This release is outdated. The latest release is now 0.8.12 Alpha, and it's highly recommended to upgrade. The release notes for Rayscaper 0.8.12 are here.

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.12 Alpha here.

Remember this is alpha software. Have a look here to see what that means.

Yes, we skipped the 0.8.11 and went straight to 0.8.12. There are a lot of bug fixes and improvements in this new release, so it's highly recommended to upgrade.

Changes since the last build:

• Fix a crash when plugging a procedural texture in the texture environment. The texture environment does not support
  procedural textures, and with this release we prevent that configuration in the user interface.
• Fix duplicate light creation, sometimes the same light would appear twice in Rayscaper.
• Improve the material preview scene, courtesy of Rich O'Brien from SketchUcation.
• Change the color for surfaces without a SketchUp material from an obnoxious cyan to a less obnoxious clay color.
• Display an error to the user when they try to pick a material on a surface that has no material assigned.
• Improve the render window icons, again courtesy of Rich O'Brien from SketchUcation.
• Display GPU memory (a.k.a. VRAM) usage in the render status bar.
• Don't trigger a pick when the user pans the render and releases the mouse button.
• Add keyboard shortcuts.
• Re-order the inputs of the Disney material, put more frequently used inputs first.
• Fix the scaling of SketchUp textures. Rayscaper will now correctly apply the dimensions configured textures that are part of materials that are applied to objects.
• Fix the loading of Rayscaper from directories with non-ASCII characters.

Quick Tips

• If this is your first time installing Rayscaper, have a look at our installation instructions.
• If you installed Rayscaper before, have a look at our upgrade guide.
• We also have a quick start guide with a free demo scene.
• The documentation is here. Documentation is a work in progress.

Reach Out

When you get stuck, have questions, give some feedback or just want to say hi. Don't hesitate to create a post in this forum (Extensions & Applications Discussions) or send me a private message. We have a documentation section on finding help.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

@sashapepperspray said:

Is it possible to make that if I insert a light in a component, all instances of the component get a light added?

Yes, improving the light component instances is planned for 1.0. As you already observed, lights don't work if they are part of a group or component.

Cheers,
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

I used the default settings

Do you mind mailing me the scene packed with the textures when you have time? You can pack the scene via the "Extensions > Rayscaper > Create Archive" menu. Can you also send me the log file? For some reason, it feels that the denoiser is not activated on your machine.

I appreciate your help!

Thanks,
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

today I started a new test with rayscaper.

finished render is still grainy and the texture at the picture on the wall messes up.

That render looks very promising!

There's a regression in the current release; textures are not automatically scaled when converted to Rayscaper. You can manually work around this by setting the scaling in Rayscaper.

Assuming your texture scale in SketchUp is in millimeters, the formulate is: 1 / ((texture_scale_mm / 10) / 2.54 inc/cm). So for this example: 1 / ((1828.8 / 10) / 2.54) = (1 / 72) = 0.013888 = 0.014. So basically the reciprocal of the size in inches.

Again, I will fix the option to sync this.

For the grainy noise:

1. How many samples/px have you configured?
2. Are you using AI denoise? That should resolve most of the noise.

Cheers,
Thomas

Very nice renders Rich, and thanks for the Rayscaper plug

And we have another release out, version 0.8.10

The full release notes are here: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76731

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.10 Alpha here.

Remember this is alpha software. Have a look here to see what that means.

Yes, we skipped the 0.8.9 release Rich O'Brien found a couple of bugs in 0.8.9, and I decided to fix these issues first and put them in 0.8.10. Thanks, Rich!

Changes since the last build:

• Fix a render regression with clearcoat gloss in the Disney material.
• Tweak the look of the thumbnail components, display a checkerboard when the image has alpha.
• Make sure the Rayscaper data is saved when opening and closing the Rayscaper window in SketchUp.
• Support pan and zoom in the render viewport.
• Fix black edges in the diffuse material on grazing viewing angles.
• Fix a crash when dropping an HDRI environment when there was no previous environment.
• Improve the user interface for image textures.

