Texturing is the process of applying a surface appearance to a 3D object. Blender provides various tools and features to create and connect your own texture maps to your asset, allowing you to preview your model's final appearance and link the texture images to your exported file.
The mask example asset uses Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) textures, which are advanced textures that create realistic surfaces under different lighting environments. PBR textures use multiple image files, or maps, to represent the various surface properties of your 3D object.
Color (Albedo) Map
Normal Map
Roughness Map
Metalness Map
This tutorial doesn't cover the PBR texture creation process, which typically involves using third-party software such as ZBrush or Substance 3D Painter. Instead, this section goes over the process of bringing premade PBR image files into Blender and properly associating them to your asset on export.
While PBR textures are not required for accessories, adding PBR textures can add extra visual flair and realism to elevate your creations. For an example on using Blender to create a basic, non-PBR texture, see Texturing Basic Clothing.
To configure and link your PBR textures to your model:
Download Rigid_Mask_Textures.zip and unzip the textures images locally in the same directory as your Blender project.
In Blender, navigate to the Shading tab. Ensure that your object is selected.
If you don't see the PrincipledBSDF node, select the +New button to create a new material.
From your file browser, drag and drop your texture .png files into the node section. A new image node appears with each file.
In the newly created node, click and drag the following image nodes to their appropriate connection on the Principled BSDF main node:
- _ALB texture: Connect the Color node to Principled BSDF > Base Color.
- _MTL texture: Connect the Color node to Principled BSDF > Metallic.
- _RGH texture: Connect the Color node to Principled BSDF > Roughness.
- _NOR texture:
- Click Add > Vector > Normal Map to generate a NormalMap node. This node is required to convert Normal PBR image maps.
- Connect the _NOR node's Color to the NormalMap node's Color connection.
- Connect the NormalMap's Normal to the Principled BSDF > Normal.
Test your textures by changing the viewport viewing mode to Viewport Shading > Material Preview Mode.
You've completed the texturing section of this tutorial. If desired, download a reference sample of this stage of the project for comparison.
If you are creating your own PBR textures, check out Material References for various PBR material examples you can apply to your next accessory.