The basis of all textures is noise. This is what gives the texture its differences in values. That means the differences in color, alpha, and bump height. Although most people wish they could take an image into the DTE it is impossible. Ok, the best way to learn about noises is to actually mess with them. Enter the DTE with the Default texture loaded. Click on the Noise Dialog Marble for Component 1. On the right the noise slider pops into appearance. Click on the Edit Noise Button. The noise dialog box appears magically. Check out the reference page to see a picture of this. There are MANY different types of noise. The only real way to learn how to use them is to see what they do. The more you play with these noises, the more you will become familiar with them. Right now just take some time to go through and look at a few. Below I have created a table of all of the noises for a quick reference. Right now I haven't discussed techniques of manipulating the noises so you can't really play with them just yet. You might want to take some time to check over the noises and go, "Oh yes, ok".
 Sine |
 Square |
 Triangle |
 RndDiscrete |
 RndLinear |
 RndContinuous |
 RndSaw |
 VortexNoise |
 Fractal |
 Turbulence |
 Spots |
 Fractstone |
 TriangleDiscrete |
 SquareLines |
 SparseRndPaths |
 RndLines |
 Waves |
 Liquid |
 LinearSine |
 StuccoNoise |
 StoneCliff |
 MultiFractal |
 Leopard |
 Techno |
 DistanceOrigin |
 TimeRandom |
 Value |
 Gradient |
 WierdValue |
 WierdGradient |
 VoronoiDistance1 |
 VoronoiDistance2 |
 VoronoiDistance3 |
 VoronoiDistance4 |
 VoronoiDistSq1 |
 VoronoiDistSq2 |
 VoronoiDistSq3 |
 VoronoiDistSq4 |
 VoronoiD2 |
 VoronoiD2Sq |
 VoronoiD3 |
 VoronoiD3Sq |
 VoronoiD4 |
 VoronoiD4Sq |
 VoronoiID1 |
 VoronoiID2 |
 VoronoiID3 |
 VoronoiID4 |