Thanks. Glad you like the image. :) Caustics are envelopes of rays (light rays) eminating from a point (a light source) and reflected or refracted by a curved surface (water surface riples in this case). So, the caustic effect I'm after is caused by light refracting unevenly when it passes through the surface of the water in my image. Takke a look at the little image above as an example of the caustic effect I'm talking about (image borrowed from Linda Ewing's tutorial "Deep Sea Diving with Bryce"). See how there are squigly areas of greater light intensity cast on the sea floor? That's the caustic effect I'm talking about which is caused by light defracting through the rippled surface of the water.

rickymaveety,

Are you saying the light would not reach the water because it wouldn't be passing through the ground even though you can't see the ground because this is a cutawy view? :) Well... I'm taking the view that the ground really is cutaway and not there or invisible, and that the light can reach the water. In anycase, the light is reaching the water in the storm drain pipe in the image, or at least the part of the water not in shadow. Does that make sense. I hope I understood what you were trying to say correctly.

Kemal & rickmaveety,

Thank you for confirming the notion that it would be best to create two separate renders, one with and one without the caustics, and to edit them together.

 
If anyone else has any comments or ideas please don't hesitate to post them.  
 
Thanks!

OK... I have found only one way to succesfully use an OBJ file of Vicky's hip in Rhino for the creation of a morph target. It requires opening the Vicky OBJ file with Compose a then saving it with a new file name. Once this is done, then I can convert the new OBJ file with OBJto3DM, open it in Rhino 2.0, alter it, export it as an OBJ from Rhino 2.0, and import it as a succesful morph target in Poser. Darn those facets/polygons with more then four sides in the Vicky mesh! Those facets with more then four sides in addition to other factors alter the OBJ file during the translation process to and from Rhino and make the final OBJ file un-useable without first running it through Compose.

Flyerx, OK... I got it to work, but I had to add another step to your process. When I import into Rhino the 3DS file of Vicky's hip (or any body part) that I exported from Poser the hip object imports with Vicky's spine oriented along the Z Axis. Normaly when Vicky's hip (or any body part)is imported into Rhino directly from her .OBJ file her spine is oriented along the Y Axis. If I rotate the imported .3DS hip around the "origin" in Rhino so that Vicky's spine is oriented along the Y Axis again and then export it with "Y up" unchecked in the "OBJ Export Options" dialog, then the morph target I created for the hips will work properly in Poser. Excuse me while I run up and down my hall waving my arms in joy. ^_^ Now... Let's see if I can't get the .OBJ import and export from Rhino to work. Thank you for your help.

Flyerx, Thank you, but it didn't work. :-( Following your instructions to the letter created a morph taget that moved Vicky's entire hip object foward and down as the morph dial is move from 0.00 to 1.00. I have an idea about what might have went wrong that I will have to test. Back to the drawing board. Oh... I am using Poser Pro Pack SR3 and Rhino 2.0 SR3

Seeklight, Yep, I know I need to export just the hip. That's not the problem. :-) I think this is one of the problems people encounter when they export their morph target from Rhino using the "Save As" command rather then the export command. If there are other objects in the Rhino file beside just the morph object then they all get exported with the morph object when using the "Save As" command. The result is a verticies error when importing the saved morph target object into Poser. I'm not experiencing a vertices error though. ~~~ MoonRose, You know... Its the tutorial for creating morphs using Rhino at MorphWorld that I've been following and still no luck. I've also tried Spikes turorial over in the Renderosity Rhino Forum to no avail. I'm starting to wonder if it is something that has to due with Rhino 2.o specifically. I'm even temped to reinstall Rhino 1.0 and give it a try. After all... the turorials were written using Rhino 1.0 and 1.1. Hmmm... I wonder if this works better with Rhino 3.0. I will look into using Compose. ~~~ Roy G I'll try importing and exporting the morph object in and out of Poser as you suggest and let you know what happens. ~~~ Thank you everyone for the responses thus far. I'm off to do some more experimenting and will let you know how things turn out. In my search of the forum archivces I've found numerous instances of people running into the same or similar problem, but haven't yet run into a solution. It would be nice to get this problem resolved once and for all and maybe create an updated tutorial on it. There are some tools in Rhino I would really like to use but if all else fails I'll have to go back to just using Lightwave. Smeg! (Not that there is anything wrong with Lightwave mind you.) Thanks again!

