Hey, Rayscaper lovers (and haters?),

Rayscaper 0.9.8 is available in the SketchUcation store . It has more improvements, so we recommend upgrading to the latest version

What Changed?

1. Fix a self-intersection bug causing dark lines in CPU renders.

2. Add support for a near-clipping plane to the camera. With the near-clip plane, you can configure a near-clip plane at a distance orthogonal to the camera, and Rayscaper will cut away all geometry before the clip plane. It's not as powerful as section cuts (which are planned), but it can help for some use cases.

3. Improve the sliders in Rayscaper:

   • Every slider now supports dragging.
   • Scrolling is consistent across sliders. Each mouse scroll wheel increment/decrement will step up/down by one slider step value. Holding shift will step up or down with 10x the slider step value.

4. Make global illumination (GI) the default render method for new scenes. Using approximate GI as the initial render method might give new Rayscaper users the wrong impression because of its non-physical hacks and limitations.

Happy Rendering!

@Box Thanks for sharing those pictures. It must be a hard life for sure I assume this is somewhere in Australia based on the Whitsundays reference.

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.10 is available (0.9.9 was a test release) in the SketchUcation store. More good stuff so we recommend you upgrade to this version.

What Changed?

• Support for SketchUp 2024.
• Add a panoramic projection mode to the camera.

• Add an orthographic projection mode. The camera is the Rayscaper equivalent of the parallel projection in SketchUp.

• Optionally sync the SketchUp field-of-view with the Rayscaper perspective camera. Note that the FOV in SketchUp differs from the value displayed in Rayscaper because SketchUp uses a vertical FOV value while Rayscaper uses a horizontal FOV.
• Add a focal length control to the perspective camera. This is coupled to the horizontal FOV. I introduced this for users who prefer to work with focal length instead of FOV.
• Add a toggle to turn DOF on/off explicitly.
• Express the depth-of-field effect with a blurriness value instead of lens radius. This should make it easier to control the DOF effect.

• Bugfix: Ensure the rendered image keeps panning when the render restarts. Before this change, the panning would reset on every render restart, which was annoying.

Happy Rendering!

@majid Hang in there friend, an opportunity for someone as talented as you will come.

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.13 is available (0.9.11 and 0.9.12 were internal test releases) in the SketchUcation store. There is more good stuff, so I recommend you upgrade to this version.

What Changed?

• Fix flaky material picking. Sometimes, material picking would not work, or pick the wrong materials. This is fixed.
• Fix a cursor problem after viewport dragging; sometimes, the hand cursor would not go away.
• This release also features a simplification of the user interface:
  • Add more readable icons for the Rayscaper window.
  • Improved editors for the scene settings with more intuitive controls.

Reworking the editors was a significant code change, so let me know if something is not working or some things don't make sense to you. I'm here to help!

I'm also on Twitter (X) now: https://twitter.com/Rayscaper3d/ - Please follow the @Rayscaper3d that will help me grow the community!

Happy Rendering!

Great news, on to better days, and keep up the good fight!

Hey, Rayscaper friends!

Rayscaper 0.9.15 is available (0.9.14 was an internal test release) in the SketchUcation store. A lot of fixes and new things so I recommend you upgrade to this version.

What Changed?

Improvements

Desktop Scaling

Some users complained that Rayscaper was not legible on high-res, especially with display scaling enabled. I added a configuration option to scale the user interface to make it more readable on such displays.

Fast Tone Mapping

Improve the speed of the tone mapping operations. All operations now run in real-time, even on big render resolutions.

More Intuitive Exposure Control

Make the exposure slider more intuitive. Negative values darken the image, and positive values brighten it—an exposure step value of one doubles or halves the brightness. A value of 0 means a neutral exposure.

More Zoom Controls

Add zoom controls to the Rayscaper toolbar and the option to fit the viewport.

Fewer Watermarks

Although Rayscaper is commercial ( and I think it is a very affordable piece of software ), I also wanted to reduce the watermarking to improve the experience for free users.

Bug Fixes

• Add the option to scale the user interface. This makes Rayscaper a lot more legible on high DPI displays.
• Bring back the capability to configure the following texture types (cc: @sashapepperspray):
  • Noise Texture
  • Uv Texture
  • Mix Texture
  • Checkerboard Texture
• Bring back the double-sided and fake emission controls for light-emitting materials (cc: @majid).

Help me build the community

I'm on Twitter (X) now: https://twitter.com/Rayscaper3d/ - Please follow the @Rayscaper3d that will help me grow the community and spread the word about Rayscaper!

Happy Rendering!

@Rich-O-Brien What an amazing result! Keep those Rayscaper renders flowing

This is a quick tip for those who want to keep the Rayscaper window always on top. You can do this with a nifty utility called Microsoft PowerToys.

• Install PowerToys.
• Bring the Rayscaper window to focus and hit CTRL + WIN + T. The window should have a colored border and stay on top.
• To turn off this behavior, again, hit CTRL + WIN + T.