Quick Tips

• If this is your first time installing Rayscaper, have a look at our installation instructions.
• If you installed Rayscaper before, have a look at our upgrade guide.
• We also have a quick start guide with a free demo scene.
• The documentation is here. Documentation is a work in progress.

Reach Out

When you get stuck, have questions, give some feedback or just want to say hi. Don't hesitate to create a post in this forum (Extensions & Applications Discussions) or send me a private message. We have a documentation section on finding help.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

@ntxdave said:

@majid said:

Wow, some good news....

Since you are looking for a job, perhaps you should contact Thomas as well.

Really wish I could hire someone talented like you Majid, but I haven’t made a lot of money from Rayscaper yet. Last time I counted it was $0.0

I have been talking to Fletch from TR. He has been very gracious with his time and gave great advice. I asked him to try Rayscaper and give his opinion.

Cheers,
Thomas

Version 0.8.7 is available now. More info in the the release post.

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.7 Alpha here.

Remember this is alpha software. Have a look here to see what that means.

Changes since the last build:

• Fix a crash when deleting a material from SketchUp.
• Disable the live-link between SketchUp and Rayscaper when Rayscaper is not running.
• Represent the image texture configuration in a more screen-efficient manner.
• Support copy/past of light components.
• Add a splash screen for Rayscaper. The artwork is by the great Rich O'Brien from SketchUcation.
• Fix viewport matching. Rayscaper will now exactly match the resolution.

Quick Tips

• If this is your first time installing Rayscaper, have a look at our installation instructions.
• If you installed Rayscaper before, have a look at our upgrade guide.
• We also have a quick start guide with a free demo scene.
• The documentation is here. Documentation is a work in progress.

Reach Out

When you get stuck, have questions, give some feedback or just want to say hi. Don't hesitate to create a post in this forum (Extensions & Applications Discussions) or send me a private message. We have a documentation section on finding help.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

@ntxdave said:

Thomas, I received a PM from Fletch at TR this afternoon. I sent you contact information for them. Apparently they are willing to talk.

Thanks, Dave, for the introduction! I did send them an e-mail a while back, but I sent them another message just now.

Cheers,
Thomas

Release post for the latest 0.8.6 version: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76697

Hey folks,

Another release. This one supports geometry, object, and tag hide/unhide. Several people were eager to get this feature.

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.6 Alpha here.

Remember this is alpha software. Have a look here to see what that means.

Changes since the last build:

• Fix geometry updates when push-pulling faces. Sometimes, the faces adjacent to the one being pushed or pulled would not
  propagate to Rayscaper, leading to out-of-sync geometry in Rayscaper.
• Support hiding and unhiding of SketchUp geometry and objects.
• Support hiding and unhiding of SketchUp tags (layers).

Quick Tips

• If this is your first time installing Rayscaper, have a look at our installation instructions.
• If you installed Rayscaper before, have a look at our upgrade guide.
• We also have a quick start guide with a free demo scene.
• The documentation is here. Documentation is a work in progress.

Reach Out

When you get stuck, have questions, give some feedback or just want to say hi. Don't hesitate to create a post in this forum (Extensions & Applications Discussions) or send me a private message. We have a documentation section on finding help.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas[/list]

Quick Tips

• If this is your first time installing Rayscaper, have a look at our installation instructions.
• If you installed Rayscaper before, have a look at our upgrade guide.
• We also have a quick start guide with a free demo scene.
• The documentation is here. Documentation is a work in progress.

Reach Out

When you get stuck, have questions, give some feedback or just want to say hi. Don't hesitate to create a post in this forum (Extensions & Applications Discussions) or send me a private message. We have a documentation section on finding help.

Happy Rendering!
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

strange. when I open the file today it works fine.

strange geometrie disappereaed, materials are shown.

