Editing Materials

The Edit tab of the Materials panel provides plenty of options to adjust materials to better suit your intentions or desired look and feel.

To get started, choose any material on the Select tab, or use Sample () on a material in your model. Then, switch over to the Edit tab in the Materials panel. The Edit options are:

• Material Name – Change the name of your material.
• Color – Customize the color of your material using a color wheel or RGB, HSL, or HEX values. As you make changes, you can see them in real-time in the modeling window. Click Reset Color to revert your changes, if needed.
• Image options – Add or change an image texture by choosing a 2D image from your file system. Use the fields provided to adjust the size of the texture tile used in the material. When you type in a value, SketchUp will preserve the image's aspect ratio. Click the chain icon if you need to distort the image texture aspect ratio. You can also edit your texture image in an external editor such as Adobe Photoshop. (Go to Preferences > Applications to designate an image editor).
• Opacity – Edit how transparent or opaque the material is. Use the slider or type in a value to change this setting. 0 is fully transparent, and 100 is totally opaque.
• Photoreal textures– Photoreal textures and their settings can convey more detail and create more dynamic lighting effects when using an environment:
  • Metalness determines how shiny your material appears when reflecting light. A higher value means your material will have a stronger, more colorful reflection.
  • Roughness determines how smooth or bumpy the surface of your material appears when reflecting light. A low value means the material appears more polished. A high value would produce a more matte style of reflection.
  • Normal uses a normal texture map to simulate detailed surface geometry when reflecting light. A higher value provides the illusion of depth without changing the geometry of your face.
  • Ambient Occlusion adds depth and realism by simulating how light interacts with surfaces, notably on edges and when entities are close together. A higher value adds a higher degree of darkening, mimicking natural shadows. This texture requires a dedicated texture map.

Some options are not available for every material. Only materials with photoreal texture maps will utilize photoreal options. If you want to enhance your materials with texture maps, SketchUp’s Generate Textures feature can help.