Hi there,
I have built what I believe is a relatively simple model. There are a few curves here and there, but otherwise it’s an uncomplicated model. I was expecting it to be under 1MB but it was over 8MB. I removed the textures and got it down to 4MB. I just don’t see what I’ve done wrong to make it this heavy.
There are no hidden objects and I’ve “purge unused” and fixed problems (none).
Your help is appreciated!
-Brad
Pew.skp (4.8 MB)
Evidently it’s the material in the model. I deleted it and this is the resulting file.
Pew No Mats.skp (104.5 KB)
The texture image by itself isn’t huge but it contains the Roughness, Normal, and AO maps which increases the size dramatically.
Pew no maps.skp (2.1 MB)
Wow, that is a dramatic saving… where did the roughness, Normal and AO maps come from?
They came in with the material shipped with SketchUp 2025. That is a native material after all.
BTW @bvandiviere I don’t see anything but edges in the armrest component that is using the material so it would seem deleting it from the model entirely would make sense.
Edit: actually it’s only being used on one softened edge on the lower front corner of the arm rest. Right about the cursor here.
Thanks for the insight! I thought I had deleted all of the texture but obviously not.
Was there a technique to finding that edge, or did you just select things 1 at a time? I ask because I had gone into each component, done a “select all” and then returned to the default “no texture”. Not sure how I missed that… But thanks for bailing me out!
Are all of the textures huge like that now?
You’re welcome.
Since the material was still in use on that one edge it wouldn’t purge with the unused materials.
If you didn’t have Hidden Geometry displayed the softened edges wouldn’t get selected. It may be that none of the other hidden or softened edges had the material applied to them, too.
It was clear to me that the materials wasn’t used on any front faces so the first thing I did was check to see if it was applied to any back faces in the model. Swithching to X-ray showed me that wasn’t the case.
I turned on Hidden Geometry, selected everything in one component at a time, and referred to the Material thumbnail in Entity Info. You can see with the seat/backrest only the default material is shown.
If, after purging unused materials, there are any left and you really don’t care about which entity has the material(s), you can simply right click on the material thumbnail and choose Delete. You’ll get a warning that the material is being used and will be replaced by the default material.
Another option would be to use ThomThom’s Materials Tools to remove all materials from the model. Then you can purge and they should all go away.
Great info. I’ll use those techniques next time. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Is there a way to get the older materials that seemed like they were much lighter? I’ve made models of entire rooms with native sketchup textures in the past that are nowhere near the size that this pew was with two textures. As you said above, even removing roughness bump maps etc only reduced by half.
This is my first go-around with 2025 version, so apologies if this is basic to everybody.
If you still have a previous version of SketchUp installed you can copy the materials from it and add them into your Materials folder for SketchUp 2025. You can also find older textures in the 3D Warehouse. Alternatively you could use the shpped ones and delete their maps after you’ve added them to the model. If you aren’t going to utilize those maps and the photoreal texture display that would be pretty simple. If you wanted t you could also create your own collection of those materials after adding them to a model and editing them.
FWIW, I don’t use the shipped wood grain materials nor the ones from the 3D Warehouse. Instead I make my own from images of full length boards. Here’s an example. This helps to avoid the repetition of grain featires that are typical with the supplied materials.
Thanks so much for your help. I will probably grab one of the old libraries for now but start to work on making my own. I’ve started this in the past but never get very far because my work in sketchup is pretty sporadic. I’ll be deep into it for a couple months out of the year and then not into it as I’m buried in other projects.
Dave, I sure appreciate your help over the years. Do you have any kind of patreon/venmo, or other account where people you’ve helped could show their appreciation? I think this could be a nice feature that this forum could offer. Not ever required, but available for those of us that have been bailed out by you guys that dig through these issues year after year…
Hi Brad.
I’m happy if it helped.
I get the whole divided attention thing. When you get time to dig into it and get a system down you’ll find making your own materials can be pretty quick.
As for the Patreon/Venmo thing, I don’t have anything like that. You can buy me a beer or coffee some day. If I ever get to your area I’ll darken your doorstep and you can feed me dinner. 
Haha, you are welcome here anytime. Maybe even dinner AND a beer! 
Oh boy! You’re on. My bride is talking about a trip to somewhere in Montana this summer so I might take you up on that.
Cool! I’m in Billings, but for some of the summer I’ll be south of Big Timber or camping somewhere, so let me know where and when you’ll be here. I’ll message you my details.
