This seamless 3D texture captures the intricate surface of ice pellets and hail ice naturally embedded within a solid icy crust, designed for photorealistic PBR applications. The base substrate mimics densely packed frozen precipitation, resembling compacted snow and ice particles fused together under cold conditions. The texture’s composition reflects a complex layering of mineral-like ice crystals bound by a translucent, glossy icy glaze that acts as a natural adhesive, holding the aggregated pellets and hail fragments in place. Surface porosity varies subtly, with areas of tightly packed ice contrasting against slightly rougher patches where the icy crust weathers and fractures. The finish exhibits a cold, wet sheen with micro-variations in gloss and translucency, emphasizing moisture and frozen condensation typical of natural frozen precipitation environments.
In PBR terms, the BaseColor or Albedo channel displays a predominantly pale bluish-white palette with hints of subtle translucency and slight greyish undertones, replicating the natural color shifts found in dense ice crusts and embedded hail. The Normal map accentuates detailed micro-variations in surface topology, highlighting the rounded pellets, sharp edges of hail ice, and the roughness of the icy crust. Roughness values vary across the surface to simulate the slick, wet glaze contrasting with matte snow-packed areas, while the Metallic channel remains near zero, reflecting the non-metallic nature of ice. Ambient Occlusion enhances the depth in crevices between pellets and crust fissures, providing realistic shadowing, and the Height/Displacement map defines subtle surface elevations, crucial for believable parallax effects in close-up renders.
Rendered at a high-fidelity 8K resolution, this texture is optimized for seamless tiling, ensuring continuous, artifact-free coverage across large 3D surfaces. It is fully compatible and Unreal Engine, Blender, and Unity ready, making it ideal for environments requiring authentic frozen precipitation materials, such as winter landscapes, icy terrains, or weather system visualizations. For best results, it is advisable to adjust the UV scale to maintain the natural size of ice pellets and hail clusters, and to fine-tune the roughness parameter to balance the wet glaze with matte snowy areas, enhancing realism under different lighting conditions.
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.
