After transferring a D5 project from one PC to another, we’ve encountered an issue where some materials are no longer displaying correctly.
We moved both the D5 project folder and the linked SketchUp file to a different user account on a different PC. After reopening the D5 file on the new machine and re-linking the SketchUp model, some textures appear grey (it seems that only the base color is visible, while the base color map doesn’t seem to load, even though it shows up in the material preview).
Could you please advise on the correct workflow for moving a D5 project with it’s linked Sketchup model to a different PC?
Also, is there anything we can do to resolve this issue with the missing materials now?
Does this specific material display normally when you first open D5 Render without activating Livesync yet?
How are these files stored in the other device? are you perhaps using a cloud storage? If so, please put them first in a local path while editing or working with this file.
Which Version of the Live-Sync are you currently using? Please send us a screenshot
When transferring your D5 file to another device, we recommend zipping the D5 folder along with its 3D model. This makes it much easier to resync or relink them on the new device. Issues often arise when materials are renamed in SketchUp or when cloud storage is used for the transfer.
Hi Clov, thanks for your support.
Let me give you the details you requested:
1 - Yes, they showed correctly when first opening the file. The problems happen when re-loading the 3D model or activating Livesync.
2 – The D5 file and the Sketchup 3D model were saved in a project folder that lives on a local path, if that’s what you mean.
I am not sure if such project folder was also backed up into a cloud service such as Dropbox / Box. But in any case, the entire project folder containing the D5 model and the 3D models was compressed into a .zip before being sent to me via WeTransfer. This should make sure every file was actually sent, right?
3 – This is the version of the plugin that I am using:
This specific material that was lost/changed, was it renamed in SKP? Perhaps in the newer version of the model that was used to reload?
Additionally, do you have any copies of these two files before the material got lost? I would want to test it on my end and see if reloading the model does the same. If you’re permitted to share the SKP and D5 file, let me know.
Alright. You can message me directly here in the forum with the link containing your SKP and D5 File. I suggest modifying the material to how it is supposed to look like so upon receiving your file, I can check whether it hasbeen retained or not.
We ran some tests based on your suggestions and were able to identify the issue with the disconnected textures. It turns out that by zipping the entire project folder before transferring it, all the textures remain properly linked. Previously, it seems we were losing some files or folders during the transfer—most likely the _d5c folder generated when using the Livesync feature. In any case, zipping the entire project folder resolved the issue. Thank you very much for your help with this!
That said, we’ve noticed a second issue related to textures, which appears unrelated to file transfers, as it has occurred even on projects that were never moved between machines:
Occasionally, some textures stop displaying the base color map. When this happens, the texture shows only the base color, as if the color map is no longer attached. It seems to happen randomly—sometimes we open a project and find a texture behaving this way. We’ve found that reloading the color map in D5 fixes it, but for D5’s built-in textures, we’re unsure where to find the original base color map files.
Do you have any advice or suggestions on how to handle this?
I have some few questions regarding the new issue:
Does this happen after the file transfer or it occurs even when the file is still in the original device?
Were these base colour maps inserted in SKP?
Suggestion
When you sync your SKP file to D5, it will create a folder containing the different textures that were used in SKP, which will then be used by D5. This folder will help retain the texture information.
Try inputting its location after the file transfer then see if it will display normally in D5
Thanks for the additional suggestions. That’s very welcome!
To answer your questions:
This happened even with a file that have never being transferred. The file has always been in the same device.
Two notes regarding the file location: at times we happen to “save as” to create new version of the file and being able to work on that by keeping the older design archived. The project folder is backed up always on Box (which is a cloud service), I don’t know if that could have an impact.
These base colour maps were not inserted in SKP. This happened with a D5 included material, in particular it was a terrain texture that was used to paint the terrain in D5 (see screenshot attached, the terrain material appears white in that area).
Since you have mentioned keeping a backup and storing it in your cloud storage. I’m assuming that this file is the main file and is also being stored in your cloud storage? If so, we don’t recommend placing them there while you’re editing it since it will cause some issues like losing material information; hence, we recommend placing it locally. We will be optimizing this workflow sooner.
If this file was stored locally, let me know. We may need to collect your file for testing.
