Materials saved using "Duplicate List..." from "In Models..." list are not saving edited colors

[cobam747]

I’m trying to create my own local edited copies of a standard SketchUp 3D Warehouse Metal_06_1k metal material.

To start with, I select and download the Metal_06_1K material and apply it to a component’s container. I then duplicate that now ‘in Model’ material and edit it by changing the color to one of the standard Mac Crayon colors. I also change the Materials name so it includes the Mac crayon color name.

Rinse and repeat for 8 total Mac Crayon colors.

As I understand it, once I get a set of ‘In Model’ materials that I’d like to save locally, I use the ‘Duplicate List…’ command and save all the current In Model materials to my new local user’s materials list named ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’. This in turn saves all the materials SKM files in the default ‘/Users/Brad/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2026/SketchUp/Materials’ location in the new ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ folder.

For reference, I’ve attached a zip file of the ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ folder created from the ‘Duplicate List…’ command as described above.

My issue, and I think it qualifies as a Mac Color picker bug, is that when I try to pick and apply the saved, and color edited, materials from the new ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list, the materials’s color reverts (I think) back to the originally down loaded Metal_06_1K color. This behavior is particularly insidious because the material color cubes in the ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list all appear with their edited colors.

In ‘Local Materials Bug A.skp’, I have 8 instances of the ‘Widget A’ component. Each instance has a different saved material from the materials saved in my local ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list applied to the components container. As can be seen in the test case A file, ALL the components ended up showing the same original Metal_06_1K coloring even though each instance got different colored materials applied. And, if you look at the ‘In Model’ materials list for ‘Local Materials Bug A.skp’, you see 8 different materials that ALL have the same color cube, but each one has its own unique name.

My only recourse at this point is to re-edit all the separate In Model materials, which is what I did in the ‘Local Materials Bug B.skp’ file. Fortunately, all I had to do was edit each material and reselect its named Mac Crayon color. This immediately changed the specific instance of ‘Widget A’ that had been assigned the color to actually have the specific material color.

Did I do something wrong in my attempt to create my own local Materials list? If not, is there a different/better way to do it?

Thanks in advance,

Brad

SketchUp 2026.2.242

macOS Tahoe 26.3.1

16" MacBook Pro, M1 Max, 64GB RAM

Local Materials Bug A.skp (11.1 MB)

Local Materials Bug B.skp (11.1 MB)

BAM 3DWH Fav Metals.zip (10.8 MB)

[cobam747]

I’ve done some more debug checking and can report that this odd materials behavior is only occurring for the SU 2025 and up 3D materials. I have an entire list of old flat wood grain materials saved in a separate local “BAM Wood” list that are working as expected.

Also, if I quit SU and restart it, all the material cubes for my local ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list revert to showing the original Metal_06_1k cube color. If I choose one with the Paint Bucket tool and drop it on a component, it applies the original Metal_06_1k material, but with my new material name. As before, if I edit that new material in the ‘In Model’ list and re-pick the appropriate Mac crayon color, the color in the model and in the ‘In Model’ list then show the desired material color.

In retrospect, when I initially created my ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list and they showed the expected colors and I did all the testing and developed the two test case files, it was all using the same SU session. Quitting SU and restarting, at which point SU re-loads the ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list materials, now show the incorrectly colored materials sample cube colors.

I’ve done some more poking around in the ‘In Model’ material editing process…

Take this for what it’s worth, but I’ve noticed that if I edit the now bogus material color and restore the desired color, as shown in this screenshot:

But I then choose the ‘Reset Color’ option from the ‘Texture’ options, the material color reverts back to the original Metal_06_1K color:

It looks like SU is very tenaciously hanging on to the original material color in the SKM file and it’s not actually updating the SKM file’s color definition when the material was edited and saved to the SKM file. Maybe?

[cobam747]

Additional thoughts…

Today I learned that a SU SKM file is really a zip archive file in disguise. If you change the .SKM extension to .zip, poof, the file is now a zip archive

So, I copied one of my saved SKM files to experiment on. Did the extension name change. And now I see all the xml and graphics file resources that make up a SKM file. I know nothing about xml files, so I just looked around, but did not change anything anywhere in the zip archive.

