How to use A23D PBR Textures in Archicad

This guide explains how to apply A23D PBR textures as Surfaces in Graphisoft Archicad for photorealistic rendering with Cineware/Redshift and live-link plugins like Enscape and Twinmotion.

Support note: Archicad's native Surface editor is a channel-based material system. It supports the maps needed for convincing architectural materials, but exact roughness, metalness, AO, and displacement behavior depends on the render engine or live-link tool.

1. Download the Texture Set

Sign in to your A23D account.
Browse to the texture you want to use.
In the Software dropdown on the asset page, select Archicad. A23D automatically delivers the texture set in the format best suited to Archicad (JPG maps) - no manual format selection required.
Click Download, save the .zip, and extract it to access the texture files.

2. Open the Surfaces Dialog

In Archicad, go to Options > Element Attributes > Surfaces... (or click the Surfaces palette button).
Click New to create a new Surface, give it a descriptive name, and choose the Cineware/CineRender engine settings for native rendering, or duplicate an existing renderer-ready surface as a starting point.

3. Load A23D PBR Texture Maps

In the Surface editor's engine-specific settings rollout, expand each channel and load the A23D maps:

Archicad Surface Channel	A23D Map	Notes
Color -> Texture	`A23DTEX_Albedo.jpg`	Base color of the surface.
Bump -> Texture	`A23DTEX_Normal.jpg`	Set type to Normal Map.
Reflectance -> Roughness / Glossiness	`A23DTEX_Roughness.jpg`	Use directly where the selected layer expects roughness. Invert if the active setting expects glossiness.
Reflectance / Metal control	`A23DTEX_Metalness.jpg`	Use only where the selected engine/material exposes a metalness or equivalent reflectance control.
Alpha -> Texture	`A23DTEX_Opacity.jpg`	For cutout / alpha-mask surfaces.
Displacement -> Texture	`A23DTEX_Height.jpg`	Use where supported by the active render engine.
Luminance -> Texture	`A23DTEX_Emissive.jpg`	Optional, for self-illuminated materials.

4. Adjust Texture Scale

In the Surface editor, set the texture's real-world Size (e.g., 500 mm x 500 mm for a 0.5 m tile) so it tiles correctly on geometry.
Use Surface Painter (in the 3D window) to paint Surfaces onto specific faces of imported geometry without changing the underlying element type.

Additional Resources

🔗 Archicad Help - Surfaces Dialog Box
🔗 Archicad Help - Texture settings