Glossary

Created Oct 3, 2026 · Updated Oct 3, 2026

Short definitions of the terms used throughout this manual, with a link to the page that covers each one in depth.

Ambient occlusion: A grayscale map recording how much surrounding geometry blocks light from reaching each point, so creases and cavities come out darker. It is usually baked from the high-detail model. See Transfer Texture.
Auto Remesh: The guided retopology workflow: Vertexix computes an orientation field, then a position field, then extracts quad topology from them. You can steer each stage before extracting. See Auto Remesh.
Bake: To transfer detail from one mesh onto the textures of another — typically from the dense Loaded Mesh onto the UV map of the Generated Mesh. Color, normals, ambient occlusion and other maps can all be baked. See Transfer Texture.
Cavity / Curvature / Edge maps: Grayscale maps derived from surface shape: cavity marks small recesses, curvature marks convex and concave regions, and edge maps highlight sharp ridges. They are commonly used as masks for wear, dirt and edge highlights. See Transfer Texture.
Displacement map: A texture whose values physically move the surface along its normals at render time, rather than only changing how it is shaded. It captures height detail that a normal map can only fake. See Transfer Texture.
Dynamic topology: A sculpting mode that adds and removes triangles under the brush as you work, so detail goes only where you sculpt. It trades a clean, regular mesh for unlimited local detail. See Dynamic Topology.
Edge loop: A chain of edges that runs continuously through a strip of quads, passing straight across each four-way vertex. Good edge loops follow a model’s form and make it deform and subdivide cleanly. See Make Quads.
Edition: The version of Vertexix you are licensed for — Free, Light, Regular or Pro. Each edition unlocks a different set of features and limits. See Editions.
Generated Mesh: The new topology Vertexix creates from the Loaded Mesh, built up material by material through remeshing or Pass Through. It is the mesh you UV map, bake onto and export. See Loaded vs Generated Mesh.
HDR environment (image-based lighting): A high-dynamic-range panoramic image used to light a scene from all directions, as if the model were placed inside it. It gives realistic reflections and ambient light for previewing PBR materials. See Image-Based Lighting.
Height map: A grayscale texture in which brightness represents how far the surface is raised or lowered. It can drive displacement or be converted into a normal map. See Create Normal Map.
Layer mask: A grayscale image attached to a layer that controls where the layer is visible: white shows it, black hides it. Masks let you edit coverage without erasing the layer’s pixels. See Layer Masks.
Loaded Mesh: The model you imported into Vertexix — usually a dense scan or sculpt. It is the source that the Generated Mesh is built from and baked against. See Loaded vs Generated Mesh.
Make Quads: A retopology tool that pairs adjacent triangles into quads. Triangles that cannot be paired cleanly are left as they are. See Make Quads.
Manual Remesh: The one-click quad remesher: you set a target quad count and Vertexix rebuilds the selected materials as quads. See Manual Remesh.
MatCap: Short for “material capture”: an image of a lit sphere used to shade a model by looking up each surface direction in it. It is a fast way to inspect form without setting up lights or materials. See MatCap Browser.
Material: A named group of a model’s polygons that share one surface definition and set of textures. In Vertexix, materials are also the unit you select to retopologize, pass through and bake. See Merge Selection & Pass Through.
Metallic / roughness: The two main PBR surface maps: metallic marks which areas behave like metal, and roughness sets how blurred or sharp reflections are. Together with base color they describe most real-world materials. See PBR Layers.
Node graph: A network of connected boxes (nodes), each performing one operation, whose outputs feed into others to build up a result. In Vertexix, node graphs generate textures procedurally. See Node Texturing.
Node Layer: A texture layer whose pixels are filled by a node graph instead of by painting. Editing the graph updates the layer. See Node Layers.
Normal map: An RGB texture that stores a surface direction per pixel, letting a low-polygon mesh shade as if it had the fine detail of a high-polygon one. It changes lighting only, not the silhouette. See Create Normal Map.
Orientation field: A smooth set of directions over the surface that tells the remesher which way the quads’ edges should run. It is the first stage of Auto Remesh. See Orientation Field.
Padding: Extra pixels extended outward from the edges of each UV island, plus the spacing kept between islands. It prevents seams from showing when textures are filtered or mipmapped. See Transfer Texture.
Pass Through: Copies a material’s polygons from the Loaded Mesh to the Generated Mesh unchanged, for parts that need no retopology. See Merge Selection & Pass Through.
PBR: Physically based rendering: shading that models how light really interacts with surfaces, so materials look consistent under any lighting. It relies on maps such as base color, metallic, roughness and normal. See PBR Layers.
Pole (singularity): A vertex where more or fewer than four edges meet in an otherwise quad mesh. Poles are unavoidable on most shapes, but where they fall affects how the mesh deforms and subdivides. See Orientation Field.
Position field: A grid of sample positions laid over the surface, aligned to the orientation field, that marks where the new vertices will go. It is the second stage of Auto Remesh. See Position Field.
Quad: A polygon with four sides. Quad meshes are preferred for animation, subdivision and clean edge loops. See Manual Remesh.
Scratch Pad: A canvas for capturing or painting a surface and generating texture maps from it. See Scratch Pad.
Sculpt layer: A separate layer of sculpted changes that sits on top of the base shape and can be adjusted in strength or turned off independently. See Sculpt Layers.
Seam: An edge along which the surface is cut when it is unfolded into a UV map. Where seams are placed decides how the UV islands are shaped. See Seam Tools.
Stencil: An image laid over the viewport that the brush paints through, transferring its pattern onto the model. See Stencil Painting.
Subdivision level: One step in a stack of progressively smoother, denser versions of a mesh, each made by splitting every face. Sculpting at different levels lets you shape broad forms and fine detail separately. See Subdivision Levels.
Supersampling: Taking several samples per pixel and averaging them to reduce jagged edges and noise. It improves bake quality at the cost of time. See Transfer Texture.
Surface preset: A saved, reusable surface — a set of material maps and settings — that can be applied to a model in one step. See Surface Presets.
Texel: A single pixel of a texture as it appears on a model’s surface. Texel density — texels per unit of surface — determines how sharp the texture looks. See Generate UV Map.
Texture layer: One of a stack of images that are blended together to produce a final texture, so parts of it can be painted and adjusted separately. See Texture Layers.
UDIM: A convention for spreading UVs across multiple numbered texture tiles (1001, 1002, …) so a model can use more texture resolution than one image allows. See UDIM Tile Manager.
UV island: A connected piece of a UV map, bounded by seams. Each island is a patch of the surface flattened into texture space. See Generate UV Map.
UV map: The flattened layout of a mesh’s surface in 2D texture space, telling each polygon which part of an image it shows. A mesh needs one before it can be textured or baked onto. See Generate UV Map.
Voxel: A volume element: a small cube in a 3D grid, the 3D counterpart of a pixel. Voxel modeling builds shapes as solid volumes, which makes combining and carving them simple. See Voxel Mode.
Voxel Tree: The window listing the voxel scene’s shapes and groups. See Voxel Tree & Numeric Input.