Understanding Textures and Materials in 3D

This guide is for all of you out there who don't understand how 3d texturing works. It's also for those of us who want to be able to talk to friends and family about what we do, but lack the words to explain. I'll go into the basics of image maps, nodes, material zones and what applying a texture set means. This guide will focus primarily on Poser but much of it applies to many 3D programs.

If you are a Poser user like me, you have a lot of trouble explaining what you're doing when you spend hours on end staring at pictures of skin. If you're semi-lucky you have friends or family who mod games or download "skins" for the Sims or something similar. Even if that is true however, explaining Poser terms to anyone not familiar with 3D is a seemingly impossible task.

Understanding Poser and 3D texturing in general all starts with knowing about image maps, or what are often called "textures". These two terms are often used interchangeably but they actually refer to different things. A texture is what is sounds like it is, it's a texture. An image map is often used to create textures, but just as often textures are created by "procedurals" (I'll go into that later). An image map is just a flat picture that is "mapped" onto a 3D object, like a Poser figure for example. Think of an image map as being like those world maps with the scalloped tops. That's what a sphere looks like when you cut it and flatten it. An image map for a 3D object or Poser figure works the same way. You use an image map to put details, colors, wrinkles, etc on an object. In Poser, there are generally three different kinds of image map on any figure. One picture for the skin colors and variations, one called a "bump map" to put little details like pores and wrinkles, and one more map to tell Poser where the figure is shiny called a "specular map". Image maps can and are used for any part of the body where you want to add something.

A Poser figure like Victoria 4.2 for example, has quite a number of "material zones". Each of these material zones corresponds to a different body part and every one of them can have a completely different texture or "material" applied to them. As an example, you can apply a material that mimics satin to the hands to make it look like your figure is wearing gloves. Most Poser users apply image maps to these material zones, but you don't have to.

Every material zone has a map that goes with it, and some zones even share maps. Older Poser figures only used one map for the entire figure, but in time people wanted higher resolution maps and the best way to do that was to break the figure down into multiple maps. Victoria 4 has eight different maps associated with her, although most users only use seven (the map for her eyebrows seems to have been forgotten). These maps, or "UV maps" are used to create image maps for an individual figure. They are just a picture of all the lines that make up a 3D figure, texture artists use these to make sure that the details they paint onto an image map line up correctly on the figure.

Procedurals are textures that are created by Poser itself using math-based color and image manipulation. If you are familiar with any paint program that uses "blending layers" then you understand what I am talking about. Using procedural materials involves putting together "nodes" in the Poser material room in order to create an effect. You can use maps to adjust or even as a basis for any material or texture. Using the material room and the nodes in it are far beyond the scope of this guide so I will just suffice to say that nodes are the building blocks of any good texture. Even textures that users just download and apply using a "pose file" are constructed of nodes.

Understanding 3d and Poser textures doesn't have to be hard, you just need to remember that many images are used to create skin for a single figure. Skin is made up of countless details and nuances that one image simply cannot duplicate. When a Poser user says they are creating a skin or texture they don't mean that they are painting a single image. When I make skin for Victoria 4.2 for example, a complete texture set is made up of least 24 different images that I have to create. After I'm done with the image maps, then I have to put them together in Poser's material room with a number of procedural effects in order to create skin on a figure.