[SKETCHUP] Material Options

Dave Richards

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I know everyone is pretty busy with other things but maybe some of you will get some ideas from a blog post I did about showing different materials on your models. It's a great way to offer a client some choices.

 
My only client is usually LOML, but she SO OFTEN asks about the grain/texture of the piece. It continues to frustrate me that the wood images that I can apply to my model do NOT match the wood image in my head, or the wood in my shop. *I* can see in my head what it'll look like in cherry, for instance, but other folks really depend on that sketchup model.

Now I want to go looking for more textures, Dave!
 
Art, I agree with you about the frustration of poor wood grain materials. Most of the materials out there are worthless little squares. Even if they are made from photos of real wood, they really aren't any good because they are too small. Many SketchUp users think the ultimate materials are seamless. This works well enough for grass, tiles and man made things but as we know, wood textures don't repeat in nature. Your best bet is to make photographs of long boards and use those to make materials in SketchUp. I use photos of unfinished wood and then doctor the images in PhotoShop to add a stain or appearance of a finish.

As an example, here's a white oak texture I made. the full size of the "board" is shown on the right. On the left are some variations on the stain. At the far left is the unfinished material.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8294157@N08/7974567794/
I used that one board to make a herringbone patterned floor for someone. With that large image I was able to pick out different parts of it for different pieces of the floor. I actually did that much as if I was cutting up a real board to make a real floor.

 
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Dave - Now would be a great time to go over how to correctly orient textures on faces. I notice the side of your herringbone floor has the grain flowing vertically instead of horizontally as it would in the real world.
 
David, it actually isn't running vertically as you assert. It sort of looks like it but that's due to the ribbon grain on the board. I probably should have made a quartersawn board the same color and used that on the edges.

As far as how to orient the materials in SketchUp, see this. Key take aways are make sure the component axes are aligned to the geomtry correctly and apply the materials to the faces inside the components. If you are lazy and apply the materials to the outside of the components, you give up the option to control the orientation.
 
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