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Physically based rendering, explained.
A short primer on PBR texture maps, and how to pick the right material for your project.
The maps
One material, six layers of information.
A physically based material isn't one image — it's a small stack of grayscale and color maps that a renderer combines to decide how light behaves on every pixel of a surface.
Albedo / base color
The raw surface color with no lighting, shadow, or reflection baked in — sometimes called diffuse or base color. Every other map layers on top of this.
Normal map
An RGB-encoded map that fakes fine surface detail — bumps, grooves, stitching — by bending how light bounces off a flat mesh, without adding a single extra polygon.
Roughness
A grayscale map describing microscopic surface irregularity, pixel by pixel. White areas scatter light into a soft, blurry reflection; black areas reflect it sharp, like a mirror.
Ambient occlusion
Precomputed soft shadowing in cracks, corners, and contact points — where ambient light struggles to reach. It adds depth even under flat, shadowless lighting.
Height / displacement
A grayscale elevation map. Game engines use it for parallax occlusion mapping (a cheap fake-3D trick) or real tessellation when the budget allows it.
Metallic
A mask marking which pixels are bare metal versus dielectric (non-metal) material — metals reflect their own color and have no diffuse component.
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