3D texturing terms
How a model gets its color and surface: laying it flat with UVs, painting or generating textures, and the maps and shaders that tell light how to behave.
Beginner 3D texturing terms
- Albedo mapA texture holding a surface’s pure color, with no lighting painted in
- Ambient occlusionThe soft darkening in corners and cracks where less light reaches
- BSDF (shader)The rule a renderer uses for how light bounces off or passes through a surface
- Bump mapA grayscale texture that fakes fine bumps through shading alone
- DecalAn image placed on top of a surface like a sticker, for one-off details
- Diffuse mapA color texture from older workflows that often includes painted shading
- Emission mapA texture that makes parts of a surface glow with their own light
- Height mapA grayscale image where brightness stands for height
- MatcapA lit-sphere image that gives a model an instant look with no lights
- MaterialThe settings that decide what a 3D surface is made of
- Material slotsNumbered places on an object where materials plug in, so one object can use several
- Metallic mapA black-and-white texture that marks which parts of a surface are metal
- Missing texturesImage files a material can no longer find, which Blender shows as bright pink
- Normal mapA texture that fakes small bumps and dents without adding geometry
- Opacity mapA grayscale texture that sets how see-through each part of a surface is
- PBR (physically based rendering)Materials and light that follow real-world physics
- Roughness mapA grayscale texture that sets how sharp or blurry reflections look
- Seamless textureAn image whose edges match, so it repeats with no visible join
- Smart UV projectBlender’s automatic unwrap that cuts a model into flat pieces by angle, no seams needed
- TextureAn image wrapped onto a 3D surface to give it color and detail
- Texture mappingWrapping a flat image onto a 3D surface to give it color and detail
- Texture paintingBrushing color and detail straight onto a 3D model
- UV mappingFlattening a 3D surface into 2D so a texture knows where to go
- UV seamAn edge marked as a cut line, telling the unwrap where to split the surface
- UV unwrappingCutting a 3D surface along seams and unfolding it flat for texturing
Intermediate 3D texturing terms
- BakingSaving slow detail or lighting into a texture so it never has to be recalculated
- Channel packingStoring several grayscale maps in the color channels of one image
- Displacement mapA texture that really moves the surface, changing its shape and outline
- MipmapA smaller, pre-shrunk copy of a texture used for distant surfaces
- Procedural textureA pattern generated by math rules, with no fixed resolution
- ShaderThe small program that decides the final color of every point on a surface
- Specular mapA texture that sets how strongly each spot reflects light as a highlight
- Texel densityHow many texture pixels cover each unit of a model’s surface
- Texture atlasOne image that packs the textures of many objects side by side
- Texture compressionShrinking textures into formats the graphics card can read directly
- Trim sheetA texture of reusable detail strips shared across many models
- Triplanar mappingProjecting a texture from three directions so no UVs are needed
Advanced 3D texturing terms
More 3D glossary topics
3D texturing terms FAQ
What is the difference between a texture and a material?
A texture is an image. A material is the set of surface properties, such as color, roughness and metalness, and it often uses textures to vary them across the surface. One material can combine several textures.
What texture maps does a PBR material use?
Usually base color, roughness, metallic and normal, often with ambient occlusion, height or emission. Each map controls one property, and together they make the surface react to light like the real material.
Do I need to UV unwrap before texturing?
For image textures, yes: the UV layout tells each part of the image where to land. Procedural and triplanar textures can work without UVs, which is handy for quick looks and terrain.