For anyone that is not aware, in SU2017 some of the assigned colors in the Materials - Select - Colors tray do not match the thumbnail colors.
This is most present near the end of the listings of the colors where there is the magenta and gray-scale colors. Although it could be present everywhere.
To see what i mean just create a rectangle and then assign one of the gray-scale colors to the rectangle and then if you have a color picker tool like i have check to see if the color on the rectangle matches the color in the thumbnail. You will quickly see that they dont match.
Furthermore, the colors M00 (white) and M01 (less white) are the same color. Sometimes the color assigned to the objects in the scenes ends up being M00 and sometimes it ends up being M01.
Thatâs it!
I hope my voice is heard and the issue is addressed. It would be nice to have all the colors working correctly just in time for SU2018.
The thumbnails wonât match in most views due to the shading by OpenGL. Set the camera to parallel projection and the colored face at 45 degrees to the camera. The color will match the thumbnail. As you orbit the color will get lighter or darker depending upon the angle of the face to the camera.
the colours reported by your on screen will depend on if your screen is colour corrected, has the gamma set correctly and the shading @DaveR points outâŚ
It is strange how they work though. I was testing the colors out with 2D top view using parallel projection and noticed what i thought to be the errors.
Nonetheless, i might as well keep this post and not ask the the forum moderator to delete it so that if anyone in the future ever comes across the same assumed issue as i did they will get their answer as i just did.
Shadow settings can be used to minimise the effect of light direction on materials in a SketchUp model. On my computers this has given the âflattestâ result:
turn on âUse Sun for shadingâ
turn shadows off
set the Dark slider to 100
set the Light slider to 80.
(this is an old recipe. I just checked, and on my current notebook screen, in SketchUp 2017, in my eyes, after setting the Dark slider to 100, the position of the Light slider makes no difference whatsoever. I can distinctly remember that in an older version, on my desktop, it did. Go figure.)
The âuse sun for shadowsâ option without changing the default light and dark sliders produces a very close match between the thumbnail colors in the materials tray and the colors assigned to the 2D objects. This of course is now helpful given that my current project is 2D only.
I find however that unless there is a need for using the sun or shadows it is much easier to just work without them.
The whole point of the shading is to produce a 3D effect on a 2D surface. If you donât want the shading you can do as Anssi mentioned with the Light and Dark sliders. If that isnât suitable, you could always draw in 2D.
Although you might not be aware of it, surfaces in the real world get shaded differently, too, depending upon the angle of the light.
What i am saying is that using the default setup with sketchup that has the âuse sun for shadowsâ unchecked and the shadows off is the simplest and most ideal for 3D projects if one has no purpose for using the sun or shadows. With this setup there is still gradations to curved surfaces and differences in colors between surfaces to produce the 3D effect. Itâs is as though the camera becomes the sun.
But if your working with a flat 2D project using parallel projection then its best to employ the approach i described above since it produces a match between the thumbnail colors in the colors tray and the colors assigned to the 2D objects. Using Anssis advice with 100 dark 80 light produces a flat color system but it also results in a total mismatch between the thumbnail colors and the colors assigned to objects.
I didnât see any difference in shading behaviour between the Perspective and Parallel projection modes.
I had to check and the ************** thing seems to differ between computers, displays and graphics cards. To match the material sample on my desktop required quite different shadow settings than the 100/80 that worked on my laptop:
Note that when the light direction is not coming from the sun, the scene is lighted as from a spotlight that is mounted directly on your camera, and the adjusting sliders in the shadows tray do not work.
0 Light 80 Dark worked out for me too. It seems to produce a better match than the default settings. This will be handy for 2D work using only one parallel projection view.
The only question is why would anyone use it for 3D? Having shades on three dimensional objects as DaveR said, in particular to curved shapes, brings out the 3D effect on the objects and makes everything look normal. Perhaps by turning off âuse sun for shadingâ one can get greater performance from their computer?
It is a personal preference. Some people have projects that require a flat âcartoonâ look. Also, some very nice effects can be achieved by exporting several images with different settings from a view, and layering them in a photo editor.
