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Today Ian, our resident 3D guy, gives us an introduction to using and making textures.
Textures
- Describe anything with a rich amount of information, such as patterns.
- Used in a wide variety of fields, such as TV, Films, Games, Designs, Websites.
- Size is usually equal in all axes, but can have variations in sizes.
- Usually textures are repetitive in all axes, but can be made to only tile in certain axes, or none at all.
- Textures are usually two dimensional, but can be 1D, 3D, and even 4D, and can be projected into other dimensions.
- Textures come in a variety of bit depths and color channels
- In 3D graphics, textures can have multiple variations, that react to the scene’s lighting differently.
Textures fall under four main sub-categories – Procedural, Hand Painted, Photographic, and 3D Model textures, but technically, can fall under multiple categories, by combining textures.
Sub-Categories
Procedural Textures are patterns or designs generated by software, either randomly or using mathematical equations.
Procedural Generator Software includes
- Allegorithmic Substance Designer
- MaPZone
- Genetic Texture Generator
Hand-painted Textures are manually created patterns or designs, digitally or traditionally.
Painting Software includes
- Photoshop
- Corel Painter
- Illustrator
Photographic Textures are patterns or designs taken from cameras, scanners, or other optical devices.
Photo Software includes
- Photoshop
- Corel Photopaint
- tons of other software
3D Model Textures are patterns or designs made to specifically project to 3D models and can be created for the model, or generated from the model.
3D Model Software includes – 3D Max
- Maya
- ZBrush
- others
Main Categories
One Dimensional
- Technically, 1D designs are just gradients and can be represented by pixels or curves.
- Can be repeatable or randomized.
- Can have a large variety of colors and bit depths.
- Can be mapped to other values.
- Procedurally generated gradients can be made by some software.
- Manual gradient patterns can be made.
- Gradients can be photographed, but would have to be projected to 1D.
- Gradient patterns can be useful for 3d Models as well.
Two Dimensional
- Usually are raster (pixels) or vector (lines).
- 2D textures are most commonly used in computer graphics.
- Can be repeatable or randomized.
- Can have a large variety of colors and bit depths.
- Procedurally generated 2D textures are generated and utilized by multiple softwares, and can be repetitive or random.
- Hand-painted digital 2d patterns or designs can be painted or manually designed using various software. Traditional textures can be painted and scanned in using paints, pencils, charcoal, or other tools.
- 2D textures can be photographed, scanned, in cases video recorded, there are tons of uses and methods for photographed textures.
- 2D texturing for 3d models is especially common in computer graphics.
Three Dimensional — Usually are raster (voxels) or vector (curves or nurbs).
- 3D textures and designs are most commonly used in computer graphics and science.
- Can be repeatable or randomized.
- Can have a large variety of colors and bit depths.
- Procedurally generated 3D textures are generated and utilized by multiple softwares, and can be repetitive or random.
- Hand-made digital 3d patterns or designs can be painted or manually designed using various software.
- 3D volumetric textures or designs technically can be scanned, but mainly using medical equipment, such as CT scanning MRI, or Ultrasound.
- 3D volumetric textures used on 3D Models are technically projected to 2D, on the surface of the 3D model.