Sketchfab's viewer is based on PBR (Physically Based Rendering) methodology.
Materials
Sketchfab supports multiple materials and objects in your scene. Give each material a unique name because the 3D editor merges objects by material name. Avoid special characters when naming.
If possible, you should join every mesh that shares a material because it helps performance.
Colors
If you are not using texture images, you can choose a color for any slot from the color picker.
See also Vertex Colors.
Textures
Textures are images mapped to the surface of your model. For details on shaders/texture slots, see Materials (PBR).
Importing
Upload textures with your model file or embed textures in the model file (e.g. .BLEND, .FBX). You can put image files in the same folder/directory as the model file, or a sub folder/directory. If your textures are properly referenced by the model file or use our naming conventions, they will be automatically applied to your model.
If you need to add textures after uploading, you can use the texture manager or drag and drop images into their slots in the material editor.
Supported Formats
Different image formats can be used depending on whether you uploaded them together with the model file, or upload them in 3D Settings after the model is processed
During upload:
- .JPG
- .PNG
- .TIFF
- .TGA
- .DDS
- .GIF
- .BMP
- .VTF
In 3D Settings:
- .JPG
- .PNG
- .TGA
Processing & Compression
Textures are compressed to minimize model download times. We convert any image that is not .JPG or .PNG to .PNG. Then, we generate compressed versions of every texture. The format and level of compression depends on the image attributes and channel requirements: RGB, Luminance, or Alpha. We do our best to minimize file size without affecting visual quality.
We also generate multiple resolutions of each texture at every "power of 2" between 32×32 pixels and the original (up to 8192×8192). For example, if you upload a 1024×1024 texture, we will generate 32, 64, 128, 256, and 512 versions. Depending on your device, these are used in "LD" and "SD" modes in the viewer.
Textures are re-processed each time you change Material settings, with a small delay. This can take 10-15 minutes to complete. 3D Settings always uses full resolution, uncompressed textures.
If you experience issues with compression artifacts, especially on normal maps ("blocky" or "pixelated" textures, please see this post.
Automatic PBR Mapping
Use our texture naming conventions to help us automatically choose settings and apply textures to the right shader slots. The format is "MaterialName_suffix.extension". For example, if you have a material named "Material1", you could name your textures like "Material1_diffuse.png", "Material1_metallic.png", etc.
Avoid material names with special characters, especially periods '.', underscores '_', and hyphens '-' because it can break the match.
Avoid material names with matching substrings, for example "handle" and "woodenhandle" in the same scene.
If the model has only one material, we will apply textures based on the shader name match regardless of the material's name or the position of the string in the name of the image file.
These are the strings we look for in the suffix:
- Diffuse / Albedo / Base Color: 'diffuse', 'albedo', 'basecolor'
- Metalness: 'metalness', 'metallic', 'metal', 'm'
- Specular: 'specular', 'spec', 's'
- Specular F0: 'specularf0', 'f0'
- Roughness: 'roughness', 'rough', 'r'
- Glossiness: 'glossiness', 'glossness', 'gloss', 'g', 'glossy'
- AO: 'ambient occlusion', 'ao', 'occlusion', 'lightmap', 'diffuseintensity'
- Cavity: 'cavity'
- Normal Map: 'normal', 'nrm', 'normalmap'
- Bump Map: 'bump', 'bumpmap', 'heightmap'
- Emission: 'emission', 'emit', 'emissive'
- Opacity: 'transparency', 'transparent', 'opacity', 'mask', 'alpha'
- Subsurface Scattering: 'scattering', 'subsurface'
- Subsurface Translucency: 'translucency', 'thickness'
- Clear Coat: 'clearcoat'
- Clear Coat Roughness: 'clearcoat roughness'
- Clear Coat Normal Map: 'clearcoat normal map'
Troubleshooting
- Make sure you include the image files with the upload, and the .MTL file when uploading .OBJ.
- Make sure the path and file names linking the textures are correct.
- Try uploading your textures manually in 3D settings.
- If applying a texture does nothing, or seems to apply a solid color, this can indicate a UV-mapping problem.
- 3D scans and models with baked lighting often look best in Shadeless mode.
