The two other render modes are Preview (for rough-and-ready 'thumbnail' renders) and Standard -- which is often good enough. The renders can be tweaked for brightness and contrast before and after rendering and any settings are automatically applied to the next render. The quality settings for each of the render types is also tweakable through the Render Settings Dialog, although there doesn't seem to be a way to turn turn off reflections for Preview rendering, which is odd, given that they're not really needed here and can slow down the rendering considerably.

Materials

The advantage of third-party rendering programs is that you get much more control over material settings than SketchUp's standard Color, Opacity and Bitmap Texture. With TurboSketch Studio installed these three attributes are still controlled from within SketchUp -- there's no point duplicating the functionality. TurboSketch Studio itself adds Finish and Bumpiness.

Bumpiness uses the bitmap material supplied on a surface as a bump map -- there's no need for you to supply another gray-scale version for the purpose. The mapping is also set exactly one-to-one with the texture map, which, for architectural models is what you want it to be 99.9% of the time. You can then control the amplitude of the bump, and you can also reverse its direction -- essential for getting brick courses and paving joints looking right.

One problem that we noticed was that materials sometimes came out 'overtiled' -- their size reduced and their repeat greatly multiplied. However, it transpired that this can be a problem when materials are applied at the group level in SketchUp, instead of at the surface level. Simply exploding the group (and then immediately re-grouping it, if necessary) sorts out the problem. We've noticed that several other programs also have this problem with SketchUp groups and textures.(see images 05-06)

05 - The images at left shows the results of 'overtiling' in TurboSketch.	06 - The image at right shows the correct materials tiling after exploding and regrouping the geometry.

Finishes alter the surface 'look' of your material, and following from their ease-of-use philosophy, TurboSketch Studio contains presets that are easily applied to the model. These presets are Matte, Plastic, Varnished, Polished, Mirror, Metal (dull), Metal (polished), Glass, Glow and Water. While the ease-of-use approach may be okay for some, other users may feel the need for a little more control here -- there's no ability to set Refractive index for glass, for instance. (see image 07). Also, the lack of an Anisotropic shader (for accurately rendering surfaces like brushed steel and aluminum) seems like a bit of an omission.

07 - The inability to set a refractive index for glass means that items like this canopy can come out looking a bit, well...wrong.	08 - TurboSketch Studio Mac's Material dialog is distinctly underwhelming when compared to its Windows cousin.

Another problem presents itself in the dialog box: no material preview. Unlike the Windows version, which has a realtime-updated material preview, TurboSketch Studio Mac users will have to fly blind. (see images 08-09). This is an omission that should be addressed as soon as possible.

Another thing in the Materials dialog that is initially confusing are the two buttons for assigning material finishes, each button bearing the name of the material you're currently working with.

09 - The Mac version's Material dialog doesn't show a preview. Note also the two, separately assignable material definitions for each surface.

It needed a troll around the forum (there's nothing in the manual) before we were able to ascertain what these meant. They actually refer to the frontside and backside faces of SketchUp materials (the 'khaki/purple distinction'). Since they're not labeled, you'd best set them both to be sure of getting the result you want. The eagle-eyed amongst you may also have spotted that the 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons are the wrong way round in the Mac version, which caused a lot of hassle in the beginning, with us instinctively clicking on the 'Cancel' button, then wondering why our changes weren't applied. One further annoyance: if you use the 'Brightness' and 'Contrast' sliders to adjust your image, but then change your mind and hit the 'Cancel' button, your changes will be accepted anyway.

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