This article only works in Sketchup 2025. If you're using SketchUp 2024 see this article instead about our Poliigon extension.
Sketchup 2025 supports Photoreal Materials! You no longer need to install a third party renderer to use PBR maps.
Step 1: Enable the Photoreal face style
Go to: View > Face Style > Photoreal Materials
Step 2: Load Poliigon PBR Materials
The following works for all of our materials with "metalness maps" - some of our older assets available in the specular format may need further manual adjustments. See our standards here for details on all of our maps and how they are used.
Open the Material window (Window > Materials)
Right click or press the ... icon to add a new material/texture
In the popup, navigate to a Poliigon folder on disk, selecting the BaseColor/Diffuse map
Input the physical size of the material - you can find this on any asset page on the Poliigon website, but most textures are either 2.5x2.5m or 30cm by 30cm
Double click (or right click, edit) on the texture added to then start editing the photo real material - you should see texture preview icon update from a flat texture into a Cube preview, to indicate it is now a 3D material
Add the metalness map:
Press the + icon next to metalness, and select the Metallic image file
Set the slider to 1.0 for full accuracy, it should not be less than 1.0
Add the roughness map:
Press the + icon next to roughness, and select the Roughness image file
Set the slider to 1.0 for full accuracy, it should not be less than 1.0
Add the normal map:
Tick the box next to Normal map and select the Normal image file
Set the slider to 1.0 for the intended effect, for artistic control you could adjust the strength to adjust how much directional lighting is affected
Optionally add the Ambient Occlusion map:
Tick the box next to Ambient Occlusion map and select the Normal image file
Adjust the slider to your desire to darken crevices within the texture
When you are done, you should have a material that looks like the image below
Press close, and now just drag and drop it into your scene!
Reminder: SketchUp uses a realtime renderer that does not utilize ray tracing. Therefore, you may have additional maps for your material which cannot be used. Materials that depend on Subsurface Scattering, Transmission, or physical Displacement may not be possible to render faithfully in SketchUp at this time.
Step 3: Load HDRIs
Go to Window > Environments
Press the + icon and navigate to an hdri exr you have downloaded; jpg images are not supported in SketchUp. For best results in the SketchUp viewport, consider using an HDRI resolution at least 4K
Select edit and tick the box to set sun location for best shadow results
If the HDRI does not automatically place the sun cross-hairs in the correct location, click onto the HDRI preview image to set the correct location
Rotate and adjust exposure as desired, and enjoy your 3D scene with materials reacting to your background lighting!
