finalRender

[Chris]

Is there supposed to be the option of selecting an actual fR renderER in the render options box? If so, there isn't.

Nope, final Render dosnt come up as another renderer, theyve implemented it as a material type - to aid in compatibility (you can still use render elements & effects etc etc)

What's wrong?
A. Have you checked receive & generate caustics in the object properties?

B. if using a final render material have you checked receive & generate caustics?

C. in the finalrender globals, have you turned on Caustics, & what settings do you have?

D. in the properties for your light, have you go enough caustic photons, & are they turned on (under indirect illumination params.)

You should have 2 dialog boxes appear before rendertime, one (very quickly) that says casting lightrays, & then a second slower one 'Analising'

If you want to use the Final Render raytracer as opposed to the Max scanline (either of which you can do caustics & GI with) turn on Depth of field, with an apeture of 0.0 or 0.1. You will notice this as it will bucket render. The fR raytrace engine handles geometry a lot more accurately than the max scanline, but on scenes with not much raytracing, it will be a lot slower...



> BTW: Which is better for realism, fR or Brazil?

Depends, which is better, a 2B or 4B pencil? :D Its opinion really, some people like Brazil & some like fR, Brazil is still in Alphabeta too, so its a bit like comparing apples with oranges.

[FrageNSTEIN]

Thanx.

I'll mess with it more.

I did most that stuff, tho I hadn't done anything mentioned in step D. That is what I will go try.

Thanx again.

D

[FrageNSTEIN]

I do not get those two dailog boxes. Here is my setup:

For a test I placed a geosphere over a gray plane. Both have recieve and generate enabled on caustics. I have one close omni light with caustics on, and photons set to 15000. I render, no new dailog boxes, no difference in appearance.

Any suggestions?

D

[Array]

read the manual and watch the videos included on your Final Render CD, they are quite informative.

[Chris]

I would have a look at your material settings, check to see if the material of the caustic-causing object is reflective. It will need to be to reflect the caustic 'rays'. Are you using fR materials?

The other thingyou could try changing is your object.

A geosphere's surface, being convex, generates very sparse caustics & might need a lot of samples to be able to see them. A good object to try is a ring (one ring to bind them etc etc ;) ). make a tube, roughly ring sized, apply a meshsmooth modifier, 2 iterations. place that on the ground plane with a 'chromey' finalRender texture (50% reflection, light yellow filter colour, advanced fresnel material with reflective IOR of 2-3). Then aim your spotlight at the middle, slightly off to one side, around a 25 degree angle off vertical. place your camera so you can see where the reflected rays of light will accumulate & render (in the centr of the ring. If thats still not working try turning on the DOF with an apeture of 0 (in the final render globals - not the camera settings) that will activate the raytracer for everything - if it bums out here, maybe fR isnt installed properly...

Array has a point, here is a video on the second CD (from memory) which has a step-by-step of the same sort of thing I just wrote, also the Diamonds sample file included gives you some good examples, check out especially the caustic settings in the fR globals :)

[alphatron]

I think you also have to turn your lights off.. uncheck where it says "active"... that seemed to work for me.

[Chris]

Thats only if you want to do GI with no direct lighting (only indirect lighting say from the background, HDR image, coloured-inverted-normal-dome etc etc)

In this case, if you want to generate caustics, you would need to check 'use GI caustics' in the globals rollout...

:)

[lildragon]

FrageNSTEIN hi, can you please Max specific questions in the Max forum? thanx much, I'll move this thread....

[clifford]

In the fR Globals, turn caustics on and UNCHECK the "keep solution" (or something like that) checkbox ...
I forgot this a lot and fR will not render any caustic if you have the checkbox checked :)

Hope it helps ...

Cliff

[enay]

A few tutorials:
http://www.garryclarke.com/fr/

Hope it helps...

[Roberto]

perhaps a stupid question, but did u reduce the material's opacity?

[clifford]

What do u mean by reduce opacity ???
Explain what u have in mind !!

:))) cheers

[Chris]

We'll, to generate refractive caustics you need to have an object that light can pass through, so you need less than 100% opacity...

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