Just taking a SWAG here, but Is the xml data, presumably with the edited material color info, not being properly saved into the newly saved SKM file?

BTW, SWAG is an acronym for “Scientific Wild Ass Guess”.

[DaveR]

By what method are you saving the edited material from In Model back to the “BAM 3DWH Fav Metals” folder?

[cobam747]

This is the save method:

Some other screenshot observations.

This is what SU shows me in the Mac color picker when I select my local materials list AFTER a restart of SU:

Notice that every material cube shows the same, I think, Metal_06_1K coloring of the original material duplicated, and then edited with the chosen Mac crayon color. They are all different colors in the materials list/folder and have the names of the SKM files as seen below (the ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list/folder).

[cobam747]

I’ve spent some more time verifying that I can reproduce this odd materials behavior on demand using a simpler model file and custom materials list.

To this end, I’ve created a new base/template model file named “SKM Save Test Base.skp” to start the process. It has a simple 2x3 array, 6 copies, of the same truncated cone component. All instances of the component have the default material to start with. I’ve also set up the base model to use the “Snowy Field 2K IBL” environment so the metallic materials will pop when they are eventually applied.

Using a copy of that base model and saving it as “SKM Save Test 3.skp”, I can recreate SU’s applying an unintended material even though my local ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list materials clearly show them having my desired Mac crayon colors. Again, I’m guessing it’s the Metal_06_1K material from the 3D Warehouse that I downloaded and then edited to create my Mac crayon based colors. In addition to the components not showing the expected material colors, the ‘In Model’ materials ALL show as the mystery material color, even though each material has the Mac crayon color name. I then saved this file in this state. Reopening the file shows the same incorrect materials issue.

Here’s a screen shot of the model after applying all 6 materials from the ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list:

Note how all 6 of the cones all appear to have the same material color, even though each one was colored using the materials in the ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list.

Here’s a screen shot of the model showing the ‘In Model’ materials. Note that all the ‘In Model’ materials look identical, but each is unique, with its own unique name from the ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list:

Next, I made a copy of the “SKM Save Test 3.skp” file as ‘SKM Save Test 4.skp’, which is showing the same issues. In the new ‘Test 4’ file, I re-edit the ‘In Model’ materials and re-pick the Mac crayon color that is shown as part of the material’s name. As I re-edit each color, both the ‘In Model’ cube color and the component instance in the Model return to their desired colors. I can then save and reopen this file and everything is working as expected.

Here’s a screen shot of the ‘Test 4’ file after performing the ‘In Model’ edit of each material to restore its intended color:

If the SketchUp team is unable to recreate this issue from my test case files, I am willing to do a live screen sharing session to step through the process stated above. I am located in the Mountain time zone. Also be aware that I use a MacBook Pro.

SKM Save Test Base.skp (5.8 MB)

SKM Save Test 3.skp (10.9 MB)

SKM Save Test 4.skp (10.9 MB)

SKM Save Test Metals.zip (8.1 MB)

For full disclosure, the “new” ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list folder uploaded here was recreated as a new list after applying 6 of the colored materials previously saved to my old ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ materials list in the ‘Test 3’ and ‘Test 4’ files. This was done using the ‘Duplicate List…’ command in the Materials window from the purged ‘In Model’ list of the ‘Test 4’ file. The ONLY reason I switched to the new ‘SKM Save Test Metals’ list from the previous ‘BAM 3DWH Fav Metals’ list was that its 12 materials were to big to upload in a single zip file.

[cobam747]

Just checking in…

Is this odd Mac Color/Material window thing a me only problem or has the behavior been duplicated by the SketchUp team?

Brad

[ateliernab]

@cobam747

Is this odd Mac Color/Material window thing a me only problem or has the behavior been duplicated by the SketchUp team?

there has been no update to sketchup since spring, so no, nothing has been “fixed”.

it’s either that most people don’t use the list system the way you do, or didn’t notice ?
I know for me both are true.

[cobam747]

Checking in again. Has anyone at Trimble been able to reproduce this odd Mac Colors/Materials behavior?