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Source: Roblox Creator Hub · CC BY 4.0 · View source · Code samples: MIT Imported 2026-10-03. Formatting adapted for this site.

SurfaceAppearance

Inherits from: Instance → Object

SurfaceAppearance objects let you override the appearance of a MeshPart with advanced graphics options. Most notably, it can apply a set of Physically‑Based Rendering (PBR) texture images, or maps, on a single object. Combining multiple texture maps can more accurately simulate color, roughness, and reflectivity in any lighting environment and can enhance the visual elements of your assets and environment; see PBR Textures for more details.

Appearance of this object on a MeshPart depends on the user's device and graphics quality level. For best results, you may want to preview your content with different quality level settings.

Note that most SurfaceAppearance properties cannot be modified by scripts, as the necessary pre-processing is usually too expensive during runtime.

Inherits from: Instance

Memory category: Instances

Properties

Name	Type / Returns	Description
SurfaceAppearance.AlphaMode	AlphaMode	Determines how the alpha channel of the `SurfaceAppearance.ColorMap` is used.
SurfaceAppearance.Color	Color3	Applies a tint to your existing colormap. Set directly with color picker or programmatically with `Color3`.
SurfaceAppearance.ColorMap	ContentId	Determines the color and opacity of the surface.
SurfaceAppearance.ColorMapContent	Content	`Content` object that determines the color and opacity of the surface.
SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveMaskContent	Content	Determines the emissivity across the surface.
SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveStrength	float	Determines the strength of emissive contribution.
SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveTint	Color3	Determines the tinting color for emissive contribution.
SurfaceAppearance.MetalnessMap	ContentId	Determines which parts of the surface are metal or non-metal.
SurfaceAppearance.MetalnessMapContent	Content	`Content` object that determines which parts of the surface are metal or non-metal.
SurfaceAppearance.NormalMap	ContentId	Modifies the lighting of the surface by adding bumps, dents, cracks, and curves.
SurfaceAppearance.NormalMapContent	Content	`Content` object that modifies the lighting of the surface by adding bumps, dents, cracks, and curves.
SurfaceAppearance.ResampleMode	ResamplerMode	Selects the texture resampling mode used for the surface's texture maps.
SurfaceAppearance.RoughnessMap	ContentId	Determines the apparent roughness across the surface.
SurfaceAppearance.RoughnessMapContent	Content	`Content` object that determines the apparent roughness across the surface.
SurfaceAppearance.TexturePackContent	Content	Engine-managed `Content` that stores the compressed runtime texture data for the surface appearance.

Inherited from Instance

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Instance.Archivable	boolean	Determines if an `Instance` and its descendants can be cloned using `Instance:Clone()`, and can be saved/published.
Instance.archivable	boolean
Instance.Capabilities	SecurityCapabilities	The set of capabilities allowed to be used for scripts inside this container.
Instance.IsInSandbox	boolean	Indicates whether the instance is inside a sandboxed container.
Instance.Name	string	A non-unique identifier of the `Instance`.
Instance.Parent	Instance	Determines the hierarchical parent of the `Instance`.
Instance.PredictionMode	PredictionMode	Reflects the client-side prediction mode applied to the instance under server-authoritative physics.
Instance.RobloxLocked	boolean	A deprecated property that used to protect `CoreGui` objects.
Instance.Sandboxed	boolean	When enabled, the instance can only access abilities in its `Capabilities` list.
Instance.UniqueId	UniqueId	A unique identifier for the instance.

Inherited from Object

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Object.ClassName	string	A read-only string representing the class this `Object` belongs to.
Object.className	string

SurfaceAppearance.AlphaMode

This property determines how the alpha channel of the SurfaceAppearance.ColorMap is used.

When set to Transparency and the MeshPart.Transparency is set to 0, opaque pixels in the ColorMap will render as completely opaque in the 3D scene. This combination works better with depth-based effects and occlusion.

When set to Transparency and the MeshPart.Transparency is set to at least 0.02, a different blending method is used that can better represent smooth transparency gradients and soft edges. This combination does not support all effects and occlusion may not be perfect.

See here for more information.

