Free PBR Textures, Materials and HDRIs for Games (2026)
Last updated: July 2026.
The best free PBR textures and HDRIs come from CC0 libraries: Poly Haven (over 780 textures and over 980 HDRIs) and ambientCG (over 2,000 materials and over 400 HDRIs) are the two anchors, both public domain with no attribution required, both with free no-key APIs. Smaller CC0 sites like 3DTextures.me, ShareTextures, and cgbookcase add thousands more, and Kenney covers prototype and stylized textures. The one popular site that is NOT CC0 is FreePBR, where commercial use requires a one-time payment.
Search These Sources in One Place
Cinevva's Asset Library Search includes Poly Haven and ambientCG as providers, so you can search their textures and HDRIs from a single box: Poly Haven · ambientCG
Quick picks
- One site for everything, photoreal: Poly Haven (CC0 textures, HDRIs, and models).
- Biggest pure material library: ambientCG (CC0, over 2,000 PBR materials).
- Extra variety, still CC0: 3DTextures.me, ShareTextures, cgbookcase.
- Prototype and stylized textures: Kenney (CC0).
- Free HDRIs beyond Poly Haven: ambientCG, HDRMaps freebies, OpenHDRI.
- Watch the license: FreePBR is free for personal use only, commercial rights cost $16.
Quick Reference
| Need | Best Source | License | Attribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photoreal PBR materials | Poly Haven, ambientCG | CC0 | None |
| Large material variety | 3DTextures.me, ShareTextures | CC0 | None |
| Curated smaller library | cgbookcase | CC0 1.0 | None |
| Prototype/blockout textures | Kenney | CC0 | None |
| HDRIs for lighting | Poly Haven, ambientCG | CC0 | None |
| More free HDRIs | HDRMaps freebies, OpenHDRI | Royalty-free / CC0 | None |
| Commercial game on a budget | Anything CC0 above | CC0 | None |
| FreePBR downloads | FreePBR | Custom | None, but commercial use is paid |
PBR texture and material sites
Poly Haven
Best for: Photoreal materials and HDRIs with zero license worries
| Website | polyhaven.com |
| License | CC0 (public domain), no attribution required |
| Assets | Over 780 PBR textures, over 980 HDRIs, over 520 models |
| Formats | JPG/PNG maps, EXR/HDR for HDRIs, Blend, glTF |
| Resolutions | 1K to 8K textures, 1K to 16K HDRIs |
| API | Yes, free, no key required |
| Direct Download | Yes |
Strengths:
- Every asset is scan-based or hand-authored to a consistent photoreal standard
- Complete map sets: diffuse, normal, roughness, displacement, AO
- Pick your resolution per download instead of getting one giant ZIP
- The API means tools (including Cinevva's asset search) can pull assets directly
Best for finding:
- Ground, rock, and terrain materials for outdoor scenes
- Wood, brick, plaster, and metal for architecture
- Sky and studio HDRIs for lighting anything
Poly Haven is the anchor of this whole guide. It's funded by Patreon and corporate sponsors rather than ads, the quality bar is the highest of any free library, and CC0 means you never think about the license again. If you only bookmark one site, make it this one. Search it inside Cinevva at /assets?providers=polyhaven.
ambientCG
Best for: The largest CC0 material library on the web
| Website | ambientcg.com |
| License | CC0, free for commercial use, no attribution |
| Assets | Over 2,000 PBR materials, over 400 HDRIs, plus 3D assets |
| Formats | JPG/PNG map sets, EXR HDRIs |
| Resolutions | Up to 8K on most materials |
| API | Yes, documented, no key required |
| Direct Download | Yes |
Strengths:
- More raw material variety than anyone else in the CC0 space
- Formerly CC0Textures, renamed in 2021, same creator and same license since 2018
- Serves over 1,000,000 downloads a month, so it's battle-tested and stable
- Good procedural and scan-based coverage: bricks, fabric, ground, metal, roofing
Best for finding:
- Tiling surfaces in bulk when you're dressing a whole level
- Variations of the same material family (a dozen different concretes)
- HDRIs when Poly Haven doesn't have the mood you need
If Poly Haven is the curated gallery, ambientCG is the warehouse. When you need eight different asphalt variants or a very specific weave of fabric, this is where you'll find it. Search it inside Cinevva at /assets?providers=ambientcg.
3DTextures.me
Best for: A big free library with stylized and hand-made materials mixed in
| Website | 3dtextures.me |
| License | CC0 (public domain) |
| Assets | Over 1,300 texture sets |
| Formats | PNG/JPG map sets (base color, normal, roughness, AO, height) |
| API | No |
| Direct Download | Yes, per texture |
Strengths:
- Strong category depth: over 340 metals, over 200 tiles, over 200 fabrics
- Includes stylized and semi-procedural materials you won't find on scan-based sites
- Works with Blender, Unreal, Unity, and Godot map conventions
Best for finding:
- Stylized surfaces that photoreal scan libraries don't cover
- Sci-fi panels, ornate tiles, and pattern-heavy materials
A one-person project that has quietly become one of the biggest CC0 texture libraries anywhere. Individual downloads are free, and a small Ko-fi donation gets you a bulk download folder if you want everything at once.
