Rayscaper New Releases

[Alattab]

I’ve left it as is, but the image has become more distracting due to the watermarks scattered throughout it; I think they should only be placed in the corner.

[Mike Amos]

Well, the idea would be that you try it and buy the full release, making it possible to do commercial work on a free product is counter intuitive.

[pixelcruncher]

@Alattab, thanks for the feedback. The watermark placement was deliberate, though.

Many people use Rayscaper, but comparatively few have a commercial license. I suspect some are rendering at high resolution and cropping or editing out a corner watermark, which works against how I've set up the licensing. Spreading the watermarks across the image makes that harder.

I know the free renders are more distracting, and I'm sorry about that. But it doesn't feel fair for people to make money from Rayscaper while the work behind it goes unsupported. A license is $99, or $74.99 for members here, and it removes the watermarks entirely. If Rayscaper is giving you value, even as a hobbyist, I hope that feels like a fair price. It's also what keeps development going.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Mike Amos]

I believe the free version should be seen as a longer term trial, try before you buy. Free 'stuff' is nice when you get it but expecting everything free to be usable for commercial work is fraudulent. The developer works hard to produce a product which is bloody good value and I say this as a hobby user who gets a LOT from Rayscaper.
Also, consider the perpetual license so support will be with you down the line rather than paying ever increasing monthly premiums.
Buy the full version mate, you will not regret it and no, not a rich person but a person living on a pension.

I rate this product as one of the best value for money products I have EVER purchased.

[Krass]

I also noticed the changes to the free version, and you’re right to offer a full-featured trial version of your program—it has truly become a must-have.
Over the years, I’ve worked with:

V-Ray
Indigo
Thea Render
Twilight Render
Twinmotion
D5 Render
SimLab Composer

I can now say that Rayscaper is a polished, high-quality program that includes all the necessary features.
It’s rare to find an interface this well-thought-out in this type of software, and the quality of the help pages and the manual is simply unmatched. It’s also rare to be able to communicate directly with the developer, and I really appreciate how attentive he is to user requests.
I’ve purchased a perpetual license for 88 euros!

[Alattab]

I’ve left it as is, but the image has become more distracting due to the watermarks scattered throughout it; I think they should only be placed in the corner.

[Alattab]

@pixelcruncher Is it really necessary for users of the trial version—who are using it for personal projects—to end up with an image so heavily marred by watermarks that it ruins the entire scene? In any case, thank you; I hope you will give this feedback some serious consideration. I was quite interested in the software, but I’ve decided to step back and go back to using FluidRay instead .

I was having a good time, and you ruined all the fun.

Rest assured that artificial intelligence has become the primary destination; people no longer want to burden themselves with extra applications. Therefore, if you want to attract users, you must remove the watermark constraint and leave things as they were.

[Alattab]

What’s the point? I managed to remove the watermark using AI. Previously, I didn’t feel the need to do that; I would just leave the RayScaper logo in the corner. It didn’t bother me—as long as the application is useful and the logo helps promote it, having a small logo at the bottom of the screen is perfectly fine.

[Rich O Brien]

@alattab developers have the right to protect their IP from exploits.

I'm not a fan of watermarks either but I understand the need in this instance. Try entering into a meaningful discussion about the pros and cons

@pixelcruncher is pretty attentive to user feedback which is super rare in the path tracing rendering space.

[Krass]

Thomas,
As I work, I’m noticing many things that have been fixed. The way the lighting components function is really great; in SketchUp, you can place a series of spotlight models, modify them to include a Rayscaper light, and it works perfectly.

[pixelcruncher]

@Krass Thanks! Yeah, you couldn't embed a Rayscaper light component inside a SketchUp component, but I fixed that a couple of releases ago. Great to hear it improves the ergonomics for you!

[Krass]

Here I’m acting as the architect with the help of ChatGPT; renders by Rayscaper.

[pixelcruncher]

@Krass Wow! Very impressive.

[lightscape]

The latest version of the scene rendering function is very good! I hope to further expand it by setting different rendering resolutions and environment settings for each scene, so that the differences in each scene can be rendered in batches at once
a copy of my test！

[pixelcruncher]

@lightscape Nice interior! Are you working as an interior designer? It looks grainy still, are you enabling the AI denoiser?

Presets have been coming up for a while. I'm working on them, but I don't think I can slip them in the next release.

