Rendering out lens caustics in 3dsMax Arnold
polycounter lvl 4
Hello!
I'm on a task to generate a lightmap for faking car's headlights output using Arnold for 3dsMax 2020 along with render to texture. So far I managed to obtain the "pure" light projection, and I'd like to add on top a caustic effect using the glass lens in front of the light sources that are mesh emitters (can't use photometric lights or so because the headlights have a very specific "stripe" shape, like the RS 2027 Vision). I'm aiming for this kind of result (not so distorted of course)
But what I observed with Arnold on my own and looking at tutorials is that the caustics rays seem to fade very quickly from the objects they are refracted by, making rendering from afar impossible (such as water caustic on seabed for instance). And it sucks because Arnold is all I have at this very moment.
So am doing it wrong with it or is it a thing ? Caustics seem to be still a complex subject in 2020. I may try out other renderers such as VRay, but any suggestion is welcome
Thanks for reading
I'm on a task to generate a lightmap for faking car's headlights output using Arnold for 3dsMax 2020 along with render to texture. So far I managed to obtain the "pure" light projection, and I'd like to add on top a caustic effect using the glass lens in front of the light sources that are mesh emitters (can't use photometric lights or so because the headlights have a very specific "stripe" shape, like the RS 2027 Vision). I'm aiming for this kind of result (not so distorted of course)
But what I observed with Arnold on my own and looking at tutorials is that the caustics rays seem to fade very quickly from the objects they are refracted by, making rendering from afar impossible (such as water caustic on seabed for instance). And it sucks because Arnold is all I have at this very moment.
So am doing it wrong with it or is it a thing ? Caustics seem to be still a complex subject in 2020. I may try out other renderers such as VRay, but any suggestion is welcome
Thanks for reading
Replies
Go with Corona or Maxwell if you need the real stuff.
Or do a search for fake caustics in Arnold.