SketchUp contains a library of predefined materials that you can apply to faces and edges in your model. The Material Browser is used to organize materials and colors into libraries and to select and to apply materials to your model.
Activate the Materials Browser either by clicking on the Paint Bucket Tool or by selecting Material Browser from the Window menu.
There are multiple methods to apply a material to entities in your model. To apply materials using the Paint Bucket Tool:
Note - Ensure that the Shaded with Textures display style is selected to see materials containing textures that you have applied to entities.
Changes made a material will automatically apply to the entities in the model painted with that material. This behavior allows you to interactively experiment with color variations in your model. To edit a material:
Note - Select the Edit > Undo menu item to revert back to a previous material if you make a mistake while you are editing a material
Use Materials Browser controls to navigate among materials in your materials libraries.
The material thumbnail displays the currently selected material.
The material name field displays the name of the currently selected material.
The Display Secondary Selection Pane button displays a second select panel below the primary select panel. This feature allows you to display both your materials libraries and the in model library at the same time. This feature is useful when you want to drag materials between libraries and the in model library.
Click on the Create Material button to create a copy of the currently active material in the In Model library.
Click the Set Material To Paint With To Default to set the material to the default front and back face colors. Refer to the Face Panel section of the Styles Browser topic for further information on setting the default front and back face colors.
Use the Sample Paint button, appearing as an eye dropper, to sample and repaint materials appearing in your model. See the Paint Bucket Tool for additional information.
Click on the Select tab to display the select panel . Use the select tab to navigate between material libraries.
Back Arrow - Click the Back arrow to navigate to the previous location in the hierarchy of libraries.
Forward Arrow - Click the Forward arrow to navigate to the next location in the hierarchy of libraries.
In Model Button - Click on the In Model button to navigate to the In Model style library. The In Model style library contains all of the styles currently included with your model file.
The Edit tab contains a panel of options for editing materials.
Use the edit panel to edit the currently selected material.
Use the Color Pickers drop-down list to select between the HLS, (Hue,Light,Saturation), HSB (Hue, Saturation, and Brightness), RGB, (Red-Green-Blue), and Color Wheel color pickers. See Color Pickers for more information.
Click the Undo Color Changes button to drop all changes to the material during an edit session.
Click on the Match color of object in model button and click on an entity in the model to sample the color from that entity and apply it to the currently selected material.
Note - The Match color of object in model tool matches the color of a specific entity's material. This color can be disguised a bit when it is combined with a texture. Use the Match color on screen button if you want to sample a , specific, on-scree, color.
Click on the Match color on screen button and click anywhere on the screen to sample a color of a pixel and apply it to the currently selected material.
Check the Use texture image checkbox to include an image file, representing a texture, as part of the current material. The Choose Image dialog box appears. Locate and select the image file you want to use and click the Open button. The image file appears in the texture file field below the Use texture image checkbox.
Uncheck the Use texture image checkbox to inidicate that you no longer want to use an image file in your material (the texture file is removed).
Note - Re-checking the use texture checkbox will not restore a previous image
file setting. Instead, you will be promoted to select a new image file.
The texture file field contains the name of a image file (representing a texture), if any, associated with the current material. Drag image files into this field on click on the file open icon to the right to locate and open a image file.
Check the Colorize checkbox to lock all colors throughout the image to the same hue. This option is useful for files that are not displaying proper colors.
Click the Reset Color button to reset the color of the material to the original color in the image file.
Textures repeat themselves similar to tiles when they are painted on surfaces. The Dimensions options allow you to specify the dimensions of each texture tile. These options do not affect the original image file itself. Type a value in the height or width box to change the size of the texture tile. The corresponding dimension will adjust automatically to maintain aspect ratio. For example, if you type 2 in the top dimension box (width), 2 will appear in the bottom box (height).
Click on the chain icon if you do not want aspect ratio to be maintained.
Click the horizontal and vertical arrow buttons to revert to the previous width and height settings.
Slide the opacity slider to the right to increase the opacity of the texture. Slide the opacity slider to the left to increase the transparency of the texture. Alternatively, type a number from 0 to 100 (0 being fully transparent and 100 being fully opaque) in the opacity field.
A number of useful Materials Browser-related commands are accessible using context menus. Context-click on any material's icon or name to access the Materials Browser context menus. The following options appear depending on whether you are clicking on icons in an established styles library or in the In Model library:
Select the Add to model menu item to add the currently selected material to the In Model library.
Select the Area menu item to calculate the amount of surface area, in current units, painted with the currently selected material. The material is not applied to any faces when the Area menu item is grey.
Select the Delete menu item to delete a single material from a materials library.
Click the Export texture image menu item to save the texture-portion of the material as an image file
Select the Save As menu item to save the selected material to a separate file (.skm), with a new name and location. You can use this menu item to save materials that have been modified or created during a drawing session.
Select the Select menu item to select all faces in your model painted with the currently selected material.
Click on the right arrow next to the styles library drop-down list to open the details pop-up menu. This menu allows you to perform additional material-related functions.
Select the Open or create a library menu item to open an existing library (or file) or create a new styles library (folder).
Note - The open or create a library menu item displays a Browse for Folder dialog box. This dialog box does not display files, only folders. Select the folder or location containing the file and click the OK button.
Select the Save Library As menu item to save a copy of a library with a new name.
Select the Add Library to Favorites menu item to add an existing library to the list of favorite libraries (appearing at the bottom of the libraries drop-down list).
Select the Remove Library from Favorites menu item to remove a library from your list of favorites (appearing at the bottom of the libraries drop-down list).
Select the Purge Unused menu item to remove all materials in the In Model library that are not actually used in your model.
Select the Small Images, Medium Images, Large Images, or Extra Large Images menu item to change the size of the thumbnails in the Select panel.
Select the List View menu item to display the styles in list form.
Select the Refresh menu item to update the styles appearing in the styles browser.
Select the Get More menu item to get more styles from the SketchUp web site.
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SketchUp User Guide (Microsoft Windows): Material Browser |
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