Could someone please help a web-based user convert a picture file to a SketchUp material file?
You’ll need to make the image seamless if you’re intending to use it as a material over larger areas. I’ve found that the whole process takes much longer in Photoshop (or Gimp…whatever) than it does in SU. Also, the larger scale the image, the better (ie. the larger the actual area photographed}, as any tiling is going to be less obvious.
Probably the best filter to use would be Offset, or something similar. If that image is offset by approx. half its width and height, then it will become an image of four quarters with very obvious horizontal and vertical joins through the middle. These you’ll have to get rid of by using various tools like the clone brush to fuzzy-out the mismatch.
You’ll notice that that particular image is also much darker in the lower left than it is elsewhere, so the upper right quadrant (after offset) will put that dark patch right in the middle of the image. This you’ll also have to get rid of with clone or lighten.
When you’ve got the image into a suitable state, import it into SU as an image, not a material. This will give you the opportunity to scale it correctly before you explode it and turn it into a material you can save. I explain the whole process in this YouTube video.
If you apply the Offset filter in an image editor, it will look like this, showing that the edges (now in the middle) are anything but seamless.
If you then use the clone brush to paint over those joins with samples of similar rock texture, then you’ll end up with something like this…which has been offset again to bring the stones back into something like their original position. This image is now seamless.
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Thank you, This has been a help.
Just wanted to say, thank you @AlanF for writing your explanation above and for the link to your excellent and concise tutorial video on SketchUp textures. In that single video you managed to take away the mystery of making useful textures to scale and saving them for future use (something I had been doing hit and miss before).
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