Field	Value
type	AlphaMode
security	{"read":"None","write":"None"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.Color

Applies a tint to your existing colormap. Set directly with color picker or programmatically with Color3.

Field	Value
type	Color3
security	{"read":"None","write":"None"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.ColorMap

This property determines the color and opacity of the surface. This texture is sometimes called the albedo texture. The alpha channel of this texture controls its opacity, which behaves differently based on the SurfaceAppearance.AlphaMode setting.

See here for more information.

Field	Value
type	ContentId
security	{"read":"PluginSecurity","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.ColorMapContent

A Content that determines the color and opacity of the surface (sometimes called the albedo texture). The content can hold an asset URI or a reference to an EditableImage object.

The alpha channel of the texture controls its opacity, which behaves differently based on the SurfaceAppearance.AlphaMode setting. It defaults to an empty content, in which case no color map is applied. Assigning an EditableImage is useful for dynamically generating or modifying textures at runtime, such as in avatar customization and other in-experience content creation workflows.

Field	Value
type	Content
tags	["Hidden"]
security	{"read":"None","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveMaskContent

This property determines the apparent emissivity across the surface. An emissive mask is a grayscale image where black pixels correspond to no emissivity, and white pixels correspond to full emissivity.

The emissive contribution gets added to total lighting contribution across the surface, and the sum gets multiplied by the albedo texture, which would be sampled from ColorMap if provided.

Field	Value
type	Content
security	{"read":"None","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveStrength

This value is a multiplier to control how strong the emissive contribution is across the surface. If the final contribution of emissives goes beyond supported dynamic range, it will get clamped; this could result in emissive contribution appearing all white when using large emissive strength values. Since this value is a multiplier, the maximum value to prevent clamping depends on all of the other contributing values, including EmissiveTint, ColorMap and combined lighting contribution.

Field	Value
type	float
security	{"read":"None","write":"None"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.EmissiveTint

This value is an RGB color for tinting emissive contribution.

Field	Value
type	Color3
security	{"read":"None","write":"None"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.MetalnessMap

This property determines which parts of the surface are metal or non-metal. The metalness map is a grayscale image where black pixels correspond to non-metals and white pixels correspond to metals.

Metals only reflect light the same color as the metal, and they reflect much more light than non-metals. Most pixels in a metalness map will be either pure black or pure white, while values in between can be used to simulate dirt or grunge on top of an underlying metal area.

When Lighting.EnvironmentSpecularScale is 0, metalness has no effect. For the most realistic reflections, it's recommended to set Lighting.EnvironmentSpecularScale and Lighting.EnvironmentDiffuseScale to 1, as well as Lighting.Ambient and Lighting.OutdoorAmbient to (0, 0, 0).

See here for more information.

Field	Value
type	ContentId
security	{"read":"PluginSecurity","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.MetalnessMapContent

A Content that determines which parts of the surface are metal or non-metal. The metalness map is a grayscale image where black pixels correspond to non-metals and white pixels correspond to metals. The content can hold an asset URI or a reference to an EditableImage object.

When Lighting.EnvironmentSpecularScale is 0, metalness has no effect. Defaults to an empty content, in which case no metalness map is applied.

Field	Value
type	Content
tags	["Hidden"]
security	{"read":"None","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.NormalMap

This property modifies the lighting of the surface by adding bumps, dents, cracks, and curves, without adding more polygons. The normal map is an RGB image that modifies the surface's normal vector used for lighting calculations. Its R, G, and B channels correspond to the X, Y, and Z components of the local surface vector respectively, and byte values of 0 and 255 for each channel correspond linearly to normal vector components of -1 and 1.016 respectively. This range is stretched slightly from -1 to 1 so that a byte value of 127 maps to exactly 0.

The normal vector's Z axis is always defined as the direction of the underlying mesh's normal. A uniform (127, 127, 255) image translates to a completely flat normal map where the normal is everywhere perpendicular to the mesh surface; this format is referred to as a "tangent space" normal map. Note that Roblox does not support world space or object space normal maps.

