SimLab FBX Exporter for SketchUp: Quick Guide to Seamless Exports

Optimize Your Workflow: Exporting SketchUp to FBX with SimLabExporting SketchUp models to FBX is a common task for architects, game artists, visualization specialists, and product designers. FBX is a versatile format supported by many 3D applications and game engines, but exporting clean, usable FBX files from SketchUp requires attention to geometry, materials, hierarchy, and export settings. SimLab’s FBX Exporter for SketchUp streamlines this process and adds features that preserve scene fidelity while giving you control over the exported result. This article explains how to optimize your workflow when exporting SketchUp to FBX using SimLab: preparation, exporter settings, handling materials and textures, animation and hierarchy options, common issues and fixes, and practical tips to save time.

Why FBX and why use SimLab?

FBX is widely supported by tools such as Unity, Unreal Engine, 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, and many renderers. It carries geometry, hierarchy, transforms, materials, textures, and animation (when available), making it a preferred interchange format.

SimLab’s plugin for SketchUp focuses on reliable translation of SketchUp’s native constructs into FBX, minimizing manual cleanup in downstream tools. It adds advanced controls for exporting materials, textures, smoothing groups, component transforms, and animation baking.

Before you export: prepare your SketchUp model

A clean SketchUp model yields a clean FBX. Take these preparatory steps:

• Purge unused items: Window > Model Info > Statistics > Purge Unused. This reduces file size and removes orphaned materials/components.
• Fix geometry: Use “Soften/Smooth Edges” and the Eraser with Ctrl (or Mac equivalent) to control normals. Correct faces with reversed normals (white vs. blue faces) so outward-facing normals are consistent.
• Explode or keep components intentionally: Decide which components should remain instanced in the target application. Instances save memory but some engines require unique meshes for collisions or lightmapping.
• Grouping & hierarchy: Organize logically (for example: structural, furniture, vegetation). Logical grouping maps directly to the FBX node hierarchy and helps downstream workflows.
• Materials & textures: Consolidate and name materials clearly. Avoid overly complex layered materials in SketchUp because FBX primarily supports basic material properties and texture maps.
• Scale & units: Set your model to the correct real-world units in SketchUp and double-check scale. Some targets (game engines) expect meters; SketchUp often uses feet/inches depending on template.
• Remove hidden geometry or unused nested groups that aren’t needed in the exported scene.

Installing and opening SimLab FBX Exporter

1. Download and install the SimLab FBX Exporter plugin compatible with your SketchUp version from SimLab Soft.
2. Restart SketchUp if required.
3. Access the exporter via the Extensions menu or SimLab toolbar. The exporter opens as a dialog with export options and presets.

Key SimLab export settings and what they do

SimLab’s exporter provides a range of options. Important ones to know:

• Export Range / Scene Selection: Choose to export the entire model or selected objects only. Use selection export for modular workflows or asset-only exports.
• Geometry Conversion: Options to export as triangulated meshes or quads (when supported). Triangulation can prevent shading artifacts in some engines; preserving quads may be useful for downstream modeling work.
• Smoothing / Normals: Controls whether SketchUp smoothing groups (soft/smooth edges) are translated to FBX normals. Enabling this preserves shading; disabling may give flat-shaded faces.
• Instances and Components: Decide whether to export components as instances (referenced objects) or bake them into unique meshes. Keep instances enabled when you want file-size efficiency, disable when unique UVs or per-instance edits are required.
• Materials and Textures: Export material slots, and choose how textures are referenced (embedded in the FBX or external files). Embedded textures ease portability; external textures allow manual optimization.
• Material Conversion Mode: Map SketchUp materials into standard PBR or legacy Phong/Blinn materials depending on target pipeline. PBR is recommended for modern engines (Albedo, Roughness/Metalness).
• Animation / Camera / Lights: If your SketchUp scene includes basic animations, cameras, or light nodes supported by SimLab, enable their export. SimLab can bake keyframes where necessary.
• Up Axis & Units: Set the coordinate system and units expected by the destination app (e.g., Y-up vs. Z-up, meters vs. centimeters). Transform mismatches are a common cause of misplaced models.
• Texture Size & Compression: Some exporters provide options to resize or compress bitmaps during export to reduce file size. Use carefully to avoid visible quality loss.
• Export Presets: Save frequently used settings as presets (asset for game, scene for rendering, etc.) to accelerate repetitive exports.

