Question: How to remove materials or set all models as default material

From what I can see there doesn’t seem to be a way to easily remove materials. I can refresh materials not in use to remove it from the list but that’s about it.

In SketchUp Make, I can open the Materials window, right-click to remove the material and replace it with the Default material.

I don’t see an option to create a basic material, either.

Is there something I’m missing? Is there a way to quickly apply one material to the entire model via the paint bucket tool?

Hey Nick,

We’re working on some improvements to material editing in SketchUp for Web, including removing and editing single materials.

In the near term, the current method for adding a material is to click the File Icon > Insert and import an image as a material.

Can you clarify what you mean by ‘basic material’? Since you also ask about applying one material to the entire model I wonder if you are talking about monochrome face display. Monochrome face styles are a quick way to apply one material to all faces in a model, and the nice part is that you can still use the entity-specific materials you apply.

With a Shop subscription, we include Style editing that allows you to specify a default color for front faces in monochrome styles. Open the Styles utility and hit the edit icon next to the Style thumbnail. Then, go into face settings to edit the default material.

If you are using SketchUp for free, there are a few styles like Hidden Line that are set to monochrome face display.

I hope this helps get you oriented. We’re working on a few things to make this a bit smoother.

Mark

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Hi @Mark ,

Thanks so much for all of that. The monochrome tied in with the front/back faces helped.

The only issue with that approach is it seems it adds shading based on what’s facing the camera or angle of the camera. Rotating the camera high gives the same model 100% white but at a low angle it’s very dark, and this makes it difficult to set up. Models with some curvature receive a gradient which isn’t particularly desired.

Ideally, I’d prefer shading toggled off all together in Monochrome style but I imagine that isn’t available.

Either way, it’s a step in the right direction, so thank you.

If you don’t want any shading or materials, you could select the Hidden Line style.

Thanks, Dave!

HiddenLine is what I was using but it helps to adjust all of the materials at once with the Hidden Line style / update the face coloring. If there was an option to blend the two, or simply have a style editor, it’d make it super easy but this will have to do for now.

SketchUp Shop has a style editor. Your profile says that’s what you’re using. SketchUp Free doesn’t have a style editor. Or you could use a desktop client version of SketchUp.

By style editor, I should’ve said ‘style builder/creator’. The presets and custom ones found on the interwebs have strokes and other unique stylings that aren’t available to control in the web app version. Having a creation tool, or at least similar tools found in the desktop versions 10+ years ago would be quite helpful. :slight_smile:

If you edit the style for a new file, you can save that file with the style and use it as a template so you get that style every time. You could include multiple styles in that file if you want. If you want some of the custom sketchy line styles, you could make a blank file in a desktop version and use that as your template in the Web based version. If you want to make your own sketchy line styles, you’ll need SU Pro to get Style Builder.

Point is, there are some options available.

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I like Dave’s idea about saving an edited style for future use. A template works well, but I’ll take a closer look at this and make some notes.

Nick, it’s true you can control the level of detail on a custom edge in SketchUp for Web, you can control a bunch of other edge properties. Am I understanding right that you’ve seen these edge settings, but there are others you prefer or need? (I want to make sure people can find our Style editing function!)

Mark

Hi Mark,

I see some of the edge settings but not the control over the edge stroke style itself. E.g. the line stroke effects seen on the current Straight Lines collection can’t be adjusted to use a thinner line or other criteria. I imagine this is somewhat similar to the Style Builder tool in older software for Pro versions. From what I can tell, this isn’t available and I’ll have to use the basic line for now.

This is separate, but the flat Display Style I was referring to earlier might render something like this — between a hidden line and ‘shaded’ — based on simple coloring applied to the model:

Obviously, it would be nice to have shadow control like this:

but I’m dipping into new feature requests at this point :sunglasses:

Hi,

I’m returning to this thread because I currently need to remove materials from an object and the original approach of using a monochrome styling doesn’t work. I have to export the model for further manipulation and not being able to apply a base flat material color to the model without going into each object group is terribly frustrating.

Is there a method I might be unaware of to use the paint bucket tool to apply a single material to the entire model at once?

Thanks.

You can sample an unpainted face and apply the default material to the model. Assuming you did the right thing and painted the faces inside the component/group, open the component/group for editing before hand by triple clicking on it. This will select all the faces and edges so you can replace all the materials on them in one go.
mat

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Thanks, Dave!

Is there a faster means to apply this for components that have multiple nested groups while maintaining its group hierarchy so it’s not lost on 3D export? I.e. color pick and bucket fill the entire component in one or two actions.

Not that I can see in the web version. You can just delete materials from the In Model collection in the Desktop versions which will result in the default material being displayed. But at this time, that doesn’t appear to be an option in the web versions.

There is the option to delete materials in the Entity Info tab, but it only works in context not globally. In other words you can select all the materials painted on a component and delete them all in one go and they will be replaced with the default material. You can then paint the component itself one colour if that’s what you need.

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Ah, yes. I forgot about Entity Info. Thank you.

Of course that still requires burrowing into nested groups/components.

Yeah, the material application always seems to be a pain in SketchUp but these two options are helpful. It’s more time than necessary but at least I can drill down into object structures and quickly default materials in the Entity Info tab.

Thank you @DaveR and @Box!

As an aside, having a shadeless material style option (as seen in the USB image above) would be very helpful in the future :slight_smile:

Yes. That’s possible to do in the desktop versions. It would be nice to have Light and Dark sliders added to the Shadows control in SketchUp Shop.

Ahh, well look at that. That’s good to know.

I just saw there’s a different subscription option for Pro which I wasn’t aware of until today.

I can’t explode a 40k poly model to be able to apply the default material without SketchUp web dying out for long periods, so I might be forced to switch to the desktop version if not purely for the light/dark slider.

Thanks for enlightening me on that option, Dave.

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Hello,
I came here looking for the same material-dropping thing!
I had a model completely textured, so the “default” blue/white material wasn’t “In Model” to pick from.
I ended up just placing a new rectangle and eye-dropper-ing the material off that onto all parts of my other model! Problem solved!
Cheers.