ShareTextures
Best for: Another CC0 pool worth checking when the big two miss
| Website | sharetextures.com |
| License | CC0, explicitly fine for commercial projects |
| Assets | Over 1,700 textures plus some 3D models |
| Formats | PBR map sets |
| API | No |
| Direct Download | Yes |
Strengths:
- Solid coverage of architectural surfaces: floors, walls, fabric, wood
- Everything is copyright-free by their own stated policy
- Patreon-supported, actively maintained in 2026
Best for finding:
- Interior surfaces for architectural or room-scale scenes
- A second opinion when Poly Haven and ambientCG both miss
Less famous than the big two but the license is just as clean. Good habit: search Poly Haven and ambientCG first, then check here before you settle for something that only half fits.
cgbookcase
Best for: A smaller, curated CC0 collection with high resolutions
| Website | cgbookcase.com |
| License | CC0 1.0, use for free without giving credit |
| Assets | Over 550 textures |
| Formats | PBR map sets |
| Resolutions | 1K to 8K |
| API | No |
| Direct Download | Yes |
Strengths:
- Every texture ships with the full map set for photoreal materials
- Filter by minimum resolution when browsing
- Run by one artist (Dorian Zgraggen) as a passion project, no paywalls
Best for finding:
- Nature and organic surfaces (bark, leaves, ground)
- High-res versions of common materials
Small but well made. The double-sided leaf textures are a known standout that other free libraries don't really offer.
FreePBR
Best for: Game-focused material sets, if you read the license first
| Website | freepbr.com |
| License | Custom, NOT CC0. Free for personal/non-commercial use. Commercial rights cost a one-time $16 |
| Assets | Over 600 PBR texture sets |
| Formats | 2048x2048 PNG (albedo, normal, roughness, metallic, AO, some height) |
| API | No |
| Direct Download | Yes, per set |
Strengths:
- Game-oriented categories: over 100 metals, floors, sci-fi panels, ground
- Consistent 2K PNG sets that drop straight into Unity or Unreal workflows
- The $16 commercial tier also bulk-downloads the whole library
Best for finding:
- Stylized game metals and sci-fi surfaces
- Quick 2K sets when you don't need scan-level realism
This is the license trap of the category. FreePBR looks like the CC0 sites but it isn't one: the site's own FAQ says the sets are free "as long as you don't use these commercially," and redistribution is not allowed. If your game will make money, either pay the $16 or stick to the CC0 sites above.
Kenney
Best for: Prototype textures and stylized patterns
| Website | kenney.nl |
| License | CC0 (public domain) |
| Assets | Texture packs within a 40,000+ asset library, including a 75-texture Prototype pack |
| Formats | PNG |
| API | No, but offline catalog available |
| Direct Download | Yes, ZIP per pack |
Strengths:
- The Prototype Textures pack is the standard grid-and-checker blockout look
- Patterns and stylized surfaces that match Kenney's 3D and 2D packs
- Same CC0 license across the entire catalog
Best for finding:
- Greybox/blockout grids for level prototyping
- Flat stylized textures for low-poly games where photoreal PBR looks wrong
Not a PBR library, and that's the point. If your game is stylized low-poly, a full 4K roughness workflow is overkill and Kenney's flat textures will look more coherent.
Free HDRIs
An HDRI (high dynamic range image) is a 360-degree panorama used to light a scene and fill the background. One good HDRI replaces hours of manual light placement.
Poly Haven is the default answer here too: over 980 CC0 HDRIs, from clear skies to studio setups to night scenes, downloadable from 1K up to 16K in EXR or HDR. ambientCG adds over 400 more under the same CC0 terms. Between the two you'll rarely need anything else.
When you do, HDRMaps (hdrmaps.com) offers over 200 free HDRIs that its site says you can use in private and commercial projects, and the same team runs OpenHDRI (openhdri.org), a library where every HDRI is released under CC0.
For web games, don't ship a 16K HDRI. A 2K HDRI is plenty if it's only lighting the scene, and 4K is usually enough even when it's visible as the sky.
What the PBR maps actually are
A PBR material is a set of images that each describe one physical property of the surface. Most free sites give you five:
| Map | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Albedo (base color) | The raw surface color, no lighting baked in |
| Normal | Fake small-scale bumps and dents without extra geometry |
| Roughness | How sharp or blurry reflections are (polished vs matte) |
| Metallic | Whether the surface behaves like metal or not |
| AO (ambient occlusion) | Baked soft shadows in crevices |
Some sets add a height/displacement map for real geometric detail. For web games you can usually skip it, and if performance is tight you can even drop AO and metallic on props that are clearly non-metal.
