Hey Mike,

I'm sorry to hear you're running into these issues with Rayscaper. Would you mind sending me this scene so I can have a look?

Summarizing your woes:

• Auto-exposure is behaving strangely. Mike, I'm still not sure what you mean by this.
• Geometry does not appear in the renders.
• Viewport shows CPU, while you have enabled GPU rendering.
• Rendering fails.

I think it's easier if you send me the scene and, preferably, the logs when such a render failure occurs (https://www.rayscaper.com/getting-help/report-a-bug/#1-export-the-log-files), so I can try to reproduce/fix these problems.

Thanks,
Thomas

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

I'm biased, but Rayscaper? Curious to hear from an experienced user what the gaps are to get people like you hooked.

IIRC, you were also experimenting with AI rendering. What are the gaps there for not making it a complete replacement for D5 render?

Nice, a breakdown would be cool!

@NeilNovotny We don't support texture emission yet, but it's on our feature list. For now, you can follow the tip @krass posted.

Cheers,
Thomas

Nice! What tool did you use to create these renders?

Do they land ready to go out of the AI, or did you have to modify them? Also, what's the polygon count for these models?

Good stuff, I guess: https://rerenderai.com/ ? How much control did you have over the end result, and how much did it cost to create an end image?

@alattab

You can download an installer here: https://rayscaper-releases.s3.amazonaws.com/SketchUp/Windows/Rayscaper_Win_0.9.85_Beta_Setup.exe - Can you try using the installer to see if it works better for you?

Regards,
Thomas

@Alattab, I will have a look at this and maybe provide an installer. I'm not sure what happened here right now. Will get back to you.

Thanks,
Thomas

@Krass These settings have no bearing on the animations that Rayscaper renders.