Texture nodes are one type of render node that, when mapped to the material of an object, let you define how the surface of an object looks when rendered.
Texture node(s) (with material nodes) feed into the Shading Group node, which tells the renderer how to shade the surface. See also Shading group node.
Texture nodes are procedural textures generated by Maya or bitmap images imported into Maya (see Procedural textures) that you can use as texture maps for material attributes. Texture maps on various attributes such as color, bump, and specularity affect the appearance of the material. For more information about texture maps, see Texture mapping.
2D textures wrap around an object, like gift wrapping, or stick to a flat surface, like wallpaper.
3D textures project through objects, like veins in marble or wood.
With a 3D texture, objects appear to be carved out of a substance, such as rock or wood. You can scale, rotate and move 3D textures interactively in a scene view to achieve the desired results.
Environment textures are commonly used either as backgrounds for objects in your scene or as reflection maps.
For more information on simulating reflections with environment maps, see True reflections.
For a detailed description of Maya’s Environment textures, see About environment textures.
There are two ways to layer textures in Maya: using the Layered Shader with the texture compositing flag, or with the Layered Texture Node.
Though the workflow for using the Layered Texture node is similar to the Layered Shader, using the Layered Texture node is recommended because you can set many blend modes.
To use the Layered Texture Node to layer textures, see Create layered shaders.