Every Kind of Rock, Photographed Up Close

The rock type decides the shape

A believable rock starts with geology. Granite weathers into rounded boulders. Volcanic rock can cool and crack into columns. Limestone and marble dissolve in water, so they grow ridges, flutes and holes. Layered sedimentary rock splits into flat plates. If you sculpt a boulder without knowing which family it belongs to, it often ends up as a generic lump. Pick a pack by rock type, and the shapes, cracks and colors will agree with each other.

Granite: rounded, heavy and scattered

• Jindabyne Lake Granite Boulders: 114 photos of round boulders scattered over high-altitude terrain and piled on a lake shore in Australia. It also includes 3D scan samples of the rocks, each 1.5 to 3 million triangles with 8K textures.
• Pink Granite Rocks in Bush Savannah: 326 photos in Queensland, from aerial views down to texture close-ups. The pink granite has darkened on its outer surface over time, a detail worth copying.
• Red Granite Mountains, Tasmania: 267 photos of the rounded red granite mounds of Freycinet National Park.

Volcanic rock: columns and fluted boulders

The Rhyolite Volcanic Columns pack (313 photos, Mt Somers, New Zealand) is split into 191 photos of the columns, 111 of the boulders at their base and 11 vistas. Black moss grows where water leaks down the rock. The Mossy Basalt Boulders pack shows something unusual: basalt with a fluted surface, like limestone karst, carved long ago by slightly acidic tree roots. It includes 130 photos and short handheld video clips of the valley. For lava fields and craters, see volcanic reference.

Limestone and marble: shaped by water

• Karst Marble Rocks: 186 photos of raw marble eroded into sharp ridges, in 2 folders: 70 photos of mossy forest marble and 116 of bare marble exposed to sun and wind. Raw marble looks nothing like the polished stone in buildings.
• Pancake Layered Cliffs: 810 photos of the stacked limestone at Punakaiki. 736 were shot in overcast light for even surface shading, and 74 in bright sun on a return visit.
• Porous Limestone Cliffs: limestone covered in small round holes, a surface rock climbers love. The pack includes 266 photos, 3 video clips and 5 3D samples of the surface.

Rocks that look invented

Some real rocks look like concept art. The Spherical Mineral Boulders pack (175 photos, New Zealand) shows round boulders 2 to 3 metres across that form over 4 to 5 million years under the seabed. Several are cracked open, so you can see the silt and clay inside, cemented by calcite. The Huge Gray Torlesse Boulders at Castle Hill rise up to 20 metres high. Its 583 photos include wide vistas, isolated rocks on a long lens and texture samples.

Building rocks in 3D

The license lets you build your own 3D models, photogrammetry meshes and textures from the photos for your projects. Several packs include ready 3D scan samples as a starting point. The Gray Mud Pinnacles pack has 10 raw photogrammetry samples, each with an 8192 × 8192 texture. UI and FUI artist Evgeny Rodygin used a ground scan from this pack in his own work. For more scan-ready sets, see photo sets for photogrammetry.

Frequently asked questions

Are the 3D scan samples game-ready?

No. They are raw photogrammetry meshes with high-resolution textures, meant as a base for your own work. You will usually retopologize, bake and optimize them for a game engine. The product page lists the triangle counts and texture sizes.

Why are so many rock photos shot in overcast light?

Soft, even light shows the true color and form of the rock without hard shadows. That makes the photos better for textures, photogrammetry and color picking. Several packs also include sunny sets, so you can study how the same rock looks in direct light.

Which packs work best for painting studies?

For painters, packs with clear light and strong shapes work well: the granite mounds of Freycinet, the basalt columns at Mt Somers and the Torlesse boulders with their summer skies. Start with the free Limestone Arch pack, which shows one arch in several lighting conditions. More are listed on our free reference photo packs page.