Environment mapping is essentially a fake
Environment mapping is essentially a fake but relatively fast way to give the illusion of surface reflection. There are two common approaches: spherical and cubic mapping. The first maps the environment texture surrounding the scene on a Sphere before mapping it onto the surface, the latter does it using a cube. Spherical mapping is usually FASTER and easier to use (it only requires 1 or 2 textures instead of one for every face of The Cube), but sadly it doesn鈥檛 look very natural on a flat surface. Cubic mapping, on the other hand, looks better and is more commonly used these days. For more information, check this article on wikipedia. you can free download photoshop plugins: Cubic Environment Mapping now.