Materials and textures: preserving look and performance

Materials are often where exports break or require manual fixes. Use these practices:

• Simplify SketchUp materials: Remove procedural overlays and multi-layer tricks. Instead, bake any complex material into texture maps in an editor (diffuse/albedo, normal, roughness).
• Use consistent texture paths: Organize textures in a single folder relative to the SketchUp file so external texture export produces an organized output.
• Prefer PBR workflow: If your downstream renderer/engine uses PBR, convert SketchUp materials to PBR equivalents or use SimLab’s conversion options to generate base maps (albedo, metallic, roughness).
• Embed vs. external: For one-off transfers, embedding is convenient. For larger projects or iterative workflows, export external textures so you can edit them without re-exporting FBX.
• Check UVs: SketchUp doesn’t have full UV unwrapping; texture placement is via face mapping. For game assets or advanced renderers, unwrap and bake proper UVs in a modeling tool if seams or overlapping textures are an issue.

Handling hierarchy, pivots, and transforms

• Keep transforms clean: Reset component origins and apply transforms where relevant. Unexpected pivot offsets in SketchUp translate to odd rotations in target software.
• Maintain logical hierarchy: Parent-child relationships in SketchUp map into FBX nodes. Use empty groups as pivot nodes or to organize scene elements.
• Freeze transforms (apply scale/rotation): Some targets behave better when objects have applied transforms. SimLab may offer options to bake transforms on export.

Animation, cameras, and lights

• SketchUp supports only basic animation (Scene transitions) and SimLab can bake supported animations as keyframed transforms in FBX. For complex skeletal animation, use a DCC tool that supports rigging.
• Cameras: Exported cameras can be used as view assets in engines or renderers — ensure FOV and aspect ratio settings match the target.
• Lights: SketchUp native lights (or plugin lights) may be exported partially — confirm compatibility and consider recreating advanced lights in the target renderer for accurate results.

Common problems and fixes

• Flipped normals / black faces: Ensure face orientation is correct before export. Use SketchUp’s Face orientation tools or a cleanup plugin.
• Missing textures: Use absolute/relative paths and check the “embed textures” option if portability is needed. Verify that texture formats are supported (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, EXR).
• Huge file sizes: Reduce texture resolutions, use instances, purge unused assets, and export with compression where available.
• Incorrect scale or axis: Adjust the Up Axis and units options in SimLab to match the destination app. Test with a simple cube to verify.
• Broken materials/shaders: Re-map materials in the target engine to PBR shaders and supply necessary maps (albedo/normal/roughness). Consider baking complex SketchUp appearances into maps before export.
• Overly dense meshes: Use decimation tools or re-model complex curves with lower-poly approximations for game/real-time use.

Example export workflows

1. Architecture visualization (Unreal Engine / Twinmotion):

   • Clean model, set units to meters, consolidate materials, convert materials to PBR where possible.
   • Export with instances enabled, embed or export external textures, triangulate if required by renderer, set Y-up or Z-up depending on engine.
   • In the engine: reassign lightmaps, set collision meshes, and reapply advanced materials.

2. Game asset (Unity / Unreal):

   • Create individual asset files (single props) with applied pivots at logical attachment points.
   • Ensure UVs are proper (non-overlapping), bake necessary maps, export with instances disabled (if unique), and triangulate.
   • Import into engine, set import scale, generate colliders and lightmap UVs as needed.

3. Collaborative design review:

   • Export entire scene with cameras and selected lights, embed textures for portability, and use a higher texture resolution for clarity.
   • Share a single FBX file for clients to open in viewers or other DCC tools.

Automation and optimization tips

• Use export presets for repeated pipelines (e.g., “Unreal-ready,” “Visualizer,” “Archive”) to reduce human error.
• Batch export multiple SketchUp files using SimLab’s batch/exporter features or SketchUp scripts if available.
• Keep a “reference clean file” where raw geometry is maintained and a separate “export-ready” file with decimated and properly textured assets for different targets.
• Document naming conventions for materials, textures, and components so automated sinks (import scripts, asset pipelines) can parse them reliably.

Final checklist before exporting

• [ ] Purged unused items and layers.
• [ ] Faces oriented correctly; smoothing set.
• [ ] Materials consolidated and named.
• [ ] Textures in organized folder or embedding chosen.
• [ ] Scale and units verified.
• [ ] Components/instances decision made.
• [ ] Preset selected or settings saved.

Exporting SketchUp to FBX with SimLab can save hours of cleanup and improve fidelity across applications when you adopt a consistent, repeatable workflow. The key is preparation in SketchUp (clean geometry, consistent materials, correct scale), understanding SimLab’s export options (instances, normals, material conversion, axis/units), and tailoring the result to your target platform’s expectations.