Written by Jeff Patton Monday, 20 August 2007 14:19

For those that need to examine a 3dsmax9 caustic scene, I'm providing a simple setup that uses A&D materials and illustrates both reflective and refractive caustics. In this entry I've also provided a few HDR configurations that you can explore.
First up is the caustic scene. In this scene you'll find both reflective & refractive caustic examples.

Max9 Caustics (click to enlarge)

Caustic Scene:
http://jeffpatton.net/Blog-images/MR_caustics.zip

Next, I posted some .hdr examples over at the Vizdepot.com website. Thought I'd add them here as well.

HDRI Setup 1:

This is the most basic setup. A single skylight with a .hdr file & final gather.
Scene: http://pixelperfectgraphics.biz/Dow...rchitecture.zip

HDRI Setup 2:

This setup is basically the same as the one above, but I've added the mrSun to the scene.
Scene: http://pixelperfectgraphics.biz/Dow...itecture_02.zip

HDRI Setup 3:

In this setup I used the daylight system with the mrSun/mrSky and a .hdr file is used in the haze slot of the mrSky.
Scene: http://pixelperfectgraphics.biz/Dow...itecture_03.zip

Notes about HDRI scenes:
1. The model used in the scene is a free model from Turbosquid.com
2. I left the background empty in the first two scenes on purpose to illustrate that the background isn't contributing to the illumination. For example if you use the mr physical sky or a .hdr file as the environment map, it will not affect your lighting solution UNLESS you add a skylight and configure the skylight to use the environment map for illumination.
3. You can use whatever final gather settings you like. The settings I used are my own. If you're new to mental ray and question my settings, I would strongly recommend spending some time with the great GI/FG tutorials that ship with Max9 for a better understanding of how the GI/FG settings work so you can optimize/tune the settings for your own scenes.


Actual Blog Entry:
Caustics & HDR lighting samples