[Paper] Layered Textures

These tiles are built by stacking cut paper, not by folding it. Each pattern is a set of concentric layers, every one cut to a slightly different outline and raised above the one beneath, so the surface reads entirely through its shadows: a dark occlusion pooling under each cut edge, a subtle bevel where the cut face catches light, and a single consistent light direction across the whole composition. The result is a flat image that behaves like a shallow relief, which is why it holds up as a background without competing with anything placed on top of it.

License

Free for personal and commercial use. No attribution required. Commercial games, film, broadcast, print, product design and client work are all permitted. No credit, no backlink, no permission request needed. You may not resell or redistribute the texture files themselves as a texture pack.

What's in this collection

• Concentric layered motifs — radially symmetrical compositions built from stacked cut rings and polygons, with deep shadow between layers.
• Interlocking geometric cuts — triangles, stars and tessellating shapes arranged so the layer edges form the pattern.
• Bright colour blocking — saturated yellow, coral, green and ochre stock layered for maximum separation between levels.
• Muted and tonal sets — the same construction in close-toned card, where the shadows rather than the colour carry the pattern.

All tiles are seamless in both directions and delivered at high resolution.

Where layered paper patterns are used

Motion graphics. Craft and stop-motion styled sequences, where stacked paper is an established visual language and the baked shadows supply depth without any 3D work.

Print and packaging. Children's products, greetings, stationery and artisan branding, where a tactile layered pattern sits far better than a flat vector fill.

Game user interface. Casual and puzzle titles using a paper-craft art direction for menus, card faces and level backgrounds.

Web and editorial design. Hero panels and section backgrounds that need texture and warmth while staying quiet behind type.

How to use these in Blender

1. Connect the colour map to Base Color with Metallic at 0 and Roughness high, around 0.8. Every variant here is matte card with no gloss at all.
2. Use the height map through a Bump node for the layer steps, and reserve displacement for hero shots where a raised edge breaks the silhouette.
3. Add a slight Sheen for the paper fibre, which is what stops layered card looking like moulded plastic.
4. Match your key light direction to the shadow direction baked into the tile, or the layer shadows will contradict the scene lighting.

How to use these in Unreal Engine 5

1. Import colour with sRGB on and height, roughness and normal maps with sRGB off.
2. Keep normal intensity moderate. The baked occlusion already carries the depth, and an aggressive normal map fights it rather than adding to it.
3. Offset tiles across large surfaces rather than mirroring them, since mirroring reverses the shadow direction and flattens the relief.
4. For interface use, treat these as unlit textures so the baked shadows stay consistent regardless of scene lighting.

How to use these in Unity

1. Use URP/Lit with Metallic at 0 and low smoothness, or an unlit shader for flat interface panels.
2. Set tiling so an individual layered motif stays at a readable size; scaled too large the pattern loses its craft quality and reads as abstract colour shapes.
3. Add a Detail Map at high tiling for paper fibre so the surface holds up at close camera range.
4. Pair with a soft ambient setup, since the material has no reflection to work with and relies entirely on diffuse shading.

Tips for layered paper specifically

Never mirror the tile. Every layer is lit from the same direction, and that consistency is what makes the stack read as physical. Mirroring to break a repeat flips the shadows on one half, and the relief collapses into flat colour immediately.

Do not lift the shadows. The dark pooling beneath each cut edge is the entire effect. Brightening it to make a tile look cleaner removes the separation between layers and turns a shallow relief into a printed graphic.

Keep it completely matte. The moment a specular highlight appears, stacked card reads as moulded plastic. If a layered tile looks synthetic, roughness is almost always the cause rather than the colour or the pattern.

Browse the collection

Paper is organized into volumes, each containing multiple packs, alongside a separate cut-out alpha volume. New volumes are added continuously.

View the layered paper volume → · View the full Paper collection →

Related: Abstract textures, Background textures.