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Rendering with Arnold in 3ds Max using the MaxtoA plug-in.
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Render caustic reflections separately?

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Message 1 of 5
Untold_Digital1
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Render caustic reflections separately?

Hello, I have these colored glass shapes in my scene with nothing else but lights and a white floor and white cyc wall. My renders look good with caustics creating colored shadows or reflections on the white floor. My problem is my floor and cyc wall have lots of natural gradient shadows but my client wants the glass shapes to be in a all white environment (think The Construct from The Matrix).

What is the best approach to achieve this? I thought maybe I could composite the shapes and shadows separately on a solid white but I can't seem to just get the shadows from the shapes. I tried all the AOV's; specular AOV with shapes primary visibility turned off gets me the colored shadows but also all the gradient shadows as well. aiShadowMatte just gives me an alpha for all shadows.

Perhaps there is a way I could achieve this look solely in Maya?

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Message 2 of 5

Can you post any images of what you are getting, and what effect that you want? Why can't you see shadows for example? Is it because of the lighting or the glass?

>specular AOV with shapes primary visibility turned off gets me the colored shadows but also all the gradient shadows as well.

Can you split them across render layers?

Not sure if it would work in this case, but have you looked into LPEs?

Lee Griggs
Arnold rendering specialist
AUTODESK
Message 3 of 5

1514-shapestest.png

Hi, thanks for replying.

So let's take this picture for example. I need the shapes and the caustic shadows/reflections they cast on the white floor but for those two elements to exist in an all white world. No gradient shadows on the floor or wall just pure white void everywhere like this. I know this is kind of going against what PBR is all about but it's what my client wants.

Message 4 of 5

Have you tried any of the infinity studio scenes on the Learning Scenes page? I am sure you could make them look pure white by adjusting the lighting/background shader.

Lee Griggs
Arnold rendering specialist
AUTODESK
Message 5 of 5

Thanks @Lee Griggs, I was able to get it working by creating a 360 cyc wall and blasting it with light. Just a bit of clean up in post and it looks great. Thanks for your help!

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