Texturing & Materials
← Knowledge basePBR channels, UV layouts, baking, and why a material looks wrong.
- 01PBR: what each channel actually doesBase colour, roughness, metallic, normal, occlusion, emissive. What each one means physically and what happens when you get it wrong.
- 02UV unwrapping: flattening a surface for texturingCutting a 3D surface into flat pieces so a 2D image can be applied. What makes a layout good, and what a bad one costs.
- 03Texel density: keeping sharpness consistentThe measure that decides whether two assets look like they belong in the same game.
- 04Baking: transferring detail from high poly to low polyHow a few hundred triangles come to look like a few million. The process, the cage, and the artefacts.
- 05Channel packing: three maps in one textureGreyscale maps waste two thirds of an RGB texture. Packing them together is standard practice and a common source of confusion.
- 06Why a material looks wrongA diagnostic list. The handful of errors behind most "it looks like plastic" and "it looks flat" complaints.
- 07Tiling textures and trim sheetsCovering large surfaces without enormous textures, and the technique that dresses a whole environment from one sheet.
- 08Decals: breaking up repetition cheaplyProjected detail that adds specificity without touching the underlying texture or geometry.
- 09Transparency: the most expensive thing you can doAlpha blending, alpha testing, sorting problems and overdraw. Why transparency is treated as a last resort.
- 10Choosing texture resolutionBigger is not better; it is more memory. How to decide, and why powers of two still matter.