[pixelcruncher]

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.103 Beta is available.

Heads-up: I couldn't upload 0.9.103 to the SketchUcation store yet, so the store still has 0.9.102. Please download it directly: Rayscaper_Win_0.9.103_Beta.rbz.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

Save Your Animation as a Video

File > Render Animation... now turns the frames into an MP4 once the last one is saved, in H.264 or H.265 with a choice of quality. No more stitching PNGs together in another program, and you can let it delete the frames afterwards. See the Animation guide.

Render Fredo6 Animator Clips

Animate your model with Fredo6 Animator and pick the clip in File > Render Animation...: Rayscaper renders every frame of it, with the camera, the moving objects and the timing all coming from Animator. More on that in Render Fredo6 Animator clips with Rayscaper. See the Fredo6 Animator guide.

Lights With Real Brightness

Pick a 60 W bulb, an LED downlight, a window or the sun from the presets and the light comes out as bright as the real thing, in lumen, cd/m² or lux. New lights start as a real light too, so a room lit at night looks right without guessing Watts. See Light Presets.

See and Aim Your Lights in SketchUp

Select a light and SketchUp shows the cone of a spotlight, the radius of a point light or the spread of an area light, so you see what it lights before you render.

The new Aim Light tool turns a light towards the point you click, and a right click on a light gives a Rayscaper submenu to edit, turn off, aim or change its type. See Aiming a Light.

Material ID, Object ID and Render Passes

Two new render methods paint every material or every object in a flat color, ready for selections in Photoshop. See Material ID.

File > Render Scenes... saves them as passes next to each render, together with Albedo and Ambient Occlusion. See Passes.

Translucency

Curtains, lampshades and leaves now glow when the light comes from behind them. Set Translucency in the Standard material, or pick the Fabric or Sheer Fabric finish. See Translucency.

What Changed?

• Save animations as an MP4 video: Render Animation encodes the frames into a video once the last one is saved, in H.264 or H.265 with a choice of quality, and can delete the frames afterwards.
• Render Fredo6 Animator clips from File > Render Animation...
• Add light presets with real brightness: bulbs, downlights, an LED panel, a window, the sun and more. Set a light's intensity in lumen, cd/m² or lux, and new lights start as a real light: a 60 W bulb, an LED downlight, an LED panel or the sun.
• Draw the cone of a spotlight, the radius of a point light and the spread of an area light in SketchUp while a light is selected.
• Add an Aim Light tool that turns a light in the model towards the point you click.
• Add a Rayscaper submenu to the context menu of selected lights: Edit in Rayscaper, Turn Off/On, Aim and Change Type.
• Add Material ID and Object ID render methods, and render passes (Material ID, Albedo, AO, ...) to Render Scenes.
• Add Translucency to the Standard material, for curtains, lampshades and leaves lit from behind.
• Change the size of an area light in Rayscaper's light editor.
• Keep the settings of a light when it is copied in SketchUp, and show how many copies of a component share a light's settings.
• Keep the aspect ratio when typing the width or height of the resolution, with a link button to turn it off.
• Let thin glass reflect according to its IOR, so windows and picture frame glass modelled as a single face reflect.
• Remodel the light components with an arrow that shows where a light shines, and recognize lights that SketchUp renamed when models are merged.
• Show a notification instead of quitting when the GPU runs out of memory for a large render, and render at most 134 megapixels (a 16384 x 8192 panorama).
• Fix a SketchUp crash when moving a group whose new components reached Rayscaper out of order, and groups missing from the render after such an operation.
• Fix the crash when SketchUp 2027 quits.
• Keep hidden nested tag folders hidden when their parent folder is made visible, and follow tag folder moves in the render.
• Fix crashes when removing lights, groups and components while rendering.

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

[Krass]

Génial ! (Pardon my french)

[Krass]

Everything you added this time is isefull

[pixelcruncher]

@Krass said:

Everything you added this time is isefull

Some of these features, like Fredo animator integration, have been on my hard disk 90% finished for a looong time. I'm taking a different approach now and just releasing things instead of anxiously fretting about perfection.

[Krass]

Be aware that automatically generating an MP4 file involves compression; for the final edit of a high-quality project, it is indeed better to work with individual PNG files and let the editing software handle the compression later. That said, having the option to generate an immediate preview is very useful—just be sure to check "Keep Frames" if you intend to use the output for your final edit.