Materials

The native SketchUp material editor supports only a texture and a transparency value – not necessarily sufficient to create visually stunning images such as the ones our users usually achieve.

This is why we came up with our very own material editor to make sure all of our users can enjoy powerful tools such as Bump and Reflectivity maps.

Using some detailed Bump and Reflectivity maps

To open the Enscape material editor, either go to Extensions -> Enscape -> Enscape Material Editor, or click the Enscape Materials Button in the Enscape Toolbar.

Enscape Material Editor

In your case, the window may look slightly different – the reason is that the Enscape Material Editor will always display the material that is currently selected in SketchUp – as long as the material is used in your model.
This way, you can easily choose any material to adjust in Enscape by simply selecting it using the Sample Paint () tool in SketchUp. The Enscape Material Editor will switch to any selected material immediately.

The Enscape Material Editor

Two other functions that are available in the Enscape Material Editor are the menu button at the top which allows you to either Batch Import *.mattpkg files, or import materials from the Enscape Material Library.

Import options

You can also set the location where materials will be stored (such as a network drive) via the ‘gear / cog’ symbol at the extreme bottom left of the Material Editor dialog and this is also covered in the Material Library article.

Materials' Location

To apply textures from the Material Editor, select the material in the Material Editor, then click on the updated thumbnail under the SketchUp Materials section and click the surface you want to apply it to in the SketchUp viewport.

The following shows how to import a PBR material from the Enscape Material Library, select and apply it in SketchUp.

The Enscape Material Editor can set each material to be set to a certain Type. Each Type has a set of pre-built qualities. These following Type of materials are available to choose from:

• • Generic – Suited for any materials that aren’t supposed to be rendered as grass blades, water surface, or have translucency applied.
  • Carpet – Contains pre-built sprites that act like carpet fibers which can be adjusted.
  • Clearcoat – Imitates the type of paint that you find on car bodies.
  • Foliage – If the Sun (not artificial lighting) is located behind said surface, it will be illuminated on both sides, common in nature.
  • Glass– Transparent material with reflective properties, simulating the appearance of real glass surfaces.
  • Grass– Contains sprites that represent grass material which animate when not at rest.
  • Self-illuminated – Makes a material appear as if glowing, and emitting actual light.
  • Water – Acts as a liquid and animates when not at rest.

Material Types

The “Generic” material type is suited for any materials that aren’t supposed to be rendered as grass blades, water surface, or have translucency applied.

It gives you control over the color, reflectivity, transparency, and surface relief (height) of your material.

This is the default material type and can be used for the majority of all possible materials.

Generic Material Type

The Albedo area controls the basic color of the surface you’re designing. You can either select a color, or choose a texture by clicking the blue folder symbol. If choosing a texture, you’ll also receive a “Tint Color” menu, allowing you to easily change the color of the texture used. Control the amount of influence on your texture using the “Image Fade” slider. Of course, Enscape will use any UV information (texture placement) it gets from SketchUp.

The Albedo area with no texture applied

Albedo area with texture applied

Albedo Texture on Sphere

It is also possible to add a video texture to the Albedo texture slot. The following formats are currently supported: .mp4, .mpg, .m2v, .3gp, .avi, .mov, and .mkv.

When selecting a video file as the Albedo texture, transparency-related material settings are limited to Cutout-Transparency only where you can apply a mask texture. The adjustment or inversion of the brightness of the video texture in the Enscape Texture Editor becomes unavailable in this scenario.

Video Texture

The Transparency area lets you control the opacity of your model, or, in other words, the amount of light that can travel through the surface, allowing you to see what’s behind it.

Transparency Options

Texture – The Texture parameter allows you to control the transparency using a 2D image, a map. It refers to the Opacity value, so a black area (which equals zero) on the image used will result in a perfectly transparent portion of the surface, while a white area will appear perfectly opaque. Grey areas will appear partially transparent, such as glass. If you load a colored image, Enscape will automatically convert it to black and white, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Opacity – The Opacity slider controls the overall transparency of the surface. If you’re using it combined with a transparency map, it will define the maximum opacity, so white areas on said map will appear as opaque as you’ve set using this slider.

Tint Color – This menu allows you to choose a color that should be added to any semi-transparent areas of your material. Very much like colored glass.

Refractive Index – The Refractive Index slider determines by which factor light is being bent when traveling through a transparent surface. You know this effect from looking at a glass of water, or very thick glass.
Air has a refractive index of 1.0 – so light rays travel through it in a straight line -, water has an index of 1.33, window glass 1.52, and, for example diamonds have an index of 2.42 – they bend light quite heavily.
For further information on this topic, feel free to have a look at the Wikipedia article .

Frosted Glass – If the Frosted Glass checkbox is enabled, Enscape will blur what’s visible through the transparent surface. The amount by which it’s blurred is being determined by the Roughness value in the Reflections area.

The Transparency area

Transition from transparent sphere to one with transparency texture applied

The Height option in the Enscape Material Editor allows you to utilize so called Bump, Normal, or Displacement maps in order to simulate bumps, wrinkles and dents and the lighting of these.

