This month's tutorial J anuary 2004

submitted by J ustin K.D. Benjamins

Creating Caustics with Vray

Setting up the scene - The ice cubes
Reset 3dsmax and in the top viewport create a ChamferBox with the following
dimensions:
Length: 95
Width: 95
Hight: 0
Fillet: 1,5
Length Segs: 10
Width Segs: 10
Hight Segs: 10
Position the box at -54, 153, 0 for the x,y and z coordinates.
Add a Taper modifier to the box and set the taper amount to -0,25.
Add a Noise modifier, turn on fractal and set the x, y and z strength to 15 and
collapse the stack.
Convert the mesh to an editable poly and rename to ice cube01.
Create a copy of the ice cube, scale down to 80% and centre it to ice cube01 using
the align tool.
Select both cubes and group them. Rename group to ice cube #1.
Make two more copies and position the cubes. Enter the following values:
Group name x y z
ice cube #2 18 62 50
ice cube #3 78 -32 51
In the top viewport rotate ice cube #2 45 degrees around the z-axis.
In the left viewport rotate ice cube #3 100 degrees around the z-axis then move 7
units down the Y-axis.
In the top viewport create a plane 3000x3000 units and add a UVW map modifier to
it.
Position the plane at 300, 300, 0 (x,y,z).
Next, using the Line tool, trace out the contour of the puddle (Be creative). Add an
Extrude modifier with an extrusion of approximately 5 units. Place the puddle just
above the plane.
Setting up the spotlight and camera
In the top viewport create a camera pointing towards the icecubes and a target
spotlight pointing towards the back of the icecubes. Position the camera and
spotlight accordingly using the following values:
X Y Z
Camera -284 -163 265
Camera.Target 80 86 0
Spotlight 91 305 239
Spotlight.Target 19 51 0
Click the spotlight and in the Modify panel turn on Shadows. From the pulldown
choose VRayShadow. Scroll down to VRayShadows params, tick Smooth surface
shadows, Area shadow and select Box.
Switch to your Perspective viewport and hit the C key to bring up the camera
viewport.
Go to > Rendering > Render...
Change the Output size to 70mm Panavision (Cine) and exit. Return to your camera
viewport to Show Safe Frame by right clicking on the viewport name and selecting it
from the menu.
Your viewport should look something like this:


Wireframe image
Setting up Vray materials
Click Slot #1 and select the Standard button to bring up the Material/Map Browser.
Select VRayMtl from the list. Under the Basic Parameters change the IOR to 1,31.
Click the button next to the colour swatch for refract and select Falloff from the
Material/Map Browser. In the falloff parameters select the first colour swatch and
change the colour to 240,240,240 (RGB). Name this material 'ice' and assign it to the
3 cubes.
Copy the ice material from Slot #1 to Slot #2 by dragging and dropping. Change the
IOR value to 1,33 and rename this matierial 'water'. Assign it to the puddle.
Click Slot #3 and select a VRayMtl. Click the button next to the Diffuse colour swatch
to bring up the Material/Map Browser. Select Bitmap from the list and click OK.
Browse to your Maps/ArchMap directory in 3dsmax and choose 'Woods &
Plastics.Finish Carpentry.Wood.Red Birch.jpg'. Set the U-tiling value to 20. Scroll
down to the Output rollout and change the Output Amount value to 0,9. Click the Go
To Parent button, click the Reflect colour swatch and change the RGB values to
15,15,15. Assign this material to the floor.
The render
Go to Rendering > Render...
If you haven't set VRay as your current renderer, scroll down and click the Assign
Renderer rollout to open it. Click the button next to Production and from the list
choose the VRay renderer.
Click the Renderer tab and open the VRay:: Image sampler (Antialiasing) rollout.
Turn on Adaptive subdivision.
Turn on Global Illumination under VRay:: Indirect illumination (GI).
Turn on Caustics and set the Multiplier to 2, Search distance to 1 and Max photons to
60.
Under VRay System:: click the Light settings button, select the spotlight and tick
Generate caustics. Set Caustic subdivisions to 1500 and the Caustics multiplier to
75000.
Make sure the Camera viewport is selected and render the scene. You'll end up with
something like this:

Background colour set to black no environment map

Now the above scene doesn't look that bad but I wanted to lighten it up, so this is
what I did.
Open the Material Editor and Go to > Rendering > Environment...
Tick the Use Map, click the None button and choose Gradient from the Material/Map
Browser and click OK.
Drag and drop the Gradient Map to Slot #4 in the Material Editor. Select Instance
when prompted.
Choose Spherical Environment for the mapping coordinates. Scroll down to Gradient
Parameters, click the first colour swatch and change this to a light yellow colour. I
used 255,254,230 (RGB). Copy this to the second swatch and change the RGB values
to 255,255,243. Leave the third swatch to pure white.
Render the scene again. You should end up with this:

Using a gradient environment map
If you have any questions or comments on this tutorial please email
barco@wanadoo.nl.
If you would like to submit a tutorial please email it in a Word document (with
pictures).