Managing Materials (for a Design Team)

[donneyclark]

It would be nice to see a video or playlist about managing Materials across a design team.
Saving custom materials and creating collections, both with recommended naming schemes.

[eric-s]

Great suggestion. We’re about to launch a new track on SketchUp for Landscape Architecture and Site Design to our SketchUp Campus that touches on many of these requests. So check back in a few weeks… Until then, if you have any specific questions, feel free to post them for users to answer.

[donneyclark]

What is the fastest way to add folders of new Materials to SketchUp? I registered an account with sketchuptextureclub.com, textures download as jpeg files. Is there a website in which textures download as skm files? I am wanting more Materials than the defaults.

Still have not understanding how to manage Materials

Sketchup’s organization of materials is very confusing to me. First, I download some materials from online as jpeg’s and stored them in a folder called custom_materials. I then went to “preferences” and changed the “materials” path to the custom_materials path. Then I went to the materials window and did not find any folder or sub-folder for the custom_materials folder. Actually, just checking my “materials” in “preferences” after I closed and reopened sketchup the “materials” path went back to…

[eric-s]

https://learn.sketchup.com/course/materials-textures/materials-sources
Here is the lesson I was referencing that explains a bit out textures and loading/saving them.

[DanRathbun]

@donneyclark

What is the fastest way to add folders of new Materials to SketchUp?

To make adding folders fast in Windows, create a fast link.

Open the File Explorer, and in the address bar highlight everything so it is overridden, and enter …
%AppData%/SketchUp/SketchUp 2018/SketchUp
… then press ENTER key to go to this folder.
This is your resources folder for the current version. (Change version as required in path.)

Now you have several choices:

1. To create a shortcut, point to the "Materials" folder, right-click, and choose "Create shortcut".
   The shortcut is created in this resources folder. Drag it to your desktop, and rename it if you choose.

2. To add as a Quick Access link (Win10+,) point to the "Materials" folder, right-click, and choose "Pin to Quick Access".

3. To add to an explorer Library (Win6/7/8 or if still using them in Win10 as I do,) point to the "Materials" folder, right-click, and choose "Include in Library" and add to an existing library, or create a new one.
   If you just created it, the library will have the same name as the folder. You’ll likely want to rename the library something like "SketchUp 2018 Resources" because you’ll probably add fast links to the other resource folders as well.

Now you have a several fast ways to get to the "Materials" resource folder from either the desktop, or Windows file explorer right navigation pane.

Add subfolders as you like to organize your collection. Drag SKM files into these folders (or use as a target folder when saving new materials from a SketchUp “In Model” collection.) SketchUp 2017+ will add these folders automatically. (You may need to restart SketchUp or switch folders temporarily and come back to a folder so SketchUp reloads it’s material list.)

[donneyclark]

Thanks! This is helpful information. But, my question is more so about downloading libraries of skm files.

[DanRathbun]

I know, that’ll get covered … but you need a quick way to open the folders to put things in their place(s).

---

An extension to the 3D Warehouse, called Resource Warehouse has long been requested, but has not yet been implemented. We’ve hoped it would allow sharing of materials, classification schemas, styles, LayOut scrapbooks, LayOut templates, etc.

So, we still must do it manually … or … a collection author must create a component with the material collection inside, so that people can download it from the 3DW.

An example is the Sherwin-Williams paint collection. Once inside SketchUp, you would have to manually save them out to your local folder from the model’s materials collection.

Search for sherwin-williams paint colors | 3D Warehouse

[donneyclark]

In order to Save a custom material, it must be found under In Model and then right click > Save As. This is time-consuming and NOT intuitive.

[junior]

under Details in the materials tab you can choose “Save collection as”. That’ll save all in-model materials to a folder of your choice, hope this helps.

[donneyclark]

Good to know!!

But, if I’m only concerned about one custom material at a time, then it would be faster to be able to right click on the selected material up at the top of the Materials tray instead of looking under In Model (given a situation in which several existing materials are listed under In Model).