Texture vs. Material

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Sorry for the newb question, but...

What is the difference between Textures and Materials?

Answer 1

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Answer by Kiwasi · Sep 29, 2014 at 02:44 AM

A texture is an image. Straight out of paint, gimp, photoshop ect.

A material is the details of what an object should look like. Most materials take textures as a parameter. There are many cases where a material takes multiple textueres. For example one texture might define colour, another transparency, another normals and so forth.

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$$anonymous$$ · Sep 29, 2014 at 02:46 AM 0

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Awesome, thanks! This also answered my followup question!

Answer 2

Answer by Addyarb · Sep 29, 2014 at 02:41 AM

Textures are just .png or .tiff images that you can access via MS paint, photoshop, etc. However, materials contain a variety of things. Heightmaps/Normalmaps are images that are usually blueish/pinkish and are calculated by Unity to show depth in a short of illusion. If you stand a few meters away, bricks will look like they have tiny crevaces, water will look like it has actual waves, carpet will look like it has some fibers sticking out. However if you get close enough, it'll just be a flat shape (assuming you've placed it on a cube).

In short, a material contains a set of information for 3D looks, and may even contain physics information. A texture is just a picture.

Hope this helps.

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$$anonymous$$ · Sep 29, 2014 at 02:44 AM 0

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Cool thanks! Do you know why my materials won't work if I delete my textures? (I am using the Prototype Textures Asset from the Asset Store.)

Addyarb · Sep 29, 2014 at 02:52 AM 1

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Yes that makes perfect sense. The material itself is just a series of textures put together. For instance, if you had a grass material, say a bumped diffuse, you might have:

Slot 1: Texture - A grass picture. Slot 2: Normal$$anonymous$$ap - A normal map that corresponds with the above texture to represent it's height.

"Bumped" diffuse in this example is referring to how the material looks bumpy, because it has that Normal$$anonymous$$ap telling the material how it should look when Unity calculates it's 3D-ness.

Texture vs. Material

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