VRay Next for Modo Caustics - PLEASE HELP!

[peepo]

Hi

Im trying to figure out caustics for some crystals on to a ground plane, but getting no results at all. I've read https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY4MODO/Caustics and done this

1 moved my crystal material above the base shader, and given it it's own shader.
2 VRay Object Properties in the Shader and present and enable and caustics multiplier is set to 5
3 added a point light, with light lining so it does not affect the ground.
4 VRay light properties are present for this light and caustics multiplier set to 5
5 Under GI - Enable Caustics is ticked.

Please could you let me know what I am missing? Many thanks!

[peepo]

I found this on the forums https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...t-caustics-bug and downloaded the project file in the last post, but NO caustics show up - please see attached screenshot.

[vladimir.nedev]

You can check my post here : https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...681#post791681
It has an example scene as well as instructions.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[peepo]

Hi Vladimir

Thank you very much - this has given me some great caustics, however, there seem to be some a bug with VRay Next and the render outputs.

I did a local render using VRay standalone and could see the caustics - fantastic. I set up a Caustics render output and could see these isolated - fantastic. When it come to the files saved for each render output - the beauty pass shows no caustics, then caustic and spec map are completely black - different from the RE on VRay standalone.

Addtionally the spec map on the outputs is also completely black.

I can save the beauty pass using the disc icon from VRay Standalone and get a correct beauty pass - with caustics. This is different from that saved automatically by VRay Standalone, which does not show the caustics.

I tried to save the caustics layer from VRay standalone, and it crashed.

Please could you let me know is there a fix, - or how do I go back to VRay 3.7? I have many renders to get out and having major issues.

Many thanks!

[peepo]

...seems to be an issue with PNG files.- TIFF files seems to be absolutely perfect!

[boyan]

Hey, Pali,

Thx for the info, what DCC you have use to open the png file?

Cheers,

[peepo]

Hi Boyan

Thanks for the reply - I'll email you the scene file - it's quite small. Im just looking at the render images in Photoshop/Mac Preview. It's always worked before no problems....even with PNG files

Thanks

[vladimir.nedev]

I did a local render using VRay standalone and could see the caustics - fantastic. I set up a Caustics render output and could see these isolated - fantastic. When it come to the files saved for each render output - the beauty pass shows no caustics, then caustic and spec map are completely black - different from the RE on VRay standalone.

Addtionally the spec map on the outputs is also completely black.

I can save the beauty pass using the disc icon from VRay Standalone and get a correct beauty pass - with caustics. This is different from that saved automatically by VRay Standalone, which does not show the caustics.

Are you sure it isn't a permission issue, so the files don't get saved at all and you are looking at the old files ?
It's quite impossible for the beauty to be saved without caustics, as far as I know, they are baked in there.

I tried to save the caustics layer from VRay standalone, and it crashed.

You are on macOS, right ? When exactly did it crash ?

Please could you let me know is there a fix, - or how do I go back to VRay 3.7? I have many renders to get out and having major issues.

I am not completely sure about this, but maybe V-Ray 3.7 will work just fine with the V-Ray Next license. So you can just install it and try.

You can also try our V-Ray Next nightly builds here : https://nightlies.chaosgroup.com/mai...y4modo/nightly

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[peepo]

Hi Vladimir

Thanks for the reply:

+ I didn't overwrite - I remove old files each time before saving whilst I was testing. All of the other passes were fine. I've had PNG renders from the cloud, and also saved TIFF and PNG from VRIMG from the cloud, and PNG renders from V-Ray Standalone locally not have any spec maps on them. Not only for the same scene, but for multiple scenes, completely unrelated. They are still on the cloud if you need to check for debugging.

The images that you see in my previous posts show the difference between what shows on the preview and what was saved. Looking at it, not sure if it's in a weird colourspace? It seems like the highlights have been turned off.

+ Yes, Im on a Mac - I switched view to Caustics and clicked save, and then iV-Ray Standalone crashed.

+ Im going to stick with Next for now. It's taken me a long time to get something that I needed, so hopefully this issue will be fixed soon?

To replicate, all I need to do is send a scene to the cloud, output in VRIMG, and save as TIFF - no spec map.

Hope this helps!