You simply paste them on things and that's that. Actually, you can go a long way with that concept. You may never need to know any more about textures than that. However, there is quite a bit more to know, and once you understand a few concepts, textures start getting a lot more useful and a lot more fun. Let's talk about texture coordinates.
Texture space is measured with the coordinates u , v , and w .
The big difference between texture coordinates and geometry coordinates is what they measure. For example, an object exists at one set of coordinates. If you move it, it exists at a new set. If you scale it, rotate it, whatever, it gets still another. Texture coordinates, however, only measure texture repetitions.