If there is one thing that most 3D artists can't get enough of, it's good textures. Textures can sometimes add that finishing touch, a swift lick of extra realism, to rendered objects. And 2D artists can also benefit from a good bank of textures, which can often make good backdrops.

The Texture Gallery is a pack of two discs full of scanned and computer-generated textures. However, this is not quite as much of a bargain as it might first sound, since one of the discs contains the same images as the other, but in a different format. While this may give the collection a wider market, it may as well be sold as two separate discs at a lower price.

The majority of the images are scanned images of real-world surfaces such as marble, material, metals, brickwork, foliage, water and even carpet. Pretty much all of them are of a high standard and most can be tiled seamlessly. There are also several bumpmaps.

A bonus is a directory devoted to some interesting images drawn by a chap name Kevin Lude. They are extremely detailed and vary in subject from simple grid-like backgrounds to colourful abstract images.

Despite my reservations about the need for a two-disc set, even at £39.99 there are still enough high-quality images here to make this collection a worthwhile purchase for most computer artists.

"A wide range of useful images at a reasonable price."