Materials and Textures

Material Bonus Packs from SketchUp 6 which used to be offered as downloads from the SketchUp site. And more Material bonus packs on the 3D Warehouse from other contributors. Instructions on downloading 12 at a time via the Component browser within SketchUp. Colors and Materials tutorial and instructions on using your treasure trove of textures inside SketchUp.

Take care when adding materials from 3rd-party sites. The file size may need to be optimized - down-sampled - as image files can be very large. Many image editors can do that through the menu option File > Save for Web (for example, a solid color material could be down-sized to a 1-by-1 pixel.) Also, some SketchUp plugins can also shrink material file size too, scroll down this section for links.

The following texture links go to sites with downloadable texture images. Save the images in folders somewhere on your hard drive. Then used the SketchUp plugin, massmaterialimporter, to create SKM material collections for SketchUp. Tutorial by Digital Thumb

SketchUp also allows you to drag-and-drop supported image types into an active SketchUp workspace from an open folder or browser window. Select the image, right-click to open the context menu, and select Explode to convert the image into a material that can be painted on models or added to a material collection. NOTE: If you drag-and-drop several images into SketchUp and the images overlap, those images may be 'glued' together. Unglue the affected images by selecting the image > right-click and choose Unglue from the context menu.

Turn your new materials into a favorite collection you can access from the Material browser inside SketchUp. Instructions.

Convert your raster image into a vector outline with WinTopo Free. (That file can be imported into SketchUp with one of the DXF plugins listed in the plugin section if you use SketchUp Make.)

• 3dmd.net

• Artlandia's Pattern Central All patterns and textures are seamless and most are free under CC-BY, even for commercial use. Can be previewed in SymmetryMill (a free/fee web-based, pattern editor) on the the site.

• Dynascape Materials for 3D Landscape design content.

• colourlovers Free

• GRSites

• Marlin Studios Free samples

• Noctura Graphics tiled textures. Fee, Free

• Sherwin-Williams online Borders, wallpapers, commercial wall coverings, murals

• Spiral Graphics Royalty-free texture packs generated in the tile editor, Genetica.

• Texture Library

• The Inspiration Gallery Borders, wallpaper, buttons...

• NOCTUA Graphics Free and Fee

• Materials pack Scott Rafferty - 3D Warehouse collections

• 3DLInks.com Resource listing free texture sites (like what your are reading right now)

• 3D Rekonstruktionen

• 3drender Textures for 3D archviz - Free, Fee

• AmazingTextures Free, Fee

• ArchVision RPC - Rich Photorealistic Content

• arroway textures Tile, concrete, stonework, wood, wood flooring - Free, Fee

• ARTmine^SKP Agora Gallery - Find and add unique artwork to model.

• Bildburg Free textures and animated effects

• CG Textures Some tiled, but most are not tiled - Free

• Evermotion Fee

• Got3d Photorealistic entourage - Free, Fee

• GR Sites Free background texture library, fonts, sounds, some basic online image generators.

• Image After Assorted

• Immediate Entourage Transparent PNG entourage - Free

• iSymbol Fee

• Kropped entourage and other stuff - Free, Fee

• Marlin Studios Free, Fee

• MaxRealms 3DMax texture site

• NewTek

• PIXELPOKE

• Planit 3D

• SteelSelect Color Swatches for some steel products offered from Australian manufacturers of steel building products

• texturemate Royalty-free repository of textures, brushes, patterns, design software, and other resources.

• Textures Library Free

• texturevault Free, Fee

• textureworks Free, Fee

• TextureKing Assorted. Free

• Ultimate 3D Links Texture site resource

• Wood

  • Filter Forge Incredible Photoshop plugin/standalone app to customize/filter/artistically alter images for post-processing or create custom tiles instead of searching the internet for suitable tiled materials. Can create bump maps. Quite a few wood generators for custom tiled wood textures. Fee (periodic deep discounts up to 80%) - Windows, Mac

  • hongkiat.com listing of wood links, mostly from DeviantArt.

  • Real Wood Chris Currie Over a thousand, world-wide, wood specimens in 6 SKP volumes in the 3D Warehouse. Open the Materials browser, In Model tab to view the SKM files. Move to custom collections as needed...

  • Wood Workshop Free seamless texture editor that specializes in the creation of seamless wood textures.

• 1000 Skies

• Continuum 3D Skies, 3D models and stuff

• JHT's Planet Pixel Emporium Planet images to map on a sphere.

