PBR Material Previewer

Preview a PBR material before applying it to your model

This interactive preview combines your maps in a metallic/roughness material under studio HDR lighting. Use it to check whether the maps align, surface detail faces the expected direction and the texture repeats at a useful scale. Start with a neutral sphere, then load individual files or drop several maps together and check their suggested slots.

Choose a surface from the 3DSkillUp PBR material catalog, download its maps from the product's marketplace listing and load the supported files here. The previewer does not download product files automatically. For a repeatable comparison in your production scene, follow the Blender PBR material test scene guide.

Which PBR maps go in each slot?

Use maps from the same material set with matching UV layouts. Base Color supplies surface color; the other maps describe material data. The Blender PBR texture setup guide explains how these roles translate to a shader.

Roughness, Metallic and AO use the source's red channel as a scalar value. Load separate grayscale maps; packed ORM or Unity mask textures are not unpacked automatically. Use the PBR Channel Packer when preparing channel layouts for an engine. Height, displacement, opacity and specular-workflow maps are outside this preview's supported material model.

Roughness and Metallic controls multiply their maps when a map is present. Loading the first map sets its multiplier to 1 so its full range is visible. Without those maps, the controls set constant values. Increasing roughness above 1 emphasizes its variation, while the rendered result remains within the material's valid range.

Compare shape, tiling and lighting

A sphere reveals changing reflections across a curved surface. A cube makes face boundaries and scale easier to compare. A plane gives a direct view of the repeating pattern; increase tiling to inspect adjacent repeats. Tiling repeats the texture and does not repair visible seams in its source pixels.

The supplied HDR environment lights the material even while the background is a neutral solid color. Show the HDR background when you want to relate reflections to their surroundings, or keep a plain background to concentrate on the surface. Exposure changes the displayed brightness of the whole preview; it does not edit your texture files. If the HDR cannot load, the viewer uses neutral fallback lights.

This is a practical inspection view, not an exact match for every renderer. Tone mapping, lighting, UVs, tangents, engine import settings and shader models can change the final appearance. Verify your material in its destination scene before delivery; the PBR workflow guide helps connect these steps.

OpenGL and DirectX normal maps

The two conventions use opposite signs for the tangent-space Y direction encoded in green. Select the convention of your map if grooves look raised or lighting appears reversed. The toggle changes the preview's interpretation without rewriting the source file. Normal strength adjusts the visible influence of the map.

Use the Normal Map Converter when you need to save a converted file. If a convention change does not resolve the shading, work through the normal-map troubleshooting guide to separate map issues from geometry and tangent problems.

Local textures and sensible preview sizes

PNG, JPEG and static WebP images are decoded in your browser. A 16-bit PNG is accepted and reduced to 8-bit samples for this preview; keep the original for workflows that need its precision. Lossless PNG is a useful choice for data maps. The browser preview is not a color-proofing or texture-export tool.

4K maps are supported where the browser's memory and WebGL limits allow them. Large inputs may be reduced for display, with the effective preview dimensions shown in the tool. Several high-resolution maps use substantially more memory than their compressed file sizes suggest. Use the Texture Memory Calculator to compare resolution and storage choices, and choose the smallest preview that shows the detail you need.

Your selected files are processed in this tab and are not uploaded or stored by the tool. The page downloads its own application code and studio HDR asset; those requests do not include your textures. Normal website requests and server-side visit analytics are separate from local texture processing. Remove a map or reset the material when you finish.