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!

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

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!

@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.

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

Well done @Mike-Amos !

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Another release, finding my groove!

Rayscaper 0.9.34 Beta is available in the SketchUcation store. More fixes and improvements. As always, I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

Improvements

Pause/Resume

Works as advertised. Pauses the render and resume at a later time.

• Internally, Rayscaper uses the meter as the scene unit. I made that more explicit in some inputs by having a unit. I will follow up with a feature to configure display units for folks who like something different than meters.
• Improve the speed of the picking operations.
• Display the material we are hovering over when dropping a material/texture on the viewport. This makes it clear where the dropped texture or material will apply.

Bug Fixes

• Fix the specular tint texture slot. Loading an image in this slot would load it in the normal map texture
  slot.
• When applying a custom material (i.e., from the material library) and subsequently modifying the material. These
  changes would not persist on saving. This is fixed in the current release.
• Fix a scrolling/clipping issue in the render viewport.
• Lights would get an empty name after modifying the light component (for example, moving the light). This is fixed.
• Fix an application freeze caused by light selection.

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!

If you like Rayscaper, please share your renders (final or work-in-progress, it doesn't matter)! This is super motivating and will help me showcase its capabilities to new users.

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

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Another release!

Rayscaper 0.9.36 Beta is available in the SketchUcation store. More fixes and improvements. As always, I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

Improvements

Auto Focus

• Add autofocus for DOF to the perspective camera. With autofocus, Rayscaper will automatically use the distance to the center 3D point in the rendered image as the focus distance (if possible).

• Make the depth-of-field (DOF) blurriness easier to control. The range goes from 0 to 1, but if you need more blur for
  your scene, you can punch in a higher value directly in the slider text box (CTRL + click).
• Make the depth-of-field blurriness slider logarithmic. This gives more control for low blur values.

Bug Fixes

• Fix the normal map strength control.
• Fix a crash when exporting the scene to an archive.
  Spotlights with a falloff of zero would not render on the CPU. This release fixes that.

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!

If you like Rayscaper, please share your renders (final or work-in-progress, it doesn't matter)! This is super motivating and will help me showcase its capabilities to new users.

Happy Rendering!

Very nice renders, they make for excellent Rayscaper marketing materials

Nice resource! I should ask if they want to make them available in Rayscaper.

I highly recommend @majid 's video if you want to learn more about Rayscaper. Majid has been using Rayscaper since its inception (not long ago ) and has extensive experience with other visualization software.

Thanks for producing this video @majid

Cheers,
Thomas

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Another release with some bug fixes. Thanks for reporting all those bugs!

Rayscaper 0.9.64 Beta is available in the SketchUcation store. As
always, I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

• Fix weird artifacts in the interactive render viewport.
• Fix the upside-down images when saving.
• Add transmission support for the PBR material. This makes it possible to create glass or liquid materials with the PBR material.
• Fix a regression when renaming light components. Rayscaper lights should now correctly use the name of their SketchUp light component again.
• Fix glass rendering, when multiple glass surfaces overlapped, Rayscaper would render them too dark.
• Fix the render timer in the viewport. It will stop counting when the render is paused or finished.

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 Twitter.

Happy Rendering!

Well done mate! Love the styles.

When I used VRay when opening Vray Asset Editor tool you have buttons to start/stop rendering with the ability to run real-time or non-real-time rendering (push and wait to see result).
And since I have used it for a long time I am accustomed to that UI, your is quite good, and like I said it is just a matter of spending some time with UI to get accustomed to it.

The start/stop buttons are a must, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I will make sure that happens soon.

It's not as feature-rich as Vray, but I hope the UI makes sense for users new to rendering and users with prior rendering experience like yourself.

For me, it doesn't save scene settings when I am done with the rendering and after reopening skp it goes to CPU rendering and pic size of my Sketchup window.

Another user (@Mike-Amos) reported the same bug. I can reproduce it and plan to have a fix for the next release.

Please, use my picture to promote Rayscaper, this, and any I post later.

Thanks!

Regards,
Thomas

@majid Just one side of the plane is enough. Do you have an example render or example scene so I can take a look?

Cheers,
Thomas