• Philo's sky collection

• Skybox texture packs Hazel Whorley

• Skydome/Globe tutorials Doubles as a tutorial on replacing a texture, mapped image through Entity Info panel. First import/all another texture to be used as a material in the model. Open Entity Info. Choose the mapped material on the sphere. Choose another paint from the list of materials already added to the model to replace the mapped material. (other relevant pluginz - UVTools, a SketchUp plugin for simple image mapping - as needed for a skydome. See UV Toolkit² and SketchUV too. ThruPaint has even more options. To get the SketchUcation plugins, join the forum to see images and download stuff.)

use web screen color pickers listed below when downloadable palettes are not available

• Benjamin Moore Download color palette to AutoCAD®, LightWorks®, Photoshop® AND SketchUp.

• Benjamin Moore personal color viewer

• Sherwin Williams Color visualizer and Photoshop color download site.

• Sherwin Williams 3D Warehouse .SKM color collections.

• Easy RGB Color search engine

• HTMLColorCodes color picker

• EyePilot Color helper (colorblind assistance) Digital Tutorials

• Chrome browser search for rgb color picker now generates a rgb color picker tool at the top of the search page.

• Material Tiling Tutorials +

  • • Janee's Photoshop Tutorials Texture tiling (manually make a seamless texture) tutorials and more

    • Mike's Sketchpad Tutorials and stuff

  • Fixing Lighting Irregulaties in Self-Tiling Maps

    • Can't Unlock a Layer in Photoshop The color mode may need to be changed. Tips also apply to PS CS.

• Cut-out images for Face-Me components

  • • GrowCut Makes image cutouts - Fee

    • Fluid Mask Cut-out Photoshop plugin - Fee

    • GML Matting Cut-out Photoshop plugin - Free (One of many research projects from the Graphics and Media Lab at Lomonosov Moscow State University. This is an active research site, so URLs to projects are always changing. You may have to dig around to find old plugins.)

    • How to Cut around Objects Quickly in Photoshop etc SketchUcation tutorial

    • ImageProfile Smustard - SketchUp plugin which creates image cut-outs from imported PNG files.

  • Acme Brick Design your own brick pattern

  • StoneCAD Design your own cultured stone textures

  • Seamless Texture Generator Fee

  • Spiral Graphics Free textures - Free Wood Workshop, Wood texture editor - Fee Genetica tile texture editor, texture packs -Windows

  • Sky Panorama Generator Free

  • SPRAY vector generator Generates random circles for vector illustration software - Free - Windows

  • TextureViewer and Bricks 'n' Tiles Seamless Texture makers - Free and Fee

• • Color Cop Color picker - Free, Donationware - Windows

  • ColorPic Picks color from monitor - Free - Windows

  • Color Selector - Color picker - Free

  • CPick Color picker - Free

  • Pixie Color picker - Free - Windows

  • Pixel Pick Color picker - Free

  • pkColorPicker Free

  • Color Picker Chrome browser app. Free

• Add Texture from MaterialColor rami_lpm - Plugin checks for any material without a texture.

• Artlandia SymmetryMill for SketchUp Artlandia - Interactive texture editor: create, apply, and refine seamless repeating patterns on SketchUp models. Free and Fee - Windows, Mac, Linux

• Bitmap map to Mesh thomthom - Generates a mesh from a given BMP image.

• FredoTools Fredo6 - FredoTools now includes ThruPaint.

• Goldilocks AdamB - SketchUp plugin to help analysis texture and model content density.

• Import ALL from Folder TIG - Mass import supported image file types.

• massmaterialimporter Create SKM material collections for SketchUp from folders of JPG texture images (Internet Archive link.)

• Material Maintenance Myhand - SketchUp plugin to manage material use in a model.

• Material Replacer ThomThom - Replace materials by picking from the model.

• Material Tools ThomThom - Plugin to remove and manage materials in SketchUp.

• Probes ThomThom - Tools for inspecting normals and UV mapping.

• RpImageFilters Render Plus - Image filter SketchUp plugin - Free - Windows

• SketchUV Whaat - UV Mapping Tools - spherical, cylindrical, planar, tube, box, quad, save, load, export, import.

• Texture Resizer Aerilius - Mass down-sample textures used in a model.

• Tilelook Search and download over 40.000 authentic tile textures to use in your SketchUp models.

• UVTools Whaat - A plugin for simple image mapping, like you need for a skydome.

• UVTools Pro Whaat - Public beta which includes UV Import/Export bridge to external UV mapping software.

