Thursday, May 4th, 2023 Posted by Jim Thacker

Poly lets you generate 8K PBR textures from text prompts


Poly Corporation has launched Poly, a new browser-based generative AI service for generating PBR texture maps from simple text prompts or reference images, or tiling and upscaling existing textures.

The site actually went live last year, but got a signficant update at the end of March, making it possible to generate textures at up to 8K resolution.



A browser-based generative AI tool specifically designed for generating and upscaling PBR textures
Although it’s possible to create PBR textures with less specialised generative AI tools like Stable Diffusion, Poly is designed specifcally for the task, and trained on texture data.

Entering a text prompt – and, optionally, uploading a source image as a guide – generates four variant 512 x 512px textures: a process which can be iterated as many times as necessary.

The selected low-res source texture can then be made seamlessly tileable, and upscaled to a higher resolution: up to 2K, if you’re using a free account; up to 8K if you have a paid subscription.

As well as the diffuse texture, Poly also generates a set of corresponding texture maps: normal and displacement for free account users, plus AO, roughtness and metallic maps for paid account uers.

The results can be previewed in 3D on a sphere, cylinder or torus knot, under a range of lighting presets.

It’s also possible to upload your own existing texture maps and use Poly to tile or upscale them, or to reuse or edit textures from an online library of hundreds of existing materials created by other Poly users.

Price, system requirements and EULA
The Poly editor is web-based, so it runs in a standard desktop browser. Registering on the site is free.

A free account lets you generate textures at up to 2K, and is limited to non-commercial work.

Commercial Poly Infinity subscriptions cost $20/month, and make it possible to generate textures at up to 32-bit depth and 8K resolution, and unlock a range of advanced features.

Textures generated by Poly Infinity subscribers are private, but those generated by free accounts are publicly viewable, and may be included in the Poly gallery.

Ironically, you can’t use the site to generate textures to train other generative AI models.


Create PBR texture maps from text prompts using AI-powered online texture generator Poly

Read more about Poly in the online documentation