Hi all,
This is great news for creators that use sketchup with unity. Without announce (?, I found out by chance) sketchup has gained an official main role in unity's creation workflow. As with other mainstream 3D apps (Blender, 3D studio Max, ...) Unity's manual includes a specific reference text on "Importing Objects From SketchUp" where it's explained how .skp files are read and used in Unity's editor. No need for conversion to collada, fbx or other intermediate 3D formats anymore, Unity now handles .skp files directly. Please read in Unity's manual the referred text with relevant details about the conversion.
Attention: tested it and at this moment Unity does not read .skp file versions of sketchup 2017 or 2016 but works well with 2015 and previous versions (update: this was solved in later Unity versions! See the update note at end of this post).
A straightforward process
Yes, Sketchup 2017 (the free version "Make" also) saves to older formats so [1]dragged my beatlesKombi_2015.skp into a new folder inside Assets on Unity's project window, [2] waited a few seconds for assimilation (unity reads the skp file and creates two subfolders, materials and textures) and then [3] dragged the .skp file from project area into Scene editing window, voilá!
Could not be easier; some typical problems newbies use to have, like textures missing on imported objects, are surpassed. Well done Unity team!
vcard
UPDATE: overtime unity improved the importer with features like the materials tab window, available in inspector when (on the project tab) you click the .skp file (or any other importable file).
"You can use this tab to change how Unity deals with Materials and Textures when importing your model.
When Unity imports a Model without any Material assigned, it uses the Unity diffuse Material. If the Model has Materials, Unity imports them as sub-Assets." Source: Unity manual
Great News .
greetings