The UI
The Side Panel
Simple PBR Layering lives mostly in the N-Panel of the Shader Graph Editor. Open it with N and select the Simple PBR Layering tab. Additionally, it provides quick convenience access through a content aware Pie menu. Allowing you to stay in the flow while creating your perfect shader.
The Simple PBR Layering panel in the N-Panel is divided into the following sections:
- Import Texture Set — Scan a folder and import PBR textures into the active material.
- Blend — Create blend groups to layer multiple texture sets.
- Masks — Add procedural masks (AO, Curvature, Position, Proximity, Triplanar, World Normal, Box Projector).
- Decals — UV tools focused on decal projection.
- UV Tools — UV projection helpers (Box, World, Triplanar, Texture Bomb, Voronoi Bomb).
- Adjustments — Channel-level adjustments and normal editing operators.
- Generators — Procedural base material generators.
- Linking — Link or propagate materials across selected objects.
- Debug — AOV pass setup for per-channel viewport validation.
Import Texture Set
The Import Texture Set section is the heart of the addon.
- Directory — Path to the folder containing your PBR textures. Use the folder icon to browse.
- Scan — Preview which textures were detected and which channels they will be assigned to before importing.
- Import — Run the import. Textures are loaded, colorspaces are set, and nodes are connected automatically.
After scanning, a list of detected texture→channel pairs is shown so you can review the assignment before committing.
Masks
Each mask button appends a ready-to-use node group to the active material's node tree.
| Mask | Description |
|---|---|
| Ambient Occlusion | Baked or procedural AO mask |
| Curvature | Edge/cavity highlight based on surface curvature |
| Position | Gradient based on object-space X, Y, or Z position |
| Proximity | Distance-based mask from a target object or surface |
| Triplanar | Planar-projected texture mask; avoids UV seams |
| World Normal | Mask driven by world-space surface orientation |
| Box Projector | Box-projected mask, useful for decals and detail layers |
UV Tools
UV tools create specialized UV node groups that replace or supplement standard UV coordinates.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Box UV | Box/cube projection from object space |
| World UV | World-space planar projection |
| Triplanar UV | Three-axis blended projection to eliminate seams |
| Texture Bomb | Randomises texture placement per-tile for variation |
| Voronoi Bomb | Voronoi-based randomisation for organic variation |
| Decal UV | Projection-based UV for decal placement |
Adjustments
The Adjustments section provides fine-grained control over individual channels and normals.
Channel adjustments:
- Base Color, Roughness, Metallic, Displacement — adds a dedicated adjustment node group per channel.
Normal operations (submenu):
| Operation | Description |
|---|---|
| Flip Y | Converts between DirectX (DX) and OpenGL (GL) normal maps |
| Flip X | Mirrors the normal map horizontally |
| Rotate Normal | Rotates the normal map by a specified angle |
| Combine (Whiteout) | Blends two normal maps using the Whiteout method |
| Combine (RNM) | Blends two normal maps using Reoriented Normal Mapping |
| Normal to Cavity | Extracts a cavity/edge mask from a normal map |
| Normal Noise | Adds procedural noise on top of an existing normal map |
Linking
The Linking section lets you propagate or share materials between objects in the scene without manually reassigning them in the Properties panel.
Debug
The Debug section sets up AOV (Arbitrary Output Variable) passes that let you view individual texture channels — such as Roughness or Normal — directly in the Blender viewport render. This is useful for validating that textures imported correctly.
Preferences
Open the addon preferences via Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Simple PBR Layering.
- Custom Suffix Mappings — Add or override suffix patterns. Each entry defines a suffix string, the target channel, and whether the texture uses sRGB or Non-Color colorspace.