Using Poliigon assets in Houdini (Updated 2025)

Go to File > Import > Filmbox FBX

In the dialog box, click the arrow to open an explorer window to browse to your unzipped model folder from Poliigon. Leave the 'Materials' option checked.

You should now see your imported model, and a subnetwork node added to the Object window

Refer to the section below to apply Poliigon textures to your imported model

In the Object workspace, go Add > search for "material", then select 'Material Network' (If you imported an FBX as described in the section above, skip to step 3, as a material network with a shader node will already have been created by the import)

Double click the object node, then double click the Material Network node to open it

If you left the materials box checked when you imported your object, you should see a principled shader node already present

In the Principled Shader settings window, go to Textures tab, then tick the check boxes for the relevant basic maps (in this case: Base Color, Roughness, Metallic and Occlusion. Poliigon's texture maps match Houdini's texture names exactly, except Occlusion, which Poliigon refers to as Ambient Occlusion)

Go to the Bump & Normals tab and tick the checkbox to enable, then click the arrow to browse to the downloaded Poliigon normal map

For displacement, go to the Displacement tab, tick the checkbox to enable texture displacement, then click the arrow to browse to the downloaded Poliigon displacement map

With the default OBJ context active, select 'Environment light' from the 'Lights and Cameras' menu.

The environment light settings menu will be active when added to the OBJ context. Use the arrow icon to browse to your downloaded Poliigon HDRI. If you wish to see the HDRI as the background in addition to lighting the scene, tick the checkbox for 'Render Light Geometry'