Hello, me and some friends started making a 3D game and the basic engine is working. There are 2 problems: 1) Where can we find some pictures of objects so that we can then create models of them? In other words, we have good 3d modellers but not good "imagination" of how things look like. So, is there some global gallery of all kinds of photos of objects (nature, buildings, weapons, ...) where we can get ideas of how to build the models? 2) Same thing, just for textures - Is there a place to find lots of textures to use as materials? Thanks for any help.

In the games industry there are two approaches I've seen (primarily by seeing whats on artists desks/cubical-walls :-) ).

Firstly you have alot of concept artists who produce (very cool looking) 2D hand drawn images of what a given character or environment should look like. The 3D and 2D art that goes into the game is based on these.

Secondly they use alot of reference books:

Architecture : http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Dictionary-Architecture-Francis-Ching/dp/0471288217/sr=1-1/qid=1160421538/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6029109-0200730?ie=UTF8&s=books

Comic books: http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Age-Comic-Book-Art/dp/1888054867/sr=1-3/qid=1160421664/ref=sr_1_3/104-6029109-0200730?ie=UTF8&s=books

Specific artists: http://www.amazon.com/Hr-Giger-Portfolio-H-R/dp/3822814288/sr=1-2/qid=1160421716/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-6029109-0200730?ie=UTF8&s=books

Film: http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Poster-Art-Tony-Nourmand/dp/1845130103/sr=1-1/qid=1160421781/ref=sr_1_1/104-6029109-0200730?ie=UTF8&s=books

another good website for resources is this:
link