When I create a new texture or edit an existing one in a drawing, is there a simple way to add that to the default color and texture library so those new items are preloaded into each new document? thanks
If those materials are in the Colors in Model when you save as a template, they should be included with the template. Do you really want them to be in the template of would it be enough if you have a custom library containing those materials you can access as needed?
Actually, even if you do leave them in the template, you should create a local collection for them, too.
I create these colors on the fly during design multiple projects. many times there is a texture or color associated with an imported product [artwork, chair, rug, lamp] which I think I might want again. Changing the template each time would be laborious. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to drag and drop colors and textures to from one drawing to another— then I could open a template drawing, drag and drop from numerous files and the re-save the template, incorporating the new colors and textures… or right click and “save to template” ???
Why not just make collections of materials that can be used in any model without opening another SketchUp file?
I make a lot of wood grain materials for projects in SketchUp. I have created libraries for each species of wood. I have libraries for red oak, white oak, maple, cherry, walnut, rosewood, teak, ash, pine, and so on. I’d much rather look in a folder for a material than try to remember which model already has it. If I want a Curly maple texture, I can pick one from the dozen or so in my curly Maple library instead of finding the last SketchUp model that used it.
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hmmm. so do you just create a Library folder on your computer and load it with jpg images which then can be brought into any sketchup file… or another method?
Another method.
Generally I bring images into SketchUp as textures and apply them to faces of a known size so they are automatically the right size. For the wood grain materials I might do a half dozen or whatever of a species and then save that as the local collection. I always know the lengths of the “boards” and don’t care so much about the width. If I have 12 foot long images, I draw rectangles that are 12’ long by some random width and apply the texture images to them.
the process of saving the textures as a local library is different on the PC and the Mac. When I get at my Mac, I’ll make some screen shots to show how to do it.
wonderful, thanks. I am Mac based.
Alright. Let’s see if this will go for you.
Start by drawing faces for the textures in SketchUp. In this example I have three 7’ mahogany boards and one that is 10’ long so I’ve drawn the appropriate number and size rectangles. The boards are wider than my rectangles but as I said, it’s the length that is important here. Use whatever dimension you know.
Then use File>Import and import the image as a texture. You can do this from the Colors window but I prefer this method because I can correctly size the material and make sure of its orientation. This part works the same on both PC and Mac, too. The other method is different.
Here are the four textures imported.
And this is what the In Model library looks like. The green and white “dive flag” shows the default back and front face colors in my model.
Click on the drop down called List and choose New. Create a new folder. This will be the library name.
Go back to the Colors in Model library by clicking on the house icon.
Select one of the textures. It’ll highlight next to the eye dropper in the bottom area. Drag the texture over into the palette area. Repeat for each texture.
Switch to the new library you created and drag the textures from the palette to the new folder.
As you go forward, you can quickly add new materials to existing libraries by dragging the texture to the palette and then to the new library. Keep in mind that you can use materials and colors directly from the palette if you wish.
FWIW, I think this library creation is more easily done in SU on the PC but this is the Mac color thingy so you get what you.