Thought I’d give the modo glass another try, the caustics and shading at the base of the glass is due to irradiance caching issues, needed more rays, but the liquid looks nice.
EasyGlass test
ThomasHelzle
#102
Very nice! 
What kind of environment do you use? From the image it is hard to guess, but it looks like a black environment with just the floor and the lighting pane?
But then inside the liquid it looks a bit like an HDRI or something?
I think I’m still irritated by the supersoft shadow in this specific scene.
How does it look if you scale down the lighting pane to be rather tiny?
Is there an actual light in the scene or just the white polygon?
Cool stuff.
Mike_RB
#103
No environment, those are refractions in the bottom of the glass. And yeah, just the white poly right now, as direct lighting does not yet produce caustics- only indirect. Ill render one with a smaller poly.
ThomasHelzle
#104
Funny, in messiah it is the other way around - only direct light produces caustics.
Although I managed to get caustic like effects too with MonteCarloGI, but you need raydepths way above what is useable to see anything… For the glass it is something like 6-8…
So the green hues are from the glass absorption only?
Cheers,
Mike_RB
#105
yep, very slight green color on the glass. I used 60 reflections and 60 refractions in that one… 2h rendertime. 
The other renders of this scene used 10/10.
ThomasHelzle
#106
Well, I’m more and more suspicious if messiah handles Refraction correctly at all.
This is something very hard to test. But there is something about the renderings that just doesn’t feel right IMO.
Anybody has an idea on how to test this?
modos refraction looks definitely more natural by default. :sad:
Speaking of reflection/refraction depth: Be warned that the Reflection and Transparency Thresholds in messiah cut of your calculations if their contribution to the output falls below those values. Makes rendering much faster, but is also a possible cause of errors.
(And it was my own request - something like a hundred years ago in the Pliocene of messiah)
Cheers!
Mike_RB
#107
get a glass, put water in it and photograph it on graph paper, then recreate the scene in messiah and see…
ThomasHelzle
#108
hehehe - I thought of something a bit more scientifically advanced 
I think I have to look up the math a bit more…
Cheers!
stooch
#110
WOW that looks sick! I must say, messiah is my favorite liquid/transparency renderer at this time, so much faster! its so smart about how it renders only when the difference is actually worth the work! Brilliant.
Of course the TLHPRO shaders make the task of setting it up so much easier good stuff, i will make some liquid sims with “foreign matter” just for you thomas, lol.
stooch
#111
I agree, im not so sure that messiah gives me perfect refraction, but i digress. Honestly, if im not sure about the output, most people wont even notice it just feels odd, thats all i can say…
ThomasHelzle
#112
Well, for me it is very important to be sure that the tools I develop depend on something that actually works correctly. Normally you take that for a given, but with the latest tests, I’m no longer that sure about the refraction.
I already thought about coding a full glass material myself, but that would possibly take quite long and may be even slower than the original messiah glass, because of overhead in the SDK…
Well, I have to work on some other jobs now but I’ll try to find a testing method for the internal refraction. I want to make sure we rely on something trustworthy.
Cheers!
ThomasHelzle
#113
Chikega: Did you receive my emails and your license? I didn’t hear back from you so I wonder if some kind your spamfilter ate them?
I hope all went well!
Let me know…
Cheers,
chikega
#115
I’ve been gone a week on vacation and look at all the trouble you all have been getting into!
This is looking very very promising Thomas. I’ve checked my email and haven’t received any licensing information. 
ThomasHelzle
#116
Hi Gary,
so there is something wrong with your spamfilter I guess?
I’ve sent you three emails in reply to yours…
Do you have a different mail account or what can we do?
Background: Well we all knew that Microsoft is not the most highly gifted company when it comes to security or intelligence, but the latest findings gave me a rare thrill:
For a long time I wasn’t able to send people who use Microsoft Messenger URLs pointing to my domain www.screendream.de. First I didn’t even notice that, since neither me nor the receiver got any notification, but the messages containing that URL simply vanished.
I had some weird conversations where the other party simply didn’t understand what I’m talking about, because he didn’t receive the link and message…
When I realized what’s going on, I asked microsoft support about it. They told me that they “don’t ever filter any instant messages…”
Reality told me differently so I looked for other reasons like firewalls, webfilters etc.
At one point I told Paul Newmann from this forum about it, and after he first couldn’t believe it, he started digging into it. Again, Microsoft Support denied everything. Extremely polite they mostly didn’t even understand the problem. After some time the standard support realized that they can’t help and forwarded the case to the technical staff. Finally I have a workaround (Thanks again Paul), but the most ludicrous result is why my domain is filtered:
It starts with .scr
Since this is the filetype of a possibly insecure screensaver, it is filtered out (without telling anybody).
I simply wasn’t prepared for this amount of stupidity. If a company like MS, that half the world is relying on with their computers isn’t able to differentiate between .scr and .screendream, I see a very dark middleage of communication coming our way, if Windows Vista is as “secure” as that. All the discussions about the hardware security chips etc. are getting a whole new dimension if you imagine implementations like the above.
OMG.
Btw: The workaround is to type the URL like: http://screendream.de, so no dot before the scr…
PaulNewman
#118
Thomas left out that this whole issue took 2 months to resolve, with me getting acquainted with 1/2 MSN’s support staff in the process and normally clued up people on MSN forums also clueless. The rest happened exactly as Thomas already mentioned.
If you ever wondered if all those supposed nasty ingredients in food are really such a big deal, wonder no more . . . this is the digital equivalent. You have no idea what these guys put inside the software we commonly use and take for granted as being safe, secure and sensible. :eek:
Makes you wonder what’s inside messiah :twisted:
Just kidding.
