Workflow with Sketchup & materials

Hey D5 Team,

I am new to D5 and trying to learn as fast as I can to get the best out of the software. My workflow is from Sketchup. My first question comes with materials. I have been working with Enscape for couple years and have hundreds of optimised materials for Enscpae. I understand that these don’t sync with D5 when I open the model which is fine. I want to know though if there is a way that when I am doing my modelling in Sketchup, and apply materials to objects/walls/floor, that these textures will be D5 ready when they sync. So the next time I apply for example Wood_Floor_01 in Sketchup, I don’t have to spend a couple of mins setting it up in D5 each time. I have done a little test where I created a texture in D5, and saved it locally. Now I can’t seem to find a way to apply that locally saved material in Sketchup, so I think the answer to my question is NO. But I would like someone with years more experience to confirm that each time I open a model I will have to go through each material in my model to optimise it. The same applies for lighting and IES files saved with downlight, I did a test where I dropped it into the component in Sketchup, but when synced, the physical cone appeared in D5.

Hopefully someone reads all of this, and apologies if it’s a little long!

Many thanks Team :slight_smile:

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Hi henry,
Yeah, unfortunately, D5 does not work the same way as built-in renderers and it does not support Enscape materials. After models are imported into D5, we need to edit the material and lights in D5. We are trying to optimize the way of interaction in SketchUp for D5 converters. Regarding materials, surfaces sharing a material will have the same material in D5, so it will be easier for batch editing.

Thank you for posting :heart:

Hey, thank you so much for replying, completely understand the reasons, was just thinking that it will make such a big difference to my time when I have to go through lots of materials each time. I guess I can slowly build up my local library of object once they have new materials applied. Do you think at some point there will be a way to link/save and use in sketchup so it comes through or is that just not possible, assume it’s the same for all other modeling software as well? Thanks again for letting me know, all parts I’m learning slowly each day!

Hi Henry1,
Yes, it is possible in the future. Our product team once had this plan, but I am not sure when we can finish this feature.

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Hey, Oh amazing that would be such a good feature to have, and save so much time