Rayscaper New Releases

Alattab

In the materials name list, how can I select multiple materials at once so that I can apply the same type of settings to them?

pixelcruncher

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.106 Beta is available. You can get it via:

Direct download: Rayscaper_Win_0.9.106_Beta.rbz.
The SketchUcation store. It still lists 0.9.105 for now and will get 0.9.106 shortly.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

Grass That Grows in the Render

Paint a face with the new Grass material and Rayscaper grows real grass blades on it in the render. Your SketchUp model stays light, since the blades only exist in the render. Pick a Mowed Lawn, Garden Lawn, Meadow, Dry Grass or Artificial Turf, add mowing stripes, or let the blades take their color from the texture of the material. The grass stays off paths and the edges of the lawn, and grows on across a lawn that is split into groups. See Grass Material.

Presets for Post Processing, Environment and Render

The Post Processing, Environment and Render tabs now have a preset list: looks such as Crisp Daylight and Cinematic, skies such as Golden Hour and Sunset, and render qualities. Save your own, choose the ones a new model starts with, and go back to your previous settings if you don't like a preset. See Post Processing Presets and Environment Presets.

Two-Point Perspective

SketchUp's Two-Point Perspective keeps your walls upright. Rayscaper now renders that view exactly as SketchUp frames it, instead of a tilted camera with leaning walls. See Two-Point Perspective.

Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

Change the shortcuts of the render window in the new Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the settings. See Changing keyboard shortcuts.

What Changed?

Add the Grass material: paint a face with it and Rayscaper grows real grass blades on it in the render, with presets for a mowed lawn, a garden lawn, a meadow, dry grass and artificial turf, mowing stripes, and blades that take the color of the material's texture where they grow. The grass stays off paths and the edges of the lawn, and grows on across lawns split into groups.
Add presets to the Post Processing, Environment and Render tabs: looks such as Crisp Daylight and Cinematic, skies such as Golden Hour, Sunset and Blue Hour, and render qualities. Save your own presets, pick the ones a new model starts with, and go back to your previous settings.
Change the keyboard shortcuts in the new Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the settings.
Offer a license where the free version stops you: the 1280 px notice, Render Scenes and the About dialog.
Redraw the light tool icons, sharp at every display scale on Windows.
Make the render follow the camera faster and more smoothly while you navigate or change the model, and show what the renderer does while a render starts (loading textures, preparing the scene, ...).
Render SketchUp's Two-Point Perspective views as SketchUp frames them.
Give the user interface a calmer, clearer look: a type hierarchy, quieter controls with aligned values, readable dropdowns and a calmer status bar.
Keep the render fitted to the viewport until you zoom or pan.
Update scenes with many emissive instances faster.
Keep Rayscaper's settings of a model when SketchUp's Undo is used after saving or after closing the render window, which could bring back older settings or none.
Fix a crash when another extension loaded its own copy of a library that Rayscaper uses.
Fix SketchUp quitting on some undo and redo of groups and components, and on a normal map whose texture isn't an image.
Follow the shadow time of a SketchUp scene when its tab is selected.
Fix auto exposure flashing white while the render starts or the camera moves.
Move SketchUp's camera along when an AI agent changes the camera through the MCP server.

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

That looks excellent to me! But I don’t understand how to remove or delete a scatter from the list?

pixelcruncher

@Krass Ugh, you found a bug. The buttons are falling off the scatter editor. You can make it wider for now to work around it. I will fix it for the next release.

BTW, how are the French translation? It's AI, I kinda spot checked it but I don't know enough French to see if they actually make sense. And I don't use French software so for sure I don't know the specific terms.

Cheers,
Thomas

pixelcruncher

@Alattab said:

In the materials name list, how can I select multiple materials at once so that I can apply the same type of settings to them?

Good suggestion, will add it to the feature list.

