Version 0.8.5 is out now: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76689

Hey folks,

Another bug fix release. I like to make fixes and good stuff available to users as soon as possible.

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.5 Alpha here.

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

Changes since the last build:

• Fix a failure when opening *.skp files that contain an incorrect path. The result of this load failure was that the Rayscaper settings were not correctly loaded.
• Support saving PNG images with non-ASCII characters in their path names.
• Fix a rendering bug when updating the normal map on the GPU.

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

Thanks for the update.

@unknownuser said:

2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| OIDN device creation failed: invalid physical device ID: 1
2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| Failed to create the open image denoiser, disabling AI denoise.

This still looks fishy, do you mind sending me the full log file? This means AI denoise is not working, which is one of Rayscaper's selling points... So it would be great if I could fix that.

Regarding supporting AMD graphics cards. That's in the cards for the future, but that work is not in scope for the 1.0 version.

Cheers,
Thomas

@fakebob said:

@fakebob said:

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!)!

An update, the plot thickens.

So my laptop has 2 graphics cards, an AMD Ryzen integrated and a Radeon RX 5500M that I run my external monitor on. In the interest of sound technical reasoning, I updated my graphics driver software (Adrenalin) to the latest version (24.1.1, released on 11/1/24), did a full reboot, etc. and then got sketchup open. It worked!

And the crashing on picking a material also stopped happening, (even though it did take a little time to get going for some reason).

So, moral of the story: if you're having crashes, update your graphics card software to the latest version first and see if it still happens.

I am getting a message in the log:

2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| OIDN device creation failed: invalid physical device ID: 1
2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| Failed to create the open image denoiser, disabling AI denoise.

What's that all about?

I'm gonna go play with this now!

Thanks for the update.

@unknownuser said:

2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| OIDN device creation failed: invalid physical device ID: 1
2024-02-04 08:07:38.919 (1293.107s) [PreProcessWorker] ERR| Failed to create the open image denoiser, disabling AI denoise.

This still looks fishy, do you mind sending me the full log file? This means AI denoise is not working, which is one of Rayscaper's selling points... So would be great if I could fix that.

Cheers,
Thomas

@ezequiel1982 said:

Hi! I installed on Sketchup 2022 and I'm getting the following error:

> Error; #<LoadError; cannot load such file -- /users/ezequiel/library/application support/sketchup 2022/sketchup/plugins/rayscaper/installed/Mac/2.7.2/0.8.4 Alpha/resources/SUEX_Rayscaper_SetDllDirectory>
> /Applications/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.7.1/lib/ruby/2.7.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb;92;in `require'
> /Applications/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.7.1/lib/ruby/2.7.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb;92;in `require'
> /users/ezequiel/library/application support/sketchup 2022/sketchup/plugins/rayscaper/main.rbe;84;in `<module;Rayscaper>'
> /users/ezequiel/library/application support/sketchup 2022/sketchup/plugins/rayscaper/main.rbe;5;in `<main>'
> /Applications/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp.app/Contents/Resources/Content/Tools/extensions.rb;197;in `eval'
> /Applications/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp.app/Contents/Resources/Content/Tools/extensions.rb;197;in `require'
> /Applications/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp.app/Contents/Resources/Content/Tools/extensions.rb;197;in `load'
> /Users/ezequiel/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp/Plugins/rayscaper.rb;16;in `register_extension'
> /Users/ezequiel/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp/Plugins/rayscaper.rb;16;in `<module;Rayscaper>'
> /Users/ezequiel/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2022/SketchUp/Plugins/rayscaper.rb;6;in `<top (required)>'
> 

Hey there,

Looks like you are trying Rayscaper on a Mac. We don't have a Mac version yet. We want to stabilize our Windows version before releasing the Mac version.

Regards,
Thomas

@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

@jo-ke said:

that looks much better

saving in a folder containing "ü" is not possible yet it caused this error:

Thanks for reporting! This will be fixed in the next release.

