Rayscaper New Releases

[Alattab]

It is a good idea to find settings that prevent elements from casting or receiving shadows.

[Alattab]

@pixelcruncher This is what I mean: set a specific day for us to receive a new release, and leave us the rest of the week—or month—to gather feedback.

[pixelcruncher]

@krass jus a little teaser

Turns out you can do a lot of cool stuff by modifying grass.

Of course we had to make one for the SketchUcation crowd

And yes, it works on dogs too.

Fur will be in the next release.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Alattab]

Sorry, I found several materials that have the same texture but go by different names.

[Alattab]

The problem persists, as the palm trees cast their shadow onto the surface representing the fountain's water.

[pixelcruncher]

@Alattab said:

It is a good idea to find settings that prevent elements from casting or receiving shadow

Thanks for the suggestion! Fine-grained shadow settings come up occasionally. For now, I'm keeping Rayscaper's settings simple, but I've noted it.

What would you use this for? If there's a common case behind it, there might be a simpler way to solve that.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Krass]

It’s fantastic and makes my mouth water.

[pixelcruncher]

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 1.0.0 is available. You can get it via:

• The SketchUcation store.
• Direct download: Rayscaper_Win_1.0.0.rbz.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

Rayscaper 1.0: Out of Beta

After many releases of Beta, Rayscaper is now 1.0. A big thank you to everyone who tried the betas, reported bugs and shared renders here: it shaped Rayscaper more than you think.

Fur Material

Paint a face with the new Fur material and Rayscaper grows real strands on it in the render: shag and short pile rugs, sheepskin, faux fur throws, plush cushions, even the coat of an animal. Start from a preset and tune the length, density and curl. An image texture colors every strand where it grows, so a patterned rug keeps its pattern. See Fur Material.

Wind for Grass

The Grass material gets Wind and Wind Direction, which lay the grass over one way, and stronger mowing stripes. The online material library now has thirty Grass materials: lawns, sports turf, meadows, wild grass and artificial turf. See Grass Material.

A New Look

The render window has a calmer, darker look with clearer selections.

What Changed?

• Add the Fur material: paint a face with it and Rayscaper grows real strands on it in the render, for shag and short pile rugs, sheepskin, faux fur throws, plush cushions, long hair and the coat of an animal. Fur hangs down under gravity on walls and over rounded shapes, and an image texture colors every strand where it grows.
• Add Wind and Wind Direction to the Grass material, and lean whole clumps for stronger mowing stripes.
• Add thirty Grass materials to the online material library.
• Give the render window a new look: calm dark surfaces, clearer selections and a new UI font.
• Take Rayscaper out of Beta.
• Fix dark soft edges and fades in PNG and TGA textures with transparency, and transparent images that were saved too bright.
• Fix a crash of CPU renders when the model changed while the render ran.
• Wrap buttons that ran past the edge of a narrow scene editor panel, and translate the Browse button.

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

[Alattab]

[pixelcruncher]

@Alattab Okay, thanks for the image. That makes it very clear

[Krass]

that's why I think this type of effect should be done in post production.
Did you use 3D fontain water? There are several on the 3d warehouse

[Alattab]

I believe it is essential to include a material type or tab that mimics "billboard" elements—specifically for materials that the user does not wish to fully render, but rather wants to configure for properties like alpha, masking, casting shadows, and receiving shadows. Adding this would significantly enhance the value of RayScaper. Currently, the absence of this feature—which is available in software like SketchUp—sometimes forces me to use other applications instead. I strongly recommend this addition; you can see similar implementations in programs such as Thea Render, SimLab Composer, and others.

[Alattab]

@Krass Suppose you have dozens of nozzles; imagine how many water droplets will have their light-related properties manipulated.

[Alattab]

@pixelcruncher I believe it's essential to include a material or tab that simulates billboard elements and materials for which the user doesn't want to render; they only want to define alpha, mask, cast shadow, and receive shadow. This would enhance the value of Rayscaper. Sometimes, this feature is unavailable here, even though it's available in SketchUp, so I recommend it. You can see this in several programs like TheaRender, SimLab Composer, etc.

[pixelcruncher]

@Krass here's the fur example scene to try out: https://scenes.rayscaper.com/rayscaper-fur-example.skp

[Krass]

Thanks a lot!!!! Tonight I missed your post about the V1.0...
So exited to test the fur, tomorrow morning! Champagne!

[Alattab]

A "fake emission" texture type can be used to prevent shadows from being cast onto a surface.