...Or not ... but I'm telling you anyway.
Above you have three types of texture maps most commonly used. Just about every model will use these three. There's the diffuse (color), normal (illusion of depth), and specular (shininess - white is shiny, black is not).
First we have the different textures and what they each do to a piece of geometry (mesh). In each window there are 4 meshes; 2 low poly meshes on the left, 2 high poly meshes on the right (high/low polygon count).
- The "No Textures" window, are the meshes without any textures applied (they be naked).
- The next window is when the normal map is applied. The normal map creates an illusion of depth on a piece of geometry that would otherwise look smooth (like the low poly box in the "No Textures" window).
- Next the diffuse map is applied. The simplest of textures, it just adds the color.
- Last the specular map is applied. This dictates what is and isn't shiny on the mesh.
These are the three basic types of texture maps and how they affect a mesh. Additional texture maps could be: alpha (dictates what is transparent), glow (dictates what glows), and others.
So what's the deal with UVs?
Firstly, the U and V don't stand for anything. On a normal graph you have the X and Y axes, with textures you have U and V axes. Nothing special.
So how do they work? Check out this picture!
UVs are how the computer knows where to display the texture on the mesh. Each side of the die is its own separate UV shell (the red boxes in the "UV Map" window). In the second window the diffuse map is applied; whatever is in the UV shells is displayed on the geometry that that particular UV shells represents. The one dot side of the die is in the first UV shell, which represents the top of die in the upper left corner of the "Final Render" window, the two dot site being the second UV shell... and so on.
There you have it, a basic lesson on textures and UVs for 3D modeling. Simple right?
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