ray trace depth?

[leabum]

How exactly does vray handle the trace depth of your lights/GI?
I know about the refractive caustics option which should be enabled, and the max depth settings in the Vray Mtl itself. Are there other settings to enable or limit tracing of rays?
For example a overall Max Depth for the whole scene?

[Alex_M]

If you are talking about the distance at which the lights stop having effect then you should check the Light cut-off threshold (at the bottom of https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...A/VRayLightMtl)

If you talk about number of light bounces after which Vray stops tracing rays then I think the only way to do it is to use Brute Force GI for Secondary engine, enable Use Local Subdivs and then adjust the Bounces parameter of Brute force to your liking.

[leabum]

Lets say I have camera which is looking through 5 windows/glasses. Will the GI scatter through all of those when Refractive Caustics is on and where is the limit? What about normal lights? Can I set how many times the rays of my direct lighting will be traced through refractive surfaces globally or on a per light level, or is this only controlled by the materials Max depth? In mental ray is an option to set the max tracedepth of all the materials and lights globally i think.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Lets say I have camera which is looking through 5 windows/glasses.Will the GI scatter through all of those when Refractive Caustics is on and where is the limit

The rays that pass through refractive objects are actually Refracted rays not GI rays, so through how many glass objects refractive ray will pass through depends either from Max Depth value in the material or from Override Depth in Render Settings. The same thing applies for direct light rays.