Rendering in SketchUp

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Part 2: Textures
Fig. 6.16: 
Multiple versions of the same texture
You will need to swap an applied texture with another version or different material fre-
quently. The substitution process is essential to learn and easy to accomplish.
Quality trumps accuracy. Some textures won’t render quite right, no matter what the 
adjustments. In such cases, it might be better to use a material that is a close, if not a fully 
accurate, approximation (Fig. 6.17). 
Consider File Size
Textures affect the modeling and rendering process. Understanding these factors will help you 
determine the types of textures you want to download (Fig. 6.18). Of particular concern are 
the physical size (length and width) and file size of downloadable textures (Fig. 6.19). Keep in 
mind the following points:
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3
Applied textures can increase the file size of the model, causing it to take longer to open 
or save.
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Applied textures affect the upload processing time (Stage 1) from SketchUp to the IRP. 
The more textures and/or the larger the textures, the longer the upload time will be.
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Materials require RAM to process. Models with many large textures use more RAM 
to process when rendering. Computers with limited RAM might crash. However, most 
users and models will rarely encounter this issue. 

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Chapter 6: Textures Overview 
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Textures slow down SketchUp’s performance. You can mitigate this by turning the Tex-
ture View off in SketchUp (see Chapter 8). 
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Smaller texture sizes minimize all these effects. 
Fig. 6.17: 
The top image shows textures less than ideal for rendering. Although not the same, the 
bottom texture is more realistic.

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