Turn any image into a grayscale roughness map. Tune contrast, flip the convention, download the PNG. Nothing is uploaded.
100% free
Nothing uploaded
Linear data
Instant PNG
What is a roughness map?
A roughness map controls how sharp or blurred a surface’s reflections appear. In a standard PBR roughness map, black is smooth and white is rough. Use the tool below to make a starting map from an image, then adjust it for your material.
How the roughness map generator works
A roughness map tells the renderer how sharp or blurry reflections are — black is mirror-smooth, white is matte. This tool reads your image’s luminance as the starting point, then gives you contrast and invert controls to shape it. It runs entirely in your browser: no upload, no sign-up, no watermark.
Contrast and invert
Contrast pushes the rough and smooth areas apart — useful when a flat photo doesn’t show enough variation. Invert flips the convention: PBR roughness is white-rough/black-smooth, but if your source is a gloss or smoothness map (white-smooth), flip it. Unity’s metallic-smoothness workflow wants the inverted version; Unreal and Blender want standard roughness.
Roughness map example: black, gray and white
0 — smooth
0.5 — mid roughness
1 — rough
Same sphere, camera, lighting, base color and metalness (0). Only roughness changes. The grayscale swatches show the corresponding map values.
Want roughness that matches the rest of the material?
A roughness map from luminance is an approximation. CraftPBR Studio derives roughness alongside albedo, normal, AO and metalness so they all agree. Free to try.
Drop an image into the tool. It converts the image to grayscale luminance — the basis of a roughness map — and lets you adjust contrast and invert the values. Lighter areas read as rougher, darker as smoother (or flip it with Invert). Download the PNG and plug it into your material’s roughness slot. Everything runs in your browser.
Should a roughness map be inverted?
It depends on your source and engine. In a standard PBR roughness map, white = rough and black = smooth. If your source reads the opposite way — or you exported a smoothness/gloss map — toggle Invert. Unity uses smoothness (the inverse of roughness), so a map authored for Unity’s metallic-smoothness workflow is inverted relative to Unreal/Blender.
Why must a roughness map be linear, not sRGB?
A roughness map stores data, not colour. If the engine gamma-corrects it as sRGB, your reflection sharpness shifts. Import it as Non-Color / linear data. The output here is a plain grayscale PNG — set the colour space to Non-Color on import.
Is this roughness map generator free?
Yes — free, no sign-up, no watermark, no upload. It runs entirely in your browser. For a full PBR set where the roughness is derived to match the albedo and normal, use CraftPBR Studio.