We recently launched a bunch of new features on 3D Warehouse (visit the SketchUp Blog for the full run down). Chief among the new stuff is an update to the Materials stat in the Model Details Page info panel. This stat is now clickable, and clicking it will reveal a fly-out panel that allows you to browse and download materials from the In Model material library. SketchUp 2017 users, who are browsing 3D Warehouse via SketchUp’s embedded 3D Warehouse window, will see that SketchUp automatically activates the Paint Bucket tool when downloading a Material from 3DW. Here’s a video that shows the process in action.
If you have thoughts about using 3D Warehouse as a go-to repository for downloading/importing materials into your SketchUp projects please feel free to share them here!
One oddity I noticed is that many models are claimed to have a certain non-zero number of materials but when you click the link the material panel is empty, and keeps being empty, as if it loads infinitely slowly. Maybe this is because the models only have solid colors and this feature only shows textured materials? Perhaps solid colors could be made downloadable too to avoid confusion and to have the number shown in the statistics actually match what you get when clicking it?
Also, if the text “Materials” is now a link I really think it should have a subtle underline so people can see that it’s a link (and see what other statistics are not links). Currently the only way to know it’s a link is to be here in the forum, read the blog or actually caring about the huge annoying spam-like red text box on the 3D Warehouse front page (that I suppose will go away as soon as this feature isn’t considered new anymore).
Yes, bug filed on the first one. It results from redundant, common materials that are in lots of models. We’re working on making that number to be accurately reflected in your choices.
Yes on #2 as well, as our stealth UI Features aren’t always as discoverable as we wish. And yes on spammy red box, that’s definitely not stealth-y.
Good points.
Lastly, the forum was supposed to fix embedding models with the newer-style url’s, so I’ll try that here.
EDIT: It is gone, now…
and, though I liked the possibility, I think it was to time-consuming for people to implement: You would have to upload each component separately, fill in everything etc…
alas…
Again, it’s our stealth features… we’ll use that in our favor in the future when people ask “Why don’t you implement XYZ?”. We’ll do it, not tell anyone, and then claim it’s been there from the beginning. See Hindsight bias - Wikipedia
Since the launch of the new feature, there is something wrong with the count numbers for “downloads”. First I noticed the “phenomenon” last Thursday (May 18) on a group of models I follow: the total number of downloads on that group was significantly lower than the day before.
The easiest way to observe it is by uploading a new model and watching the “downloads”: initially the downloads number goes up but after a while it jumps back to “0” then “reloads” a few units and goes down again …
At this time the strange behaviour is still there both for newly uploaded and older models: the counter records some downloads and a bit later it “resets” to the initial value - anyone has some explanation? Thank you.