Textures and materials will make your designs look much more attractive. There are lots of built in materials you can use, and you can also create your own.

In SketchUp, from the menus choose Window > Materials. You will notice a pull down menu with all sorts of different materials.

To apply a material, click on the material you want, then click on the surface where you want to apply it.

If for example you later want to change everything that you have textured with stone, you can right click on one stone area and choose Select > All with same Material 

 

Editing Materials

To edit a material in your model, first choose In Model from the drop down list. You can only edit materials that are in your model.

 
Now click on the Edit tab of the materials window.

You can change the colours used.

You can edit the actual image file that the texture is made from, or you can use a file of your own to create the material.

 

 

To Create a New Material

To create your own material, click the create new material icon.

Fill in the options in the next window as desired.

Aligning & Modifying your Material

Sometimes when you apply a material, it is not aligned the way you want on your object.

If I want the bricks to look different, right click on the wall and choose Texture > Position

 
Four pins will appear, and you can use them to scale, rotate, move and distort your texture until you get it the way you want.
Press Enter when finished to see your finished texture.