Phoenix Ocean and Vray sun fireflies

[chadstevens]

Hi, I am sure this question has been brought up before or I'm not doing something correct.

I am getting very bright highlights on the ocean surface when using the Vray sun.

I have exposure set correctly = Physical exposure with a ev of 14

using:
Linear multiply
Max ray intensity = 20.0
Gamma 2.2

Vray Sun Properties are default with New Hosek et al. model
Intesity Multiplier = 1.0

Here are a few images of the problem and my settings.





All help is appreciated,

Cheers.

[LudvikKoutny]

Nothing wrong with it. That's how it's supposed to work. Sun disc is quite small and extremely bright light source.

Here are some photos:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...n_in_ocean.JPG

http://i.imgur.com/Fh7AzxV.jpg

http://previews.123rf.com/images/nil...-sparkling.jpg

http://www.landscapehdwalls.com/sun-...he-ocean-1628/

The thing is that V-Ray by default does not render secondary lens effects, such as bloom, glares, etc... whereas these effect naturally occur whenever you take a picture with your camera.

So you can either enable Vray Lens Effects in Vray VFB to get those secondary effects and therefore make your image look right. But I would not recommend doing so as Vray Lens Effects does not do very good job at creating believable or good looking glares.

Ideally, you should add those in some sort of post processing package, be it Fusion, Nuke, Composite, etc...

If you really do not want so strong reflection to be there, you can reduce specular contribution multiplier in VraySun. But that comes with two drawbacks:

1, It will affect sun reflection on all objects of your scene, not just sea surface.

2, Your renders will likely come out unrealistic and odd looking.

[chadstevens]

Well the thing is I've had a look at some of the images that one of the phoenix developers posted and their image looks nothing like what I've attached.

see http://store.picbg.net/pubpic/D3/C2/...e93332d3c2.JPG by Ivaylo Katev

the highlights are still present but it looks a lot more natural and the glossy reflection decrease in size with distance from camera, whereas the image that I linked the "fireflies" are a constant size regardless of distance which is incorrect.

Here is another real life reference that Ivaylo Katev posted. http://forums.chaosgroup.com/attachm...1&d=1396851606

Just to add some more information:

This is what the image looks like when the light cache is still busy computing (Which is the effect I want in the final render)




Cheers.

[chadstevens]

Just to add something else,

I have changed the specular contribution and I have turned Affect specular off and the result is exactly the same.

This must be a bug of some sort,

The only way to get rid of the fireflies is to turn the sun to invisible but that gets rid of the reflection on the ocean surface,

Thanks for your reply,

If I figure out what's causing the problem I will post it up here.

Cheers.

[svetlozar.draganov]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]27920[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]27921[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]27922[/ATTACH]

Would it be possible to attach that scene for investigation?

[chadstevens]

Sure thing, here it is.

Note: There is nothing special about the scene just default Vray sun and a Phoenix simulated ocean.

Cheers.

oceanAndSunBug_cs_v1.zip

[svetlozar.draganov]

Show GI Only option is ON for some reason, with that setup direct illumination is excluded from the final render and the same looks strange.
Turn off that option and set some lower HGlossiness value for the water material and you'll get similar result as the provided reference images.

screenshot: https://ftp.chaosgroup.com/support/s...t-09-40-56.png
scene: http://ftp.chaosgroup.com/support/sc...Bug_cs_v03.max

[chadstevens]

Thanks very much.

I am not sure why it was on as I created 3 completely different scene's and got the same result.

Cheers.