Applying PBR textures in Blender is a node job: each map must land in the right Principled BSDF socket with the right color space. This walkthrough is the setup you can repeat for wood, concrete, metal, or stone from Locker3d. If you need the theory first, read the complete PBR textures guide.

Step 1: Material and Shader Editor

Select the object. In Material Properties, create a material (or keep the existing one). Open a Shader Editor workspace. You should see a Principled BSDF connected to Material Output. Delete leftover Diffuse or Glossy nodes from old tutorials; mixed legacy graphs fight PBR lighting. Apply scale on the mesh (Ctrl+A) before you judge texture size, or Mapping values will lie.

Step 2: Load one image node per map

Add an Image Texture node for albedo, one for roughness, one for normal, and one for metalness if the pack includes it. Optional: ambient occlusion and height. Load the files from a Locker3d download—typical names include albedo/basecolor, roughness, nrm/normal, metallic. Keep them in one folder per material so you can reuse the group. Do not plug a single JPEG into every socket.

Step 3: Color space, then connections

Set albedo to sRGB. Set roughness, normal, metalness, AO, and height to Non-Color. Connect albedo to Base Color. Connect roughness to Roughness. Connect metalness to Metallic. For the normal, add a Normal Map node: image Color → Normal Map Color, Normal Map Normal → Principled Normal. If you have AO, multiply it with albedo in the shader (Mix Color, Multiply) so you can disable it under baked lighting. Height goes to a Displacement node on Material Output only if you need real silhouette; otherwise leave it unused or drive a bump at a low strength.

Step 4: Mapping, UVs, and scale

Add Texture Coordinate (UV) → Mapping → every Image Texture Vector. Use Mapping Scale to set real-world size: 1,1,1 with UVs that span 0–1 once means one texture tile per island. For floors, raise scale (or UV repeat) until plank or tile size matches a photo. Shared Mapping keeps albedo, roughness, and normal aligned; never scale only the color. If the mesh has no UVs, unwrap first or use generated/object coords as a temporary preview. Tiling issues are covered in how to tile textures without seams and UV unwrapping for PBR textures.

Step 5: Check under a real HDRI

Switch to Material Preview or Cycles with an HDRI. Plastic look: roughness is sRGB or too low and even. Dirty look: albedo includes baked shadows. Flat look: normal bypassed the Normal Map node. Pink: missing file path after moving folders. Metal that looks like gray plastic: metallic map not connected or still sRGB. Confirm metalness is near 0 on wood and stone. Then render a close crop of the hero surface before you light the whole room.

  • Wood and stone: Metallic 0, roughness from the map.
  • Painted metal: high metallic, roughness from scratches.
  • Glass: transmission and IOR, not a glass albedo photo.

Where to get CC0 maps

Grab sets from the Locker3d catalog—wood, concrete, metal, stone. They are CC0; you can use them in client files without credit. License limits (you cannot claim exclusive ownership of the original scan) are in CC0 textures: what you can and cannot do. More Blender notes sit on the blog.

When the setup works, group it. Select the image nodes, Mapping, and Normal Map, then Ctrl+G, and expose Scale plus the image sockets. The next Locker3d material is a file swap, not a rebuild. Name the group with the texture name so you can find it in the outliner. If roughness looks inverted, the pack may be glossiness: use a Invert Color node on that map only, and leave a comment. Do not invert the normal as a first guess.

Frequently asked questions

Which color space should each PBR map use in Blender?

Albedo (Base Color) uses sRGB. Roughness, metalness, ambient occlusion, height, and normal use Non-Color. Wrong color space is the usual cause of plastic or dirty materials.

Why is my normal map too strong or inverted?

Put the image through a Normal Map node, not straight into the BSDF. Match OpenGL versus DirectX (green channel). Start Strength at 1.0 and fix UVs before lowering it.

Where can I get free maps to follow this setup?

Download CC0 packs from the Locker3d catalog. Use them in personal and commercial Blender work without attribution.