At first, you need to decide if you should be be texturing at all. As you can see from other examples, investing time in texturing does not always equal better visuals. You can go for a simple native SketchUp output, watercolor style, or other non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) styles, which will be less time consuming and, perhaps, provide you with a better outcome. If this is the case, you can just skip over this chapter for now and go straight to Chapter 7, Non-photoreal Visuals with SketchUp.
So, what are the benefits of texturing? If it is done well, texturing can:
Reduce the amount of detail you need to model
Allow you to use lower render settings to get the same realism
Increase the rendering speed (this is especially important for animations)
Create almost photoreal visuals in SketchUp without the need for rendering
These benefits are most pronounced wherever movement is involved, for example, in animations or demonstrations of real-time walk-throughs. This is...