Thea Browser

With the Thea Browser, you can:

• Quickly access Thea Μaterials, Εxternal Models and Skies, and SketchUp components in the Thea Data folder.
• Access the same items in user-defined Custom folders.
• Find currently used and missing external textures, models, and other image maps.
• Zip a SketchUp file with all external dependences (textures, images, and models).

Please note that Thea provides a wide range of material libraries, as well as models and skies/studio lighting set-ups. You can find more information on how to download and install Thea Libraries in Appendix C.
Double-click the desired material or model. You can then apply the material to a surface or insert the model at a desired location in SketchUp.
Double-click Thea Sky to enable it and add it directly to the IBL of the Environment tab. Please note that skies may alter the current display settings.
You can create a custom folder by right-clicking and selecting the Add folder option. You can also right-click to refresh or remove folders.

External Thea models usually contain very complex geometry. It is not feasible to load them directly in SketchUp. By default, Thea only imports the bounding box of an external model, but in general it is better to have a proxy component that will resemble the shape of the full geometry. Right-click to have Thea create this approximation automatically. See page 41 for more details on proxies.

A SketchUp model (.mod.skp) can be written in the same folder as the Thea Model (.mod.thea). In this way, the SketchUp file will be used instead of the bounding box when inserting the external models as a proxy. When mod.skp is present, its preview will be displayed on top of the mod.thea preview.

Applying a material from the Content Browser

There are two ways to apply a material from the Thea Browser to the Material Editor.
The first way is to right-click on a material thumbnail and select "Apply to Edited Thea Material." The Material Editor must be active with the selected material.
The second option is to drag and drop the material from the Thea Browser to the Material Preview of the Material Editor.

Model Info

Thea Browser also has a Model Info section which shows External Dependencies associated with a model.
This window allows you to view and find/modify/update external textures, IBLs, and models used in the scene.

1. Refresh: Manually refreshes the contents of the Browser.
2. Install Library: Install downloaded Thea Libraries of materials, models and skies.
3. Save SketchUp Model with dependencies: Creates an archive of the SketchUp scene along any dependencies (textures, external models, etc) in .zip format.