Choosing resolution for web games
Bigger is not better in a browser. Every texture gets decoded to raw pixels in GPU memory, so a 4K RGBA texture eats 64 MB of VRAM regardless of file size. A working default for web: 1K for most props and tiling surfaces, 2K for hero objects the camera gets close to, and 4K almost never. Download the smallest resolution that holds up, not the biggest one offered.
Compress everything with KTX2
Before textures go into a WebGL or WebGPU game, convert them to KTX2 (Basis Universal). Unlike PNG or JPG, a KTX2 texture stays GPU-compressed in video memory, which typically cuts texture VRAM 4x to 8x and speeds up loading. Three.js, Babylon.js, and PlayCanvas all ship KTX2 loaders. Cinevva has a free in-browser KTX2 Texture Compressor that converts PNG, JPG, and WebP locally, nothing gets uploaded. If you're deciding between graphics APIs first, see our WebGPU vs WebGL guide.
Generate materials and skyboxes with AI
By 2026 you can also generate what you can't find. Text-to-material tools now produce full tileable PBR map sets (albedo, normal, roughness) from a prompt, with dedicated options like Texturly and 3D AI Studio, and Adobe Substance 3D Sampler turning a single photo into a material. For 360-degree environments, Blockade Labs' Skybox AI generates seam-free 8K skyboxes from text, with a free tier and commercial licensing on paid plans.
Cinevva has both built in: the Skybox Generator creates 360-degree skyboxes with depth maps for your game's environment, and the Image Generator handles flat textures, decals, and concept art from a text prompt. Check commercial terms on any hosted AI tool before shipping, the same way you'd check a texture license.
Licenses in 30 seconds
- CC0: public domain. Commercial use, modification, no attribution. Poly Haven, ambientCG, 3DTextures.me, ShareTextures, cgbookcase, and Kenney are all CC0.
- CC-BY: free commercial use, but credit the creator.
- Royalty-free / custom free: free to use under the site's own terms. Read them. FreePBR's free tier excludes commercial use.
- No redistribution: even permissive sites often forbid re-uploading the raw files elsewhere. That's about the files, not your game, so shipping them inside a build is fine.
When in doubt, prefer CC0. For a full breakdown, see our game asset licenses guide.
Common Questions
Where can I download free PBR textures for commercial games?
Poly Haven and ambientCG are the best sources: both are CC0, so every texture is safe for commercial games with no attribution. 3DTextures.me, ShareTextures, and cgbookcase are also fully CC0. Avoid assuming every "free texture" site works this way, because some (like FreePBR) restrict commercial use on free downloads.
Is ambientCG really free for commercial use?
Yes. Every asset on ambientCG is CC0, which the site states is free to use without attribution even in commercial projects. The site was formerly called CC0Textures and has used the same license since 2018.
Is FreePBR CC0?
No. FreePBR uses its own license: the downloads are free for personal and non-commercial use, but commercial use requires a one-time $16 payment, and redistributing the files on other sites is not allowed. If you want zero-cost commercial textures, use the CC0 sites instead.
Where can I get free HDRIs for game lighting?
Poly Haven has over 980 CC0 HDRIs and is the standard answer. ambientCG adds over 400 more under CC0. HDRMaps offers over 200 freebies usable in commercial projects, and its sister site OpenHDRI is entirely CC0.
What texture resolution should I use for a web game?
1K for most surfaces, 2K for objects the camera gets close to. An uncompressed 4K texture takes 64 MB of GPU memory, which is too much for a browser game to spend on one surface. Whatever resolution you pick, convert to KTX2 so it stays compressed in VRAM.
Can AI generate tileable PBR materials?
Yes. Dedicated tools like Texturly and 3D AI Studio generate tileable PBR map sets from text prompts, and Adobe Substance 3D Sampler builds a material from a single photo. For skies, Blockade Labs' Skybox AI and Cinevva's Skybox Generator create full 360-degree environments from a prompt.
Do I need to credit Poly Haven or ambientCG in my game?
No. CC0 means no attribution is required anywhere, including commercial games. Both sites appreciate a credit or a donation, but legally you owe nothing.
Cinevva searches Poly Haven and ambientCG for you and drops materials and HDRIs straight into a playable game.
Related
- Where to Find Free Game Assets: the full 20+ source guide
- Best Free 3D Model Sites: the models to put those materials on
- Game Asset Licenses Explained: CC0, CC-BY, and the rest
- WebGPU vs WebGL for Games: where those compressed textures end up
- Asset Library Search: search Poly Haven, ambientCG, and more in one place