
PBR Materials Cheat Sheet (for SketchUp 2025)
This image of a wood-veneer tray with a decorative brushed metal ball was exported right from SketchUp - no rendering software needed
SketchUp 2025 introduced a new graphics system for materials: PBR (physically-based rendering) photoreal materials. As you can see in the image above, you can now have shiny, glossy, dimpled, and otherwise textured materials right in SketchUp's model area. You can then use that new appearance while modeling or when you export images or animations.
As I discussed in my review of SketchUp 2025, the PBR materials look best when you enable one of the new environments (you can see one in the images below (in the reflection). In addition, you may need to make sure that the "Photoreal Materials" are also enabled for SketchUp's modeling area. You can do that on the Styles toolbar or in the View > Face Style menu.
In this post I will give you a visual overview of the new PBR material parameters. So that the...