Jul 16
water dynamics and caustics
experimentsTesting water dynamics and caustics, using 3d studio max reactor and vray.
While making these experiments, I wrote down some notes in order to remember what are the ingredients to achieve basic caustic effect.
Caustic Requirements
- Light Source with very high multiplier in the “vray object properties” tab, not the actual intensity of the light. The multiplier should be at least 15,000 and subdiv 2,500.
- Vray Caustics Panel, in the rendering settings: Multiplier should be set (2-4) it controls the brightness. Search Distance should not exceed (1) it controls the blur. Subdiv (1000-2500) is a good number.
- Object Normals, especially if a plane is used for water. If normals are flipped, the caustics will not work, so if you are having problems, double check your geometry.
So those 3 things are important to achieve basic caustics effect. Another thing to keep in mind is the water material refraction IOR. Reflection doesn’t really matter, but refraction IOR matters. When set to below 1.33 the caustics are less visible. I think it is best to keep it at default 1.6.
July 19th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Very nice… as most of my work is still images – it is very cool to see them move. would be great if you could offer the test scene to play with.
cheers
July 19th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Hi Ronen,
Thank you for comment, I will post tutorial soon along with max file.
Arthur
July 30th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
beautiful caustics, it looks perfect
August 1st, 2009 at 11:35 am
thanks man! I will try to create a quick tutorial for this scene.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:25 am
these are great!
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
one of the best 3d water caustics i’ve seen so far!
also very nice waves
curious about the tutorial ..
October 26th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
thanks Felix, I promise, tutorial coming this week!
February 28th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I have tried. but not good . can u help me?
March 11th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
tony, what part of tutorial are you having difficult with?
April 2nd, 2010 at 2:41 am
okay . i’m finish. but texture for brick ,can’t the seem for you. you can share for me? thanks