First of all, what a great community this is. I’ve recently started working in SketchUp.
I’ve created a model where I gather nice materials that I use across multiple models.
These materials are primarily images (jpeg) that I’ve set ‘use as material’. Works perfectly fine.
However, I would like to create a component that contains als of these materials so it is easy to share the materials and easy to import into a new sketchup model.
I’ve selected all of the materials and then created a component. However, if I import this component, the materials are not automatically added to the model.
If i understand your question right…
So far as I remember, few years back, I did create very small squares inside the component at a place where the will be never visible and fill each square (or cube’s) with a color or material. Not sure if I did group them. This way they will not get purged. This way, in a cube you can save 12 colours / materials.
However name them individualy in a way that they have are clear meaning in your material list. I did label them with “cmp_cabinet_<‘material’>”
Or create a single component with all the colours you need in all your components, that way you have a universal colour scheme.
Instead of ‘set as material’ choose Explode, then do the rest of the steps.
The current steps you follow will create the new component also with Images, instead of faces with materials.
Please correct your profile then. It says you are using the web version. The instructions for what you need to do is different between the web version and 2017 Make.
Why not save the materials as a local collection for later use? Once you have the materials in your model, go to the In Model materials in the Colors panel. Click on Duplicate and give the collection a useful name. For future models you’ll be able to open that collection in the drop down list at the top of the Colors panel. No need to go to the Warehouse and import all of those materials into your models.
When I just drag a graphic from the desktop, the resulting material may be too big. I have to then resize it by guessing at the best dimensions in the material browser. So though drag and drop may be cool, it seems if you apply as a material from the import dialog, you can apply it to a face of the appropriate size, either for an exact sizing or eyeballing the appropriate scale.
My preference is to draw a rectangle with at least one dimension that matches the dimension of the material. So if I have an image of a board that is 8 feet long, I draw a rectangle that is 8 feet long. Then I use File>Import and import the image as a texture which I apply to the rectangle clicking at the lower left corner and then on the edge at the known dimension. It’s immediately a material and it’s immediately the correct size.
Agree with Dave R . Since materials in the model bloat the model size and performance and clutter of the material browser, I wouldn’t import a bunch at a time–just material by material.
Another option for a material that is already imported, is to then apply it to the correct sized face, position and scale it to be perfect, then right-click Make Unique Texture. Make sure you only have the face selected and not its edges.
You now have a texture that is just big enough to do the job, and you can purge the original texture, that may well have been a lot bigger than it needed to be.
Importing and sizing to a face, leaves the original bitmap at it’s potentially huge size. Whether you get that far by import or drag and drop, the make unique steps and purging the original should save some file space and memory usage.
It could in some cases increase the amount of file space and memory, but given that we’re all using 8 megapixel or higher cameras, that’s more than a 300 dpi US Letter sized image. If it’s to be a tiled set of bricks, for example, you could get away with a much smaller image.
You also could make several custom smaller textures out of one single large image.
