This tutorial shows you how to easily create cool caustics effects in mental ray with 3ds max. Caustics through mental ray in 3ds max cgcreativeshop. Mental ray is a famous renderer used by movie industry to generate visual effects in some wellknown movies with outstanding visual quality. In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. However i only explain the basics and dont go too deep into how they work i hope you learn some thing here. Nvidia will no longer offer new subscriptions to the mental ray plugins for maya and 3ds max, as well as mental ray standalone from november 20, 2017 onward. The real question is whether or not its possible to create a material that applies the caustics to the geometry below it. Otherwise, vray will store the new photon in the photon map. To improve the quality of the caustics go to light properties and put a very high number in average caustic photons per light. Faustics produces beautiful caustics effects and these are extremely fast to render. Understanding caustics for a higher level of realism in your renders. Daniel sanchezcrespo universitat pompeu fabranovarama technology.
Creating light caustics using mental ray in 3d studio max. Oct 29, 2009 but if we activate the caustics, thus allowing the light to cross the water, generate caustics, projecting towards the bottom and upwards then the result changes. Faustics is a maxscript for creating procedural water caustics effect in 3ds max, easily and quickly. This post has been updated vray caustics v2 i went on holiday, i spent two wonderful weeks in zante thinking in a vray sea simulation and i must confess it. The settings for generating and receiving caustics are on the object properties dialog mental ray panel. So for each point on the floor, we assume that it is lighted by the vertical light ray through the water. Generally, the illumination distribution of object surfaces needs to be computed, but these are really timeconsuming and difficult. Rightclick and choose properties, then on the mental ray panel of the object properties dialog, turn on generate caustics. To evaluate the rendering quality of our result, we compare the images generated using our technique with the images generated using mental ray available in maya 2010.
The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Or the light bouncing on the sides of a boat when its in water. Water caustics the distortion and concentration of lights through a transparent medium think of the refelcted light patterns from a swimming pool, and the light patterns under the waves. The water caustics effect was created by indigo ray in filter forge, a photoshop plugin. Refractive caustics rendered with the default of radius turned off. The controls in this rollout are for the effects of caustics and global illumination. After seeing the results obtained with luxrender on this page, i was curious to try and reproduce beautiful caustics in cycles such as these i created a scene and added some lights, following the advice given in this video to create the materials, and also trying out other materials i find it hard to find much documentation on caustics within cycles.
Learn how to use particles and opacity maps to create smoke, fire or water using 3d studio max. Understanding caustics for a higher level of realism in. Set photon emit radius vray sun increase caustics subvids vray properties vray sun exercise. I was under the impression that the iray renderer is a physically accurate renderer, so how c. This is a small section explaining my exploration into recreating caustics using mental ray. We can simulate this effect with autodesk 3d studio max perfectly. Heres an awesome method for creating photorealistic swimming pool water with vray caustics effect. Apr 21, 2008 real caustics calculation needs intersection tests between the objects and the viewing ray reflected at the water surface. In this weekend video i explain how to caustics works in 3ds maxs mental ray renderer. If there is already a suitable photon in the map, vray will just add the energy of the new photon to the one in the map. Preparing global illumination and caustics for rendering.
Tips for setting up caustics in mental ray when working with caustics, a powerful feature that should be utilized is the map visualizer in mental ray. So the caustics will be formed easily when light travels the shortest distance from the moment they enter the water to the moment they hit the floor. Understanding caustics for a higher level of realism in your renders working with caustics in your render is an essential step in creating highly realistic renders that closely mimic the way that light interacts with reflective and refractive surfaces in the real world. Render with caustics maya 2016 autodesk knowledge network. The same technique can be used for computing the caustics due to reflection off the top of the waters surface a ray hitting the surface of. As you already know, we will use the mentalray renderer to render caustics. If you think this value might have changed for the objects you want to receive caustics, use those objects object properties dialog to make sure receive caustics is turned on. Waterbox caustics mental ray and 3ds max clint diclementi. Rightclick and choose properties, then on the mental ray.
