Navigating the Materials Panel
The Materials panel is where you can find, manage, and create materials to use in SketchUp models. The Materials panel is part of the default tray on Windows. On MacOS, go to Window > Materials, opening the Colors panel. You can also bring up the Materials panel on either platform by activating the Paint Bucket (
) tool.
The interface does vary based on your operating system. See Materials in MacOS for information specific to the Mac interface.
Materials Panel
The Materials panel is set up to help you find materials to add to your model or manage the ones already in it.
The top of the window will show a preview of the active, selected material and that material's name. To duplicate this material and create a unique copy of it click Copy (
).
next to a material’s preview image is Generate Textures. This feature uses AI to generate photoreal textures for your materials. See Generate Textures for more information.Select
The Select tab is where you view and manage the materials in your model. You can also browse for new ones in SketchUp’s default material libraries using the dropdown menu, and even add materials found in 3D Warehouse.
) next to open a secondary selection pane. See Managing and Organizing Materials for more information.The following additional features and options are available on the Select tab:
- Create Material (
) – Opens the Create Materials window. See Creating Materials for more information. - 3D Warehouse (
) – Launches 3D Warehouse to SketchUp’s full materials library. 3D Warehouse is a great way to find and use even more materials for your designs. - In Model (
) – Resets the panel to show materials in the current model. - Sample Paint (
) – Activates the Sample tool. Click on any face in your model to “sample” its material, allowing you to paint that material to another entity.
Clicking Details (
) opens a context menu with options like organizing your materials into collections or changing the appearance of the Materials panel.
Edit
The Edit tab is where you can adjust material properties like color, opacity, and textures.
These properties provide the control you need to tweak materials to better match your designs. For more information on all you can do in the Edit tab, see Editing Materials.
Materials in MacOS
The Materials panel contains the exact same options as you see in Windows, with some key differences.
In MacOS, the Materials panel is labeled Colors. Colors contains MacOS utilities such as Color Wheel, Color Sliders, Image Palettes, and Pencils. These can be used to pick and control the values of colors in your model.
A fifth tab, Texture Palettes, is where you will find SketchUp materials, including those used in your model, as well as default and custom libraries. Clicking () launches 3D Warehouse where you can find even more materials.
You can navigate through all available materials using the dropdown menu. Selecting a material activates the Paint Bucket () tool. Double-clicking a material, or context clicking and selecting Edit opens the edit options for that material.
While editing a material, you can use the tabs representing the default MacOS options to adjust the color of that material. Clicking one of those options expands the window, allowing you to adjust those color options as needed. To return back to the default material view, click Close.
