The secret to having control of the sketch up file is to export it from sketchup. When you export it you need to click on the options button in the lower right of the export window. Here you can save the file in various ways. One way is to export as a single object, you can also export with full hierarchy control. Also, you need to have the “pro” version to export to Max.
honestly i had some experience in the past working with sketchup pro 3ds export and never got decent results, maybe i was doing something wrong on my side, but never achieved a proper “full hierarchy” version… the “single-object” option is only intended to generate a total mess imho… plus if you have texture mapping AND smoothing groups properly applyed in sketchup if you try the 3ds export… smoothing groops and/or uv coordinates are messed out and you have to rework it heavily in 3dsmax… another big downside of 3ds export is that you have some annoyng limitation in polycount/polycount by single mesh/object name lenght and similar stuff… this is a problem with heavy models… on the other side 3dsmax skp reader is way more predictable and 99% of the times it preserves BOTH smoothing groups an uv-mapping from sketchup… sorry no hierarchy…
i don’t know how do you use it… but my personal workflow is switch to 3dsmax just in case of final render heavy enviroment models, scatteringof large amount of hi-poly objects and such… for any other accurate/fast manipulation i rather prefer to stay in sketchup… so having the limitation of 3ds format just don’t fit for the needs of the HEAVY model i usually need in that workflow… too much workarounds, exports in chunks, rename things, weld vertices/smooth meshes, fix bad uv mapping and stuff… not my cup of coffee sir… if you find it handy in your workflow use it but i’m in love with .skp reader 
I’m facing a problem, I don’t know where to post about it, since the topic is related to 3ds max i’ll just write it here,
i have a model build in Sketchup 2015, latest version. I have 3ds max design 2014 but I can’t import my sketchup file to the 3ds max, i have tried several things found on internet but wasn’t really helpful including changing the SDK contents.
Anyone can help me ?
I’m a windows user btw, 8.1
Thanks
you need to “save as” your.skp to sketchup7 version to use the skp.reader
Hello everyone, this is my first time on the forum. I work mostly with 3ds max 2016 and VRay 3.4 as render engine. A couple days ago i recibed a work for render, it has been done on sketchup. The problem is the autor did not use any layers!! so you can imagine how full of garbage geometry it is. So i cant add detail with geometry nor materials (at least not on a easy way). On top of that i only have a .skp file but it is also full of garbage geometry…
Does anyone knows a way to clean this geometry or work with this .skp on SketchUp so then, finally, i can exported it to 3ds max… Thanks a lot!!!