Why can material's base color accept RGB from texture sampler?

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#1

Material has a base color property. This can be connected from RGB output of Texture Sample node. The Texture Sample node has a texture image assigned. When this connection is made, in the preview window, I could see the texture applied to the 3D object.

Shouldn’t RGB output of Texture Sample node just be outputing a single vector of 3 values in R, G, B? Which ultimately are combined into determine the single color that base color should render? How is it possible that base color can correctly show texture on the 3D object? Unless I’m missing something is the base color capable of getting each and every pixel of the texture image? If this is true does it mean that base color property of material is capable of accepting more than a single vector?

#2

There’s a ‘shorthand’ implied in the material graph. The RGB isn’t just one value, it’s the RGB value of every pixel mapped from the texture to the output.

You can specify how that mapping happens by changing the texture coordinates.

This shorthand is true for all the material nodes, for instance, the add node. It doesn’t just add two float values, it add the values for all pixels in the material.

EDIT: To be clear. The Add node WILL just add two floats, but it also understands about other vectors spaces, and so will add the individual pixels values for all parts of texture separately.