Bump maps can be any black and white 2D images. They tell Enscape to interpret a surface as protruding (bright parts of the texture) or recessed (dark parts of the texture).

Applying a Bump map

Normal map are a type of Bump map that require an image with RGB values. These RGB components correspond to the X, Y, and Z coordinates, respectively.

Applying a Normal map

Displacement maps are an enhancement of the bump mapping or normal mapping techniques applied to textures. Normally an Occlusion Map is the type of image you will use for Displacement maps. The actual technique employed in Enscape is called quadtree parallax displacement mapping for optimum performance. It’s worth noting that Displacement maps are incompatible with transparent materials so the entire “Transparency” section becomes unavailable where a displacement map has been applied (including mask textures). Furthermore, the brightness of Displacement maps cannot be further adjusted or inverted when editing the texture inside the Enscape Material Editor itself.

Height maps are incredibly valuable for realism in your images and this cannot be overstated enough!

Height maps can make for incredible surface detail and noise, without actually affecting or adding more geometry. You can use this feature for noise on concrete surfaces, wood, tiling, or even full reliefs! This can go a long way in convincing the viewer that they are looking at a realistic picture.

Textures that are available online, either paid for or free, will generally have a Normal, Bump / Height, Occlusion map included or available additionally to the basic Color texture.

It is also worth noting that normal based self-shadowing of material surfaces implemented. This feature further improves the depth perception of materials, especially with displacement maps. It’s active for sun light only when the Rendering Quality level is set to “High”. On Rendering Quality level “Ultra” artificial lights will also cast normal based shadows.

Applying a Displacement map

As powerful as this feature is, it’s very easy to setup. Just select an image file using the blue folder button. A Bump map doesn’t even have to be black & white, as Enscape will take care of that for you.

Normal Maps must have an RGB value in them.

As already mentioned, Displacement maps would be best served with an occlusion map if available.

You can switch between using a Bump, Normal, and Displacement map via the Type drop down option.

Select the Intensity (Bump and Displacement) or Amount (Normal) of the effect, using the respectively named slider. Negative values for bump maps. will invert the effect, causing dark areas to stick out and bright areas to be pushed in.

Displacement Maps will only adjust the amount, whether negative or positive values, in the same single direction from the minimum height value.

The Bump Map Settings options

This area is all about the microscopic roughness of your material, determining how much of the environment you’ll see reflected in its surface.

Roughness – The smoother the material (Roughness -> 0%), the more it will reflect it’s environment. The rougher the material is, the more it will diffuse incoming light.

Texture – Again, you can also use 2D Images as a ‘Roughness Map’ to control the roughness value per location on your surface.

Metallic – The Metallic-slider tells Enscape to treat the surface either as a non-metallic (e.g. plastic, ceramic..) reflective surface, or as a metallic one.
Let’s say metallic surfaces behave more like a mirror, reflecting a clear image of their surrounding, while non-metallic surfaces show more of their actual surface, reflecting the environment rather vaguely.

Specular – This value controls the amount by which light is being reflected when hitting a non-metallic surface at a steep angle, as opposed to light that’s hitting it rather from the side.
If you’re not too familiar with this setting, it’s best to leave it around 50% for realistic results.

The Reflection settings area

Sphere with texture applied as a Roughness Map

The Carpet material acts in the same way as the Grass Material, in that it can be applied to a horizontal surface only, and the Height and Height Variation are controlled in the Enscape Material Editor.

Carpet material applied in the Albedo slot.

The Height and Height Variation Settings title is amended with Carpet when Carpet is selected as the Type in the Material Editor.

Carpet selected as the Type in the Enscape Material Editor

When selecting “Clearcoat” as material type, the Enscape Material Editor interface removes the transparency option altogether. 

The Clearcoat material imitates the type of paint that you find on car bodies. So, essentially the Clearcoat is a transparent resin material, and the color is defined via the Albedo option in the Material Editor window. 

This material, therefore, is shiny and reflective by default, although you do have the option to dial back the reflective properties, as well as add a bump map.

Clearcoat settings

Clearcoat material

When selecting “Foliage” as material type, the Enscape Material Editor interface will look identical to when selecting “Generic” as type.
The difference this material type will cause is only visible on single-face objects. Please make sure the object you apply this material to doesn’t have any depth, and also that the material is applied to both sides of the face.

If these conditions are met, Enscape will apply Translucency to objects this material type is applied to. This means that, if the Sun (yes, this doesn’t work combined with artificial lighting) is located behind said surface, it will be illuminated on both sides. This is common in nature for example with leaves, which is why this is the most common use case for this type of material.

You can apply a material to two sides of the same face

Foliage material leaves

When selecting “Glass” as material type, the material becomes transparent with reflective properties. The Glass material simulates the appearance of real glass surfaces.

There is an option to add a Base Texture to the material. For example if you want create stained glass, you can add that texture and bump/normal map to it, adjust the opacity and control reflections. You can also enable the Frosted Glass option to blur the background based on the material roughness.

