Caustics - YES OR NO ?

[xsi_fanatic]

Hi guys,

I don’t have experience with Caustics and would like for this render to be as realistic as possible. I added 3 different imagesamples.

1 with No Caustics, 1 with sharp Caustics and 1 with blurred out Caustics.

Caustics are being casted from the windows. Does anybody have experience with caustics ? What’s your opinion ? Please share.


Thanks,
Hassan

[Draise]

I like the second one, the sharp caustics, reminds me of light through windows I would play under as a kid.. The shadow noise is a little high though, may need to increase your sampling? But me gusta, looks nice. ;)

[xsi_fanatic]

I like the second one, the sharp caustics, reminds me of light through windows I would play under as a kid.. The shadow noise is a little high though, may need to increase your sampling? But me gusta, looks nice. ;)

Oh yeah, I'm aware of the shadow noise. This is just a sample render.

My only concern is, does it look real ? The caustics is being casted from the same key light source (i.e. physical sun).

[Draise]

I think the caustics help with the reality, it is hard to get such a perfect lighting scenario as in the first image in reality, the caustics really help with the realism.

[xsi_fanatic]

I like the way you think. Thank you. Anybody else ?? Please share your opinions !

[grendizer]

I thought caustics were only for water scènes, but you really did made a good use of them. I think Pic 2 is the most realisitc but you may be right to have blurred the projected light. Perhaps it shouldn't be as blurred as in pic 1?

[xsi_fanatic]

I thought caustics were only for water scènes, but you really did made a good use of them. I think Pic 2 is the most realisitc but you may be right to have blurred the projected light. Perhaps it shouldn't be as blurred as in pic 1?

Hi grendizer,

This post is actually old. I already went ahead and rendered out the final animation for my demo reel

[grendizer]

Very good scènes here, congrats! I love this car, does this scene use caustics also?

[xsi_fanatic]

Very good scènes here, congrats! I love this car, does this scene use caustics also?

Thanks man. Yes the office scene uses caustics. The restaurant also uses a bit of caustics on some geometries but not entirely. This was optimized to save render time.

[FXDude]

I think I like with sharper (caustic) reflections visually spreaking, But I thought it was light reflected from an outside window or something.

But they seem to be from the floor, and if so, perhaps halfway between the blurry and shaper versions,
cause the sharp reflections ver. acts as if your floor had a glass sheet over it.

and there could be some imperfections
(missing imperfections as a critique lol)
or variations in the reflections. (textured caustic reflections?)

Nice though