# Documentation: What exactly is texture.channel for?

**URL:** https://discourse.threejs.org/t/documentation-what-exactly-is-texture-channel-for/81168
**Category:** Site Feedback
**Tags:** uv, documentation, texture, texture-channel
**Created:** [April 14, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/documentation-what-exactly-is-texture-channel-for/81168 "2025-04-14T03:43:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Fennec](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/fennec/32/59265_2.png) [@Fennec](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/Fennec)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2025, 5:00am UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/documentation-what-exactly-is-texture-channel-for/81168/2 "2025-04-14T05:00:18Z")

</div>

This may be related to the material’s .[lightMap](https://threejs.org/docs/index.html#api/en/materials/MeshStandardMaterial.lightMap) and .[aoMap](https://threejs.org/docs/index.html#api/en/materials/MeshStandardMaterial.aoMap) properties.

> .[aoMap](https://threejs.org/docs/index.html#api/en/materials/MeshStandardMaterial.aoMap) : [Texture](https://threejs.org/docs/index.html#api/en/textures/Texture)  
> The red channel of this texture is used as the ambient occlusion map. Default is null. The aoMap requires a second set of UVs.

> [@How to use AOMap](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/how-to-use-aomap/22294/4):
>
> If you check the code from that example, it’s modifying the model after loading it to add the second UV set: This is necessary for formats like OBJ where the file does not contain the AO map and it has to be added afterward.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/documentation-what-exactly-is-texture-channel-for/81168)._