Avoiding common mistakes with materials
We have learned a whole lot about creating and using materials in our model. I figured it was worth mentioning a handful of issues that people run into when using materials in SketchUp. Some of these are improper processes or assumptions, but most power users have run into these mistakes on the road to leveling up their SketchUp skills.
Relying on materials to add all the details
I see this all the time. Modelers want to cut corners or save time, so they apply a photo texture to the front of a building instead of modeling details. Now, this can work in some cases, but a lot of times, this will end up giving you a flat-looking model that cannot be used out of a single context.
Take this model, for example:
Figure 5.30 – The left house has modeled details and the right house is mostly materials
In this example, the house on the right was a 2D cutout of an image that was extruded. It looks OK in the current...