Fabric and leather PBR textures are how furniture stops looking like colored clay. Cloth needs weave and a mostly matte roughness. Leather needs grain and a tighter, oilier highlight. Both stay non-metal. If you treat them like painted plastic with a strong normal, the sofa will steal the shot for the wrong reason.

How cloth and leather differ in PBR

Fabric scatters a lot of light. Albedo holds dye and print. Roughness stays mid to high except for silk or vinyl. Leather is still a dielectric, but roughness can go lower and the normal shows pores and creases. Neither should use metalness. Some shaders add a sheen or fuzz lobe for cloth; that is extra, not a reason to fake metal. Primer: what PBR textures are. Locker3d fabric and leather packs are CC0.

Fabric weave and roughness

  • Cotton / linen — visible weave, high roughness, calm albedo variation.
  • Wool / bouclé — noisier normal, even higher roughness; keep scale small.
  • Velvet — dark albedo, directional sheen; use sheen if available, not metalness.
  • Denim / canvas — stronger weave, mid-high roughness, useful on props.

If the weave is the size of a hand on a cushion, shrink UVs. A normal strength of 1.0 is often too much on close furniture; try 0.4–0.7.

Leather grain and sheen

Leather albedo is the dye, not a baked studio glint. Put the glint in roughness: slightly darker (glossier) on seat centers if you add a wear mask, rougher in cracks. Grain in the normal should be fine. Distressed leather is roughness and albedo variation, not a brown overlay that hides the grain. Next to wood frames and floor planks, leather should be the glossier dielectric, not a chrome patch.

Upholstery and clothing scale

Measure a real cushion: prints often repeat every 10–40 cm. Clothing needs unique UVs more often than sofas; tiling a large floral across a sleeve looks like upholstery. For archviz sofas, a seamless CC0 tile plus good wrinkle sculpt (or a wrinkle normal) beats a 8K unique bake you will not unwrap. Keep fabric UVs even; stretching on cushions is very visible.

Avoiding plastic-looking textiles

Three checks: roughness not below ~0.35 for everyday cloth; normal not carving deep valleys; lighting not a single hard sun on a black sofa. Add an HDRI. If the shader has sheen, use a little on fabric, none on worn leather unless you want wax. Do not multiply a heavy AO into fabric albedo or folds turn to soot.

Free CC0 fabric and leather

Download from fabric and leather, then wire them like other dielectrics. Blender: how to apply PBR textures in Blender. Beginners: PBR textures for beginners. Pair with wall paint and the catalog. More notes: blog.

Frequently asked questions

Should fabric or leather use a metalness map?

Almost never. Both are dielectrics. Keep metalness at 0. Sheen on velvet or a tight leather highlight comes from roughness (and sheen/fuzz sockets if your shader has them), not from metalness.

Why does my sofa fabric look like plastic?

Roughness is too low, the weave normal is too strong, or the UV scale makes the pattern huge. Real cloth is fairly matte. Drop the normal intensity and match thread scale to a real sofa you can measure.

Are Locker3d fabric and leather textures CC0?

Yes. Use them in commercial interiors, games, and product renders without attribution. Download albedo, roughness, and normal from the fabric and leather categories.