Chapter 7. Textures

So far, we've added details to our scene with geometry, vertex colors, and lighting; but often that won't be enough to achieve the look that we want. Wouldn't it be great if we could "paint" additional details onto our scene without needing additional geometry? We can, through a technique called texture mapping. In this chapter, we'll examine how we can use textures to make our scene more detailed.

In this chapter, we'll learn the following:

• How to create a texture

• How to use a texture when rendering

• Filter and wrapping modes and how they affect the texture's use

• Multi-texturing

• Cube mapping

Let's get started!