Mount CMSC 425 : Lecture 12 Texture Mapping

Surface Detail: We have discussed the use of lighting as a method of producing more realistic images. This is fine for smooth surfaces of uniform color (plaster walls, plastic cups, metallic objects), but many of the objects that we want to render have some complex surface finish that we would like to model. In theory, it is possible to try to model objects with complex surface finishes through extremely detailed models (e.g. modeling the cover of a book on a character by character basis) or to define some sort of regular mathematical texture function (e.g. a checkerboard or modeling bricks in a wall). But this may be infeasible for very complex unpredictable textures.