- Avoid spaces and special characters in your material, texture, and file names. Name everything with ASCII / UTF-8 compliant characters.
- Avoid image sizes bigger than 8192×8192 pixels.
- Avoid image file sizes bigger than 10MB.
- Avoid color spaces like CMYK.
For performance tips, see Viewer Performance.
Filtering
There are four options for texture filtering.
- Trilinear: Usually the best choice, especially for large textures.
- Nearest (mipmap): Can be useful for block textures like Minecraft blocks and pixel art with very small textures
- Bilinear: Can be useful for masking and hiding texture seams
- Nearest: Legacy, use Nearest (mipmap) instead.
Color Formats
Depending on the shader slot you're working with, you'll see different color encoding options under Format:
- RGB: Red, Green, and Blue color channels
- Alpha: Alpha transparency channel only
- Luminance: R channel only
By choosing the appropriate format, texture opacity can be encoded either as an alpha mask or by grayscale levels.
UV Channels
If you have more than one UV channel on a single material, you will see an additional interface option to switch between them.
UV Offset and Tiling
UV Offset and Tiling are not currently supported.
Texture Wrap Modes
Texture UV coordinates (u, v) map to surface ST coordinates (s, t). UV coordinate values can only range from (0, 0) to (1, 1), so there are several ways to wrap a surface with a texture. Mapping options can be changed with Wrap S and Wrap T:
- Repeat: The texture is tiled (2.6 → 0.6)
- Mirror: The texture is mirrored (1.2 → 0.8)
- Clamp: Texture pixels outside the [0, 1] range will be clamped to the border of the texture
3rd Party Rendering Engines
Proprietary renderers/shaders like V-Ray, and Mental Ray should have their lighting and textures baked for best results. The 3ds Max Exporter, for example, is able to bake materials and upload to Sketchfab automatically.
KeyShot currently offers no baking features and very limited material encoding in supported formats (STL and OBJ). Keyshot users should prepare materials/textures in other software or use PBR mode in Sketchfab without textures.
Comments
92 comments
Hello.
Thank You for your reply.
The model is loaded with pictures from the top, but without materials.
Above just an image is drawn.
Everything is fine on the renderer.
I do not understand what's the matter.
Render V-Ray is correct:
But materials at the model in Sketchfab is absent.What may be is problem?
You can configure only the entirely model.
It will be completely made of glass or completely made of chrome.
But how to adjust the top of the glass?And the bottom of the chrome?
When the model is loaded, the materials are not loaded (glass and chrome).
Program are being created unwrap and they fall on the model.
But this is a strange.It's not textures or materials and no materials.
is there a way to change the name of the overall texture after you've uploaded??
@Jack_Bronswijk I'm afraid you can't rename materials/textures after uploading, but it could be a good idea to add this in the future!
That's annoying haha. For future reference, where does it get this texture name? both in Maya and Substance Painter the texture was named after the model.
The textures will be whatever you named the image files (see screenshot), but in this case Substance automatically handles naming them with those naming conventions. The material name "lambert1" probably comes from Maya.
is it possible to mix normal and height textures?
You can’t combine a normal map and a bump map on a single material, but you could combine normal or bump with displacement. That said, our implementation of displacement has some limitations. See: https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/articles/204429595-Materials-PBR-#displacement
I am using Revit with Export format FBX and Navisworks that use FBX embed facility but , having understood the problem in your old post of material above 100 number and texture size above 8192 px I currently even do not upload and select faces specifical from my model using a couple of material with less than the maximum size. Here I can show you my model in screenshot.
Can you help us?
I have a problem with upload my character because the texture character, what should i do?
hansokya I'm sorry you're having trouble. Is it the "Abercio" character on your account? What is the issue? Have you tried uploading the .blend file directly (or using our plugin: https://github.com/sketchfab/blender-plugin/releases/latest ) instead of exporting FBX?
Hello, Just wondering if it is possible to add a png to be placed on a surface of the model with out repetition. So not a texture but for example if I have a png.logo that I want the model to have it on a specific surface?
Thanks
Hi there,
A texture is the only way to do that at the moment. Are you imagining something like a decal that's on top of another texture?
