Materials · SketchUp

In SketchUp, D5 Lite provides a dedicated material editing panel. Select a material in SketchUp and edit it in the Lite material panel — a few parameters give you a believable render quickly.

Editing

Open the material panel from the Lite bottom toolbar or the D5 Lite menu in SketchUp. The panel can be used on its own, without starting the Lite render window first.

After you select a material in SketchUp, the panel shows its parameters. When you change the material's color, maps, or parameters, the SketchUp material and the Lite render update together. Right-click any parameter to reset it to the template default (Ctrl + Z undoes).

Material Templates

Template	Best for	Main parameters
General	Most non-metallic materials such as stone, wood, paint, ceramic	Color, maps, Normal, Specular, Roughness
Glass	Plain glass, curtain-wall glass, frosted glass	Opacity, refraction, roughness, Metal Coating
Sheer	Curtains, sheer fabric, and other semi-transparent textiles	Normal, opacity, refraction
Metal	Metal panels, stainless steel, aluminum, copper	Color, Normal, Roughness
Emissive	Light strips, light boxes, LED and other glowing surfaces	Emission intensity, color temperature
Water	Pools, landscape water	Color, depth, Normal, Specular
Grass	Lawns, ground cover	Density, height

The Sheer template keeps the fabric body, folds, and soft shadows rather than rendering it as clear glass; specular is fixed at 0 and roughness at 0.5, and neither is exposed in the panel.

When you open a model, Lite matches a suitable template based on information such as the material name — for example, materials named "sheer" or "voile" get the Sheer template. Materials whose Lite parameters you have already adjusted, or whose template you set manually, are no longer matched automatically. You can also adjust parameters to match the real look.

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 map, or you can upload a normal map or a grayscale bump map. 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.

UV Adjustment

Materials support overall stretch, offset, and rotation of the map. UV adjustment controls the map's size, position, and orientation on the surface.

Sync to D5 Render

Material parameters are saved with the modeling file, and can move into D5 Render via Live Sync or export for further development.