## 3.9 Advanced Texture Options

The extremely powerful texturing ability is one thing that really sets POV-Ray apart from other raytracers. So far we have not really tried anything too complex but by now we should be comfortable enough with the program's syntax to try some of the more advanced texture options.

Obviously, we cannot try them all. It would take a tutorial a lot more pages to use every texturing option available in POV-Ray. For this limited tutorial, we will content ourselves to just trying a few of them to give an idea of how textures are created. With a little practice, we will soon be creating beautiful textures of our own.

Note: early versions of POV-Ray made a distinction between pigment and normal patterns, i. e. patterns that could be used inside a `normal` or `pigment` statement. Since POV-Ray 3.0 this restriction was removed so that all patterns listed in section "Patterns" can be used as a pigment or normal pattern.

In 'Advanced Texture Options' ...
3.9.1 | Pigments
3.9.2 | Normals
3.9.3 | Finishes
3.9.4 | Working With Pigment Maps
3.9.5 | Working With Normal Maps
3.9.6 | Working With Texture Maps
3.9.7 | Working With List Textures
3.9.8 | What About Tiles?
3.9.9 | Average Function
3.9.10 | Working With Layered Textures
3.9.11 | When All Else Fails: Material Maps
3.9.12 | Limitations Of Special Textures