Roof and tile PBR textures decide whether an exterior still looks like a real building or like a gray box with a stamp. Clay, slate, concrete, and ceramic each need the right albedo color, a roughness that separates wet glaze from dusty clay, and a normal that reads tile edges at street distance. This guide covers type choice, real-world scale, and when UVs beat triplanar.
Clay, slate, ceramic, and metal roofs
Clay barrel tiles are warm, overlapping, and strongly directional: the normal must show the cylinder, not a flat grid. Flat clay or concrete tiles are quieter and easier to tile on large warehouses. Slate is cooler, thinner, and often laid in courses with broken edges—albedo variation matters more than a huge bump. Glazed ceramic on facades is smoother (lower roughness) and can pick up environment color. Standing-seam metal is a different material: use a metal set with high metalness, not a clay tile recolored gray. Start in tiles, then add stone or wall for chimneys and parapets.
Scale at the eave, not in a material ball
The usual error is tiles the size of dinner plates or the size of cars. Measure: many European clay tiles are roughly 20–40 cm wide; large concrete tiles can be bigger; slate pieces vary. In Blender, unwrap the roof planes, keep texel density even between front and back slopes, and set Mapping so one repeat equals one real tile module. Check from a 1.6 m camera on the sidewalk, not from a top orthographic view. If the house is small, a 2K tile is enough. Hero villas with a low drone shot may need 4K so the first three rows stay sharp. Map roles are covered in the complete PBR textures guide.
Normals, ridges, and wet weather
Tile edges live in the normal (or height) map. If you flatten the normal strength to hide seams, the roof turns into painted cardboard. Keep strength near 1.0 and fix UVs instead. Ridges, hips, and valleys should be separate meshes or trim textures; a tiling roof sheet cannot invent a ridge cap. For wet-look stills, lower roughness in a mask that follows gravity (eaves stay wetter), do not multiply the whole albedo by blue. Snow and moss are decals or extra geometry, not a second wrap of the same tile.
UVs versus triplanar on roofs
Gable and hip roofs unwrap cleanly: mark seams at ridges and eaves, unwrap, and rotate islands so courses run across the slope. Triplanar is tempting on messy CAD imports, but it blends three projections and will smear barrel tiles at the ridge. Use triplanar for broken concrete or organic rock, not for course-based roofing. If the mesh is a mess, retopologize the roof planes—five minutes of UVs beats a broken triplanar. Node setup for maps is in how to apply PBR textures in Blender. Seam control is in how to tile textures without seams.
CC0 tiles and full exteriors
Locker3d tile and related maps are CC0. Download from the catalog, edit color to match a local clay, and ship the stills; see CC0 textures: what you can and cannot do. Pair roofs with asphalt drives and brick walls so the site shares one realism level. More exterior notes are on the blog.
Gutters, flashing, and chimney flashing should not use the roof tile. Give them a metal material with high metalness and a roughness that matches painted or zinc. A tile texture stretched along a gutter is a common exterior tell. Keep snow and leaves as geo or decals on the lower courses only, where they collect in real life.
Frequently asked questions
How do I set the correct tile size on a roof?
Measure a real tile (often 20–40 cm for clay, larger for slate sheets). Scale UVs so one texture module matches that size at the eave, then check from street camera height.
Should I UV unwrap a roof or use triplanar?
Unwrap simple gables so rows follow the slope. Use triplanar only on messy meshes. Triplanar can smear directional tiles across ridges and hips.
Can I use Locker3d roof tiles in client exteriors?
Yes. Locker3d textures are CC0. You may use and edit them in commercial archviz without attribution.