Hi All, I'm still having problems with caustics the thing is I would like fine line patterns and not the broad soft pattern that I have been getting which is OK for the ground plane but no figures. I have tried adjusting the power and height of my quad spot but can't seem to get the effect I am looking for Regards Keith

Are you using a light gel as suggested? If so, are you using a Vue light gel, or a caustics pattern from the Caustics generator? If the latter, in the material editor for the gel, reduce the size of your bitmap to around 0.4 on x & y, don't check mirror x & y. If you're using a Vue gel, reduce the size of the function.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1260292

Imagist- Check out this old Poser Forum post from 2003. This is what I had mentioned before about applying caustics DIRECTLY to a texture map IF you want SHARP details. Mesh_Magick demonstrated a very CLEVER technique that is a good example of "outside of the box" thinking! Sometimes some of the BEST 3D contains FAKED 3D using 2D imagery...

Attached Link: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~kand/caustics/

BTW- the ORIGINAL dolphin texture map was included in the post- but it was later removed. --However, Mesh_Magick applied it to the TOP part of the dolphin map, and let it fade out on the lower part- using Photoshop. So- you could try this with your own texture maps- using, I would suggest, the Caustics program bruno021 suggested previously. "Caustics Generator" can make extremely hi-rez caustic maps-up to 8000x8000, I believe...

Hi sorry about the delay just got back to the PC I have been trying to get my head around the use of lights with caustic and thanks to your help its dropping into place. I have been experimenting by saving the one of the quad spots from the "Caustic" image by Michael Janssen and tweaking it to see how this affects the look. I started by turning of the volumetric and lens flare. Then changing the size of the Gel which seems to do the trick. I have lots more experimenting to do with Meshmagic which makes fantastic patterns for postwork and will get a slot on Thursday to play with them more ;-) Thanks to Bruno021 & Veritas777 for your help Regards Keith

This is the Quad from "Caustic" image by Michael Janssen and tweaking it to see how this affects the look. I started by turning of the volumetric and lens flare the gel size is 1.5

This is with the Gel size ajusted to 0.4

And finally 0.2

This is my latest image with the caustic included with the revised settings and just what I had in mind thanks again to all who helped with my problem, its now back to experimenting with some of the other suggestions Regards Keith

Great that you worked this out Keith! Heh, in fact I'm going to print out this thread for your added info and save it. I'm a very big fan of water and underwater EFX...

Looks pretty good. Glad you made it!