In simple terms, a texture is an image that is mapped on to a 3D object and a material simulates a physical material.

However, we can say that the line between these two expressions is blurred. Why? Frequently, textures such as bump maps are used to influence lighting. A bump map is a texture that is used to modify the to affect how the light reacts to the surface, rather than modifying the color as a regular image texture would do.

A texture also can be used to provide details to a surface. For example, by applying a brick-tiled texture to a surface, we can simulate a brick wall instead of modeling the geometry of each individual brick. The following screenshot shows a good example of this in action:

Sometimes, we tend to confuse a texture with a material. So, what is a material? We mentioned already that a material simulates a physical material. In other terms, a material in 3D is a set of equations that defines how the lights interact with the surface.

These equations...