Option to disable syncing Enscape material channels with SketchUp PBR materials

Originally posted on the Enscape Forum, sadly with no response from the Enscape team. Link to the original post here.

In version 4.8.0 Enscape introduced support for SketchUp Photoreal Materials (PBR). The update tries to synchronise the PBR channels of Enscape with the new PBR channels of SketchUp 2025. Link to the release note.

This has significantly slowed down processing speeds. Making adjustments to PBR values has become laggy and it's no longer smooth like it was before v4.8.0. It is impossible to have a flowless workflow. Every time we finetune PBR details we're forced to wait until BOTH SketchUp and Enscape do their calculations and catch up with the changes. Both of the programs lag and freeze and in worst cases become unresponsive for several seconds. Has this been addressed?

Moreover, the values don't match 1:1 with SketchUp. Below some examples.

Height Maps

This channel synchronisation is a complete mess! Have a look at the following recording and note how laggy the programs have become because Enscape has to sync the channels with SketchUp. Adjusting value sliders in SketchUp affects Enscape, but changing the sliders in Enscape doesn't affect SketchUp. What's the logic behind this? (See Recording 01)

• SketchUp's maxmum Normal Map value is 5.0. Enscape's is 200.0. That's 75% missing mathematical data, which creates inconsistencies! Has this been discussed with the people from Trimble?

• Adjusting Normal map slider in Enscape does not change the slider in SketchUp. Adjusting the same slider in SketchUp changes the Normal map slider in Enscape (with extreme lags).

• Pressing on the checkmark button in the SketchUp Normal map section merely turns off the Normal map in SketchUp but this causes the texture in the Enscape channel to be deleted.

• Deleting the Normal map from the SketchUp channel deletes the Normal map from Enscape. So basically 2 buttons in SketchUp UI design cause the exact same result in Enscape.

• Deleting the Normal map from the Enscape channel does not delete the texture from the SketchUp channel.

Reflection Maps

• Adjusting Roughness slider in SketchUp also adjusts Roughness slider in Enscape. But adjusting the slider in Enscape doens't affect SketchUp.

• Adding a Roughness map to the Enscape channel does not add the same map to the SketchUp channel. But if you add a Roughness map to the SketchUp channel, it automatically is added in Enscape.

• Deleting the added map from the SketchUp channel also deletes it from Enscape. Deleting the channel from Enscape does not delete it from SketchUp.

• Pressing on the checkmark in SketchUp turns off the Roughness effect but keeps the map in the SketchUp channel. But the same checkmark deletes the channel from Enscape completely.

Metallic Slider

• If the checkmark box under SketchUp Metalness channel is unchecked, adjusting the slider in Enscape does not affect the slider in SketchUp.

• Turning on the checkmark, and adjusting the slider in SketchUp also adjusts the slider in Enscape. But adjusting the slider in Enscape does not affect SketchUp.

For the record, "Automatically Enhance Materials" is turned off in SketchUp. (See Screenshot 01)

If I may offer constructive criticism as a Design Specialist myself, this was an organizational fiasco to start supporting this new SketchUp feature without truly working on the framework behind the scenes! SketchUp's new PBR workflow is still not fully fleshed out. It is going to undergo updates and optimizations in coming releases. It's not yet stable. AT LEAST there should be a setting in Enscape, that allows the user to decide themselves whether they want the SketchUp and Enscape material channels to sync or not.

• Normal Map unit of measurement must be made consistent across both programs. Whether SketchUp changes it to 200.0% or Enscape changes it to 5.0 or both come to a mutual agreement and ditch their units and settle on 100.0% is up to them.

• Slider value changes in one program MUST affect the other program.

• Pressing x in Enscape channel or the trashcan icon in SketchUp channel must remove the channel from BOTH programs.

• Adding a map in one program must add the same map to the other program.

• The checkmark in the SketchUp channels UI must be removed, it is redundant. If the user wants to keep a channel map but nullify its effect, the user should put the slider on 0% (like in Enscape). This one has nothing to do with Enscape UI/UX and should be forwarded to SketchUp team.

• The units of measurement across all channels should match 1:1. Advising to adopt 100.0% as default starting value across all channels. .0 decimal is important to allow the user to go 8 times deep into the number without introducing any mathematical rounding: 100% > 50% > 25% > 12.5%. This is exponential binary growth algorithm (1x > 2x > 4x > 8x > 16x > 32x > 64x etc), used by many 3D Artists and Designers in their design processes to produce consistent and coherent results.

• SketchUp needs to allow individual channel map transformations, independent from the main Albedo X and Y sizes. (Enscape already allows this).

• SketchUp needs to start supporting Opacity map, similar to Enscape.

• Enscape needs to start supporting Ambient Occlusion map, similar to SketchUp.

This new support for SketchUp Photoreal materials has completely messed up our design and rendering workflow. Our team is struggling with speed, value input inconsistencies, occasional unresponsiveness, missing materials and more. We have downgraded to SketchUp 2024 for the time being.