Need a little explanation (the difference) regarding "materials" and "textures"

[Starman001]

Hi all,

i have a newbie question here, I think I’m mixing something up in my mind. I’m quite new to blender, and I will now start my learning courses towards texturing.

First off, I build models for games (i aim for unity 3d engine), so i do not care that much about rendering within in blender. Also, I currently built models for a RTS game, so you can imagine the models being rather small and seen from a isometric perspective, that mean’s I don’t need to bother with good metallic effects, or even less, about glass effects or other important effects that you might need for first person views.

In my imagination, I build models, then I want to slap a diffuse texture map on them, and then unity3d will (hopefully) handle the bump / and specular part of the additional texture maps.

But I’m curently a bit confused about the “material” and “texture” term in Blender. However, from direct translating, please tell me if I see it right :

If I make a window for example, and the window itself is not an open hole, but has an actual face, I could give the face a “glass material” and then add a texture to it if I want ? So, I could (even if pointless) use a “wood texture” and slap it on a “glas material” creating a stupid effect.

But in my case, am I right that I can more or less ignore “materials” and just create a “basic (not doing anything special)-material” for the entire model, and then add my UV texture map(s) to it ? In other words, I can more or less ignore the material part (except the basic one, since I need a material to add a texture to it).

Is this correct what I’m typing here ? I would really like to avoid starting to learn something wrong, which then later forces me to retexture / uvmap all my models loosing countless hours of work.

Thanks for helping

B/R
Starman

[SkpFX]

Yes, a texture is an image. It might be an image you load, or a generated texture like noise or clouds, but generally speaking it’s a rectangular arrangement of bits. Texturing is how the textures are mapped onto a model(UVs) Materials are what Blender does with the textures when rendering. The simplest and default material is just a diffuse shader, and is all you need for something really simple. Set up UVs for your model. Add a new material. And plug an Image Texture into the color of the diffuse shader. If that does what you need… BOOM, you’re done.

Have Fun!

[id800]

you are saying that you want to add a simple texture. but it does not save you from re-texturing if you don’t like something later.
also there is nothing ‘wrong’ in learning basics, it is essential for almost everything in 3d

[Starman001]

@SkpFX

Yes, a texture is an image. It might be an image you load, or a generated texture like noise or clouds, but generally speaking it’s a rectangular arrangement of bits. Texturing is how the textures are mapped onto a model(UVs) Materials are what Blender does with the textures when rendering. The simplest and default material is just a diffuse shader, and is all you need for something really simple. Set up UVs for your model. Add a new material. And plug an Image Texture into the color of the diffuse shader. If that does what you need… BOOM, you’re done.

Have Fun!

Good, then I’m thinking the correct way, I really was a bit confused about how many materials I need for the mesh. UV map will be only one per mesh anyway, smaller ones will even share a texture map.

@id800

you are saying that you want to add a simple texture. but it does not save you from re-texturing if you don’t like something later.
also there is nothing ‘wrong’ in learning basics, it is essential for almost everything in 3d

That’s of course true, and most likely not avoidable. But know I understand how to “handle” materials in my case, so I only need one, that’s what concerned me most.

Thank you guys for your replies