Tutorial Details
- Software: Cinema 4D
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Completion Time: 1 hour
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Caustics refers to the mathematical equations that describe how light converges in nature, such as the effect that is seen at the bottom of pools and lakes when light passes through the surface of the water. Cinema 4D can perform both surface and volume caustics. In this tutorial, you will learn how surface caustics can be used to create a pool with a floating translucent orb, and volume caustics can be applied to demonstrate a stained glass effect. Render settings, and time savers will also be discussed.
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By Eli McMakin
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looking interesting, i am tired of GI and FG in maya.
lets see how fast it is!
Been waiting for a tutorial in caustics, will watch now!
Very useful. Thanks!
WOW thanks! I love C4d Tuts
cool! more C4D tuts!!!
Man, great tutorial but…. try talk a little loud in the next! Even with the volume in max is hard do hear what you are talking.
Liked this tutorial very much
Great tutorial, thank you very much.
You did a great job! Thank you Eli McMakin and CG tuts+
Great tutorial! 10x
Thanks for the tutorial.
Can’t get a “blue water” result. The Plane (that goes for the water surface) is blue, but the rest of the pool is of box grey color.
at 16 minutes when you mention you have bluer water, how did you get it to look like it filled up the bottom half of the cube? mine still looks like a surface plane.
You need to make sure your transparency layer for the water material is enabled. Make sure you have a color selected for the transparency layer and then render. If this doesn’t solve the problem then see my post below this one.
For those who don’t see water at the bottom of the pool, make sure you render the scene with caustics enabled. as the light passes through the water plane, it seems to take the color of the water with it. That’s how the pool effect is achieved, as far as I can tell.
Thank you for all the positive comments. There is a lot of work that goes into these tutorials, especially if the information is hard to find. I hope that my 25 minute tutorial can save you 20 hours of banging your head against the wall.
Great tut. Really like your style, lots of explanations.
Great tutorial, but am having the same problem as Silvestrathe1 and Matt, in that the volume of the water remains mainly grey. I saw your reply, but my caustics are turned on everywhere ! Doesn’t matter what I do to that plane – it can be 100% blue, and I can see the caustics underneath it, which are blue too, but the ‘volume’ of the water just …isn’t. I have cloned your exact settings for colour and transparency too, and nothing makes any difference. Any further help would be much appreciated.
Without seeing your project file I cannot be sure what the issue is. However, I know that one use had trouble when his area light was halfway out of the box. There was still some light inside of the box, but the only way to get the light to shine was to rotate the light and positively make sure it is inside the box and shining on the water.
If this does not work, you can try sending me the project file to troubleshoot it.
would this work if u were to put a light in side a transparent model like say you made a light bulb and had the light where the coil of the bulb is would this work the same or is there a different process?
I’m not sure what you’re asking in this question.
To make a light bulb, you can place the light where the coil is and it will shine through a transparent material. If you add color to the transparent material and want the light to pick up the color after it strikes the material and goes through it, then you may want to try using volume caustics. A stained glass window provides the most dramatic example of this effect.
Loved your tutorial but I cannot acheive the water on the bottom of the cube look.
Caustics is on in Render Settings, materials are copied exactly but I am using R12 and there were some additional boxes and settings that were added. Could R12 be what’s keeping me from seeing what you did on the tut?
do I need to do an extra step cause of the upgrade?
Frank