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.

Good stuff, dude! Creating rendering plugins is hard, but I see you know your stuff.

@ntxdave Sounds good!

@ntxdave - In your test file, it had a ton of geometry generated in the model. If I tried to re-create your scene again, step-by-step I got this:

Can you try to just generate the grass on the plane, a first step and see if that works?

As a sanity check, you are using Rayscaper 0.9.72?

@Krass I didn't modify the materials, just used them as they came from SketchUp. But it's possible ofcourse:

But maybe it's more intuitive to use the alpha channel from the color slot immediately if one exists?

And here are some teapots in the night

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

@ntxdave Sorry about that, this seems like a real bug. I will investigate!

@ntxdave Can you provide some context on what's now working?

As soon as you have a Skatter composition, click generate, and the skattered items should appear in Rayscaper. I will create a demo video later. It would be great if you could provide a screenshot (or video) of what youare seeing. Just saying "it doesn't work" isn't providing me much to help you.

Hey, Rayscaper users!

Rayscaper 0.9.72 Beta is available. You can get it via:

• The SketchUcation store.
• Direct download: link.

I recommend upgrading to the latest version.

What Changed?

• Rayscaper now supports direct integration with the Skatter plugin. Render-only Skatter data can now be ingested directly from Skatter, bypassing the
  SketchUp viewport. This offloads complex instancing and geometry handling to Rayscaper, keeping SketchUp responsive and lightweight during rendering.
  Perfect for large vegetation or scattering setups — just hit render and let Rayscaper handle the heavy lifting. (@ntxdave Thanks for connecting me with the Skatter people).
• Bugfix: push/pull geometry would not properly propagate to Rayscaper.
• Fix Rayscaper for SketchUp 2024, caused by a breaking change in the SketchUp SDK. Note: Going forward, Rayscaper will only support the latest three
  SketchUp releases because now that it's for sure that the SDK is not backwards compatible, it's too much overhead for me to maintain more versions. The
  current version supports: SketchUp 2026, SketchUp 2025 & SketchUp 2024.
• Make materials assigned to a SketchUp group or component instance work again. cc: @sashapepperspray

Here's a screenshot of a simple forest I created using Skatter:

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

That's a very cool axe!