How to use A23D PBR Textures in Redshift

This guide explains how to configure A23D PBR texture maps inside the RS Standard Material (or the OpenPBR Material in Redshift 2025.4+) for use with Maxon Redshift across Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, and Blender.

1. Download and Extract the Texture Set

1. Sign in to your A23D account.
2. Browse to the texture you want to use.
3. In the Software dropdown on the asset page, select Redshift. A23D automatically delivers the PBR texture set in the format best suited to Redshift (PNG maps) - no manual format selection required.
4. Click Download and save the .zip to a known location on your computer.
5. Extract (unzip) the archive. You will find:

• A23DTEX_Albedo.png - Base color
• A23DTEX_Normal.png - Tangent-space normal map
• A23DTEX_Roughness.png - Surface roughness (white = rough, black = smooth)
• A23DTEX_Metalness.png - Metallic values (white = metal, black = non-metal)
• A23DTEX_AmbientOcclusion.png - Ambient occlusion
• A23DTEX_Height.png - Height / displacement

2. Create an RS Standard Material

In your host application's material manager, create a new RS Standard Material:

• Cinema 4D: Open the Material Manager, go to Create > Redshift Material.
• Houdini: In a /mat network, add a Redshift Standard Material VOP.
• Maya: In the Hypershade, create a Redshift Standard Material node.
• 3ds Max: In the Material Editor, change a slot to Redshift Standard Material.
• Blender: In the Shader Editor (with Redshift active), add a Redshift Standard Material node.

Once created, assign the material to the mesh object.

3. Open the Node Editor and Load Texture Maps

Open the material's node graph (Redshift Node Editor / Hypershade / Shader Editor) and connect each A23D map via an RS Texture (or TextureSampler) node:

4. Configure Normal Map Correctly

The Normal map must be loaded through a dedicated normal map node:

1. Add an RS Normal Map node to the shader graph.
2. Load A23DTEX_Normal.png into the RS Normal Map's Input texture slot.
3. Set its Input Type to Tangent Space Normal (not Height or Object Space).
4. Set the RS Texture node's Color Space to Raw / Linear.
5. Connect the RS Normal Map output to the RS Standard Material's Bump Map input.

5. Set Up Displacement (Optional)

1. Add an RS Displacement node to the shader graph.
2. Load A23DTEX_Height.png into the RS Displacement's Texture Map input (set Color Space to Raw).
3. Connect the RS Displacement output to the material's Displacement output port.
4. In the host's Redshift Object Properties for the mesh, enable Displacement and set Scale to a small real-world value (start at 1-5 cm and increase as needed).
5. Enable Tessellation in the Redshift Object Properties to allow Redshift to add geometric detail for the displacement.

6. Adjust Gamma / Color Space

Correct color space settings are critical for accurate PBR shading:

Additional Resources

Redshift Documentation - Standard Material
Redshift Documentation - Displacement