There is something hypnotic about the way water interacts with light. Set the current pass and choose render render renderer options from the render toolbar. Caustic rendering, caustics, hlsl, ocean water shader, ray tracing, water shader however environment mapping is supported by graphic hardware, it is only good approximation in the case where the reflectingrefracting object is small compared to its. Backward ray tracing works in the reverse manner beginning at the surface and determining if there is a direct path to the light source. Faustics with water caustics effect in 3ds max free. In this series of lessons, we will discuss different methods for simulating the effect of caustic patterns created by moving water. Indirect illumination options including final gather, caustics, and global. For more information, see the light caustics subdues example below. Caustics are really great light effects that can be observed in liquids, glass objects and gems. I know its ppssible to mask out deep regions of the geometry below based on screen depth, but having caustics conform to the geometry of the water bed is obviously a different matter. Heres a whole stepbystep method for making amazing swimming pools that just. Caustics generator this is a neat piece of software that enables you to generate a series of images that when put together as a sequence produces moving caustics.
Make sure you have already defined global illumination for specific objects and lights in your scene. The rendered images are ideal for use in realtime graphics such as games and simulations, but can also be used for architectural renderings, film rendering and advertisement renderings where water needs to be illustrated. This tutorial about caustics will work only if you enable mental ray. Joep mastered mental ray rendering by repeatedly throwing himself into its cold deep waters. Creating beautiful caustics in cycles blender stack exchange. Same goes to the water shaders, just set the refraction to 1. Caustics are really great light effects that you can observe in liquids, glass objects and gems. Caustics through mental ray by mario malagrino, italy caustics are really great light effects that you can observe in liquids, glass objects and gems. The quality of the caustics are controlled by the few options in light attribute editor and in the mentalray render globals options. By default my mental ray caustics effect is far too strong.
The global illumination panel appears only when the mental ray renderer is the active renderer. Caustics are the effects of light cast onto an object via reflection off or refraction through another object. Unfortunately, also the rendering time i hope you liked my simple tutorial about vray caustics. To set the number of caustic photons emitted from the light source, select the light and go to its attribute. First, i prepared the scene for iray, changed lighting to mrphysical sky with sun scale 1, corrected the exposure settings, and lowered caustics multiply to 1 physically correct value and did test renders with mental ray.
A fast rendering technique of transparent objects and caustics. Understanding caustics for a higher level of realism in your. One of the most exclusive and impressive features offered by vray is the use of caustics. We are able to simulate this effect with 3d studio max perfectly. I investigate various methods of simulating water surfaces and associated caustics. Caustics through mental ray in max2012 pool caustics help needed in the tutorial you linked to, the surface of the water is a box but you built it as a plane. I was curious about the quality of renderings produced by iray compared to mental ray. Lets increase the realism by using mental ray to create caustics effect with the diamonds. Select each object you want to generate caustics, either by reflection.
Get your kindle here, or download a free kindle reading app. This change does not affect existing licenses of mental ray standalone, which remain valid. Some examples of 3d raytraced caustics can be found here. Caustics have to be enabled in three separate locations. To see progress messages when rendering, set verbosity level to progress messages in render render current frame or render batch render. Adjusting caustics when first applied, caustic effects arent always visible, depending on your scene.
For information on setting up lights for global illumination, see setting photon casting, receiving and visibility. Therefore, in the adjacent image, the caustics can be. Hey mike, would you ever consider 3ds max or zbrush tutorials being put up on your channel. A filter designed to submerge your image beneath the sea. To render caustics first, make sure at least one light source in your scene emits photons see turn on photon emission for a light source. Causticcasting objects are recommended to have a low diffuse shader, for example, phong set to 0. Caustics generator is a software application that will let you render such caustics light patterns. The engine is able to render various scenes at interractive framerates. The first one is the caustics produced by the water surface and the second one will be caustics from reflective surfaces as mirrors or metal surfaces. Caustics through mental ray in max2012 pool caustics. Aug 03, 2015 heres an awesome method for creating photorealistic swimming pool water with vray caustics effect. On the gi and caustics tab of the mental ray render options property page, activate enable for caustics andor global illumination. This allows you to see the photon placement directly in your viewport.
