# Materials · SketchUp

Select a material in SketchUp, then use the Lite material panel to adjust its color, texture maps, and surface finish. Open the Lite render viewport to check your changes as you work.

## Editing

Open the material panel from the toolbar at the bottom of Lite or choose **Material Editor** from the D5 Lite menu in SketchUp. You can use the panel without starting the Lite render window.

Select a material in SketchUp to see its parameters. To reset a parameter to the template default, right-click its slider or value field in the Lite material panel while the field isn't being edited. Click the Lite render window, then press **Ctrl + Z** to undo the reset.

![Lite material panel and General material parameters in SketchUp](/lite/Attachments/figma/material-panel.png)

## Material templates

![Lite material template dropdown](/lite/Attachments/figma/material-templates.png)

| Template | Best for | Main parameters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| General | Most non-metallic materials, such as stone, wood, paint, and ceramic | Color, maps, Normal, Specular, Roughness |
| Glass | Plain glass, curtain-wall glass, frosted glass | Opacity, index of refraction (IOR), roughness, Metal Coating |
| Sheer | Curtains, sheer fabric, and other semitransparent textiles | Normal, opacity, index of refraction |
| Fabric | Sofas, bedding, and other fabrics | Fabric Type (Velvet / Silk); Sheen Strength, Sheen Roughness, Sheen Tint, Sheen Mask |
| Metal | Metal panels, stainless steel, aluminum, copper | Color, Normal, Roughness, Highlight Stretch, Highlight Rotation, Tangent Map |
| Emissive | Light strips, light boxes, LED and other glowing surfaces | Intensity, color temperature |
| Water | Pools, landscape water | Color, depth, Normal, Specular |
| Grass | Lawns, ground cover | Density, height |

The Sheer template preserves the appearance of fabric, including folds and soft shadows, instead of treating it as clear glass. Specular is fixed at 0 and roughness at 0.5; neither control is available in the panel.

When you open a model, Lite uses details such as the material name to choose a template. Lite leaves the template in place if you set it manually or have already adjusted the material in Lite.

### Use the Fabric template {#fabric-and-directional-highlights}

These controls apply to D5 Lite 1.8.0 for SketchUp on Windows. Use Fabric for sofas, bedding, and upholstered surfaces. Use Sheer for semitransparent fabrics such as voile.

1. Open the material panel and select the material in SketchUp.
2. Switch the template to Fabric. Velvet is selected by default; choose Silk for a directional sheen.
3. Adjust Velvet using the table below, or follow the next section for Silk. Check the result in the Lite viewport.
4. Save the file in SketchUp to keep the material settings.

![Velvet type and sheen controls in the Fabric template](/lite/Attachments/figma/fabric-velvet.png)

<div class="doc-table-scroll lite-table-scroll" role="region" aria-label="Velvet controls" tabindex="0">

| Velvet control | How to use it | Default / range |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Sheen Strength | Adjust the strength of the fabric sheen; set it to 0 to turn off the sheen layer | 2 / 0–5 |
| Sheen Roughness | Adjust how spread out and soft the sheen appears, separately from the material's roughness | 0.35 / 0–1 |
| Sheen Tint | Adjust how much base color appears in the sheen | 0.5 / 0–1 |
| Sheen Mask | Import from the map slot beside Sheen Strength; white keeps the sheen, black removes it, and gray reduces it | Without a mask, Sheen Strength applies across the surface |

</div>

Switching between Velvet and Silk carries over shared parameters and maps. Check the result when switching back: the two types do not retain separate sets of settings.

### Adjust directional highlights on Metal and Silk

1. Select the Metal template, or choose Silk under Fabric.
2. Adjust Highlight Stretch to change the highlight's shape, then Highlight Rotation to change its direction. Check the reflections in Lite.
3. To vary the highlight direction across the surface, import a tangent map from the slot beside Highlight Rotation.
4. Save the file in SketchUp when you finish.

![Directional highlight controls for the Silk type](/lite/Attachments/figma/fabric-silk.png)

Highlight Stretch defaults to 0 and ranges from 0 to 1; 0 removes directional stretching. Highlight Rotation defaults to 0 and ranges from 0 to 1, representing one full turn. Adding or removing a tangent map leaves Highlight Rotation unchanged.

## Maps

Base color maps support PNG, JPG, JPEG, and BMP, and stay in sync with the SketchUp material editor. The normal channel can be generated automatically from the base color map, or you can upload a normal map or a grayscale bump map.

For the General, Glass, Sheer, Metal, and Water templates, normal strength can be adjusted between -2 and 2 with the slider, and manual input accepts values from -5 to 5. When you use a SketchUp native PBR material, its normal strength syncs to Lite at its original value.

Emissive materials can use a PNG with an alpha channel for cutout effects, such as light-box lettering or cutout light strips. JPG has no alpha channel and is not suitable for cutouts.

### Use the map context menu

In D5 Lite 1.8.0 for SketchUp on Windows:

1. Select the material in the material panel, then right-click the map slot you want to edit.
2. Choose **Import** to replace the map, or **Copy** and **Paste** to reuse it in another slot. Choose **Delete** to remove it from this slot.
3. To locate the source file, choose **Open Texture Path**. The local map file must still be accessible.
4. Check the result in Lite, then save the SketchUp file.

![Context menu for a material map slot](/lite/Attachments/figma/material-texture-menu.png)

Commands are enabled according to the current map and clipboard contents.

## UV adjustment

Adjust the map's size, position, and orientation on the surface with SketchUp's native texture positioning tool. Lite reads the adjusted texture mapping.

1. In SketchUp, find a face with an image texture applied. If the face is inside a group or component, open that group or component for editing first.
2. Right-click the face and choose **Texture → Position** to display the texture grid and pins.
3. When using colored pins, drag the red pin to move the texture, or the green pin to scale or rotate it.
4. Click outside the texture grid to finish positioning. After syncing, check the map's size, position, and orientation in the Lite viewport.
5. Save the `.skp` file in SketchUp.

## Sync to D5 Render

Material parameters are saved with the modeling file. To continue editing in D5 Render, connect SketchUp to D5 Render and sync the model, or export a `.d5a` file. See [Real-time rendering & sync](/lite/real-time-rendering-and-sync.md) for the differences between these workflows.

When you sync a SketchUp model to D5 Render, the **Color** you set in Lite for a material with a base color map carries over with the map.