I was wondering, can I use paid for textures on my 3d models that I am going to sell? I had a freelancer plan on poliigon.com which says I can use there textures for commercial use. I am not sure if I can use bought textures on Sketchfab.
Hello,
So you bought textures on poliigon, and now you want to use them to create models to sell on Sketchfab?
I am not a lawyer can cannot offer legal advice.
Also, we cannot really give you advice about licenses sold to you by other companies. You would need to check with them.
I suspect that if it's part of a larger project it's ok, but you cannot simply re-sell the texture without it being part of a larger project.
Its just, a while ago I had thought I saw in the Sketchfab license that I can only use textures that I created. I just wanted to confirm that its legal to use paid for textures on Shetchfab and yes in the poliigon license its says I can use there textures for commercial use. I was just making sure that I wouldn't be breaking the law if were to use them.
Thanks for all help.
I'm usually creating textures with the DirectX option on Substance Designer for sharetextures.com But I'm forgetting about it sometimes.
Invert Y function needs to be part of every rendering software. Sketchfab really knows what people need.
It seems an Intercepting transparent object prevents me from editing other object's materials. In order to select and edit all material properties in the scene, Anyone knows how temporally disable the transparent object that is blocking the selection of the other objects?
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/abstract-splashing-344a4153d9d2404bbfdc65ccf5f545ec
Can you just select them from the dropdown?
What's the procedure for uploading UDIM textures? I can't get it to work :(
Hello, I'm afraid we don't support UDIM textures at this time. You might be able to make it work by applying the texture to all the materials and then adjusting the UV transforms in 3D Settings, but it's not something we do automatically.
https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018381618-Texture-UV-Transformations
Jamesssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!! What would be the best approach to sharing procedural blender materials and vdbs objects with the community using sketchfab. I just need the overall idea then I will tinker m yway out. Thanks!
Hi re1monsen - We don't support those sorts of procedural materials directly, so you will need to bake them for use in the Sketchfab viewer version of the model. However, you can also include the original .blend file in your upload so that others can access it with procedural materials, etc.
Oh I see, so if I upload the .blend file the person who downloads it gets everything in the file regardless if it is displayed or compatible with the viewer. For example, I can include a baked "visual" display of a vdb object and then in the same blender I can include the original vdb file even if it is now displayed. Thanks for the time you took to answer my question.
Is there a way to reupload a texture without having to re-assign it to the materials?
Hi Natali,
I'm afraid there's not really a "replace texture" feature at the moment.
If you reupload the entire model + textures, old textures will be replaced by new textures if they have the same file name (see https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/articles/203064088-Reuploading-a-Model for more details on how we handle reuploads).
Otherwise, you will indeed have to go into 3D Settings and put the new texture in any material channel that uses it. You can then "Remove unused textures" from the texture manager to clean things up.
Hello James,
I want to upload a .zip folder with my .obj, .mtl and textures in .png format.
My .mtl file is something like this:
newmtl cube mat
Kd 1 1 1
map_Kd -s 2 2 1 F:\Unity Projects Test\UnityToSketchfabProject\Assets\Exports\OBJ\Fabric_Rug_008_basecolor.png
map_Bump F:\Unity Projects Test\Unity To Sketchfab Project\Assets\Exports\OBJ\Fabric_Rug_008_normal.png
illum 2
The textures are assigned but the scale of the basecolor is not, is something wrong with my .mtl?
Can Sketchfab read the scale flag in .mtl or is there another way to do it without going to 3d settings afterwards?
I am exporting the assets from Unity and post them in runtime. I am aware of your api for unity but when uploading the gITF is white, so I believe it can't export the materials or am I wrong?
Thank you.
Hi @James, you said 7 years ago that you were doing tests with animated textures, such as videos or Gift, how are these tests going? Because a time has passed and we continue with static textures. It really is very necessary and I have had to go to platforms like Twinmotion to have this resource. It would be appreciated if you gave you a push to this topic. Thanks
Hello @orfeasrodo
I'm afraid we don't support extra options in OBJ+MTL like the texture scale and offset. However, you can indeed do it in 3D Settings after uploading:
https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018381618-Texture-UV-Transformations
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