In a PBR workflow, what do Metallic and Roughness maps describe respectively?

• A. Metallic maps encode how metallic a surface is; Roughness encodes how smooth or rough the surface appears.
• B. Metallic maps encode color; Roughness encodes height.
• C. Metallic and Roughness are the same.
• D. Metallic maps encode normals; Roughness encodes ambient occlusion.

Answer: (A)

In a PBR workflow, these two maps control how light interacts with the surface. The metallic map determines how metallic the surface behaves: white areas act like metal, black areas behave like non-metals, which changes how reflections and the base color are combined. The roughness map controls the micro-surface texture: low roughness yields smooth, sharp reflections, while high roughness creates rough, diffuse reflections. Together, they define the material’s appearance: metals reflect differently and more brightly, and the sharpness of those reflections is governed by roughness. The description that Metallic maps encode how metallic a surface is, and Roughness encodes how smooth or rough the surface appears, matches this behavior.