caustics for idiots

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

They will be shown, but only if they are directly visible. Caustics seen through the refractive surface itself will not be.

For the spring service pack we are working in a solution for caustics that works well with the progressive sampler and can handle these cases much much better.

Best regards,
Vlado

Its a bout time to have a better caustic sollution. I'm so tired of having to change render engine to render efficiently my 9-10k caustic passes

[vlado]

Yes, now that we have the progressive sampler, it is a lot easier to implement multipass caustics compared to the bucket sampler.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Morbid Angel]

finally. my dreams come true. I can render caustics.

[Vizioen]

The ocean displacement texture that comes with the phoenixFD demo is incredible. You might be able to use it for pool water if you dial it down enough.

Not pool water but Tommi from work created this for the evermotion challenge using this Ocean texture. The only 'shopped thing about the water are the large splashes near the water's edge and the grading tweaks...

Surely this would create awesome geometry for caustics...


[ATTACH=CONFIG]21795[/ATTACH]

Tommi from work is Tamas Medve from MIR?

[peterguthrie]

They will be shown, but only if they are directly visible. Caustics seen through the refractive surface itself will not be.

For the spring service pack we are working in a solution for caustics that works well with the progressive sampler and can handle these cases much much better.

Best regards,
Vlado

Having to do caustics again and just wondered if there was any news on this Vlado? anything in the nightlies to test yet?

[stevesideas]

They will be shown, but only if they are directly visible. Caustics seen through the refractive surface itself will not be.

For the spring service pack we are working in a solution for caustics that works well with the progressive sampler and can handle these cases much much better.

Best regards,
Vlado

I'm curious as to if this solution would include some kind of photon overide for the light so instead of the photons for caustics being cast the same as the photons for diffuse etc you could control a cone that fires them much more tightly/specifically at an area ?

[peterguthrie]

just bumping this thread..

and also wondering if there is any way to render the caustics pass without rendering the main rgb pass?

[vlado]

and also wondering if there is any way to render the caustics pass without rendering the main rgb pass?

If you only want the directly visible caustics, turn on the "direct visualization" option and then turn on "don't render final image".

Best regards,
Vlado

[peterguthrie]

If you only want the directly visible caustics, turn on the "direct visualization" option and then turn on "don't render final image".

Best regards,
Vlado

unfortunately its caustics through water so no directly visible, unless there are some tricks like not renderable geometry or something?

[Neilg]

I've done that a few times. Turn off the water, render the caustics on black, camera project it back onto the object in an additive mode and render the full image with the water on.

[peterguthrie]

did i ever mention that I was looking for a better caustics solution?

cant remember if i posted this: http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/

[stevesideas]

That's very cool.

[vlado]

cant remember if i posted this: http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/

This one is done with an approach similar to photon mapping, same as what V-Ray uses, with the caveat that the whole code is designed for just the specific case of the demo. But now that you mention it, I don't see why we can't use a similar approach for V-Ray. Will need to do some R&D - whether it will actually be useful in practice I don't know yet...

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Are you specifically looking for the case of a water surface (pools etc) lit by sunlight? Because that one can be done quite elegantly...

Best regards,
Vlado

[peterguthrie]

this sort of thing, swimming pool, reflected and refracted caustics

caustics pass attached because i'm probably not allowed to share the actual image