volume caustics

[chuckie7413]

Hi guys,

I am just playing and wanted to create the new dispersion effect demostarted in the vray 2.0 max demo.

Is this possible in maya? I am using a nightly build that has the dispersion function in the vrmtl but i do not see any dispersion in my environment fog.

I have caustics enabled, an environment fog applied to my scene and the distances cover the scene scale.

But I get black renders.

Attached is my scene.

I am certain my settings are wrong. Probably with the caustics and fog. I am still very new to vray.

Many thanks,

Richard

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Here is a working example
dispersion5.zip

[chuckie7413]

Hi Ivaylo,

I downloaded the scene but cannot get it to render.

Initially when I load the file Maya states there was an Error when loading and then when I try rendering it just seems to halt

V-Ray: Starting render
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Loading plugins from "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack/vray/vrayplugins/vray_*.dll"
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: 100 plugin(s) loaded successfully
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Finished loading plugins.
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Exporting scene to V-Ray.
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Parsing light links time  0h  0m  0.0s (0.0 s)
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Translating scene geometry for V-Ray
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Total time translating scene for V-Ray  0h  0m  0.0s (0.0 s)
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Rendering.
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Rendering frames.
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Updating frame at time 1.00
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Total time updating frame  0h  0m  0.0s (0.0 s)
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Preparing renderer...
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Preparing scene for rendering...
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Preparing scene for frame...
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Compiling geometry...
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Building static raycast accelerator...
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: SDTree statistics:
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Total number of faces stored: 12
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Max tree depth: 4
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Average tree depth: 3.66667
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Number of tree nodes: 11
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Number of tree faces: 34
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Number of tree leafs: 6
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Average faces/leaf: 5.66667
[2011/Feb/9|16:46:49] V-Ray: Memory usage: 1.83 MB

I am using Maya 2011 x64bit SAP with vray build from Dec 3 2010.

Should I upgrade to a newer build for this to work?

Many thanks,

Rich

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Hm, strange. The scene is exported with the same Maya version, and the log is OK. Try this ASCII maya file.

[chuckie7413]

Still not working

Just halts at preparing to render scene.

Still get the error when opening the scene file. Here is the error in I get in Maya script editor.

file -f -options "v=0"  -typ "mayaAscii" -o "X:/RichardTest/scenes/vray_for_maya_proj/scenes/dispersion.ma";addRecentFile("X:/RichardTest/scenes/vray_for_maya_proj/scenes/dispersion.ma", "mayaAscii");
// Error: file: X:/RichardTest/scenes/vray_for_maya_proj/scenes/dispersion.ma line 258: The VRaySettingsNode 'vraySettings' has no '.mSceneName' attribute. // 
// Error: file: X:/RichardTest/scenes/vray_for_maya_proj/scenes/dispersion.ma line 258: setAttr: No object matches name: .mSceneName // 
// File read in 0 seconds.
// Error: Error reading file. // 
// Warning: Could not find an appropriate startup camera: top.  A substitute will be used. // 
// Error: Error reading file. //

Cheers,

Rich

[ivaylo.ivanov]

'mSceneName' was added on 12 Dec. Get some build from this year. Or delete 'setAttr ".mSceneName"...' line in the scene file.

[chuckie7413]

Hey Ivaylo,

Finally got the scene working.

So I was comparing the scene you sent me to the one I had made.

Seems the only difference is the intensity of the light and the caustic multiplier.

Your light had an intensity of 30000 but no decay. It seems that very high values are necessary for this effect to become visible. Is this due to the environment fog?

Even though the light has no decay, I take it the strength of the light matters to help pass through the fog medium?

Thanks,

Rich