A few years ago I was putting the finishing touches on a bridge scene. The only thing missing was the road texture. It was then that I realized how badly the 3D community needed a proper one.

Most road textures are simply far too clean and perfect. Like this one:

Yet real roads look like this:

So it's no wonder your CG roads look fake! They're missing all those glorious cracks, asphalt patches, holes, leaves and rubbish - stuff that makes it look real!

So this month at Poliigon we made Streets our focus... with the aim to solve the problem of CG roads once and for all!

The better alternative to photos: Digital

Normally textures are photographed, but in the case of roads, not only were the surfaces too large to capture, but there's also a lot of detail that you miss when you restrict yourself to a camera (like roughness).

So instead we created each element digitally, using Substance Designer. Which while it took us a LOT longer, it also gave us a lot more control over the final result, and the amount of detail.

The Roads

All roads start out clean, but gather imperfections like cracks and patches the more they age.

So we created a perfectly clean road material, then a medium aged and heavily aged version, with 3 variations for each:

Then, to give you the freedom to use them across more scenes, we created a 4-lane, 2-lane and no-lane versions:

All available in super high-resolution, with all the necessary normal, displacement and roughness maps included!

View the Road Textures

Plus, separate road elements

If you're trying to build a city, carpark or back alley, you often need a custom road. So we've included each individual element, already alpha masked and ready to craft into something new:

Which means you can craft your perfect road texture by combining the elements in Photoshop...

Or even directly inside your 3D software...

View the Street Materials

Bonus: Sidewalks

Did you think we'd just hand you some road textures without thinking about sidewalks? Of course not!

Since no road is complete without a sidewalk, we also photoscanned 16 common sidewalks...

And digitally created 6 different tactile pavements:

View the Sidewalk Materials

We probably went overboard with this release, since all tallied up we realized we clocked over 450 man hours creating it :O. But either way, we hope the community finds it useful! :)

View the Street Collection