Texture types

These are some of the map types used when texturing game models. The textures are stored in, and how they are used in a game is determined by a.

The most common types are Diffuse, Emissive, Normal, Opacity, Specular, and Gloss. Which types you use will be dictated by the asset itself, and the Art Direction for the project.


 * Brief Considerations About Materials by Pedro Toldeo is an explanation of various map types, especially specular maps.
 * Texturing for Dummies by Leigh van der Byl is a PDF overview of texturing and texture types. (alternative download site)

Bump Maps
Bump maps are often used to create the appearance of a more highly-detailed surface, instead of using complex geometry with a ton of vertices.

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Color Maps
Color maps are used to create the albedo, the diffuse reflection of light from a surface. Emissive maps mimic surfaces that emit light, like a computer monitor or a vehicle dashboard at night.

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Environment Maps
Environment maps are typically used for reflective surfaces, showing the scene around the model, what is being reflected. This is a cheap hack to avoid rendering an accurate view of the actual scene, which is typically too slow to render in real time.

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Light Maps
Light maps are often used to store complex pre-computed lighting for a surface.

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Specular Maps
Specular maps control how reflective the surface is, and can adjust the shape of the reflection. Specular usually simulates only the reflections of the brightest light sources in a scene. Specular maps can also be used to control how much will appear on a surface.

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Transparency Maps
Transparency maps are used to cut out parts of a surface, usually for alpha blending. For example: fire, grass, hair, smoke, water, windows, etc.

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