This seamless 8K PBR texture presents a highly detailed portrayal of natural cardboard, showcasing its characteristic bubble formations and chip defects that reveal underlying fiber strands. The material is fundamentally a layered substrate composed of compressed cellulose pulp fibers, bonded together with natural adhesives, forming a fibrous, porous surface. These fibers create a subtle grain pattern that runs irregularly across the surface, imparting an organic, tactile quality to the cardboard. The slight surface variations, including small chips and raised bubbles, reflect typical wear and weathering, enhancing the texture’s realism in 3D environments.
The cardboard’s form is planar yet irregular due to the fiber orientation and damage patterns. The surface features exposed pulp fiber strands that appear as fine, intertwined networks beneath the weathered outer layer. These fibers contribute to the overall roughness and tactile depth, which is captured effectively in the texture’s Normal and Height maps, providing convincing surface relief. The grain and fiber clusters introduce subtle anisotropy, which is critical for replicating the natural directional light scattering seen on real cardboard surfaces.
In terms of material properties mapped through PBR channels, the BaseColor (Albedo) captures the warm, muted tan and brown hues typical of untreated cardboard pulp, with slight discolorations around defects to suggest aging and exposure. The Roughness map reflects the matte finish of the cardboard, with localized variations where chips and bubbles create rougher, less reflective zones. The Metallic channel remains near zero throughout, consistent with the non-metallic cellulose composition. Ambient Occlusion enhances depth perception around fiber intersections and damaged areas, while Height and Normal maps provide fine displacement details critical for photorealistic shading in close-up renders.
This texture is optimized for use in Blender, Unreal Engine, and Unity, taking full advantage of its 8K resolution to maintain crisp detail across large surfaces. For best results, it is advisable to adjust the UV scale based on the model’s size to preserve the natural fiber grain without repetition artifacts. Additionally, fine-tuning roughness values can help simulate varying degrees of surface wear, while blending height and normal maps ensures smooth transitions around defects, enhancing the tactile realism of cardboard in packaging or environmental asset workflows.
How to Use These Seamless PBR Textures in Blender
This guide shows how to connect a full PBR texture set to Principled BSDF in Blender (Cycles or Eevee). Works with any of our seamless textures free download, including PBR PNG materials for Blender / Unreal / Unity.
What’s inside the download
*_albedo.png — Base Color (sRGB)*_normal.png — Normal map (Non-Color)*_roughness.png — Roughness (Non-Color)*_metallic.png — Metallic (Non-Color)*_ao.png — Ambient Occlusion (Non-Color)*_height.png — Height / Displacement (Non-Color)*_ORM.png — Packed map (R=AO, G=Roughness, B=Metallic, Non-Color)
Quick start (Node Wrangler, 30 seconds)
- Enable the addon: Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Node Wrangler.
- Create a material and select the Principled BSDF node.
- Press Ctrl + Shift + T and select the maps
albedo, normal, roughness, metallic (skip height and ORM for now) → Open.
The addon wires Base Color, Normal (with a Normal Map node), Roughness, and Metallic automatically.
- Add AO and Height using the “Manual wiring” steps below (5 and 6).
Manual wiring (full control)
- Create a material (Material Properties → New) and open the Shader Editor.
- Add an Image Texture node for each map. Set Color Space:
- Albedo → sRGB
- AO, Roughness, Metallic, Normal, Height, ORM → Non-Color
- Connect to Principled BSDF:
albedo → Base Colorroughness → Roughnessmetallic → Metallic (for wood this often stays near 0)normal → Normal Map node (Type: Tangent Space) → Normal of Principled.
If details look “inverted”, enable Invert Y on the Normal Map node.
- Ambient Occlusion (AO):
- Add a MixRGB (or Mix Color) node in mode Multiply.
- Input A =
albedo, Input B = ao, Factor = 1.0.
- Output of Mix → Base Color of Principled (replaces the direct albedo connection).
- Height / Displacement:
Cycles — true displacement
- Material Properties → Settings → Displacement: Displacement and Bump.
- Add a Displacement node: connect
height → Height, set Midlevel = 0.5, Scale = 0.02–0.08 (tune to taste).
- Output of Displacement → Material Output → Displacement.
- Add geometry density (e.g., Subdivision Surface) so displacement has polygons to work with.
Eevee (or lightweight Cycles) — bump only
- Add a Bump node:
height → Height.
- Set Strength = 0.2–0.5, Distance = 0.05–0.1, and connect Normal output to Principled’s Normal.
Using the packed ORM texture (optional)
Instead of separate AO/Roughness/Metallic maps you can use the single *_ORM.png:
- Add one Image Texture (Non-Color) → Separate RGB (or Separate Color).
- R (red) → AO (use it in the Multiply node with albedo as above).
- G (green) → Roughness of Principled.
- B (blue) → Metallic of Principled.
UVs & seamless tiling
- These textures are seamless. If your mesh has no UVs, go to UV Editing → Smart UV Project.
- For scale/repeat, add Texture Coordinate (UV) → Mapping and plug it into all texture nodes.
Increase Mapping → Scale (e.g., 2/2/2) to tile more densely.
Recommended starter values
- Normal Map Strength: 0.5–1.0
- Bump Strength: ~0.3
- Displacement Scale (Cycles): ~0.03
Common pitfalls
- Wrong Color Space (normals/roughness/etc. must be Non-Color).
- “Inverted” details → enable Invert Y on the Normal Map node.
- Over-strong relief → lower Displacement Scale or Bump Strength.
Example: Download Wood Textures and instantly apply parquet or rustic planks inside Blender for architectural visualization.
To add the downloaded texture, go to Add — Texture — Image Texture.
Add a node and click the Open button.
Select the required texture on your hard drive and connect Color to Base Color.
