Pool interior with caustics

[Junglejuz]

My second vray interior. 1 direct light, 2 photometric downlights.

The caustics are more visible in the divx animation here:
http://ivolvestudios.com/images/pool.avi

I found it impossible to get the caustics happening on the bottom of the pool, no matter how many settings I tried. If anyone has had any success with this or has any useful suggestions, I am all ears.

Thanks. Hope you like the images.

[proces2]

i know its faking it, but in an animation i used a standard light that used an animated noise map as a "projector" map. For the noise map, i used fractal noise, adjusted high and low values, and animated the phase value. you could set the projector light to only include the underwater surfaces.

sean

[vlado]

Junglejuz, you seem to be getting light and shadows from the windows onto the bottom of the pool... which is what caustics is.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ultra]

i saw the animation, when it just starts and the camera shows the pool longitudinally, the light from the windows seems projected on the surface of the water, actually you cannot see the bottom of the pool ....

mauarduz

[586]

Y'know, in the very first Chaos forum, someone created a scene with a pool and it had real caustics in it. This person even uploaded the scene file, and I remember rendering it myself. Does anyone else remember this?

[Psy]

yes. and he even provided his settings too, in case u couldnt open the scene file.

want me to dig up the scene if i can and post it here?

[586]

Yes, Psy - Please!!!!

[maxer]

CYM..586

[Psy]

or maxer can do it......

[sketch]

maybe you'll want to lower the water line in your pool... if even one person gets in it's going to overflow

[flipside]

I did a test with caustics in water. It was pretty easy, but when you place a glass in front of it, the rays that hit the water surface are not direct light anymore, so they will not produce these nice caustic patterns on the floor. To have this, enable generate caustics for the glass, or render without glass first and save the photon map to render with the glass ON.

Here's my little test (without any glass in between light and water surface):

[586]

Cool! There should be an addendum to my Caustics 101 tut to cover turbulent or wavy water.

[FutureMan]

Flipside:How did you do the water in that test? Did you use Realflow or just a plane/box with noise? Also what were your settings like?

[Junglejuz]

Sketch: maybe you'll want to lower the water line in your pool... if even one person gets in it's going to overflow

The pool is actually designed to overflow, hence the drains surrounding the outside of it.

Vlado: Junglejuz, you seem to be getting light and shadows from the windows onto the bottom of the pool... which is what caustics is.

The light at the bottom of the pool is direct light penetrating the surface of the water but I am wanting to get the nice wavy patterns on the bottom from the ripples on the surface.

proces2: i know its faking it, but in an animation i used a standard light that used an animated noise map as a "projector" map.

That's a good idea for speeding things up but i am still curious as to how to get the real thing. Call me a purist

flipside: that's a nice little render. Do you need to use photon mapping to create this result or can I get the same result using an irradiance map? I have tried removing the glass and rendering with both methods but still no caustics. I haven't had that much experience with photon mapping yet. The renders seem to come out much darker. Anyway, I'm starting to wonder if my water doesn't have enough turbulence or strength in the bump map. Possibly the water is too deep??

Any more ideas?

[flipside]

I just used a plane with a noise map.

I also used irradiance map, you don't need GI at all to have caustics. But indeed your bump is not very dense and high, and also the water area lit by the direct light is pretty small, so you probabely don't see the wavy pattern caustics. Set the caustics multiplier to something very high and try again (use low caustic subdivs in the light properties for fast testrenderings). Also testrender a view where you see more of the pools bottom, because I'm not sure where your caustics would fall.

I'll try a new test and post it later, something more like in your scene.

Regards,

flipside