Simple PBR Layering (Closed Alpha)

Streamlined PBR material workflow for Blender. Import, process and layer multi channel materials with comprehensive masking, UV and adjustment settings and decaling!

What is Simple PBR Layering?

Simple PBR Layering provides a comprehensive PBR material import, editing and layering workflow in Blender. From automatic channel detection and grouping of texture sets, fast material layering with fast, advanced and intuitive masking presets to comprehensive UV projection and manipulation settings to create complex material systems with a few clicks, this is a game changer for setting up your materials.

Beyond import, Simple PBR Layering is a complete non-destructive material authoring toolkit. Triplanar mapping,projection masking, and procedural masks let you build fully layered PBR materials directly in the 3D Viewport — no UVs required. Whether you are importing a downloaded texture pack or building a complex layered material system from scratch, Simple PBR Layering keeps you out of the node editor.

Feature Overview

Texture Import

  • One-click PBR import: Scan a folder and automatically assign textures to the correct channels.
  • Supports all common PBR channels: Base Color, Roughness, Metallic, Normal, AO, Displacement, Emission, Alpha, Specular IOR, and Transmission.
  • Automatic colorspace assignment — sRGB for color data, Non-Color for everything else.
  • Custom suffix mappings: Define your own suffix channel rules in the addon preferences.

UV-Free Material Creation

  • Triplanar UV projection: Apply textures to any mesh using world-space triplanar mapping — no UV unwrap needed.
  • Box UV and World UV: Additional projection methods for fast, UV-free texturing of hard-surface assets.
  • Decal UV projection: Project textures onto surfaces as non-destructive decals, ideal for damage, labels, and surface details without modifying the base material.
  • Texture Bomb and Voronoi Bomb: Scatter textures procedurally across a surface for variation without tiling.

Procedural Masks

Masks are the key to non-destructive layering — blend materials and details together without ever touching UVs or baking.

  • 7 procedural mask types: Ambient Occlusion, Curvature, Position, Proximity, Triplanar, World Normal, Height Blend and Box Projector.
  • Projection masks: Use triplanar and box projector masks to blend materials based on surface orientation — perfect for grounding objects or adding directional wear.
  • Curvature and AO masks: Automatically highlight edges and crevices for realistic wear and dirt layering.
  • Position and Proximity masks: Drive material blending based on world position or distance to other objects.
  • Masks stack non-destructively — add, remove, or adjust at any point without rebuilding the material.

Material Layering & Adjustments

  • Blend groups: Layer multiple texture sets together with non-destructive blend operations.
  • Channel adjustments for all channels including Base Color, Roughness, Metallic, Normal and Displacement.
  • Normal adjustment operators: Flip Y (DirectX↔OpenGL), Flip X, Rotate, Combine (Whiteout & RNM), Normal to Cavity, and Normal Noise.
  • Material linking: Quickly link or propagate materials across objects.
  • Debug AOV passes to validate individual channels directly in the viewport.
  • Built for Blender 4.2+ as a native extension.

Geometry Node Functions

  • Triplanar Displacement: Apply displacement to any mesh using world-space triplanar mapping — no UV unwrap needed, fully compatible with the triplanar material workflow.
  • A growing library of geometry node utilities for non-destructive mesh manipulation directly from the material panel.

UI/UX

  • Carefully crafted UX for a quick and intuitive workflow — everything reachable from the N-Panel.
  • Context-aware PIE Menu in the Shader Editor for fast access to node group links and inputs.
  • Linked asset library providing an overview of all static node groups included in the addon.
  • Powerful customization of behavior and appearance in the addon preferences.

Why Simple PBR Layering?

Setting up PBR materials manually in Blender means opening the Shader Editor, importing each texture individually, assigning the correct colorspace, and plugging every socket by hand. This might be okay for a single material but doing it across an entire asset library it becomes really tedious. And that assumes your mesh even has UVs.

Simple PBR Layering solves this at every stage of the workflow: - Import in seconds: Drop a folder path into the panel, press Import, and every detected texture is loaded and connected automatically. - No UVs? No problem: Triplanar projection, box mapping, and projection masks let you texture and layer materials on any mesh — even one with no UV unwrap at all. Decal layers and masks still allow for full control over certain details. - Non-destructive by design: Procedural masks and blend groups can be stacked, reordered, and adjusted at any time without rebuilding the material from scratch. - N-Panel workflow: All operators are accessible from the N-Panel in the Shader Editor — no need to hunt through menus or wire nodes by hand. - Flexible suffix support: Works with most naming conventions out of the box, with custom suffix and channel packing settings available in the preferences.