Nothing is perfect.
Every surface has history — scratches, wear, oxidation. This is what makes physical objects feel real: not their shape, but their biography. 3D artists who understand this create work that feels inhabited.
PBR is a philosophy, not a workflow.
Physically Based Rendering is often taught as a technical workflow: plug roughness map in, plug metallic map in, repeat. But PBR is actually a philosophy about how light and matter interact. The core insight: roughness and metalness aren’t properties of objects — they’re properties of surfaces. Surfaces change.
The three zones of wear.
High points — edges, corners — catch the most contact and show the most wear. Flat expanses accumulate grime. Hidden faces stay closest to original. Their contrast tells the most interesting story.
Micro and macro surface detail.
Micro detail — roughness, grain — lives in roughness and normal maps. Macro detail — dents, smudges, stains — needs to be modeled into the diffuse maps. Work that has only micro detail feels like CG. Both feels like photography.
Imperfection as craft.
The more effort you put into making something look imperfect, the more skilled you have to be. Anyone can make a perfect sphere. Making it look like it’s been in a workshop for three years — that requires deep craft.