topic Vray caustics appears dotted in 3ds Max Shading, Lighting and Rendering Forum

Vray caustics appears dotted

tasamandic.am — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 20:18:14 GMT

Hello everyone.

I'm trying to get caustic on my renderer, but I'm not getting the desired result. The caustic looks dotted and unrealistic, and the points of light are reflected on other objects, as if it were a disco ball and not water. You can see my settings and share with me the solution if you have one.

The settings are Noise map for Displace of the water and caustic settings. Also there is final render to see what the problem is.

Thanks!

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

RobH2 — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 06:13:55 GMT

This is definately a caustis settings issue and not a bug or Max issue. You might have good luck posting this at Chaos also. Caustics can be very tricky to get right. I think there are a few good tutorials on YouTube. You might want to look at a couple of those and see if they talk about the settings that affect what you are seeing.

Betreff: Vray caustics appears dotted

MartinBeh — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 08:24:23 GMT

If I may add - for this type of use (outdoor swimming pool caustics) there might be some nice hacks to achieve a very similar result with much less hassle if you do not perfect realism. Try searching for "fake caustics".

Here are some quick search results:

https://lesterbanks.com/2011/06/allegorithmic-posts-free-animated-substance-caustics/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_l9oxi55Mc

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

tasamandic.am — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 09:58:22 GMT

Thank you Rob. The thing is, I literally watched few tutorials and tried their settings but it always comes the same. I thought maybe some other settings I'm missing that are not for water material or caustics...

Betreff: Vray caustics appears dotted

tasamandic.am — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 10:00:13 GMT

Thanks! Definitely trying that if I don't find solution for real caustics..

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

RobH2 — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 13:49:30 GMT

Sometimes effects like this can drive you crazy. I'll spend hour making little tiny tweaks. Sometime I find a huge difference in something that is really small like .015 changed to .0145. I usually try every parameter and if it's not not working I try large ranges first and then get back to the default.

For instance, if the default it '5.0' and nothing is working, I'll try 50 or 500. If worse, I'll try 0.5 or 0.05 until something starts to go the right way. You have to do that for every parameter sometimes. It can take a long time. But you also have to look for some setting that you'd never think about, something that only a tutorial or post might talk about. I was tearing my hair out on something once and then a tutorial said, "make sure you turn off ..."(some setting)" or it won't work right" and that setting was completely somewhere else that you'd never guess. For caustics, light is important. Make sure you have the right type of light and the necessary settings in it.

I wish I could be more helpful. I've only needed caustis a few times so I don't recall what I did. If I run across something useful I'll come back and post it.

Edit: I just thought of something, for the water material, I think you need to turn off 'Affect Shadows' in the 'Refraction'.

Anyway, good luck figuring out good settings.

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

tasamandic.am — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 13:22:12 GMT

Yeah, I've done the same as you thousand times but for this I'm just desperate...Seems like everything I do is not helping so that's why I finally asked community. I'll continue trying..

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

RobH2 — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 13:52:16 GMT

I hear you. Can you post the scene? I'd be interested to take a look at it.

And you posted to the VRay Forum? I find that the experts there will often give you great and fast answers.

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

RobH2 — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:01:29 GMT

Have you seen this tutorial? He provides a file as well. I just downloaded it and rendered it and it looks really good out of the box. Maybe you can copy the settings or reuse the materials, etc. I attached a screenshot of my render.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6h0SlAelz4

Re: Vray caustics appears dotted

tasamandic.am — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 16:41:26 GMT

I downloaded files from tutorial and in that file rendering works but when I merge it to my file, it stoped working (coustics gone). I also tried to copy setings, didn't help...

Here is the WeTransfer link with arhived scene.

https://we.tl/t-jSwDuZgFAy