@Rich-O-Brien OK, I am making some progress but not exactly where I want to be yet. Having some silly issues on where things are being saved.

Once again, thanks for your feedback and patience.

@Rich-O-Brien said in Rayscaper render.:

If you are referring to creating SketchUp materials then in SketchUp you can press F1 at any time to go straight to their help docs and get info on making material libraries.

If you are referring to getting just the bitmaps off Polyhaven then choose ZIP:

Then you can pick to just grab the bitmaps in whatever format you need.

OK, but for SketchUp, which format should I pick/download since SketchUp uses SKM files?

@Rich-O-Brien yes, I know how to do that. However, for my animation I wanted some better looking materials. Currently you cannot render animations in RayScaper (although @pixelcruncher has said that will be in a future release).

@Rich-O-Brien said in Rayscaper render.:

@ntxdave said in Rayscaper render.:

Can you point me to the source or is there a source for "free" materials you would recommend?

Poly Haven • Poly Haven

The Public 3D Asset Library

Poly Haven (polyhaven.com)

Those are already bundled with Rayscaper

OK, I went there and see one I would like to use, however when I downloaded it, it was a "blend" file. Yes, it is available in Rayscaper but I would also like to use it in SketchUp. Is there a way to do that?

@Rich-O-Brien
I like the material in the image you posted.

• Can you point me to the source or is there a source for "free" materials you would recommend?

• How do you add materials to Rayscaper?

I have redrawn the model completely to overcome some of the problems in the version I posted. One of the main things I did was draw the model at a much larger scale so that some of the problems will be overcome. I also made each segment of the panels that create the text are individual groups which should solve some of the goofiness that showed up in the version I posted. At some time later I will decide whether to resize the model to more closely match the original object or just leave it at the new (larger) size for rendering and animating.

Can you help me understand the issue related to orthographic? BTW: In the new model I used perspective as part of the camera settings. Should I stick with that or do something different?

I know this is a very simplistic model, but it is far different from what I have done in the past (car wash equipment and @Majid Alpha Inspired Sketches of buildings) so please be patient with me.

@Rich-O-Brien said in Rayscaper render.:
First, let me say I really appreciate your feedback. Although this model is very "elementary", it is far different from the type of modeling I have done in the past.

Now I will respond to your comments (positively I hope):

The camera is set to Orthographic which doesn't suit Environmental maps so you won't get the correct lighting.

OK, I will change that that in a future version.

Your textures applied to the main board are a herring bone floor texture. Not quite sure if that is correct? Unless it is some type of intentional choice?

Agree, this was not a good texture choice. Again, I will try to improve in a newer version.

Your texture for the 'font' are scaled to a large value which seems to clash with the tiny herringbone texture.

When you consider the object itself is 1.5" x 5.5" there seems to be a non-physically correct texture dimension.

The size I used when creating the model was based on the actual dimensions of the object I had received. Creating it at that size caused several problems (some of which you have pointed out). I will redraw at a much larger scale and then look at resizing later (not sure I will need to really do that though).

Hard to create a great or meaningful render if your textures are not physically correct. Having textures reflect real world objects and appearance helps sells believability.

The model itself has textures applied to both the groups and geometry within the groups.

If it was me, I would consider what it the object made of and go source a texture that helps sell that aspect. Polyhaven has loads of textures but most important is they tell you the size:

So if you make a texture using these in SketchUp you can set that size for the correct appearance.

I like the texture in your image much better than what I used and will do some looking around (including the site you referenced.

There really was no "font" (as I think you pointed out) The texture I used to "outline"/create the text was something I used to try to emulate what was on the item that was given to me. I might stick with that or try to find something closer to "real object".

Again, I REALLY appreciate your comments and hope I can use them to improve my model. This project has some meaning to me that I do not know how to share. As I said before, the original object was a gift that I found inspiring, and I would like to be able to create a got SketchUp version.

Was kind of hoping for some feedback.

@pixelcruncher said in Rayscaper render.:

Maybe the easiest is to attach one of those image files so we can have a look?

OK, I finally got a couple of the images so I can now share them.

Nice, it played a trick on my brain because it took a while before I saw the word "Jesus".

That is part of what triggered me developing the model in SketchUp

I also have done an animation that show creating "Jesus" one letter at a time. However, I have not found a way to create the animation using Rayscaper. If someone can tell me how to do that, I would appreciate it so a can "bring the model to life".

Currently, Rayscaper does not have animation support. But that will come with the next release, although that will only support SketchUp scene animations (camera & sunlight). How are you animating these letters?

In this case, my animation is a set of scenes animated. Yes, I am animating presenting the letters.

Did I also see/read that you are also looking into working with Animator?

Cheers,
Thomas

@Rich-O-Brien said in Rayscaper render.:

@ntxdave kinda hard to suggest improvements. Share the file

Although there are some problems in the model, I am sharing it here: Jesus Animation.skp

And here is the animation: Jesus Animation.mp4

@Rich-O-Brien Thanks @Rich-O-Brien . I will try this later.

I have some images/photos that I took with my iPhone that I would like to share, however, I am having problems opening them. They say that are PNG file but every app I try to open them with says they are not a valid file type.

