Reflective GI

[Da_elf]

would reflective caustics reach the bridge that high up. i would think they would diffuse to a blur

[studioDIM]

They do, DaElf.
I had to reduce the number of photons to interpolate a lot not to have them look like a blur

Lele

[Unrealmirage]

physical sky clouds

StuidoDIM, nice sky in the original file, however I am forced to use a bitmap envrionment because I want clouds. I am using DreamScape to get the sky tint across the image background from the Dreamscape sun, looks ok but really the gradiation doesn't look as good as your vray physical sky. I found a site that talks about how this is overcome for mental ray, is there someway this can be utilised in vray? http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/20...l-ray-sky.html Maybe this topic has been hit on allready somewhere else.

[Unrealmirage]

Increasing the caustic multiplier adversely affects the water, really blows out the water color. Instead of feeling like the scene is in New Jersey it looks like the bridge is on some Tahitian reef. I’ve tried setting the water to not receive caustics but create them and playing with the object properties for receiving gi, etc. Caustics, reflective gi, and refractive gi all seem to over brighten the water. That’s why I was thinking about faking it. I can get the light to bounce up and hit the bridge but it messes up my water, if it wasn’t for the refraction I’d be set.

[DaForce]

You want to set the ground beneath the water to not recieve caustics, not the water itself.

[Unrealmirage]

Thanks! going to try that now