What are textures and materials?

In this section, we will explore the core concepts of textures and materials. First, let's start with the concept of textures.

Textures

In 3D computer graphics, we use something called a Texture (or a texture map) to describe an aspect of the mesh surface's appearance.

Usually, textures (or texture maps) are made from raster images (pixels in a grid format), or the textures can be procedurally generated (this is also known as Procedural Texturing).

Note

Procedural texturing is a 3D texturing method whereby textures and materials are generated by an algorithm inside 3D software (such as xNormal, Quixel Mixer, or Substance Painter). The algorithm uses information from your texture maps and/or 3D mesh, combined with settings that you have control over to create procedural textures. We will explain procedural texturing, in more detail, in Chapter 5, Texturing Your Models in Quixel Mixer.

Here is a brief description of the types...