Yeah, so SketchUp sends geometry change events to Rayscaper. There are still a couple of outstanding bugs, so if an event is missed, you can end up with the wrong geometry in your render.

When you reload the file, Rayscaper reloads the geometry from scratch, which will be correct. So, reloading the file might work to correct your geometry. This is a workaround and not a fix. I'm working to iron out all the bugs in Rayscaper, and if you see weird geometry, please report it.

Thanks,
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

rayscaper and sketchupdiffusion merging in Photoshop is a nice combination.

weathering and organic forms are really the best in AI rendering.

Very nice render, I like the gloomy look.

Just thinking out loud, but it might be a good feature for Rayscaper to be able to do this out-of-the-box. Send the render to a diffusion model to create another image, then composite it with the original.

As a side note, the HDRI looks pixelated. If you are using the ones that are available in Rayscaper you might want to increase the default resolution. Disclaimer, this will result in longer download times and a longer time to prep your scene for Rayscaper.

@jo-ke said:

yesterday I started a new simple model.

the render looks weird. there is some geometrie, that is not visible at su.
blue faces are still there and they are not changeable

I send you the model.

Thanks for the bug report!

Yes, the bottom windows are not correctly aligned in their frames. Other users have reported bugs before where geometry updates don't propagate correctly to Rayscaper. And still, the cyan faces.

When I open the file, it looks good on my end, but that is because when Rayscaper loads the geometry from scratch, as opposed to modeling it, it will end up with the correct result. So, we need to fix the geometry updates during modeling.

Here's what I see.

Can you send me the log when this happens?

If the geometry does not match in Rayscaper, please tell me how to reproduce it consistently. This is a bug I'm chasing.

Regards,
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

when I try to use the materialsettings it is continously rendering and slowing down my machine.

Gotcha, so it's a matter of interactivity. I'm not sure what your computer's specs are, but here are a couple of things you can try:

You can decrease the number of render threads in the global settings. This will ensure Rayscaper is putting less load on your CPU. The downside is that this results in slower render times. You can configure the number of render threads in the application settings.

You can disable material previews. Rendering the material previews also takes up CPU resources. Material previews are also configured via the application settings.

If you have a capable GPU, switch to GPU rendering. Then Rayscaper won't use your CPU at all. Switching to GPU rendering is done via the render settings.

@fakebob said:

@pixelcruncher said:

@fakebob said:

Hi! This software shows so much promise! I'm excited more than when I first got kerkythea waaaaay back.

I downloaded the newest alpha 0.8.4 today because the 0.8.3 one just crashed my 2023 sketchup pro on either:
a) adding a sketchup texture/colour to a face or
b) opening the Rayscaper Start Render screen (it pops up then everything crashes)

Is anyone else having the same issue? I removed the previous version before installing the update.

Bob

Hey Bob,

Glad to hear you are excited! But it sucks to hear you are having such a bad first experience. Rayscaper creates a log file that should hopefully tell us why it crashes for you. Would you mind providing me with log files for both the crashes you are experiencing?

The log file is called SUEX_Rayscaper.log and is saved under the directory (%AppData%/Rayscaper). If you are unsure, we have more details here. Can you make it crash twice and get me those files? Then I can help you on your way to get something useful out of Rayscaper.

Regards,
Thomas

Oh, my! I'm sorry to have wasted your time, but I read the log file and realised I am using my laptop which has a Radeon RX 5500M graphics card...... which is not CUDA compliant. I should have read the documentation first!

I'll chalk this up to ignorance, and hope there's an Radeon RX version in the future (pretty please!)!

Hey,

Still Rayscaper should handle this case, and you should be able to use CPU rendering. Which is still reasonably fast. Also see our FAQ on this topic.

If it still crashes for you, I’m interested in those log files.

Regards,
Thomas

Nice render! Can you elaborate on your struggles with Rayscaper or how we can improve the material settings? Is it a documentation thing or something that's not working out for you?

Thanks,
Thomas