Incorrectly flipped normal components can make bumps appear like indents. If you import a normal map and notice the lighting looks off, you may need to invert the G channel of the image. The X and Y axes of the tangent space frame correspond to the X and Y directions in the image after it's transformed by the mesh UVs. If you view your normal map in an image editor as if it were displayed on a surface, normals pointing towards the right side of the screen should appear more red, and normals pointing towards the top side of your screen should appear more green. The terms "DirectX format" and "OpenGL format" are sometimes used to describe whether the G channel of the normal map is inverted or not (Roblox expects the OpenGL format).

Roblox also expects imported meshes to include tangents. Modeling software may also refer to this as "tangent space" information. If you apply a normal map and it does not seem to make any visual difference, you may need to re-export your mesh along with its tangent information from the modeling software.

See here for more information.

Field	Value
type	ContentId
security	{"read":"PluginSecurity","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.NormalMapContent

A Content that modifies the lighting of the surface by adding bumps, dents, cracks, and curves, without adding more polygons. The normal map is an RGB image that modifies the surface's normal vector used for lighting calculations, where the R, G, and B channels correspond to the X, Y, and Z components of the local surface vector respectively. The content can hold an asset URI or a reference to an EditableImage object.

Roblox expects tangent-space normal maps in the "OpenGL format" (the G channel is not inverted), and imported meshes must include tangent information. Defaults to an empty content, in which case no normal map is applied.

Field	Value
type	Content
tags	["Hidden"]
security	{"read":"None","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.ResampleMode

Determines how the surface's texture maps look when they are scaled. When set to the default ResamplerMode.Default, the textures smooth out using bilinear filtering when displayed larger or smaller than their size in texture memory. When set to Pixelated, the textures preserve the sharp edges of pixels using nearest-neighbor filtering. Defaults to ResamplerMode.Default.

Field	Value
type	ResamplerMode
security	{"read":"None","write":"None"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.RoughnessMap

This property determines the apparent roughness across the surface. The roughness map is a grayscale image where black pixels correspond to a maximally smooth surface, and white pixels correspond to a maximally rough surface.

Note that surface roughness works on a very small scale. Reflections on smooth surfaces are sharp and concentrated, while reflections on rough surfaces are more blurry and dispersed.

See here for more information.

Field	Value
type	ContentId
security	{"read":"PluginSecurity","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.RoughnessMapContent

A Content that determines the apparent roughness across the surface. The roughness map is a grayscale image where black pixels correspond to a maximally smooth surface, and white pixels correspond to a maximally rough surface. The content can hold an asset URI or a reference to an EditableImage object.

Surface roughness works on a very small scale. Reflections on smooth surfaces are sharp and concentrated, while reflections on rough surfaces are more blurry and dispersed. Defaults to an empty content, in which case no roughness map is applied.

Field	Value
type	Content
tags	["Hidden"]
security	{"read":"None","write":"PluginSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

SurfaceAppearance.TexturePackContent

Managed by the engine and not intended to be set directly. A Content that holds the compressed runtime texture data for the surface appearance. It is the backing storage for SurfaceAppearance.TexturePack: when the object is published, the engine bakes its individual texture maps into a single texture pack asset and stores the resulting reference here.

Requires elevated permissions to read (RobloxScript security) and is writable only by the engine (RobloxEngine security). Defaults to an empty content.

Field	Value
type	Content
security	{"read":"RobloxScriptSecurity","write":"RobloxEngineSecurity"}
thread safety	ReadSafe
category	Appearance
serialization	{"can_load":true,"can_save":true}
capabilities	["Basic"]