Krass

Thanks,
The translation is pretty good. I did consider switching it back to English, as technical terms and software-related language can often lead to misunderstandings, but I’ll leave it in French for now.
I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if I spot any incorrect or ambiguous translations.
Your grass material is truly excellent—it’s a significant milestone for this version. And the customizable shortcuts are a big deal for me, so I’m really happy about that. Well done!

Krass

The grass settings are absolutely perfect. I'm now going to try to repurpose this function to generate carpets. The presets are good; the hue is very natural, whereas in many other programs you get an unrealistic, vivid green.

Krass

I’ve just realized that it’s the material color that determines the color of the grass blades—much like in V-Ray—which is a really great feature.
However, the limit slider for the density parameter currently prevents this "grass material" from being effectively used as "fur." The density in "synthetic grass" mode is the highest (likely due to the shape of the blades).
Would it be possible to lift this density limit in the future, or perhaps create a "fur" preset that’s better suited for that purpose?
In any case, well done!

pixelcruncher

@krass - I'm not sure how it works in V-Ray, but in Rayscaper, the grass creates a scatter behind the scenes on the surface and then assigns UVs so your textures also work on the grass surface. We have some hard-coded grass patches in the software. The density limit is there for performance reasons; making it too dense could crash your GPU if it's not beefy enough, so there's a limit.

Way back, when I was a developer on the OctaneRender team, we implemented hair and fur using special hair "geometry," which is like tiny strings of geometry next to your normal triangles. I can also look at this method in Rayscaper. It's a bit of work, so I can't really promise this in the 1.0 release (which I wanna get out, because people think Rayscaper is crap because it's still in beta).

edit: I'll increase the density limit a bit in the next release anyway, then you are unblocked for creating carpets until we have something better.

Krass

Thanks, does it chage anything if I subdivide th rug face?

lightscape

@pixelcruncher
Even in the beta phase, Rayscaper is still excellent, and the designers around me are looking forward to Rayscaper surpassing Thea Render in SketchUp

lightscape

lightscape said:

@pixelcruncher
Even in the beta phase, Rayscaper is still excellent, and the designers around me are looking forward to Rayscaper surpassing Thea Render in SketchUp

I just completed a test scenario with a small resolution, and I used AI to remove the watermark (not for commercial use, just for the sake of visual appeal). Rayscaper's rendering capabilities are currently outstanding

pixelcruncher

@Krass No, it wouldn't really help. Rayscaper scatters the patches with the configured density over the faces. More faces means just more work for the scattering engine.

We did some experimenting this afternoon, and might have something better soon(-ish).

Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Thomas

Krass

it's very good !
I believe you used synthetic grass with large blade size...

Alattab

when grass type changes to meadow there is a bug fix (crush) in sketchup 2025 , in sketchup 2026 is fine work

Alattab

Using a texture as a scattering map—as well as deriving color from that texture—is a fantastic idea. However, I hope the issue regarding the inability to select a preset gets resolved; it’s a bug that causes a fatal error in SketchUp.

Krass

Hello,
Thomas
Could you share the Rayscaper rug model so I can understand how you made it? Is the logo an image, or was it drawn in SketchUp?

pixelcruncher

@Alattab, yes, thanks for the report. We were able to reproduce this. We'll include a fix in the next version.

Cheers,
Thomas

pixelcruncher

@Krass, I figured out how to hack the grass material to make rugs too. However, that required code changes in Rayscaper, so it will be available only in the new version. Stay tuned for this. I will share the skp file as well with the new version so you can have the same results.

Cheers,
Thomas

Alattab

I believe it is necessary to add a "mask map" alongside the alpha and opacity maps; otherwise, I cannot properly render the appearance of the fountain water—indicated by the number 1 in the image—as required. Furthermore, I think it is essential to include specific fluid presets—such as those for milk, carbonated water, aerated water, etc. In the image, the element marked with the number 2 represents the aerated water produced by a bubbler nozzle.
Fountain water.png