Can someone give me some advice about how to open these files so that I can get them into a format/size that I can share on the forum?

One of the things I would like for people to see is that the item that was share with me, and the model I created and shared in the previous post is not really created the way viewers might suspect. The word "Jesus" was created by creating pieces that are attached to a wood block that outline the word. It was not created by adding text to the block. I found this kind of interesting and is what inspired me to create a model using the same technique.

@Rich-O-Brien Here is a new render using the approach you suggested.

I also have done an animation that show creating "Jesus" one letter at a time. However, I have not found a way to create the animation using Rayscaper. If someone can tell me how to do that, I would appreciate it so a can "bring the model to life".

OK guys, this is not a very good one, but I have been doing some fooling around and testing. First, I will share some pictures of something I received from a fried that I then did a 3D model of using SketchUp and then rendered with Rayscaper.

Here are some images of what i received: (OK, images too large)

Here is my render with Rayscaper:

I know this is not very fancy. I would like to have some advice as to how it might be made better.

Once again, I want to thank all of you for your responses. As I said earlier, this is not my first model and I have been using SU for several years. Just doing things far different from what I am working on now.

@Box was right on. I finally did it correctly and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to. My dimensions are slightly off (VERY minor) but I got it to do exactly what I wanted.
.

I have some other challenges but hope I can share what I am doing in a couple of days. You will all wonder what the heck was so difficult.

@Box said in Silly/Dumb Question about Guidelines:

Use the Tape measure tool.
Click on both ends of a known 12' length, then type 12" and hit enter, it will ask if you want to resize the model, say yes.

Thanks @Box , I tried something like that earlier but did not get it to work. I think I might not have clicked twice with the Tape Measure tool. I will try again (maybe not till tomorrow) and let you know what happened.

I have used SU for several years and am suddenly having these silly issues. What I am trying right now is a good bit different than the things I have done in the past though. Never too late to continue to learn though (regardless of age).

@Gus-R said in Silly/Dumb Question about Guidelines:

@ntxdave If it's to scale you don't have to scale the model. It should be easily "converted" to inches.

Go to Window: Model Info: Units and change it from architectural to decimal and select inches.

It's will be in decimal inches.

You can also change it on the fly using the plugin "Toggle Units."

Yes, I can change the units in the model but what I really need is to scale the model so that it now is in inches instead of feet. Therefore, if I drew an object that was 12' x 12' i would really like to scale it so that it is now 12" x 12".

With either of the methods you suggest (which BTW I appreciate) it does show the dimensions in inches instead of feet but I really want to convert (scale) things from feet to inches. So far, I have not found a method to do that.

Still another silly/dumb question: I have drawn a model but in order to use some functions, I had to draw it in feet and now I want to reduce it to inches. I am having a problem rescaling the model so that it is now in inches.

Can someone give me a good way to scale the model so that it is now accurate (or as close as possible) in inches instead of feet? I tried using the Scale toll and reduced it to .0833333.

@Rich-O-Brien Thanks Rich……making good progress.

@TIG said in Silly/Dumb Question about Guidelines:

You can't do that in one step.

I tried to find where I had read that but could not find it again

Do this.
Use the Tape-measure tool to make the first at 1/2" as before click to confirm, Select the guide line, and chose the Move tool, press Ctrl to invoke Copying, make the copy off 1/2" and immediately type 9x press Enter to confirm.
Now you have 10 guides at 1/2" spacing.

As several of you have mentioned, using the Move tool is the correct way to achieve what I was trying to do.

I want all of you who responded to know I really appreciate your feedback. I now have things working and hope to post something in the next couple of days using this process.

I have not been doing much with SketchUp lately (not wanting to go into a bunch details (health related) but things are getting back and participating again.

Again, thanks to all of the feedback.

I have a situation where I need to create multiple guidelines at the same distance. In this case, I want to draw 10 (or more) guidelines that are the same distance apart.

I tried clicking on the ruler tool and then clicked the Ctrl key. I then selected the starting point and gave the distance that I wanted for the guideline (in this case 1/2") and then I tried to tell SketchUp that I wanted 10 of the guidelines.

I typed 1/2" x 10 and then I get an error message that says the length is not correct.

This was the process I had found online but cannot get it to work.

I know this is silly, but I need some help it in figuring out how to do this correctly.

@pixelcruncher said in Rayscaper New Releases:

As a sanity check, you are using Rayscaper 0.9.72?

Yes, I have updated to Rayscaper 0.9.72. I am having ongoing problems. I will let you know more when I can. I will try to create a very basic file and show what I am see both if I generate in model and with render only.

It is probably going to be much later though. I want to get to the bottom of the problem(s) I am seeing.

OK, I just gave things a second go round and things are not generating correctly when I use the "render only" option.

Here is my SketchUp model which you can use for testing/messing around.
Test - 2.skp

@pixelcruncher said in Rayscaper New Releases:

Here's a quick video on how to use Rayscaper with Skatter. Still trying to get better at making video content

Thanks for posting the video. However, in the video you have generated the skattered items in the model. Now what you need to do is to turn on the “ Render only” option and then go to Rayscaper and see if the skattered items are generated by Rayscaper.

I think we are moving in the right direction. Just need to “work some things out”.