Hey, Rayscaper users! Rayscaper 0.9.87 Beta is available. You can get it via: The SketchUcation store. Direct download: Rayscaper_Win_0.9.87_Beta.rbz. I recommend upgrading to the latest version. What Changed? Add tri-planar mapping support for textures. Materials can now use tri-planar projection instead of UV mapping, which avoids stretched textures on surfaces without proper UVs. Automatically apply tri-planar mapping to PolyHaven materials when the model has no UVs. Downloaded materials now look correct out of the box without manual texture coordinate setup. Sort the material list alphabetically to match SketchUp's material panel ordering. Fix the Asset Manager sometimes getting stuck in a loading state when switching between assets quickly. Fix color space detection for opacity and roughness textures. These textures now render correctly when using automatic color space detection. Fix environment power slider feeling awkward near zero. The slider now smoothly blends to zero instead of snapping discontinuously at the far left. Full release notes: rayscaper.com/manual/release-notes Help Me Build the Community If you like Rayscaper, please share your renders (final or work-in-progress, it doesn't matter)! This is motivating and helps me showcase its capabilities to new users. Follow me on X. Happy Rendering! Thomas

Overall I'm cynical about AI but I have started using it for conceptual work and creating renderings fast which seems to garner greater interest with clients. Most of it right now is not as advertised. Particularly with architecture. I have to put text input to create the rendering I want and right when I think I'm making headway it completely changes the design. It's hard to control textures and materials. I went from doing some AI renderings -- on ReRenderAI -- and eventually used the same SU model to develop my own renderings. It's much easier to change colors and materials from there along with design elements. I haven't used it in weeks. I have some success using Facebook ads to get work. It's hit and miss. Prolonged messenger chats that go nowhere. Many people literally think $900 for a set of plans is too expensive. Everything is changing which is nothing new. From the days when I first started drafting in a land survey company. Hand drafting with technical pens on vellum. To reluctantly getting a computer and learning Autocad by way of a DOS command. So I'm willing to use AI if and when the results work and look good and maybe get me more work or more ideas from the client. I'm still using my 20+ year old Autocad. I'm half way to 70 and have nowhere to go.

@Mike-Amos Mike, yep. I am curious about Rayscraper. I've seen some really great results. Sometimes I think about getting Thea alongside D5. It's more work for creating a render. There are times when I think D5 is a little cartoonish. It has a lot of positives. Perhaps when I was starting out using D5. I used Twilight on a few projects at first right after using Kerkythea for a while. That was my main first rendering engine. I think there was this other Metropolis Light Transport plugin for Sketchup to experiment with. I neglected learning rendering even though I putzed around a lot with Kerkythea. It was with Thea render when I really started to sink my teeth into rendering.

Top level geometry cannot be assigned patterns directly via mouse. Instead, they use the pattern 'Toplevel geometry' in the Special Defaults

@charm8888 Good luck to you and the team, I wish you the best with this endeavour.

You've already learnt that you don't need to project the shadows of every element forming the building, or every plane that might catch a shadow. Before you use the tool make a new tag to ultimately be an isolated set of geometry with the rest of the model 'off' - probably making two to reflect the original and modified forms. then make a group that is assigned the appropriate tag. Edit it and add simple faced 'box' shapes that follow the main external form of the building [used as a temporary underlay]. Only add in any wall, floor or roof faces etc, that will cast useful shadows. You can probably ignore window-openings for a study this simple. Do not include any 'rear' facing elements that won't cast meaningful shadows. Do not include any wholly internal faces as they won't cast any useful shadows. It should be relatively straightforward for you to work out which parts are needed - but the algorithm will look at everything. Every superfluous bit of geometry which might not cast any meaningful shadows should be avoided - because each one will still be pointlessly considered and processed before finally being ignored - all of this only bloats the processing time exponentially and can lead to crashes as SketchUp becomes overwhelmed. Perhaps an uploaded screen shot of the form, or even a simple skp showing what you've done so far, could elicit more useful advice...

Hello Fredo6, Thank you for your response, and sorry for the confusion. By logging in, I mean logging in to the school computer. When students log in to our school computers, a new user profile is created in Windows with their own student number. When I activate the plug-ins under the admin account, the plug-ins work normally and are activated. However, when a student logs in to Windows, the plug-ins are not activated under their individual user account. We would like to avoid students having to activate the plug-ins themselves every time they use a school computer (if they even have the permissions to do so within our network). For us, the ideal solution would be that the plug-ins are automatically available for every student who logs in, without needing to activate them for each individual user. I’m not sure if or how this would be possible. Ramon

If I can not find any solution, is there any way to make custom toolbars ? Aerilius: Toolbar Editor does not work and also the nativ one

Yoni said Sketchup rolled back this update. Over at the Sketchup Forum.

Hi, Thanks for this smart plugin! FYI it works on SU2023. Regards

@Rich-O-Brien Thank you Brian. Second course was offset. Had to remove and reset start setback (half stone)for it + Layout from start to change ; ) Again, -thank you for sorting out. [image: 1772479795775-spacerssolved.png]

The 'require' code that is unneeded doesn't break anything, just takes a millisecond to process and immediately ignore, slowing the loading time all but imperceptibly... Have a good day too...

@TIG Thank you TIG for your work

@tig Thank a lot sat.

One further issue you should address before publishing this more widely - e.g. getting it 'signed' and in the EWH. Its file naming does not follow the proper conventions. An RBZ must contain just one .RB file that registers the extension and a folder of the exact same name. Also the convention is to prepend the users 'name' at the start and even a sub-level if the modules do this. So in your case there should be MendelAI_mesh_tools subfolder and a .RB file named MendelAI_mesh_tools.rb You then edit the RB to load MendelAI_mesh_tools/loader Because previous users might also now have the older badly named file/folder installer and loading you need to do some tidying up. Add some code to the start of the RB to check for the existence of mesh_tools_loader.rb and mesh_tools subfolder in the Plugins folder - use File.exist?(str) or better still similar methods in the fileutilities [which you need to 'require'] which will make deleting the subfolder and its contents much easier. So if these files exist you should also add a UI.message_box() to ask the user to restart to sync everything - next time the rogue file/folder won't be found and the code is redundant, but is still needed in any future updates in case a user has skipped this change in 1.0.2... A manual restart is preferable to a forced quit etc as the user might not have saved some work before updating etc.

@dancingskirt said in Any AI tools that actually help during early modeling stages?: AI tools or plugins that are genuinely useful during early design, not just for final images? The problem currently is the number of options out there and the speed of improvement. AI is accelerating at such a pace that last month's tool becomes obsolete. ComfyUI is still my preferred option because its local, there's a vast amount of readily available workflows out there and it is flexible. I prefer to keep my interactions with AI outside of the Big Tech bubble.

I am experiencing the same issues. I have fredo perpetual licences and the tools have stopped working, I get the messag attached. I have reinstalled them all, reinstalled fredo6 and still get the same message, can anyone help [image: 1771166844348-screenshot-2026-02-15-155403-resized.png]

I purchased the subscription and it works now. thank you