# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Quickie Texture

|previous=Procedural Textures
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**Textures** are laid on top of materials to give them complicated
colors and other effects. An object is covered with a material, which
might contain several textures: An image texture of stone, a texture to
make the stone look bumpy, and a texture to make the stone deform in
different ways.

A texture may be an
image
or a computed
function. What
the texture does and how it is mapped onto your object is set in the
material buttons. Some commonly used texture types are shown on the page
Using Textures.

This tutorial uses the file from the **Quickie
Material**
tutorial. If you didn\'t do it before, go back and do it now.

## Making It Mottled

!Texture Context with all the relevant
panels.{width="809"
height="809"}

##### Step 1: Adding Texture to the Material

-   In a Properties window, switch to **Texture**
    ![](Blender255TextureContextButton.png "Blender255TextureContextButton.png")
    context.
-   A default texture, **Tex**, should already be available and set to
    *Type: **None***.
    -   If not, click one of the **Texture Slots** (the ones with
        chequered icons) and click the **New** button.
    -   Set the *Type* to ***Clouds***.
-   The Texture **Preview** panel will now reflect this change. However,
    said change will not be reflected in the 3D view window.
    -   You can do a quick render (**F12**) to see the change. However,
        you\'ll have to re-render every time you change a setting to see
        its effect.
    -   Otherwise you can click the **Material** button in the Texture
        **Preview** panel to see the changes to the material. (Click
        **Both** to see them side-by-side.)
    -   A better, albeit more resource intensive option would be to
        change the **Display Mode** to *Rendered*. (**Shift**+**Z** in
        the 3D view window or Selecting the Display mode from the 3D
        view Header.!Viewport Shading menu highlighting the
        **Rendered**
        option.

##### Step 2: Refining the Texture

-   Once you use one of the ways to preview your work, you\'ll see Green
    and Magenta mixed in resembling a polished granite texture.
    -   This is the default colour for any generated texture. Now all
        you have to do is change it to **black**.
    -   But before that scroll down to the **Mapping** panel and make
        sure that *Coordinates* is set to ***Generated,
        Global***or***Object*** (for best results).
    -   Scroll down to the **Influence** panel, and click on the colour
        swatch and drag the reticule in the bar to the right all the way
        down.
-   Now the texture should look more or less like green granite!Render
    result in 3D
    view.

## Making It Bumpy

!Final
render{width="723"
height="723"}

##### Step 1: Adding a second Texture to the Material

-   In a Properties window, switch to **Texture**
    ![](Blender255TextureContextButton.png "Blender255TextureContextButton.png")
    context.
-   The **Cloud** texture you just created will be listed in a slot.
    -   To create an additional texture click a second texture slot and
        then click **New** button.
    -   Change the texture *Type* to ***Stucci***.
-   Now if you preview this texture you\'ll only notice a bit of magenta
    mixed in with the previous texture.

##### Step 2: Making the texture a Bump-Map

-   Scroll down to the **Mapping** panel and make sure the *Coordinates*
    is set to ***Generated, Global***or***Object*** for best results.
-   Scroll down to **Influence** panel uncheck *Color* and check
    *Normal* under **Geometry**, then set it to **4**.
-   If required, set the *Method* under Bump Mapping to a higher
    Quality.

The render result should look like the one on the right.

Now mess around with the various settings we discussed, Particularly the
settings in **Clouds**/**Stucci**, **Mapping** and **Influence** panels.
Also try the whole tutorial (**Quickie Material** & **Quickie Texture**)
with a sphere and other shapes.

## Some Closing words

The downside of bump-mapping, as you may have noticed, is that it only
provides an illusion of depth/bumpiness. The edges will still be
straight as in the render. For curved surfaces the outline will still
look spotless while the centre looks deformed, plus shadows will still
render smooth compromising the illusion. An alternative technique is
displacement-mapping which actually deforms the mesh as per a texture to
produce depth in the mesh, with the downside of creating a higher poly
mesh.

With bump-mapping in general, you will get a greater effect on smoothly
curved surfaces with high specularity as compared to flat surfaces with
low specularity.

