Metal textures fail in predictable ways: mid-grey metalness, no HDRI, and a roughness that does not match the story (chrome barn rust, or rusty chrome). PBR already knows how metal works. Your job is to pick the right finish maps and to stop treating rust as “dirty metalness.”

How PBR treats metal

Raw metal has almost no diffuse color. Albedo is the reflection tint. Metalness is 1. Roughness is the finish. Painted or rusted areas are dielectrics on top: metalness 0, colored albedo, usually rougher. That split is why a metalness map exists. If you set Metallic to 0.5 on the whole mesh, you invent a material that does not exist. Read what PBR textures are if that split is still fuzzy. Locker3d metal textures ship the maps for this model and are CC0.

Polished metal

Polished steel, chrome, and lacquered brass want low roughness and a clean metalness mask. Fingerprints and micro-scratches belong in roughness, not as dark scribbles in albedo. Light with a studio HDRI or you will judge a grey blob. Keep albedo in a realistic metal range: steel is a dim cool grey, gold is warm, copper is reddish—not neon. Product shots can use a slightly lower roughness than archviz hardware; real door handles are rarely perfect mirrors.

Brushed metal

Brushed finishes are anisotropic in the real world. A standard PBR pack fakes a lot of that with a directional normal and a roughness streak. Align UVs with the brush direction. If the grain runs across a cylinder the wrong way, the highlight will look like a bug. Do not blur the albedo to fake brush; you will lose tint and get plastic. Appliance panels, elevator doors, and kitchen steel are typical brushed uses next to wood and floor interiors.

Rusty and painted metal

Rust, flaking paint, and oxidation are layered dielectrics. Use the metalness map as a mask: white where bare metal remains, black where rust or paint sits. Albedo carries orange rust and paint color. Roughness goes up on rust and chipped paint. A normal map of flakes helps more than darkening the whole sheet. Structural steel next to concrete looks better with a few rust edges, not a uniform orange overlay.

  • Bare metal → metalness 1, tinted albedo, roughness = finish.
  • Paint / rust / dust → metalness 0, material color in albedo.
  • Avoid 0.5 metalness as a “weather” slider.

Lighting metals correctly

Place something worth reflecting: an HDRI, a window, a softbox. Then judge roughness. A brushed plate under a single overhead sun will look streaky and cheap; add fill. In Blender, follow how to apply PBR textures in Blender so metalness stays Non-Color. Beginners: PBR textures for beginners.

Free CC0 metal on Locker3d

Browse metal for polished, brushed, and weathered sets. Mix with stone or wall for exteriors. More material notes: blog and the catalog.

Frequently asked questions

Should rust be metalness 1 or 0?

Rust is a dielectric. Those pixels should be metalness 0 with brown/orange albedo and higher roughness. Only the remaining bare metal stays at metalness 1.

Why does polished metal look grey in my render?

Metals reflect the environment. An empty grey world gives grey metal. Add an HDRI or studio lights, keep metalness at 1 on clean metal, and put tint in albedo, not in a bright diffuse.

Are Locker3d metal textures CC0?

Yes. You can use Locker3d metal packs in commercial work without attribution. Connect albedo, roughness, normal, and metalness as a standard metalness-roughness material.