This page contains links to art assets for game developers. If you have any suggestions (for new sites to list) or comments (on anything listed on this page already), please let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Free Resources
General:
- Open Game Art: Free, legal art for open source game projects (includes models, sprites, textures, sounds, music).
- Free Game Arts: Promotes the use and development of free and “open source” game resources, including 3D models, sound effects, textures, games and development tools.
- WikiWorlds: The goal of this wiki is to create virtual worlds under a free content license.
- Psionic’s 3D Game Resources: Psionic’s “art website with free 3D models, textures, sound fx etc”.
Graphics (2D):
- SpriteLib GPL: Static and animated sprites that are free for any use.
- Lost Garden free game graphics: Danc’s miraculously flexible game prototyping graphics for small worlds.
- Reiner’s Tilesets: Tilesets, sprites, and graphics mainly for isometric games
Sound:
- The Freesound Project: A collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds.
- pdsounds: Public domain sounds, a free sound library.
- FlashKit SoundFx: An ever growing list of shareware and freeware SoundFX for download.
- DrPetter’s sfxr: Retro sound effects generator.
Music:
- Jamendo: Free and legal music downloads.
- Free Music Archive: “It’s not just free music, it’s good music”.
- Incompetech: Royalty free music search.
- Open Music Archive: A collaborative project to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings.
Models:
- The Official Blender Model Repository: Free Blender resources.
- Kagor Legaz’s 3D Models: Variety of Blender models.
- Google 3D Warehouse: 3D models for use in Google SketchUp.
Textures:
- CG Textures: The world’s largest free texture site.
- Mayang’s Free Textures: Over 3800 free to download, high-resolution textures.
- Texture Archive: Neat collection of environmental and fabric textures.
- Image * After: A large online free photo collection. Download and use any image or texture and in your own work, either personal or commercial. (Site includes images as well as textures).
Animation:
- CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database: 2605 animations in 6 categories and 23 subcategories. Free for all uses.
- mocapdata.com: Commercial site with over 4000 free animations in addition to their premium animations.
- Truebones: Inexpensive commercial motion capture in BVH file format. Some free files available upon request.
Fonts:
- Open Font Library: High quality open-source fonts.
- The League of Moveable Type: Only the most well-made, free & open-source, @font-face ready fonts.
- dafont.com: The fonts presented on this website are their authors’ property, and are either freeware, shareware, demo versions or public domain.
- Acid Fonts: Large collection of free fonts.
Icons:
- famfamfam icons: Popular free icon set for web projects.
- Tango Icon Library: Contains a basic set of icons for the most common usage.
Text:
- serendipity: Various random name and description generators (may be good for RPGs).
Reference:
- Wikimedia Commons: Browse free photographs, illustrations, and diagrams.
- Creative Commons Search: Search for Creative Commons licensed content (images, videos, music, etc.) on multiple sites.
Commercial Resources
- Frogames content packs: Inexpensive content packs mostly for Torque and Unity3D.
- Dexsoft: High-quality model packs with LODs, textures, and animations. Available in multiple formats.
- 3DRT: Looks more expensive and of lower quality than Frogames and Dexsoft. (Some free content.)
- Game Beep: Free and commercial resources in various categories. (Free content is generally available elsewhere.)
- Animeeple: A easy-to-use character animation tool with a focus on its built-in animation store. (Looks neat.)
- MyFonts: Good commercial fonts website. Features “WhatTheFont” feature to assist in identifying fonts based on images.
Notes: The Frograms and Dexsoft content packs look well-designed and economical for indie game developers using Torque or Unity3D.
Related Resources
These websites are a bit of a mixed bag as their content is generally not directly targeted at games or their prices may be too high for indie developers.
Graphics (2D):
- Open Clip Art Library: Good resource for vector clip art, but how often is that used in games?
Graphics (3D):
- TurboSquid 3D Marketplace: Well-established website, but quality and costs vary greatly.
- ShareCG: More targeted at artists wanting to gain exposure. Membership (free) required to download assets.
