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Once you have created a mesh object, even when you get it looking really good
like this fighter jet here, it still looks rather naked. So then, what we do is
we apply textures to this surface of the object. This is often called adding
material, textures, shaders. There is a lot of synonyms for it but they
basically just mean adding a cloth, like some wrapping around your model.
In the instance of this jet, this texture was taken and the texture by itself
doesn't look that good. But when wrapped around the object in a 3D program,
then the results are actually quite nice. Now this aspect of 3D is so important and
that's what makes Photoshop such a great tool, because you can make these textures
and apply them to 3D objects right here in Photoshop.
So even if you just have a simple sphere created in Photoshop, if you make the
right textures, that texture can be a baseball or a basketball or a Christmas
tree ornament, or any one of a number of spherical objects.
Now in order to place a texture as complex as this and wrap it around a 3D
model like this, you would need a dedicated 3D program. But in Photoshop,
you can just paint directly on the object. We'll talk about how to do that later.
But materials are a really significant part of the 3D workflow and that's where
your Photoshop skills are really going to come in handy.
Oh! And one more thing, if you are creating your 3D objects in a 3D program and
bringing them over to Photoshop and then use external maps as materials,
in other words extra images, then you want to make sure and include those in the
same folder as the 3D object when Photoshop opens them or else Photoshop won't be
able to recognize them and your 3D objects will open up without those textures.