Take care @majid !

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!

Hey @Mike-Amos ,

As @Rich-O-Brien mentioned, the metal material is a physically correct metal shader. So, there's no accurate artistic control. Rich made a metal library available, and I will also put that in the next release. For complete artistic control, the Disney material is what you want.

I will have a look at the picking bug. Out of curiosity, is the material directly painted on the faces, or is it painted on the object?

Cheers,
Thomas

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

@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!

Very nice renders, they make for excellent Rayscaper marketing materials

@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.

@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!

That’s definitely also a bug with software. I’m away this week so the next release will come a bit later, but it I will try to fix this there.

Good stuff mike!

You mentioned that auto-exposure is doing funky things? Is the image below using auto-exposure? If so, what does it look like without auto-exposure?

For the window glass, make sure you are using the glass material with thin & transparent shadows:

Cheers,
Thomas

Magnifique!

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.92 Beta is available as a hotfix release to fix asset thumbnail downloads failing in the asset library. I strongly recommend upgrading. You can get it via:

• The SketchUcation store.
• Direct download: Rayscaper_Win_0.9.92_Beta.rbz.

What Changed?

• Fix asset thumbnails occasionally failing to download in the asset library.
• Fix AO Distance slider having no effect in standalone AO render method.

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

Nice render!

@krass @sashapepperspray - I can reproduce the issue, I'm looking into it for the next release. I'm sorry for the delay!

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.91 Beta is available. You can get it via:

• The https://sketchucation.com/plugin/2677-rayscaper.
• Direct download: https://rayscaper-releases.s3.amazonaws.com/SketchUp/Windows/Rayscaper_Win_0.9.91_Beta.rbz.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

• Add tone mapping options — choose from ACES Filmic, Filmic (Hable), PBR Neutral, Linear, or Reinhard to control the look of your renders.
• Add color grading controls — fine-tune renders with white balance temperature, tint, and contrast sliders.
• Add auto-exposure — exposure now adjusts automatically to scene lighting, with a toolbar toggle and compensation slider.
• Improve asset library reliability — fix occasional failures when browsing or downloading Poly Haven assets.

Below screenshot shows the new post-processing capabilities:

Full release notes: https://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 https://x.com/rayscaper3d.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

@Mike-Amos If you don't like them, I can add a small feature to hide this panel so you can have more viewport?

@Mike-Amos said:

IMHO, there is zero requirement to "Load assets" full stop. Perhaps instead, just have links to load what we need at the time. It gets in the way and for me has little in the way of voracity for the render in hand. Sorry, just my ten pence worth.

@Krass said:

I don't entirely agree, especially since the assets are only loaded as links... the thumbnails are loaded, unless I'm mistaken. It's very lightweight and convenient. On the contrary, I'd like to have a whole catalog of PBR materials like this one, without having to manually enter each map. The catalog is available, for example, at https://3dassets.one/?q=&license=any&sort=latest, but we're not going to ask Thomas to do that work again.

Furthermore, the size and presentation of the materials is rarely done this well in a rendering program. Just take a look at V-Ray.

This is only loading the thumbnails. Loading the actual assets, which can be several megabytes, is done on demand. I.e. why you drag & drop an asset on your scene.

Having the assets at your fingertips is one of the reasons people like Rayscaper so much, so I'm not dropping that.

https://3dassets.one/?q=&license=any&sort=latest, but we're not going to ask Thomas to do that work again.

Happy to support more asset providers, as long as they offer them as cc0. I don't have the funds to license assets to ship with Rayscaper.

Cheers,
Thomas

@Krass Thanks for the log file, I'm looking into this.

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.87 Beta is available. You can get it via:

• The SketchUcation store.
• Direct download: Rayscaper_Win_0.9.87_Beta.rbz.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

• Add tri-planar mapping support for textures. Materials can now use tri-planar projection instead of UV mapping, which avoids stretched textures on surfaces without proper UVs.
• Automatically apply tri-planar mapping to PolyHaven materials when the model has no UVs. Downloaded materials now look correct out of the box without manual texture coordinate setup.
• Sort the material list alphabetically to match SketchUp's material panel ordering.
• Fix the Asset Manager sometimes getting stuck in a loading state when switching between assets quickly.
• Fix color space detection for opacity and roughness textures. These textures now render correctly when using automatic color space detection.
• Fix environment power slider feeling awkward near zero. The slider now smoothly blends to zero instead of snapping discontinuously at the far left.

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