These are the specifications and standards for all textures released after 15th July 2024, and eventually the whole library as they are remastered.

Contains the pure color information of the surface, devoid of any shadow or reflection.

Identified as files ending with _BaseColor. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines the shadows in the crevices of the material. It's combined with the color map by using a Multiply layer blend operation.

Identified as files ending with _AmbientOcclusion. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

This black and white image defines how sharp or diffuse the reflections are. Blacker values are glossy, whiter values are matte.

Identified as any file ending with _Roughness. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

This purple-ish image defines the height information, which is faked by shader (not physically altering the mesh). Each channel (RGB) contain a different axis' slope information. Red = X (left/right), Green = Y (down/up, see below), Blue = Z (depth).

Identified as any file ending with _Normal. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

The purple color comes from the way it stores the data. It multiples each channel by 2 then subtracts 1 (eg. 0.56 becomes 0.12). And because most surfaces generally point up, the blue channel contains the most information, while Red and Green about half each.

Every normal map is in one of the following two formats:

Poliigon’s normal maps are in the OpenGL format.

If you're using Corona, Vray, Unreal Engine or Unity, you will must invert the Green channel to make them work correctly. Alternatively, download Poliigon's Blender, 3ds Max or C4D plugins and the normal map will automatically be set up in the correct configuration for your render engine.

This black and white image defines which parts are metal (white) and which are non-metal (black).

Identified as any file ending with _Metallic. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

This black and white image defines the height information of the surface. Light values are raised, dark values are reduced, mid-grey (0.5) represents the flat mid-point of the surface.

Importantly, displacement values are not normalized (0-1). This is to allow for a standard displacement value across renderers. So in some textures the displacement amount will be mostly grey, and in others it will be very contrasted.

Unlike a normal map which can only be used to fake the height information at a shader level, displacement maps can be used both at a shader level and at a mesh level to physically displace the geometry.

Identified as any file ending with _Displacement. Available in TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

This special texture stores the same Ambient Occlusion, Roughness and Metalness information, but each are stored in the separate Red, Green and Blue channels respectively. This special map is typically only used in realtime rendering and game applications.

Identified as any file ending with _ORM. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

For vegetation, fabrics and glass materials you can also expect some of the following maps:

This texture map is identical to the Base Color Map, but with an added Alpha channel containing the opacity map. This is included in materials containing empty see-through space such as sheer fabrics and leaves.

Identified as files ending with _BaseColorOpacity. Available in PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines which parts of the texture are opaque, or transparent (completely invisible, without refraction). This is included in materials containing empty see-through space such as sheer fabrics and leaves.

White values define opaqueness, black values define complete transparentness. This information is identical to the information stored in the Alpha channel of the Base Color Opacity map. Typically if you're using the Base Color Opacity map, you don't need the Opacity map.

Note: Opacity is not to be confused with the Transmission map (further below). Opacity should be used as a mask between a diffuse shader and a transparent shader. It should not refract light.

Identified as any file ending with _Opacity. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines the fine fuzz of microfibers in cloth-like surfaces. Included with many fabrics textures. The sheen color defines only the color. The intensity is defined by your shader preferences.

Identified as any file ending with _SheenColor. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines the color of light penetrating and appearing on the backside of a flat thinshell meshes. This is included in fabric and vegetation textures.

This should not be used in conjunction with the Scattering Color Map (which is for thick, two-sided manifold meshes). You should use Transluency or Scattering Color Map, not both.

This only defines the color. You can adjust the strength to suit in your shader settings.

Identified as any file ending with _TranslucencyColor. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines the color of light passing through solid closed manifold objects like food or fabric. This is included in fabric and vegetation textures.

This should not be used in conjunction with the Translucency Map (which is for flat thinshell meshes). You should use Scattering Color or the Translucency Map, not both.

This only defines the color. You can adjust the strength to suit in your shader settings.

Identified as any file ending with _ScatteringColor. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

Defines which parts of the texture are refracting light, and is included in textures like glass or liquids.

The IOR (Index of Refraction) should be set by you depending on the material.

Identified as any file ending with _Transmission. Available in JPG, PNG, TIFF and EXR file formats.

Specifications:

All Poliigon texture files are provided using the following naming structure:

Poliigon_DescriptiveName_AssetIDNumber_MapName

Underscores are used as delimiters:

Examples:

When the PBR Metalness workflow was introduced, we made the decision to append _Metallness and _Specular to the end of files, which later lead to confusion with the actual _specular and _metallic maps. Since all major render engines now support the Metalness workflow, we’re making this our only supported format, so all Specular workflow maps will be removed.

All textures are either

From 2013-2021 textures were authored in a variety of sizes from 10cm all the way up to 100m, making it difficult to know what size to scale the texture to on a mesh. All textures since 2021 have been either 2.5x2.5M or 30x30cm. During the remaster process, any texture that falls outside of this acceptable range will be rescaled or reauthored to this.

Poliigon publishes textures in the following resolutions:

Large Textures (2.5x2.5m):

Small Textures

To avoid the problem of blurry textures breaking realism, Poliigon publishes the texel density alongside the resolution.

To use the texel density effectively, you should pick a target for your scene (eg. 32 px/cm) then download only that resolution. You should then use tools in your 3D software package to ensure the UV islands match that same texel density.

Every texture comes with an XML-formatted .mtlx MaterialX file. This is an open source, interoperable standard for more consistently representing materials across renderers (source). While not compatible in all DCCs, Material X support is increasing.

If you use Blender, 3ds Max, C4D or Sketchup, we recommend importing via our native plugins. But if you're using an unsupported application or an internal tool, you may wish to natively import the Material X file.

Our plugins do not currently make use of the Material X files, but they may do so in the future based on the functionality and availability.