• UV Toolkit² thomthom - A selection of tools to assist in UV mapping textures.

Note: Photoshop plugins from the sites listed below will also work with Photoshop Elements.

• abrMate From TextureMate: Adobe Photoshop brush pack viewer, sorter, importer, and exporter. Helps with previewing/sorting/organizing all those free. ABR Photoshop brush set you collected - especially if you do not want to install all those files. Free

• Autostitch Automatic 2D image stitcher licensed by 3 commercial products - Free Demo, commercial products - Windows, Mac, Linux

Bump Maps

• • CrazyBump Bump map creator for photoreal renderers.

  • ShaderMap Create custom displacement, normal, and ambient occlusion maps for SketchUp renderers that support the use of Bump maps. Fee - Windows

• darktable RAW image editing. Free - multi-platform

• Filter Forge Incredible Photoshop plugin/standalone app to customize/filter/artistically alter images for post-processing or create custom tiles instead of searching the internet for suitable tiled materials. Can create bump maps. Fee (periodic, deep discounts up to 80%) - Windows, Mac

• GIMP Image manipulation program, including RAW. - Windows - free

• GML Image Undistorter Corrects lens distortion. - Free (One of many research projects from the Graphics and Media Lab at Lomonosov Moscow State University. This is an active research site, so URLs to projects are always changing. You may have to dig around to find old plugins.) But the program is available across the internet. ASAP Guide has download, instructions, and competitors to GML Undistorter.

• GrowCut Makes image cutouts - Fee

• Inkscape Open source vector graphics editor - Free - Windows

• Irfanview Great freeware multimedia viewer/editor/manager/converter. Install plugin package to get the Save for Web option under the File menu. Useful for downsampling images. Batch downsizing is possible. - Windows

• Color Management Guide Amaud Frich - Generalities on color, calibrating monitors and printers, and more.

• Paint.NET Image and photo editing program. - Free - Windows

• Paint Shop Pro Corel's image and photo editing program. - Fee - Windows

• PhotoFiltre Image and photo editing program - Free - Windows

• RawTherapee Edits RAW images. - Free - Windows, Mac, Linus

Photoshop Plugins

• • • Adobe Spark Remove background. Online. - Free

    • Auto FX Photoshop-compatible plugins - Free and Fee - Windows, Mac

    • Filter Forge Create your own filters or download from their library. Sign up for their newsletter to be notified of sale prices on their products. Fee - Windows, Mac

    • Grafnet: Photoshop Filters large, comprehensive, Photoshop plugin and filter directory.

    • Little Ink Pot 32-bit filters for Photoshop, Windows. Pity, some nice effects.

• NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter Photoshop plugin to creates highly compressed texture files.

• Power Retouche Photoshop-compatible plugins and tutorials - Their transparency editor is especially nice, IMHO. Fee

• The Plugin Site Photoshop plugins. Free and Fee

• Trimoon Photoshop black/white eliminator/transparency plugin. - Free

• PTLens Program that corrects lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective. Good to correct images for SketchUp Photo Matching. - Windows, Mac

• SmillaEnlarger A small graphical tool ( based on Qt ) to resize, especially magnify bitmaps in high quality. - Windows, Mac

• Squiggle Converts DWGs to squiggly linework.

Tile Editors

• • Artlandia SymmetryMill for SketchUp Artlandia - Interactive texture editor SketchUp plugin: create, apply, and refine seamless repeating patterns on SketchUp models. Free and Fee - Windows, Mac, Linux

  • Bricks'n'Tiles Brick and tile material generator. - German - Free

  • Genetica Seamless texture editor, and more, from Spirl Graphics.

  • Seamless Workshop Tiling Photoshop plugin. Free

  • Tiler Photoshop plugin to make seamless tiles. Free

Turbo-boost Photoshop Elements by restoring enough Photoshop features that you may not miss having the full program.

• • Elements XXL The Plugin Site - Power tools for Photoshop Elements. Fee - Windows

  • Elements+ Tools for Photoshop Elements. Fee - Windows, Mac

  • Ultimate Unwrap 3D Image mapping program - Fee - Windows

Vector Conversion

• • Vector Magic Convert bitmap images to vector files. Desktop and online program.

  • spirix_bmp_tracer Jim Hamilton - SketchUp plugin to trace around BMP artwork and import it into SketchUp.

  • cloudconvert online, multi-format converter.

    • • SVG SketchUp program tool images are found in SketchUp Pro's program installation in Image directories. Those SVG files readily convert to PNGs.