Albedokleurmaps

Albedokleurmaps, often called albedo maps or base color maps, are texture maps used in 3D computer graphics to encode the intrinsic color of a surface. They provide the color information of a material’s surface without including lighting or shading effects, allowing a renderer to apply lighting separately.

In modern rendering workflows, particularly physically based rendering (PBR), the albedo map supplies the base color for a material. Lighting response is handled by other maps such as metalness, roughness (or glossiness), normal maps, and ambient occlusion. The albedo map should represent the surface color as it would appear under neutral lighting, with shading details removed. Colors are typically stored in sRGB space and converted to linear space by the rendering pipeline for accurate light interaction.

Albedo maps are distinct from other texture types. A diffuse map is an older term that can imply shading information in non-physically based pipelines; in PBR the preferred term is albedo to emphasize reflectance rather than shading. Some workflows bake additional data, like ambient occlusion or light leaks, into albedo maps for stylized looks or performance reasons, but this compromises strict physical accuracy by conflating lighting with color.

Creation and usage involve UV mapping of the 3D model and careful color management. Albedo textures are commonly derived from photography or painting and must be aligned with other maps to ensure consistent material appearance across different lighting conditions.

See also: base color map, physically based rendering, texture mapping, normal map, roughness map.