What exactly are UVW coordinates?

- When it comes to learning complex new systems…in an application like 3ds Max,…one of the hardest, and yet most important…things to nail down, is a clean, simple,…and yet useful description of the concepts…and basic workings of the tools that we will be learning.…Which is why, in this exercise,…we want to spend a little bit of time…considering just what it is we are talking about…when we refer to UV, or UVW mapping coordinates.…

UVW coordinates are a way of tackling a very tricky problem.…Namely, how to take the information…contained inside one of 3ds Max's map types,…be that a rasterized bitmap image,…or a mathematically generated procedural map,…and then apply that visual detail to the surface…of a 3D object in our scene.…To be able to perform this type of operation…in a predictable and production usable manner,…the application needs a system…that can tell its various render engines…at which point on a geometric surface…visual information found in the texture map…ought to be placed.…

Going beyond that, the system would also need…