caustics and water

[res3d]

Im trying to get this caustic water effect on the walls here. I'm using a direct light with vray shadows set low becuase I dont want too srong shadows and the scene is mostly lit by the skylight. I used a noise map in the bump roleout to simulate or try to simulate water.
here are two links to images. one has the light whcih is causing caustics on and the other with the light off.

my question is how can I get the castics on the wall to look more realistic?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/146/3...92b3949b_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/3...d6977674_o.jpg

[dimo]

Hi,

I can recommend using the causticgenerator and generate a bitmap and project this with a few lights from different directions.
This is not physically correct but you can tune it until i tlooks right.

Best regards,

Dieter

[Da_elf]

actually realistically speaking skylight is too diffused to cause caustics. you would notice in a pool that when the sun goes behind a cloud that the caustics on the bottom of the pool go away. you need to have a strong direct light

[DaForce]

Have a look here @ my posts.

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...er=asc&start=0

Basically a directlight with vray shadows purely for doing caustics.

[res3d]

water

thanks for the file that helped soo much.

[DaForce]

no problem. Thats basically teh way I do nice quick caustics. Depending on your scene it may not work so well. But when it does, it sure is effective.

Show us what you come up with