Texture

In Source a Texture is a part of a Material that is mapped onto the surface of a 2D or 3D Mesh to give it color or additional visual detail. A Texture is only one layer in the Material System:

• A Source Texture is a raster image file which defines the pixels of a colormap, bumpmap, specularmap, opacitymap, and/or luminositymap (see Valve Texture Format).
• A Source Material specifies a stack of Textures and the Shader Parameters to use when rendering them. It also specifies which sounds and decal effects to use for collision events (see Valve Material Type).
• A Source Texture map specifies a Material and maps the pixels (from all of its texture layers) onto the surfaces of a particular object (see UV map).

Texture types

The Material System uses texture VTFs for:

• color maps ($basetexture)
• diffuse maps ($basetexture)
• normal maps ($bumpmap)
• specular maps ($envmapmask)
• luminosity maps ($selfillum)
• opacity maps ($translucent)

Tutorials

• For a quick start to using Textures in Hammer see Applying Textures and Tool textures.
• For a more comprehensive guide to applying textures to geometry in Source see UV mapping.
• For creating new textures see TGA, VTF, Vtex,
  Todo: (find/write a basic step-by-step tutorial and a general guidelines doc on making good textures)
  .
• For Tools and Plugins see VTF Utilities and image editors.