The keystone of photorealism is accurate and life-like texturing. Simply stated, an object’s material, surface, and texture properties define how the object looks or reacts to light. Everything from refractive values to transparency and bump mapping to texture maps are applied using texture, surface, and material shaders.
Surface and texture shaders are the two most important shader types to use when defining what your object will look like.
The surface properties of a geometric object define how the object appears. They are also determined by a texture projection and any texture that is applied to the geometric object.
• How Surface and Texture Shaders Work Together
• Blending Textures with Mixer Shaders
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5