ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Procedural textures

Okay, so let's say you want to color in a picture of a giraffe. You can use normal colors like brown for its spots and yellow for its body, right? But what if you want a fancier giraffe, one with spots that look like flames or clouds? That's where procedural textures come in.

Procedural textures are like a bunch of special rules that tell the computer how to make a cool pattern for the giraffe's spots. Instead of just filling in colors, the computer follows these rules to create a unique design every time.

It's kind of like playing with Play-Doh. You have the basic Play-Doh, which is like the giraffe's body. But then you can use different tools to squish it and shape it into all kinds of cool textures, like bumps or ridges. Procedural textures are like those Play-Doh tools - they let you make a lot of different patterns and textures for a picture.

So in summary, procedural textures are special rules that help the computer create fancy patterns and textures for pictures. It's like playing with Play-Doh to create cool designs, except it's all done digitally!