Substance 3D Community Assets has the biggest collection of free materials on this list.

Everything on the site, including brushes, shaders, filters, and even smart masks, is free to help those new to the Substance suite of programs build up their own personal library of assets. Each one is uploaded by its designer, so the site is also a great way to find artists whose work you want to support through their personal website or Patreon page.

The site is easy to navigate, with assets in intuitive categories on the left so you can quickly find the section you need. The search feature is robust, allowing you to categorize by release date, recently updated, community rating, and more. You don’t need to have purchased any Substance programs to access the content on the website, though you will need to sign up for a free account.

• Suitable for: Beginners looking to build their libraries
• Key features: Huge collection of over 1,200 free materials and other assets
• How to access: You’ll need to sign up with a free account (you can use Google, Apple, or Facebook sign-in)
• Example textures: Mossy stone, burning coals, water

Substance 3D Assets is the second official materials library run by Adobe, with a couple of key differences from Substance 3D Community. Everything is created by Adobe rather than independent artists, and only a small section of its 12,000+ materials is free.

How you pay for the rest will depend on your needs. The latest version of Substance 3D is available only as a subscription, not as a purchasable download. The basic subscription gives you 30 asset downloads per month, which you can use to download the “paid” content on the site. The upper-level subscription offer gives you 50 asset downloads per month that you can use not only on materials, but for models and lighting as well.

Categories of content range from generic (“Ground”) to specific (“Plastic-rubber”), ensuring it’s easy to find whatever you’re looking for. One unique factor of 3D Assets is that you can organize materials by the technique used to create them, something no other website we found offers. “Procedural” gives you completely computer-generated materials, while “Scan-based” are real-world textures that have been digitized, touched up, and uploaded for your use.

• Suitable for: Users looking for quality materials and specific textures
• Key features: You’ll need to create or sign up with a free account (you can use Google, Apple, or Facebook sign-in) to download the free assets, or you can subscribe to access the purchasable options
• How to access: A Substance Painter or Adobe account is required to download free materials
• Example textures: English brick curved facade, pavonazzetto marble, sci-fi metal panel

GameTextures has one of the largest libraries for materials online, with thousands of incredibly detailed and high-quality assets across dozens of categories.

The organization of materials is the standout feature of this website. Not only do you have the usual categories such as dirt, marble, rubber, and so on, but there are also groupings based on usage, style, and environment. A few examples include “Steampunk”, “Asylum”, and “Architecture”, which can really help nail down the aesthetic you’re looking for, something that no other website does as well.

There’s a small sampling of “Freebie” materials that gets changed up every so often. The rest are paywalled behind a credit system, with a monthly subscription of various tiers that gives you a certain number of credits to download the materials. Each material costs one credit, so you can tailor your subscription package to suit your needs. Keep in mind that the lowest tier doesn’t give you the right to use the assets commercially.

One major difference compared to other libraries is that you “own” the material downloaded from GameTextures, while generally you are only granted a license to “use” a download. This may be important if you ever stop your subscription.

• Suitable for: Freelancers with a large need for materials
• Key features: One of the most diverse offerings of materials
• How to access: You can sign up for a free account just to access the freebies, or you can subscribe and access the paid content
• Example textures: Fresh snow, brick wall, walnut wood

Good Textures is a callback to an earlier era of the internet when users had to scour personal blogs and second- or third-page Google results to find free downloadable content.

There are over 100 completely free materials in 11 categories that include concrete, tile, marble, and wooden planks. Individual files range from classics like snow and ice to unique offerings like fancy-tiled floors that aren’t common on other sites. All materials are kept in one place, with the rest of the website holding high-quality photos of textures that can be downloaded and turned into materials via Substance Designer.

• Suitable for: Artists who want to scoop up some unique textures
• Key features: The materials are divided into categories, so it pays to look through each
• How to access: You don’t need to have an account to download the materials themselves, but you do for the site’s other offerings (you can use a Google account for quicker sign-in)
• Example textures: Stoney ground, blue subway tile, rough wooden planks

Of course, these aren’t the only websites offering free materials, just the ones with the most available. These four websites below didn’t meet the criteria for inclusion but they still represent a good resource, whether for beginners, hobbyists, or professionals.

CGTrader

CGTrader hosts a huge amount of models and assets that are free to download. These items are the usual 3D models – already textured and ready for import. There’s an even wider selection of paid materials if you’re willing to shell out a few bucks.

Julio Sillet 3D Art

This resource is a Gumroad store by artist Julio Sillet, where themed material packs are sold for a whopping $0. It contains hundreds of completely free, high-quality textures. Most are prepared for Blender, but other formats are available. You can also purchase larger material packs for 100-350+ different textures for a fair price. You can consider supporting Julio Sillet, as well as other artists, on Patreon.

Poly

An AI platform to generate textures from a text prompt along the lines of DALL-E, except it can help you with your 3D modeling! After generating a few sample swatches based on the text input, you can adjust some parameters on your selected swatch in order to perfect the texture. You can also create PBR and normal maps. It’s free for non-commercial use.

Cubebrush

Cubebrush offers a small free “section” that features one or two materials and is rotated each week. There’s also a large marketplace where you can purchase each material or pack separately with no subscription required. Hundreds of materials can be obtained for under $10.