water caustics + anim

I am not sure what the strategy is to show animated caustics (reflected from water). my problem is that i can only get the caustics to show up when the water is changed to a metal like material (falloff turned off). so, as i have seen in other posts, i rendered the scene with the metal like material - saved the photon map for the caustics - then adjusted the water material so it looked like water again - then re-rendered. I can’t see how this process would work for an animation where the surface of the water (and thus the caustics) is animated?

here’s what i have gotten just from rendering a still shot.
(first pass with metal like water)

(second pass using caustics p-map from file)

any reccomendations of how to do this?

any other help on how to sharpen up the caustics would be great too!

thanks,
sean

here’s the best effort that i could give:
http://www.proces2.com/vray/chuck\_caustics.wmv

please … any suggestions or tips on the caustics and/or how to make the animated water look better. i think it obviously looks too metallic. the water has very sharp edges becuase of the subdivisions and the animated noise modifier.

sean

sean, i have a good caustics file that i could send you.

email me and i will send it thru

Chris Jackson
cj@arcad.co.nz