Caustics section error?

[fixeighted]

I'm not sure who looks at this section but I'll post anyway

Regarding the entry for the Vray Properties for lights and how it relates to caustics, the docs say:

''Caustic subdivs – Controls the amount of photons that V-Ray traces to estimate caustics. Large numbers slow down the calculation of the caustics photon map and may take more memory.''

Then further down it says:

''Diffuse subdivs – Controls the number of diffuse photons traced for the selected light(s). Larger values mean a more precise photon map but take more time and memory.''

This isn't quite correct. I still don't know what Diffuse Subdivs actually does, as I can see no difference whatsoever with either the default value or 10x that.
What controls the 'quality' of the caustics is in fact the Caustic Subdivs value, which would make sense (and does).
Sorry to be picky but I thought it relevant.
Also I'd strongly argue for this information to be placed within the general caustics help page, as it directly affects the result and is part of the setup
This suggestion comes from just now directly helping someone with this exact problem.

Here is an example. The top uses the default 1500 and the bottom uses 12000 subdivs, with pretty much default caustics dialogue values.


Wrong section I know, but maybe this option should be within the actual caustics render dialogue, if that is even possible to implement....would make life simpler no?

[KristinIvanova]

Hey fixeighted ,

Thanks for pointing this out! You are right, the Diffuse subdivs take no effect on the caustics. The parameter is now considered to be removed from the UI in the future. The page is also corrected to reflect that.

ed. The Generate diffuse, Diffuse subdivs and Diffuse multiplier parameters were related to the old Global Photon Map GI engine, which no longer is available.

Cheers,
Kristin

[fixeighted]

Thanks for the response and confirmation.

I thought I could remember using the diffuse part in the past but wasn't sure...was a long time ago.

It's only a small issue but one that would I think confuse users, so it's beneficial that it'll be updated at some point.

I haven't checked the docs but would hope that all caustics info would migrate to a single reference page, to avoid
confusion and serve as a 'one-stop' info repository for those unknowing, or those that simply forget from time to time