Will work for other windows as well, not just for Rayscaper

@Mike-Amos

I would like to set GPU as the render default please, is this in the timeline?

Yes, this is in the timeline. @Rich-O-Brien asked for something similar. The idea is to save a particular configuration as the default and then load your preferred configuration whenever you set up a new scene. So, let's say your preferred default is "Approx GI" + GPU rendering. Every time you set something new up from scratch, that would be your starting default.

Also, the hearts un favourites (HDRI) seem to breed like bunnies on a motorway centre reservation. Can this be turned off please?

That's a nice way of describing it It's definitely a bug. The next release contains a big UI rework, and this should be fixed. Tap my shoulder if it isn't after the next release.

The orange and white (?) checker on the 'all HDRIs title here, what is that? Aberrant or intended?

Another bug, should be gone in the next release.

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.77 Beta is available. You can get it via:

• The SketchUcation store.
• Direct download: link.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

• Add Bloom and Glare post-processing effects. Enhance your renders with cinematic quality.
• Add visual feedback for render failures. A red "RENDER FAILED" text now appears when rendering encounters errors,
  making it immediately clear when something goes wrong.
• GUI enhancements: Improved sliders and tooltips. Sliders now have dedicated input boxes for more precise control.
• Fix texture environment image update. Loading a new HDRI would not restart the render.
• Bugfix: Fix grayscale image display in ImGui. Grayscale images were showing as red due to improper handling of
  single-channel pixel formats.
• Add procedural sky environment support. You can now create realistic sky environments directly in Rayscaper without
  needing HDRI images. Perfect for quick outdoor renders with physically-based sky and sun simulation.
• Add SketchUp environment tracking support (SketchUp 2025 or higher). Rayscaper can now automatically track and sync
  with SketchUp's environment settings.
• Add PBR material support for SketchUp 2025. SketchUp 2025's new PBR materials are now supported and will
  automatically convert to Rayscaper's material system with proper metallic, roughness, and normal map values. Note:
  Rayscaper does not support power/scale multipliers on image textures, so if your SketchUp PBR material uses a
  roughness or metallic texture with a scale value other than 1.0, that scaling will not be applied in Rayscaper.
• Bring back archive creation. You can now export your complete scene, including all assets, to a zip archive for easy
  sharing and backup.
• Separate max depth settings by path type. Advanced users can now configure maximum ray bounce depths separately for
  diffuse, glossy, and transmission paths for more control over render quality and performance.
• Bugfix: Fix FloatImageTexture color space handling. Float textures (like roughness and metallic maps) now correctly
  use linear color space for accurate rendering.
• Bugfix: Fix noise texture deserialization. Noise textures saved in previous versions now load correctly and don't
  crash Rayscaper. @sashapepperspray - This should fix the crash you saw opening your file.
• Bugfix: Avoid duplicate SketchUp shadow light. The sun/shadow light from SketchUp will no longer appear twice in the
  scene.

The following screenshot shows the user interface enhancements:

Render by @Rich-O-Brien using bloom & glare for more realism:

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 https://x.com/rayscaper3d.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

Good stuff @Mike-Amos - Nice hot rod, and happy to hear you are having fun rendering. We'll get those bugs sorted.

@tuna1957

Would you be interested in rendering this model with Rayscaper (https://sketchucation.com/plugin/2677-rayscaper)?

I'm trying to build something that appeals to the Twilight userbase. And having your feedback on what works and what doesn't would be awesome.

edit: And of course, a superb render, well done!

@sashapepperspray Thanks for the scene! I can reproduce it, so that will help me fix it.

@sashapepperspray

Thanks for the bug report.

Do you mind sending me a file where the first issue happens (i.e., the faces without materials)?

For the second issue, I can reproduce this with the temple model. I will have a look at it.

Regards,
Thomas

Hmm, I didn't get the 1st dibs joke But nice model for sure!

Sorry Pixelcruncher, that's my faulty translation... I really want to highlight Rayscaper! I love the photorealistic quality of RS's path tracing. I meant the opposite in my post and I've corrected it.

Phew I'm happy you like it!

@Krass

Compared to D5 Render Plus and D5 Render AI Enhancement, it's very mediocre!

What exactly is mediocre, or what are you missing? That helps me improve the software. Now I can only guess at what's mediocre compared to D5 render.

Cheers,
Thomas

Great news, on to better days, and keep up the good fight!

@Brighter3D said in [Plugin][$] Brighter3D rendering plugin (ready for SketchUp 2026) version 4.7.0 released:

Thanks, man! Appreciate the props—yeah, I've been wrestling with this for 12 years now. Good to see a fellow pro!

Jeez, now I feel very green! Congrats on sticking with it for 12 years. Rayscaper was first launched in February of 2024, so it's been around for almost two years. I should really get a beer with you; I might learn a lot.