Yup and we learned the hard way after creating a bunch of, what appeared to be, very nice and quick models. Sadly, the nature of the beast being b-spline models and not polygon modeling produces a gazillion faces. Combine this with the way Sketch-up attaches textures and we have gigantic models with a gazillion textures. Some of the content-creators have been able to optimize these models, making the number of textures and polygons smaller.
It's not that these models can't be used, it's just recommended that we don't use a lot of them due to their complexity.
John
@Jcitron, RRSignal, Boleyd
I would actually point out that, though as a general rule I'm in agreement, as a Route builder looking for very specific things, I'm in the position of having to use Sketchup Models for things. Mostly landmark items, but I'm to a point where I'm using them for other things as well simply because nobody in 10 years of Modeling for Trainz has ever created a "Costco Store", or a "1 story Two city block sized Distribution/Transload Warehouse". Various attempts to get anything I could use even as a stand in have met with non-interest. And though I can certainly understand the reasons for this situation, nor do I point fingers at anyone, what else is one to do but use Sketchup Models if you can't find any other reasonable stand-in?
That said, I would also point out that there seems to be two categories of Sketchup models... The high poly ones, which are usually of decent-good quality, and eat tons of Resources (I have 2 Landmark Skyscrapers that clock 12K Polys between them on my primary project atm), and then the low quality ones which usually have fewer polys and eat far fewer resources as a result (Which are usually somewhere between incomplete and *ok-ish* background items). It sounds like the OP found one that had the misfortune of being High Poly and poor quality texture wise, but I personally can't say I've encountered many like that (I have found other issues, up to and including poor scaling, but there ya go, and I've found tons of Blender/Gmax created items that have been modeled well but had the misfortune of having poor work done on their Textures).
Anyway, as I said before, its all about perspective. Until such time as the community is able to furnish models of a desired minimum, or standard, quality with in any kind of time frame after a reasonable request (Again, not finger pointing, but noting a lack of a reliable way of getting content made), I will keep all options open for plugging holes on a route with out using my fingers..... Even if that means FPS suffers a bit for it.
Falcus