Tiếng Việt
The Select From List attribute is widely used when you want material options in SketchUp Dynamic Components. This lesson uses a kitchen material selection as the example. You will learn both the material usage and the Select From List feature. Also learn how to change materials when clicking (Interact Dynamic Component)
This works the same in current SketchUp 2026 as it always has — Dynamic Components have not changed for years, so any older tutorial still applies even on a named-user subscription.
Video:
Download Example Models
Lesson objectives:
- How to use the Material attribute in SketchUp Dynamic Components
- How to create the Select From List option
- How to use Attribute: Hidden
- How to Change Material with Onclick Attribute
Steps to Change Material Using Select From List in SketchUp Dynamic Component:
- Step 1: Create materials, apply on a component with full materials, this component will be hidden and located in the parent Component.
- Step 2 Create Component to apply material
- Step 3: Create the Parent Component including the Main Component and the Material component.
- Step 4: Hide the Component Material.
- Step 5: Set the Material properties for the parent Component with the Select From List option
Note:
- If the Material Component is not in the parent Component, it will not be created.
- Material names should be simple, immediately written with dashes (-) so that the software understands the names of materials
Why the Hidden Swatch Component Is Mandatory in SketchUp DC Materials:
The Material attribute can only display a material that is already present in the model’s In Model list — it cannot pull a material out of thin air or from an external library. That is the real reason for Step 1: the hidden component carries a tiny swatch of every material so SketchUp keeps them loaded. Delete or purge those swatches and the dropdown still lists the names, but the faces silently fall back to the default white material because the named material no longer exists in the model.
There is a subtle trap with hiding it: hidden geometry still contributes to a component’s bounding box, so a swatch sitting off to the side will quietly inflate the parent’s size and throw off any LenX/LenY formulas. Scale the swatch down and move it physically inside the body of the parent before you hide it.
What the OnClick attribute can do:
A point most tutorials get wrong: OnClick can call SET("Material", "Name1", "Name2", ...) directly to cycle a component through named materials on each click — no separate numeric index or animate step is needed. Each click moves to the next material in the list and loops back to the first, which is why it feels like the material is cycling. The names passed to SET must exactly match materials already present in the model, which is why the hidden swatch component in the steps above matters.
Finally, the dash/underscore rule in the Note above is not cosmetic: the formula parser treats a material name with a space as two separate tokens and reports the attribute as “invalid,” so always name materials like Oak-Wood or Marble_White when they are referenced in a formula.
