Textures can be used to create surface color, surface texture, reflectivity, transparency, and environment dependent shading.
Efficiency is achieved by reducing the human or computer labor involved in creating the imagery.
For example, a small brick wall tile can be use to create a large surface without the artist having to create millions of bricks. Likewise, a bump map used to simulate a rough surface requires much less computation than modeling a true 3D rough surface. For this class, we will look at surface color and surface texture applications. A single color can be applied to a surface, but it produces an unrealistically flat and even look. A color map applied to the same surface can produce a much more realistic looking surface, even though that surface may be a simple plane or sphere.