Methods

Inherited from Instance

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Instance:AddTag	()	Applies a tag to the instance.
Instance:children	Instances	Returns an array of the object's children.
Instance:ClearAllChildren	()	This method destroys all of an instance's children.
Instance:Clone	Instance	Create a copy of an instance and all its descendants, ignoring instances that are not `Archivable`.
Instance:clone	Instance
Instance:Destroy	()	Sets the `Instance.Parent` property to `nil`, locks the `Instance.Parent` property, disconnects all connections, and calls `Destroy()` on all children.
Instance:destroy	()
Instance:FindFirstAncestor	Instance?	Returns the first ancestor of the `Instance` whose `Instance.Name` is equal to the given name.
Instance:FindFirstAncestorOfClass	Instance?	Returns the first ancestor of the `Instance` whose `Object.ClassName` is equal to the given className.
Instance:FindFirstAncestorWhichIsA	Instance?	Returns the first ancestor of the `Instance` for whom `Object:IsA()` returns true for the given className.
Instance:FindFirstChild	Instance?	Returns the first child of the `Instance` found with the given name.
Instance:findFirstChild	Instance
Instance:FindFirstChildOfClass	Instance?	Returns the first child of the `Instance` whose `ClassName` is equal to the given class name.
Instance:FindFirstChildWhichIsA	Instance?	Returns the first child of the `Instance` for whom `Object:IsA()` returns true for the given className.
Instance:FindFirstDescendant	Instance?	Returns the first descendant found with the given `Instance.Name`.
Instance:GetActor	Actor?	Returns the `Actor` associated with the Instance, if any.
Instance:GetAttribute	Variant	Returns the value which has been assigned to the given attribute name.
Instance:GetAttributeChangedSignal	RBXScriptSignal	Returns an event that fires when the given attribute changes.
Instance:GetAttributes	Dictionary	Returns a dictionary of the instance's attributes.
Instance:GetChildren	Instances	Returns an array containing all of the instance's children.
Instance:getChildren	Instances
Instance:GetDebugId	string	Returns a coded string of the debug ID used internally by Roblox.
Instance:GetDescendants	Instances	Returns an array containing all of the descendants of the instance.
Instance:GetFullName	string	Returns a string describing the instance's ancestry.
Instance:GetStyled	Variant	Returns the styled or explicitly modified value of the specified property, or else the default property value if it hasn't been styled/modified.
Instance:GetStyledPropertyChangedSignal	RBXScriptSignal	Returns an event that fires when the given style property changes on the instance.
Instance:GetTags	Array	Gets an array of all tags applied to the instance.
Instance:HasTag	boolean	Check whether the instance has a given tag.
Instance:IsAncestorOf	boolean	Returns true if an `Instance` is an ancestor of the given descendant.
Instance:IsDescendantOf	boolean	Returns `true` if an `Instance` is a descendant of the given ancestor.
Instance:isDescendantOf	boolean
Instance:IsPropertyModified	boolean	Returns `true` if the value stored in the specified property is not equal to the code-instantiated default.
Instance:QueryDescendants	Instances	Returns an array containing all descendants of the instance that match the `selector` string.
Instance:Remove	()	Sets the object's `Parent` to `nil`, and does the same for all its descendants.
Instance:remove	()
Instance:RemoveTag	()	Removes a tag from the instance.
Instance:ResetPropertyToDefault	()	Resets a property to its default value.
Instance:SetAttribute	()	Sets the attribute with the given name to the given value.
Instance:WaitForChild	Instance	Returns the child of the `Instance` with the given name. If the child does not exist, it will yield the current thread until it does.

Inherited from Object

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Object:GetPropertyChangedSignal	RBXScriptSignal	Get an event that fires when a given property of the object changes.
Object:IsA	boolean	Returns true if an object's class matches or inherits from a given class.
Object:isA	boolean

Events

Inherited from Instance

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Instance.AncestryChanged		Fires when the `Instance.Parent` property of this object or one of its ancestors is changed.
Instance.AttributeChanged		Fires whenever an attribute is changed on the `Instance`.
Instance.ChildAdded		Fires after an object is parented to this `Instance`.
Instance.childAdded
Instance.ChildRemoved		Fires after a child is removed from this `Instance`.
Instance.DescendantAdded		Fires after a descendant is added to the `Instance`.
Instance.DescendantRemoving		Fires immediately before a descendant of the `Instance` is removed.
Instance.Destroying		Fires immediately before (or is deferred until after) the instance is destroyed via `Instance:Destroy()`.
Instance.StyledPropertiesChanged		Fires whenever any style property is changed on the instance, including when a property is set to `nil`.

Inherited from Object

Name	Type / Returns	Description
Object.Changed		Fires immediately after a property of the object changes, with some limitations.