Prototyping is an essential part of any project development during the pre-production stage. Prototyping, when done right, is not only a great way to answer design questions but also an efficient way of communicating your ideas with others. However, most of the time, we like to use the so-called “programmer art” in our prototypes and I am strongly against such practice. Although aesthetic is not essential in most prototyping stages, it is important to create a clean looking demo with a consistent looking art style. Bad art in prototypes can be very distracting for the audiences and thus counteracts the effect of what the demo is trying to communicate with the audiences. Therefore, I decided to compile a list of free resources that I have been using throughout the years. This list is in no way an exhaustive one but in my opinion, they produce the best result and most of them have a very consistent look, which is lacking in most of the free asset packages.
General:
Open Game Art: https://opengameart.org/
Kenny Asset: https://www.kenney.nl/assets (This is guy is a saint. His free asset packages all have a consistent art style as well as a high quality)
3D Models:
Google Poly: https://poly.google.com/ (Assets uploaded by Poly by Google generally have a higher quality and )
Blender Swap: https://www.blendswap.com/ (Go to the Staff-Picks section for high-quality models )
Blender Models: https://www.blender-models.com/model-downloads/characters/ (This site requires some digging)
Sound:
Freesound: https://freesound.org/ (A good place to look for all kinds of free music and SFX)
Noise for Fun: https://www.noiseforfun.com/ (Amazing place for SFX)
Sound Image: https://soundimage.org/ (Although this site has free textures and SFX, I like its collection of game music loop the most)
Skyboxes
HDRI Haven: https://hdrihaven.com/
Textures:
CG Textures: https://www.textures.com/
Poliigon: https://www.poliigon.com/search?is_free=true
Texture Haven: https://texturehaven.com/
Animations:
Mixamo: https://www.mixamo.com/#/
CMU Graphic Lab Motion Capture Database: http://mocap.cs.cmu.edu/ (Most of these motion capture data needs to be processed in animation software before its ready to be used in games)
UI Elements:
Free Game Icons: https://game-icons.net/ (A plethora of game icons with a consistent look)
Creative Game Assets: https://www.creativegameassets.com/free-assets
Fonts:
Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com/
Open Font Library: https://fontlibrary.org/
The League of Moveable Type: https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
