I’ve noticed that surfaces are rendering with a gray background in Layout which differs from what I see in Sketchup. I am using the same style (saved as part of a collection used in both programs). I’ve deactivated sky & ground (set them white anyway). Set front/back color to white. Section Planes are turned off. Can’t seem to sort it out! (note the ledger depicted has no surfaces, just lines, which is why its white).
To make matters worse, when I start a new layout file from scratch and import the same model/viewport, it renders correctly!! So there is something off specific to my working Layout file… However I made it with all the same settings…
for “test_a” I duplicated my main file and stripped off the other pages, but its got the same issue.
for “test_b” I made a new layout file and imported the same scene, style etc.
Both Layout files are linked in the original post.
To make things weirder, this morning I sat down with both test files (test_a being a direct copy / save-as of my main document) and re-linked the model. Test_A now renders the drawings correctly. However in my primary document they are still rendering with the gray background.. even though both documents are identical in terms of settings:
I see that you’ve selected a different style for the viewport and you’ve overridden the scene’s Camera properties. Resetting those doesn’t appear to affect the patterns. Resetting the Camera properties does result in the model shifting in the viewport a bit. Best practice is to avoid modifying the Camera properties in LayOut. Doing so can result in a major headache if you then add dimensions and annotations in LayOut. There should be no need to override the scene’s Camera properties anyway.
I took a peek at the SketchUp file and note that your model is placed at a great distance from the origin. This can cause graphical issues, especially with Vector and Hybrid rendering.
It would be better if you kept the model close to the origin and avoid stringing it out across the countryside. This distance from the origin may be related to the way textures are rendering in LayOut. That’s actually handled better in LO2025 but it can still be an issue. You should probably go ahead and update to SketchUp/LayOut 2025.
I expect you know this already but if you render viewports as Vector textures will not be displayed. They will be shown as colors or shades of gray.
A few other notes about your SketchUp file since I had it open:
For precise modeling it’s recommended that you turn OFF Length Snapping as that can induce dimensional and other errors into your models.
And purge unused stuff periodically. In your model nearly half the components and materials are not being used so they are bloating your file without adding anything of value.
And also avoid excessively large materials. They just get downsampled in SketchUp anyway so the excess size contributes to bloat, again without adding value.
I don’t know where to begin, thank you for all of this. It’s much appreciated. As you might have guessed, I’m not a professional designer by any means, I’ve been using Sketchup on and off for nearly a decade but I still have a long ways to go, and I’m now feeling good enough about my modeling ability that I can focus on ‘running a tighter ship’ so to speak.
It’s funny how models can get away from you… I originally had 3 versions of the remodel I wanted to look at simultaneously, hence the huge distance of my model from the origin.. once we settled on a version, I failed to move the hero model to closer. It’s a combination of laziness and rushing to get more modeling done.
Hear you loud and clear on the tagging - I’ve now made the mistake a few times either drawing on a tagged layer or otherwise managing to tag faces and edges. And yeah, it’s caused major headaches.
And all the other feedback is greatly welcome!
OK ready for some really weird stuff?
I took my main file (6 pages), made direct copy called “test_c”
In the “test_c” file, I stripped the first 5 pages off the document and saved it.
I closed it and re-opened it, and was prompted to update my sketchup reference file, which I did. All the patterns render correctly now.
However, when I re-open my main file and re-link the sketchup file, there is no change. It’s almost like the fact that it’s not the only page in the document has something to do with it!?
I’m glad if I was able to help. I get it about models getting away from you and I’m happy to see you are trying to run a tighter ship. For a lot of people it seems running that tight ship is thought to be too much work and it can seem to be that way up front but down the road it generally pays off big dividiends.
This gets a lot of people. “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”
It’s odd that deleting the viewports some pages would have an impact on how viewports on other pages perform.
Would you send me the full file so I can see it and if I get any different results? If it’s got client or your contact information or, if you just don’t want to make it public, send the link to me via a private message. Click on my name and then the Message button.