Glass Settings

Glass Material with Base Texture

The Grass type material, as seen in the material editor, looks almost the same as the Generic type. While it’s lacking the Transparency part, it instead features a Grass Settings area. Apart from the Albedo area, which you can use to color your grass (also using a texture), the Height – and Reflections parts are only useful if you plan to toggle the Grass Rendering setting on and off (this can be found in the Enscape General Settings -> Performance -> Grass/Carpet Rendering option).

'Grass' selected as material type

Height – The Height slider will stretch the sprites being used as grass blades, making them appear larger, making for higher grass.

Height Variation – The Height Variation slider adds a random factor to the grass height. This makes for a wilder looking, ragged grass.

Randomizing the grass blades

Wind Settings – The Grass material is now also affected by the global Wind setting found in the in the Visual Settings -> Atmosphere tab. You can adjust both the wind Intensity and Direction Angle, and this affect can be seen working when adjusting the Intensity slider, as well as when moving around in the Enscape Viewport and will be included in Video exports.

Wind Settings in the Visual Settings window

The Self-illuminated type material, when selected, tells Enscape to literally handle your material as if glowing, and emitting actual light. You can choose a brightness between 1 and 100000 candela per square meter (cd/m²), as well as the color of the light.

Self-illuminated Type

Self Illumination Material Type

Here are the available settings for Water in the Enscape Material Editor.

Setting the Water Type for a material will tell Enscape to treat any surface it’s applied to as physical water, including waves & caustics.

Water Color – Choose a color your water should be tinted in. No textures to be used this time – water color is set globally.

Separate faces and materials have been used in this image

Control the water movement. Change the speed and the direction your water is flowing to simulate e.g. a river.

This can be set using the global Wind Settings to be found in the Visual Setting-> Atmosphere tab, the same as for the Grass material. These global settings can be overridden for Water however, and this override is available in the Material Editor when Water is selected as material Type.

Intensity – Control the speed in which the water is flowing.

Direction Angle – Control the overall direction water is moving in.

Override Wind Settings option

Fine tune the look of your waves, whether it’s the overall scale to match the proportions of your model, or just the height to control whether your water looks rather wild or calm.

The Wave Settings sliders

Height: The Height slider controls the height – or intensity – of waves in water materials.

Caustics Intensity – Under Detail Settings, Caustics Intensity controls the amount of light that is being refracted through waves in water. Control this beautiful effect using this slider. Keep in mind you will only see this effect as long as there’s a surface beneath the water for the light to reflect off of.

No caustics to 100% caustics visibility

You can use up to four textures at a time per Enscape material. Textures are being used to control Color, Visibility, Surface Detail and Roughness of a material.

By clicking any of the texture symbols at the top of the material editor, or any of the blue and underlined image file names next to “Texture”, you’ll enter the actual texture editor interface.

Here you can

• Choose the image file for your texture
• Change the brightness
• Invert the colors of your image
• Apply explicit texture transformations

The Texture Editor interface is the same for any texture type. It’s meant to allow for simple image editing operations without having to leave the material editor.

All texture slots used

In order to be able to utilize existent materials, you can import multiple materials simultaneously via the Batch Import feature, or by importing a single material. You can also export single materials as a *.matpkg file.

To import a single material hover the mouse over any material listed on the left hand side of the Material Editor dialog and the material Type symbol will change to 3 dots.

Clicking on the 3 dots will reveal the menu options Export Material Package and Import Material Package. In order to import an existing material, click on Import Material Package which will allow you to navigate to the location of the *.matpkg file you wish to import.

Material Import and Export options

To export a material package file (*.matpkg), click Export Material Package and this will allow you to choose the location you would like to save the file to.

Export Package Materials options

Finally, to Batch Import .matpkg files you need to click on the three horizontal lines menu next to the Materials title at the top left of the Material Editor dialog and choose the Batch Import *.matpkg… option. This will open a dialog window to allow you to navigate to the  “.matpkg” files you would like to import. When Batch Importing the *.matpkg files you want to import must be in the same location.

Batch Import *.matpkg options

Replacing current materials in the current project with materials from the Enscape Material Library is now possible from within the Enscape Material Editor.

To replace a material hover the mouse over any material listed on the left hand side of the Material Editor dialog and the material Type symbol will change to a meatball menu (3 horizontal dots).

Clicking on the meatball menu will reveal 3 menu options, one being Replace with Enscape Material.

Material Import and Export options

Once you click on Replace with Enscape Material the Enscape Material Library will open. The selected material will be previewed on the surface that has material to be replaced. With a material selected the Replace button will be available.
To confirm and replace the existing material with the newly selected material, click the Replace button and the material will be imported and updated.

Replace an existing material

The process is illustrated in the video.

Before introducing the Material Editor, Enscape lets you decide material properties using keywords you have to include in the material name. This framework is still included in the Enscape feature set, and can be used freely alongside the material editor for greater comfort.

These are the keywords to include in the SketchUp Material name to tell Enscape how to display it more realistically.

Keywords and their effects

Keywords and their effects