Frequently Asked Questions

PBR (Physically Based Rendering) textures are sets of image maps that describe how a surface interacts with light. Instead of a single diffuse color, PBR uses separate maps — albedo, normal, roughness, metallic, ambient occlusion, and others — so that game engines and 3D renderers can shade materials realistically under any lighting condition. PBR is the standard shading model in Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, Blender, and most modern renderers.

PBR Forge generates a full set of texture maps from a single source image: normal map, height map, ambient occlusion (AO), roughness, metallic, emissive, opacity, and a signed distance field (SDF) view. All maps are computed in real time on your GPU using WebGL 2.0 — no server processing, no waiting.

A height map stores surface elevation as a grayscale image — white is high, black is low. A normal map encodes the surface direction (which way each pixel "faces") as RGB color. Normal maps are used directly by game engines for lighting calculations without displacing geometry, making them faster to render. Height maps are often used to generate normal maps, or for parallax and tessellation effects that physically move vertices. PBR Forge derives height first, then computes normals from it.

Ambient occlusion (AO) approximates how much ambient light reaches each point on a surface. Crevices, corners, and tight spaces receive less light and appear darker. Adding an AO map to your material makes surfaces feel grounded and three-dimensional — without it, materials can look flat and "floating." PBR Forge generates AO maps with configurable radius and sample count for quality control.

Yes. PBR Forge has a dedicated Sprite Mode designed specifically for pixel art and transparent sprites. It uses the alpha channel (transparency) as the shape signal instead of RGB luminance, which preserves crisp pixel edges and avoids the "mushy" results you get from tools designed for opaque textures. You get normal, height, AO, and distance field maps that work with 2D lighting systems in Godot, Unity, Phaser, and other engines.

A signed distance field stores the distance from each pixel to the nearest edge of a shape. Pixels inside the shape have positive values; pixels outside have negative values. SDFs are used for smooth beveling, rounded edges, and consistent normal generation from silhouettes. PBR Forge computes SDFs using the Jump Flood Algorithm (JFA) on the GPU, which produces results in real time even for large sprites.

PBR Forge offers two distinct processing pipelines. Sprite Mode uses the Jump Flood Algorithm to compute signed distance fields from the alpha channel — ideal for pixel art, UI icons, and any image with transparency. Texture Mode uses frequency separation to extract height information from luminance at different scales (low, medium, high frequency) — designed for tileable, opaque materials like brick, stone, wood, and fabric. Choosing the right mode for your image type produces significantly better results.

No. PBR Forge processes everything locally in your browser using WebGL 2.0. Your images never leave your device — there is no server-side processing, no cloud upload, and no storage of your creative assets. This is by design: the entire texture generation pipeline runs on your GPU. Once the page and its assets have loaded, all image processing happens entirely on-device with no network requests.

PBR Forge uses PostHog (EU-hosted) for anonymous product analytics with strict privacy safeguards: no keystroke recording in input fields, canvas elements are visually masked in session replay (masked data is never sent to PostHog), and analytics require explicit consent. No accounts are required to use the tool. Full details are in the privacy policy.

PBR Forge generates standard image-based PBR maps (PNG) that work with any engine or renderer that supports PBR materials. This includes Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot, Blender, Three.js, Babylon.js, Phaser, Pixi.js, and more. The tool also includes engine presets for normal map orientation (OpenGL vs. DirectX convention) so your maps work correctly out of the box.

Different engines expect different normal map conventions — the green channel is flipped between OpenGL (Y+) and DirectX (Y-). To set this in PBR Forge: click the download button in the left sidebar to open the Export panel, then choose your engine preset — OpenGL (Y+) for Godot, Blender, Phaser, Three.js, and Unity (Built-in/URP), or DirectX (Y-) for Unreal Engine, CryEngine, and Source Engine. The preset is applied when you export. If your lighting looks inverted in-engine (bumps appear as dents), switch to the other preset and re-export.

PBR Forge exports maps at the same resolution as your source image, up to your device's maximum WebGL texture size (typically 4096×4096 or 8192×8192 on modern GPUs). For very large images that exceed your GPU's limit, PBR Forge uses a tiled export system that processes the image in chunks, so you can still get full-resolution output.

You can load multiple images at once via drag-and-drop or the file picker, then switch between them using the file list. Note that parameter settings (strength, AO radius, mode, etc.) are currently shared across all loaded images — changing a slider affects all files. For exporting, you can download a single normal map or a full PBR pack (ZIP with all maps) for the active image. There is no batch export yet — you need to switch to each file and export individually. Per-file parameter state and batch export are planned for a future update.

PBR Forge accepts a wide range of source image formats: PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP, SVG, AVIF, and APNG. Formats like DDS, TGA, EXR, TIFF, and RAW are not supported (yet). All generated maps are exported as PNG files, which preserve full quality without compression artifacts — important for normal maps where lossy compression can introduce visible lighting errors.