- Archive3D: Mostly furniture and other high resolution models for architectural visualisation.
- NASA 3D Resources: A growing collection of 3D models, textures, and images from inside NASA. Free to download and use.
- 3D Model Repositories list: From the accompany website for the book Level of Detail for 3D Graphics. More research focussed.
Classic game assets:
- VGMusic: Video game music from classic games.
- Sprite Database: Sprite rips from classic games.
Other Lists
Here are a few similar lists maintained on other sites:
- Game Content Resources page on The Game Programming Wiki
- Art Collections page on gamedev.net
- Free 3D and 2D art and audio resources page on the FreeGameDevWiki
Thanks to the following members of the PIGMI mailing list for suggesting some resources: Chris McCormick, Rohan Anchan, Saxon Druce, Paul Turbett, Matt Fracassini.
Good! very useful.tnanks!
Wow, very extensive and thorough list. Thank you very much.
May I make a suggestion of a site that provides great free & paid 2D art assets?
1) http://www.roencia.com- for free art
2) http://www.graphicsforgames.com – for indie developer resources
I need to fix the link on http://www.roencia.com The previous post put a dash in the name and leads to the wrong place.
Thanks for the links. I was searching for this for many time.
Brilliant, I had come across this from a Google search for fee art assets. Excellent compilation of resources. Thank you very much. Very Informative.
OpenGameArt.org has all kinds of free and legal art assets available.
http://www.nosoapradio.us
Has over 300 tracks of free game music
Wow!!!
Fantastic collection..
Keep Up the good works…
Cheers!!!
Hi! We’ve just opened up our asset store:
http://www.scirra.com/store
Not much in it at the moment but we’re working hard to grow it
If you could kindly add us to this list it would be most appreciated!
Thanks for the link.
Hello,
May I suggest this site for texture assets?
http://www.somanytextures.com
Although it is new, I like it because the downloads are far cheaper than other stock sites
Hi there! We have a growing 2D Game Assets store:
http://www.indiegamedesigner.com
We have loads of free content: http://www.indiegamedesigner.com/category/free/
And we have a growing game assets store with our first free tutorials launching this month.
Hope you all like it!
I found your site while looking for open source sound files. I also found a site called Soundcities and didn’t see it listed on your site. For the record, I am not affiliated with either letsmakegames.org or soundcities.com (I just thought it would be neat to add a bit to the collection).
Soundcities
http://www.soundcities.com
Soundcities is an “online open source database of city sounds and soundmaps from around the world using online found sounds and field recordings.”
“The soundmaps and the database can be listened to, used in performances, or played on mobiles via wireless networks. [...] Soundcities uses city recorded soundscapes from world cities made over the last twelve years. [...] The Database is also open so anyone can upload sounds they collect from world cities, thereby making a contribution to the project. [...] The project is now much copied by academics as well as The British library Soundmap and The BBC.”
(quoted text is from the Soundcities Info page http://www.soundcities.com/info.php)
2012.09.30
Enjoy!
Here’s a big collection (almost 900 at the moment) of game icons released in CC-BY : http://game-icons.net
Hey found a new gaming asset site that is also looking for contributes for designs.
http://www.indiegamestock.com
some pretty good stuff already uploaded.
They are doing a soft launch of the site now so may be best time to get in.
have a good one, Will
Thanks for the post and comments. I created own list with greatest sound effects for game developers. Some free, commercial and torrents.
The GameArtiste asset store is now open for business: http://gameartiste.com/store
Hi!
I would like to share with you a site where you can find good graphics for games. Not free but worth a look.
http://www.graphics4games.com
Thanks!
I have created over 100 cartoon game assets on http://www.Graphic-Buffet.com
You can use them in game AND you get the original editable files so you can make them your own
Hey I was coming here to pimp indiegamestock.com but someone did it already! I appreciate the love, thanks very much for that.
Graphic Buffet is awesome too (its listed) you should check that out as well.
Make a kick ass game!
Brad Hatcher
indiegamestock.com