texturer

Texturer is a term used in some digital art and game development contexts to refer to either a texture artist or a tool/technique for generating and applying surface textures to 2D or 3D models. In practice, a texturer can be a person who designs and creates texture maps—diffuse/albedo, normal, roughness, metallic, ambient occlusion, and displacement maps—or a software approach that procedurally generates textures through algorithms, noise functions, fractals, and material graphs. While the term is uncommon in English, it appears in industry discussions as a shorthand for texture work and for texture generation tools.

In the role sense, a texturer collaborates with modelers and lighting artists to define the surface appearance of characters, environments, and props. They must ensure textures tile properly, avoid seams, match the intended material properties, and optimize texture atlases for performance. In the tool/technique sense, a texturer uses painting tools, node-based shader graphs, and procedural generators (for example, in substance designer or similar programs) to create reusable texture libraries and material presets.

Modern workflows often rely on physically based rendering (PBR) textures and normal/displacement maps to convey detail without excessive geometry. Proficiency in digital painting, 3D software, texturing nodes, and an understanding of materials and lighting is common for those who identify as texturers. Texturer work is closely related to, but distinct from, broader roles such as texture artist and shader designer.

See also: texture map, UV mapping, normal map, displacement map, PBR, texture artist.