Tested in Blender 5.0 · 20 October 2026
Base color, normal and roughness describe different parts of a material. Color supplies its appearance, a normal map changes the directions used for shading, and roughness changes the spread of reflections. You can see their contributions below using the same checked Worn Planks maps, camera and lighting.
Get the tested Worn Planks starter — three 1K maps, a packed Blender scene and an embedded-texture GLB. Original texture by Dimitrios Savva / Poly Haven, CC0.
See what each map adds
With JavaScript enabled, choose a stage to compare the renders. All three are shown below without JavaScript.
Download comparison scene · 7.7 MiB
Blender 5.0 · three packed 1K maps · final stage connected. Our scene uses the original CC0 Worn Planks maps by Dimitrios Savva / Poly Haven. SHA-256: a13ba94d8a09f1274fb69e8056086acc8209bf91904c50f73bcf6a89af840dc9
What changed in this experiment?
Locker3d rendered three versions of one scene in Blender 5.0, Cycles, 32 samples and AgX. The first uses only the base-color image, with constant roughness 0.5 and no normal input. The second connects the tangent normal map, keeping roughness at 0.5. The third also connects the roughness image. The camera, lights, meshes, UVs, sample seed, exposure and color transform stay fixed. There is no displacement.
The floor is 2.8 m wide and uses two repeats of the source's 1.4 m tile. The sphere's UVs are illustrative. Surface detail changes under the light while the geometry and silhouette stay the same. This is a controlled material demonstration, not a measurement of real wood or a comparison between render engines.
Connect the checked files in Blender
| File in the starter | Image interpretation | Destination |
|---|---|---|
worn_planks_diff_1k.jpg | sRGB for this color image | Image Texture Color → Principled Base Color |
worn_planks_nor_gl_1k.png | Non-Color | Image Texture Color → Normal Map Color → Principled Normal |
worn_planks_rough_1k.png | Non-Color | Image Texture Color → Principled Roughness |
The Blender setup guide includes the node connections extracted from the downloadable scene. Use the filenames and source information rather than guessing from a preview's colors. Image color space should match the data's actual encoding; a different source or pipeline can need a different interpretation.
Base color: surface color, rather than baked lighting
For this nonmetallic wood, the color image provides the diffuse base color. The source file is named diff; the same role is often labelled base color or albedo in a texture pack. Shadows and reflections in the rendered preview come from the scene. Avoid adding painted-in highlights as a substitute for connecting the other maps. The diffuse and albedo guide discusses the terminology.
In our scene, the color image uses sRGB. That is a property of this image and setup, not a rule that every image called albedo must always be tagged sRGB. Blender's Image Texture documentation describes the color-space setting.
Normal: shading detail without extra geometry
The normal image is interpreted as direction data. In this starter it is an OpenGL tangent-space map, loaded as Non-Color and decoded by a Normal Map node set to Tangent Space. Connecting its RGB output directly to Base Color displays the encoded image instead of using it to shade the wood.
The normal image and the Normal Map node use matching UVs. Compare the first two renders: connecting the node changes the light response, while mesh counts and object transforms stay fixed. The Blender Normal Map reference explains its input and tangent-space UV requirement. If a different engine expects the other tangent convention, check that engine's importer before flipping channels.
Roughness: how reflections spread
Roughness varies the reflection response across the wood. Lower values produce sharper reflections; higher values spread them. In the final render, the roughness image replaces the constant 0.5 used in the first two stages. We keep this data image in Non-Color so it is not treated as display color.
Roughness is not the amount of metal in the surface. This wood stays at Metallic 0 in every stage. A rough material can still reflect light. Blender's Principled BSDF reference describes these separate inputs. With a different light arrangement the difference may be subtler, which is why the example keeps the lights fixed.
Check a material that looks wrong
- Colored patches or purple detail: check whether a data map was connected to Base Color.
- Detail looks inverted: verify the normal convention, the Normal Map node and matching UVs.
- Unexpected reflection patches: inspect the roughness file's interpretation and connection before changing the lights.
- The outline is still smooth: that is expected here; this example uses normal mapping, with no displacement.
These checks narrow down the setup; they do not diagnose every material or lighting problem. For source formats and bit depth, read EXR, PNG and JPEG for PBR maps. To inspect repetition in an image before importing, use the local seamless checker.
Try the same workflow with another surface
The checked starters for Medieval Blocks 05 and Cardboard 001 also provide a color image, OpenGL normal and roughness map. Their material pages identify their creators, source files and scale limits. Those surfaces have their own maps; the controlled comparison above uses Worn Planks only.
Keep the original source and the files used with your project. The Texture Source Notes builder can export a SOURCES.txt record locally. It records your entries; it does not grant rights or verify a licence.
Frequently asked questions
Which color space should I use for these three maps?
In the checked Worn Planks starter, the color image is sRGB; the normal and roughness images are Non-Color. For other sources, match their actual encoding and map role rather than applying one color-space label to every file.
Does the normal map change the mesh silhouette?
No. This example changes the directions used for shading, with no displacement or geometry changes. The silhouette remains the same across all three rendered stages.
Is a rough surface the same as a nonreflective surface?
No. Roughness changes the spread of reflections. The roughness input and the metallic input have different roles; this wood remains nonmetallic in every rendered stage.
Can I reproduce the comparison with the download?
The comparison-scene download preserves the final render's camera, lights, UVs and three packed maps. In Blender 5.0, disconnect the Principled Normal input and use constant Roughness 0.5 for the color-only stage. Reconnect Normal for stage two, then reconnect the roughness image for the complete material.