly is not AI generated and while a certain limited use was made of AI tools,  it's not the same as just spitting out textures entirely from MidJourney where there's no real world basis. 

I have a weird conflicting feeling as an artist where I detest the use of AI when it makes stuff entirely up out of nothing - just replacing the entire creative process fully with slop, and displaces genuinely creative work, but if AI is used to automate really insanely tedious subtasks in graphics work which while art adjacent, are simply not creative, like extremely detailed depth maps, or painstakingly rotoscoping an object out of a video, or NeRFs (neural radiance fields) as a way of improving the accuracy of photogrammetry which was never really anything other than automated in the first place but applying AI means less manual cleanup of the output, I don't see why any human should have to do the extremely dull graphics things or how removing those intensely tedious repetitious tasks from a workflow does much other than empower artists to focus on the actual art and creative side of 3d and video work, so... yeah.  

Not 'AI always evil' or 'good' but admittedly useful and capable for certain limited niche software tasks while clearly problematic in other ways (if it means ceding any human control of any aspect of the bigger design, that's a nope).

All 3000+ existing  asset files across all asset packs , plus all  future updates to those,  and indie  games when they release,  bundled for about $2-3 or 90+% off,    during holiday sale events. Check my main profile for more info.

PLEASE RATE, REVIEW, WISHLIST, COMMENT, FOLLOW,  ASK QUESTIONS, OFFER SUGGESTIONS, ETC... your feedback HAS IMPACT!

COMMENTS & REQUESTS WELCOMED:

So, yes, I hope to hear some responses from all of you. Those responses have already made a major difference. If, for example, I'm seeing a number of people all requesting a certain type of texture, 3d object, or video VFX element I may make that a priority in later updates. So I WILL respond to your feedback as much as I reasonably can. I welcome your replies. 

A BIG THANK YOU to the people who have already purchased, some of you even tipped! THANK YOU!