Metal cladding: aluminium, steel, corten and perforated panels

Metal cladding borrows its character from the finish: matte aluminium looks calm and precise, brushed stainless catches light in streaks, corten brings rust and weight, and perforated sheets turn a façade into a screen. This guide covers the families in the library and how to render them credibly — every texture measured at real-world scale.

The sheet and panel families

Aluminium — smooth, matte or brushed, used in composite panels and cassettes. Stainless steel — a fine brushed grain; rigidised versions carry a raised pattern for stiffness and shadow. Galvanised steel — the mottled spangled sheet of industrial sheds. Cor-ten (weathering steel) — an orange-brown patina that stabilises over the years. Perforated and expanded sheets — screens and feature cladding in any of the above.

Rendering metal convincingly

The texture carries the pattern, colour and grain direction; the metallic response comes from your material setup — metalness and roughness. Flat, mirror-flat metal reads fake: give large panels a slight roughness variation so the environment reflects unevenly, and keep the brushed direction consistent across each panel.

Scale and seams

Panel size is part of the design — standing-seam runs and cassette grids are set by the system (seam spacing commonly lands around 300–500 mm). The library’s repetition sizes let you place seams at believable intervals; see the sizes reference.