CGBookcase vs Poly Haven

CGBookcase is a free web resource for physically based rendering textures and material guidance. Its catalog lists 566 free textures with filters for 1K, 2K, 4K, 6K, and 8K resolutions. Textures use the CC0 1.0 license, allowing free use without credit, including commercial work. A listed Manhole Cover 16 material includes Base Color, Height, Mask, Metallic, DirectX Normal, and Roughness maps. The site also provides the open-source Texture Tiling Tool, which helps make photoscanned surfaces seamless and repeatable through surface-aware blending, clone patches, and lighting equalization at seams. Guides cover Blender and Unreal Engine setup. The Blender guidance notes that DirectX normal maps need green-channel inversion for Blender’s OpenGL format. Sample Rock and Bark downloads are offered in 4K and 8K, with file sizes from 118MB to 958MB. Patrons can access a Google Drive folder containing all textures.

Poly Haven is a curated public library of HDRIs, textures, and 3D models for visual effects artists and game designers. Its assets use a CC0 license and can be used commercially. The library describes its HDRIs as 16k+ resolution and unclipped, and its photoscanned seamless PBR textures as at least 8k. The public collection costs nothing, with no paywall or signup required. A Blender add-on brings assets into the software's asset browser and provides organized catalogs, resolution switching, automatic texture scaling, and one-click displacement setup. Poly Haven also offers an API whose default endpoints are free for personal, academic, and commercial use without login or an API key. Live API users must provide clear attribution and a unique User-Agent header. The organization says its assets are made by humans, avoiding generative AI and overreliance on procedural methods. Optional paid offerings include Vault access for $3 a month, a Blender add-on via Patreon for $5 a month, or an identical add-on via Superhive for $49, paid once.