Materials Editing in Mac missing

Hello!
I am currently using Sketchup Pro 2016. I was wondering what the equivalent to the materials editor for PC version was for Mac?
Vray_Sketchup5
(What I am looking for in Mac version)
I am unable to import textures or edit current textures as pictured above. The only way I am able to edit a texture is right click > texture > position.

Any ideas?

The two windows do work differently in some ways. If you right-click in the empty area of the window you can choose New Texture, and point to an image file.

Or if there’s already something that is close, but you want to change the image or the scaling, you can right-click on an existing texture, Duplicate, then right-click on that, and choose Edit.

Thanks Colin!
I didn’t realize you had to make a new color “list” to add your own custom textures in mac. Thanks for the quick clarification that’s exactly what I was looking for

1 Like

I had never used the New List feature, I would tend to add to one of the existing lists, most like the Colors in Model one.

One strange thing I noticed is that if you do make a new list, it appears to have all the materials from the list you were in at the time you made the new one. That’s just a refresh issue, once you go to another list and back again, your new list is empty

There is some limited editing of textures available on Mac. right click on the In Model texture and choose Edit or select Edit from the Color drop down.

You’ll get the edit options that are available.
2017-08-22_01-49-05

For further editing, click on the button next to the texture name to open the image editor you have set as the default in Preferences>Applications.

As far as creating a new material, my preference is to draw a rectangle to match the size of the texture and use File>Import to import the image and size it correctly in one step.

I would suggest that you put your custom textures into new folders instead of putting them in the folders provided with the program. If you ever have reason to remove or reinstall SketchUp you would lose your custom materials too. If you make your own folders, they go in ~/User/Library/Application Support/SketchUp/…/Materials. When you move to the next version of SketchUp, you can simply copy the folders from the Materials folder in the previous version and paste them into the new equivalent folder for the new version.

In order to create a new collection/folder of materials from the imported textures, set the Materials window to Colors in Model and drag their thumbnails to the palette in the lower part of the Materials window. Then click List>New and give your custom list a name. The window will display your new list and a folder will have been created in the location I described, above. It’ll be empty, though. Drag your textures back up from the palette into the new folder.

You can add to your custom folders any time by dragging the thumbnail down to the palette and back up into the selected destination.

If you want to put all of the In Model materials into a single new collection, you can use List>Duplicate instead.

1 Like

Thanks Dave for the summary of material editing on the Mac. I was just viewing your latest Design, Click Build video on the same topic. I tried creating a new folder of material from an imported image as you describe above:

In order to create a new collection/folder of materials from the imported textures, set the Materials window to Colors in Model and drag their thumbnails to the palette in the lower part of the Materials window.

I was unable to drag the newly created material thumbnails from the colors in model section down to the lower pallet. It just rejects it. I can drag a color thumbnail to the lower pallet, that works fine but not a material. I have tried this using both SU Pro 2016 and 2017 with the same result.

I am wondering if the ability to drag a newly imported texture material ever worked on the Mac at all. From the link below, from 2015, posts by Barry, he indicates this feature doesn’t work. That is, you can drag a color from the colors in model thumbnail into the lower pallet but not a material from a imported texture.

I am using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, MACOS Sierra 10.12.6, SU Pro 2017.

Zaz1

Just checked this issue using SU Pro 2015 it worked fine, I am able to move texture materials into the lower pallet. However, I am unable to do this with either SU Pro 2016 or 2017. This problem is not related to newly imported texture material and exists for any materials, including those supplied with SU. Not sure now where to post this issue.

Zaz1

1 Like

I remember being able to drag textures to the palette from the main window and then back again. It has changed with one of the Mac OS changes but you can still save materials in your own custom library or collection, whatever you want to call it.

If you want to create a new collection of materials, such as a some wood grain images, Make sure the main window is set to Colors in Model. Click on the List dropdown and choose Duplicate.

Then type a name for the collection and hit Enter.

Done. It’s added to the list of materials for future use, too.

Now suppose at a later date you want to add another texture to the same collection. Select the texture from Colors in Model and find the thumbnail next to the eye dropper towards the bottom of the Colors window. Drag from there into the palette.

Change to the collection to which you want to add the texture.

Drag the texture from the palette to the main window.

If you have a bunch of new textures to add into existing collections, fill the palette area with them first. Then go to the collection to drag them up. You can clear a tile on the palette by dragging an empty palette tile onto it.

1 Like

Thanks Dave for your reply. The problem I am observing on the MAC is this: Using either SU Pro 2016 or 2017, I can not drag any texture material from the main material window (under colors in model or other SU provided material collection) into the color pallet below. It simple will not move it into the pallet area. No matter which swatch I select it rejects the move of a texture material. I can however move any material from the main window to the pallet as long as the material is a color only.

Using SU Pro 2015 I can move both color material and texture material from the main material window into the pallet area below. That is the correct way it should work and what you describe in your reply instructions. So it worked and continues to work for SU Pro 2015. I recall this working under Yosemite and now it is still working with SU2015 under Sierra. It appears SU2016 and SU2017 no longer support this operation. Wonder if anyone else can verify what I am seeing using either SU2016 or SU 2017 with Sierra or other OS X version.

Zaz1

1 Like

I’m still using El Capitan. As I wrote:

I gave you a method that works.

I expect as long as SketchUp uses the Mac-supplied Colors window, this behavior will remain.

Here’s what I am seeing on SU 2018, macOS 10.13.1: If I select a texture in the main window, it also appears in the little sample “chicklet” at the left end of the palette at the bottom. I can then drag it from the sample to the palette. However, I cannot drag from the main window to the palette.

OK Dave thanks so much. I just identified from your instructions I need to drag the swatch near the eye dropper into one of the pallets. That is the key takeaway. It works on SU2017 with Sierra. What I was doing from past experience was dragging the material from the main material area into the pallet area. That method is not working on SU2016/17. Now that I have a method that works, I can go back to viewing your excellent video on materials.

BTW, where do you obtain material samples like the maple shown in the current Design Click Build video ?

1 Like

@DaveR, like many of us, takes photos of nice pieces of wood, imports them as textures, and saves them in his collection. One part of the technique is to draw a rectangle the actual width of the board in the photo and import by applying the texture to that rectangle. That sets the size of the texture to match reality.

Thanks Steve. I’ll start building my collection with either my own pictures or screenshots.

You can clear a tile on the palette by dragging an empty palette tile onto it.

This doesn’t work for me with SU2017. I can drag a filled tile over an another filled tile and replace it but click and drag on an empty tile does nothing.

Workaround is as follows:
I select the eyedropper,
hover the mouse in the area below the eyedropper so the color is 235,235,235 (the same color as an empty tile).
Click and the left sample swatch then fills to this color.
Finally, select and drag the left swatch into the tile in the palette area that requires clearing.

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.