Paint Bucket Tool

Use the Paint Bucket Tool to assign materials and colors to entities in your model. You can use it to paint individual entities, fill a number of connected faces, or replace a material with another throughout your model. Activate the Paint Bucket Tool from the Principal Toolbar, or by choosing Paint Bucket from the Tools menu.

Keyboard Shortcut: B

Applying Materials

Ensure you are using either the Shaded or Shaded with Textures display setting so that you can see materials as they are applied to your model (Window > Display Settings > Shaded or Shaded with Textures). To apply materials:

1. Select the Paint Bucket Tool. The cursor will change to a paint bucket and the Material Browser is activated. The Materials Browser contains libraries of materials you can paint on faces in your model.
2. Select a materials library using the drop down list in the Materials Browser. SketchUp contains several default materials libraries, including landscape, roofing, and transparent materials.
3. Select a material from the materials library.
4. Click on the faces to paint. The material is assigned to the face.

Face Painting Rules

There are several face painting rules that apply when painting multiple faces or edges at the same time. These rules follow:

• The side of the faces that will be painted depends on the side initially painted when more than one face is selected. For example, if all faces are selected and you paint the front of one face, the front of all faces will be painted. Conversely, if all faces are selected and you paint the back of one face, all back faces will be painted.
• All selected edges will be painted when you select a face and all edges and paint the front of the face. No edges are painted when you select a face and all edges and paint the back of one face. Ensure you have the Window > Display Settings > Edge color set to By Material to see the painted effect applied to edges.

Fill Options

The Paint Bucket Tool can be used with one or more keyboard modifiers to perform various painting operations.

Element Fill

The Paint Bucket Tool normally operates by filling in faces as you click on them. As mentioned previously, entities selected with the Select Tool can be painted with a single click of the Paint Bucket Tool.

Adjacent Fill

Press and hold the Ctrl key while clicking on a face with the Paint Bucket Tool to fill that face and any adjacent (connected) face with the same material. The face you click on and the adjacent face must have the same material prior to performing this operation.

Note - Selecting a number of entities with the Select Tool and painting using the Ctrl modifier keys causes just the entities within the selection set to be painted.

Replace

Press and hold the Shift key prior to clicking on a face with the Paint Bucket Tool to apply a material to every face, with the same material in the current context, with the new material.

Note - Selecting a number of entities with the Select Tool and painting using the Shift modifier key causes just the entities within the selection set to be painted.

Adjacent Replace

Press and hold both the Shift and the Ctrl keys simultaneously while painting to only replace the material on the face within the confines of geometry that is physically connected to that face.

Note - Selecting a number of entities with the Select Tool and painting using the Ctrl modifier keys causes just the entities within the selection set to be painted.

Sampling a Material

Press and hold the Alt key to change from the Paint Bucket Tool to a Sample Tool for sampling materials within your model. The cursor will change to an eye dropper. Click on the face whose material you want to sample. Release the Alt key to return to the Paint Bucket Tool. Paint the sampled material on a face.

Painting Groups and Components

Materials can be painted on entire Group entities or Component entities or to the individual entities within the Group or Component. To assign materials to an entire Group or Component:

1. Select the Paint Bucket Tool. The cursor will change to a paint bucket and the Material Browser is activated. The Materials Browser contains libraries of materials you can paint on faces in your model.
2. Select a materials library using the drop down list box. SketchUp contains several default materials libraries, including landscape, roofing, and transparent materials.
3. Select a material from the library of materials.
4. Click on the Group or Component you want to paint. The faces will receive the material.
5. If you select multiple Groups or Components using the Select Tool, clicking on the selection with the Paint Tool will paint all of them with a single click.

Note - If a face within a Group or Component is already painted with a material (other than the default material), before applying a material to the entire Group or Component, the face will not adopt the new material. For example, the windshields, bumpers, and tires in the following image were already painted before a material was applied to these components. Therefore, the windshields, bumpers, and tires maintained their original material.

Note - Exploding a Group or Component assigns the object materials to any elements assigned the default material, thus making the material override permanent.