Faustics produces beautiful caustics effects and these are extremely fast to. The scenes created using faustics can be rendered without the script. Caustics through mental ray by mario malagrino, italy step 4. Rendering realtime caustics in webgl evan wallace medium. One trick to quickly get nice and sharp caustics is to lower the number of interpolated photons. Jan 07, 2016 the same technique can be used for computing the caustics due to reflection off the top of the waters surface a ray hitting the surface of the water both reflects and transmits light. Caustics with mental ray this tutorial shows you how to easily create cool caustics effects in mental ray with 3ds max. Light caustics are light shapes created on the floor when ligh passes through certain glass objects such as a drinking glass. Caustics through mental ray in max2012 pool caustics help. This time we will learn how to set the caustic effect in mentalray for maya.
Realize your vision with stunning renders of your 3ds max projects that can only be. Maxscene file 3d max 2009 without the water falls objectcan be downloaded here. We will begin by exploring caustic photons in mental ray, and how they can realistically interact with a water surface to create refracted bands of light. If you want to create crystal or diamond shaders you will have to use higher refraction values just the refraction values table on the internet. Load the second scene from the zip file, the scene02a. Pabico definition caustic optics, the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. Caustic lighting effects 3ds max 2016 autodesk knowledge.
This is necessary to have a caustic effect on the objects. Search dist when vray needs to render the caustics effect at a given surface point, it searches for a number photons on that surface in the area surrounding the shaded point search area. I rendered this scene with the mental ray renderer and set it up to generate caustics image attached i then switched over the to iray renderer and realised it did not render the caustics image attached. Sep 28, 2012 in this weekend video i explain how to caustics works in 3ds maxs mental ray renderer. Vray caustics simple tutorial to understand it cg blog. To create the small waves on the surface you have different possibilities or with a material or by polygons. Contains metal, gold, glass, leather, wood, concrete, ice, skin, food, fabric and much more. A glass ball casts caustics and shadows on a teapot. By using this function you can create physically accurate water bodies on the cheap. Now open the render window from window rendering editors render view.
How to setup caustics in vray pool tutorial cg blog. Current customers who have purchased licenses from nvidia will continue to receive support, software updates through our advanced rendering forum for the remainder of their subscription. Caustics are formed in the regions where sufficient photons strike a surface causing it to be brighter than the average area in the scene. In this tutorial ill teach you how to make a picture of a glass using caustics. A collection of free textures as well as a series of complete materials for 3ds max, maya, xsi and mental ray. In this tutorial i hope i can teach you some basic mental ray tools and how to use caustics in your everyday maya scene. To use it go to the render menu render using mental ray. We are going to create this effect in 3d studio max by using the mental ray renderer and the mental ray glass material. Now go to indirect illumination panel and enable caustics. Irradiance particles properties reference to render global illumination and caustics, you must activate these effects for the render pass.
Current customers who have purchased licenses from nvidia will continue to receive support, software updates through our advanced rendering forum for the remainder of their subscription terms. Whenever vray needs to store a new photon in the caustics photon map, it will first look if there are any other photons within a distance specified by max density. Aug 15, 2019 faustics with water caustics effect in 3ds max. Dec 30, 2009 and parti volume physics in the photon volume slot in the mental ray connection tab.
From there, we will explore an alternative method for simulating caustics which is much more efficient, especially when working with large, open bodies of water. In the tutorial were going to visit on the caustics well see how to activate this realistic effect with the mental ray rendering. The aim of this project is to emulate the light patterns known as water caustics typically seen on on the bottom of a swimming pool. Go to the mental ray panel and check generate caustics. Caustics generator seamless water texture rendering. We have created an faq to help explain this change. Select each object you want to generate caustics, either by reflection or refraction.
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