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View Full Version : Keyframing caustics - Maya/Mental Ray problems.

DreaminSoInsane
02-01-2010, 11:11 AM
Hey,

Was wondering if anyone has ever tried keyframing caustic's before? its doing my head in. I basically have a light flashing on and off using a dimmer switch, so the light's intensity has a slight gradual change, and I need to animate the caustics to relfect this.

Everytime I attempt to keyframe the caustics photon intensity, it goes crazy, and seems to randomly decide when it will render caustics or not. I pinpointed the problem to the fact that when I keyframe the change in the intensity and scrub through the timeline, it changes the caustic photon colour to black (despite it still showing it as the colour I had set it to before).

Anyways, its driving me crazy, am I just doing it wrong? ive searched online, but can't find anything about keyframing caustics, has anyone ever tried this before? is there a different method?

Cheers in advance.
kanooshka
02-01-2010, 12:28 PM
Hi DreaminSoInsane-

Unless your light or objects are moving, I wouldn't see a problem with baking your caustics to a map. And adjusting its intensity when you composite. Otherwise I would suggest doing a caustic pass with the intensity being a constant and adjusting in your compositing package.
DreaminSoInsane
02-01-2010, 02:14 PM
hey,

cheers for the advice, this is the route I decided to take soon after posting the original post. Its the easiest method. The Photon Color is by far the worst most misleading attribute ever. Well it is on my maya anyway, as it just goes spazzy.

But cheers, keyframing it in post is definately the way to go!
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