How to import free high quality assets into SketchUp with Quixel Bridge & Transmutr

Download and install:
– SketchUp Pro (If you don’t already own SketchUp you can access a fully featured 30-day trial after you install it for the first time)
– Quixel Bridge (Free Program)

For rendering:
– Enscape OR
– V-Ray for SketchUp (Both have fully functional trials you can access after downloading and installing for the first time)

After installing and launching Quixel Bridge you will need to sign in/create an account. Make sure you select Unreal Engine as the software you will be working with when prompted or you will not get free access to Quixel Megscans Bridge assets.

Next we need to setup the export settings in Quixel Bridge. Go to Edit > Export Settings:

• Select Custom Socket Export as the Export Target from the dropdown
• Make sure the Socket Port value is set to 24981

Next we are going to use the search bar at the top left of Quixel Bridge to browse for a model. You can pick any 3D asset you want to import, but for this example I have chosen “Japanese Mossy Stone Wall”. If you do not have a powerful graphics card you may want to select 2K resolution instead of the default 4K. After selecting your resolution click on the green download button.

^{(You can change where these files are downloaded to in Edit > Settings, I personally set this to a temporary folder and clear it regularly as I only want to keep the .skp files that Transmutr exports in the next step and not the files that Quixel Bridge downloads here.)}

Download and install Transmutr. Sign up for a 7-day trial or Purchase a License.

Start the Transmutr application. Make sure Export is set to Custom Export > Use Socket: 24981

In Quixel Bridge click on the Export Button

The asset should now show in Transmutr. I toggle on the option to export as both an Enscape and V-Ray proxy, as I use both these render engines. Choose which export proxy options to toggle on depending on what you use, then click on Transmute. You will be prompted to save the exported files, this is where I suggest creating a component library or saving them to your existing one.

Next step is to drag the exported proxy file from your component library into your SketchUp scene. The proxy file is in .SKP format and does not have the words “fullGeometry” at the end of the filename. It should look something like the above image when you drag it into SketchUp. This is what is known as a proxy placeholder. You will still see the fully quality when rendered (below images), it only removes the model in the SketchUp viewport and replaces it with a proxy. Using proxies means we can bring in much more complex geometry and have unlimited copies of that proxied component in our scene, as SketchUp’s polygon limit is bypassed.

For the next step I copied and mirrored the wall (You could download additional assets from Quixel Bridge instead). I then created a rectangle plane in front of my stone wall, cut out the plane again to create a path through it, then extruded it with the push-pull tool. I then painted the rectangle planes with some basic grass and path textures that come included in SketchUps “Materials” tab.

I will just be using Enscape for the remainder of this tutorial to save a bit of time but you can still follow along using V-Ray.

Next step is importing a high quality surface material from Quixel Bridge to replace the default SketchUp one on our path. I used a “Mossy Flagstone Floor” surface material, but you can choose which one you wish.

Click on the green download button after choosing your surface.

After downloading the texture, right click on the thumbnail as shown above and click “Go to Files”. Keep the explorer window open.

In Enscape, open your material editor and select the path texture. Underneath “Albedo”, load the image file with “Albedo” at the end of it’s filename, from the explorer window Bridge opened in the previous step. Play around with the tint colour and image fade slider until you get the look you want.

Depending on your computer speed, you can either use the Bump map, the blue Normal map, or the Displacement map images (listed in order of least demanding to most demanding on system resources) to give the path some height. Normal maps are sufficient for most surfaces but for a texture like the one we are using which has a lot of height irregularities it may look better using a displacement map. Have a play around with both to get the look you want. Note that with V-Ray for SketchUp it is possible to use both a normal map in combination with a displacement map for maximum detail.

I ended up using the Albedo, Displacement (2x Multiplier Amount) and AO maps. Note that you can also use the AO (Ambient Occlusion) or Roughness map in the reflections slot also. I then swapped the HDRI skybox to Hilly Terrain 01 from Polyhaven:

Download and install the Skatter 2 plugin for SketchUp.  Sign up for a 15-day trial or Purchase a License.

We are going to use Skatter to create more realistic grass and add high quality vegetation near the stone walls. First step is to download some grass and plant assets from Quixel Bridge, then use Transmutr to export proxy .SKP files again. Here are the assets I chose:

• Big Leaf Hydrangea
• Grass Clumps
• More Grass Clumps

Once you have exported the assets from Quixel into Transmutr and created proxy .skp files from them you can drag those proxies into your SketchUp scene. Place them somewhere out of the way as we are just going to be using them as references for Skatter.

Now we want to start Skatter 2 by clicking on the icon in the toolbar in SketchUp. We then need to choose a host group that we want to scatter objects over. Click on the pick a surface button (as in the image above) and select the two grass plane groups. If the grass planes are not already in two seperate groups divided by the path then you should separate the plane into two groups first.

Then we need to pick objects to scatter over the host surfaces we just selected. Click on the “Pick a new object” icon as above then select one of the proxied grass clump assets we just imported. Repeat this process a few times until you have selected all the grass clump assets. You can toggle render only mode to only render the assets, saving resources and allowing you to have unlimited copies by not generating any actual geometry in the SketchUp scene. Turn the density up or down until you get the desired amount of grass, I ended up going with 50 obj/m2. I also set the boundary filter to 350mm offset. Explore the other settings such as transform randomisation and zones if you are interested. Once you are done click the red Generate button.

Now we are going to create another Skatter composition on just the far grass plane and add some plants to it. Click the Skatter icon in the SketchUp toolbar to create another composition. This time we will just select the far plane as a host. We will then add some of the imported Hydrangea proxies (Or whatever plants you downloaded) to the Skatter object list. I chose an object density of 2, tweaked some of the transform randomisation settings, and set the boundary filter to 600mm offset. I then added another Skatter composition to both grass planes, this time using a free daisy asset from the 3DBazaar marketplace (Included with Skatter 2):

You can use this workflow to create some amazing scenes using the high quality assets & materials available on Quixel Bridge, as well as with assets from the free 3DBazaar marketplace, or from any other sources you want to use, thanks to Skatter + Transmutr!