Cheers,
Thomas

@jo-ke said:

thank you. I didn't see this. solutions are so simple....

next problems:

is it possible to do an emitter with textures? like in my example the sign of the tramway?

why can't I get rid of the blue textures? they are textured in SU and all faces are frontfaces

This should be fixed now in Rayscaper 0.8.4. Here is the release post: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76686

The problem was that Rayscaper was not correctly handling faces that inherited their material from the parent group or component instance. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to this SketchUp feature.

Cheers,
Thomas

This version is superseded by version 0.8.4: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76686

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.4 Alpha here.

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

Changes since the last build:

• Fix a GPU rendering bug. The same scene, with the same configuration, would sometimes give different results when
  re-rendering the scene using the GPU.
• Support material inheritance. SketchUp faces that don't have geometry assigned can inherit the material from their
  parent instance or group.
• Fix the roughness control for glass and metal materials. Low roughness values look more reasonable now.
• Remove the spherical texture mapping option.

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

Hey folks,

Version 0.8.3 is out now, here's the release post: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76685

Cheers,
Thomas

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.3 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 opening a recovered SketchUp file.
• Update the SketchUp toolbar icons - Icons courtesy of Rich O' Brien.
• Fix a crash when we cannot create an OpenImage denoise device.

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:

I am talking about components that glue to face and cut an opening

Do you mind posting an example to help me understand better?

Thanks,
Thomas

Great work! Very realistic renders.

@sashapepperspray said:

two questions
are bump maps (height maps) planned to be added for materials?
are cutting components going to be supported (once hidden objects are)?
thank you for your work.

Yes, bump maps will be in the upcoming 1.0 release.

Are you referring to section cuts? They are planned for the 1.x release.

The Rayscaper roadmap is here: https://rayscaper.com/manual/roadmap/

Cheers,
Thomas

@majid said:

I did a clean installation, yet the toolbar is missing..
I think the denoiser refresh is less frequent maybe ...

I replied to your message, I need some more info.

Cheers,
Thomas

@majid said:

I was really busy recently doing my project. Just installed the latest version and tried it using the previous model. The toolbar does not show and when I start rendering many materials are missed and had to reload them manually. Also it seems slower to me...Maybe it is because my laptop is old and the GPU needs an update...
I will keep an eye on this post and pray for fast updates

Hey Majid,

Which version are you using?

You can get the toolbar back with this: https://rayscaper.com/manual/user-interface/#i-lost-my-toolbar - I renamed the title of the toolbar in a previous release, hence the reason it disappeared.

Can you share the log and scene where the materials went missing? The log is named SUEX_Rayscaper.log, see item 5 here on how to get it: https://rayscaper.com/getting-help/report-a-bug/

What is slower? Do the render times or the user interface feel slower? If it's slow, I consider that a bug

I will be releasing Rayscaper on a more frequent cadence now, have to get to 1.0.

Cheers,
Thomas

Hey folks,

You can get the test build for Rayscaper, Windows, version 0.8.2 Alpha here.

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

Changes since the last build:

• Fix the alpha channel for GPU rendering.
• Fix the texture scaling for faces that inherit their material texture from the parent group or component.
• Fix a crash when refreshing SketchUp materials in the material editor.
• Make sure the Rayscaper installation process works for users that run multiple SketchUp instances in parallel.
• Support loading image textures embedded in the skp file. Before this code change. Before this change, Rayscaper users could reload the materials from SketchUp to fix the textures, but these changes would be gone again after saving and reloading the file. Now, users should be able to retain their changes after reloading the skp file.
• Fix a crash when editing the scene after clearing the Rayscaper data. Also changed the clearing behavior, Rayscaper will not reload the data after clearing the data.

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

Very nice. I'm glad to see you are enjoying Rayscaper!

Happy to learn that grunge is not dead.

How did you achieve those little specks? It seems like dust on the lens; I'm pretty sure Rayscaper doesn't do that unless it's a bug.

The latest release post is here: https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=76669