Graphics

To draw something in Unity, you must provide information that describes its shape, and information that describes the appearance of its surface. You use meshes to describe shapes, and materials to describe surfaces.

• Meshes are the main graphics primitive of Unity. They define the shape of an object.

• Materials define how a surface should be rendered, by including references to the Textures it uses, tiling information, Color tints and more. The available options for a Material depend on which Shader the Material is using.

• Shaders are small scripts that contain the mathematical calculations and algorithms for calculating the Color of each pixel rendered, based on the lighting input and the Material configuration.

• Textures are bitmap images. A Material can contain references to textures, so that the Material’s Shader can use the textures while calculating the surface color of a GameObject. In addition to basic Color (Albedo) of a GameObject’s surface, Textures can represent many other aspects of a Material’s surface such as its reflectivity or roughness.

Materials

• Materials are components that define the surface characteristics of objects.

Textures

A texture map is an image file, such as a PNG or JPG, that you apply to a material. Artists use textures to add detail to the surfaces of GameObjects.