Ooops... Correction to step "3" in my message above... I set "Export Trims" as Polylines and not Curves when exporting the morph taget from Rhino as and OBJ file.

Nice sketching there Incarnadine. Do I see some Cuthulu (sp?) influence in that second sketch? ;-) ~~~ Thanks Rayaz. Well at least I've posted one or two images to this forum in the past. Most of my postings have been over in the Rhino forum though. I am jumping in so to speak. Its just going slow.

I'm another reader with "universal tastes".

I use to read a fair amount of Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, but now-a-days its mostly manuals and how to books oriented toward Computer Graphics. Go figure. :)

Now and then I do manage to squeeze in books about history and the sciences. It wasn't too long ago that I enjoyed Richard P. Feynman's physics books. (I have a weakness for quantum mechanics.) Reading about cultures and religions/mythology is something else I enjoy.

Being a bit of a fine carpenter/woodworker, I also study an occasional book on furtinure making/wood working , past and present.

Let's see... With regard to fiction, some of the authors I've enjoyed include...
-- C.J. Cherryh (early works)
-- Glen Cook (the humerous and yet serious Garrett detective novels set in an odd-ball, gritty fantasy world)
-- Joan D. Vinge
-- Robert A. Heinlein
-- Larry Niven
-- Julian May
-- Anne McCaffery
-- Frank Herbert (early works)
-- Steven Brust

Oh, your right Zhann. Can't leave out Shakespeare. :)

Yahhhh... Sigh. I run into this silly argument or comparison made by the uneducated and the lazy from time to time. I'm a Lightwave and Rhino user who also enjoys using Bryce. I agree... Its just a tool and I think its a darn good one at that. If you put the effort in you can get masterful work from either 3D Studio Max or Bryce. Don't put the effort in and you get crap from both. All you can do is try and politely correct those with the miss conception and ask them what the heck they are doing comparing Bryce to Max in the first place. Sometimes they'll listen and sometimes they won't. As you say... The type of work that each is geared toward producing is so different that comparing them is just plain silly.

Tuttle & DreamWarrior... Call it stagefright. 8) Nothing to do with whether or not my work is any good. Well, not much at anway. ;) I'm also very busy. I haven't even had a chance to get my personal site up yet. Haven't had time to work on personal stuff. It's all been client work recently. Thanks for the compliments. ~~~ Catlin... If it's not too much trouble, I would like to see one of your oils. :)

Hmmm... Since I don't show my work on Renderosity too often (there is nothing in my gallery here yet), and as a thank you to those that do show theirs, here is a peek at some of my work.

Theyre both pretty old pieces I happen to have scanned in and on file at the moment.

The woman is done with standard pencil and the frog is done with color pencil. The frog was a study from a photograph prior to completing an original piece.

I'm trained in traditional media and have only of late really started to make a heavy push into digital illustration. I typically work in pencil, ink, and acrylics.

I don't want to go in the elevator again. I don't like elevators. Oh, wait the elevators gone. Its just blue sky and a disembodied button? Uhmmm, hmmm, this doesn't bode well!?! I will not look down. I'm not looking down! I'm not really here! Yipe!!! 8)

Whooohooo!!! Here's another vote for Chuck Jones. Very glad to see him mentioned. Daffy is my hero!

A number of my favorites have already been mentioned here so I'm going to list some of the ones I haven't seen yet. A few I think are worth repeating though... Also, although I love many of the old and not so old masters, but I'm going to limit myself to contemporary artists. :-) 1. "Michael Whelan" has long been a favorite on mine. So much so that I own some of his limited edition prints and an artist proof. I like his early work the best. (www.michaelwhelan.com) 2. "Syd Mead" is another favorite of mine. He did a lot of the set and craft design for Blade Runner. He also work on numerous other films such a Aliens, 2010, Tron, etc. His work falls into the classifications of illustration and industrial design. (www.sydmead.com) 3. "Donato Giancola" I fell in love with some of his brilliant science fiction and fantasy oil paintings the very first time I saw them on book covers.(www.donatoart.com) 4. "Brom" Wonderfully strange, dark and sometimes brooding paintings that fall into the genres of fantasy and horror. (www.bromart.com) 5. "Alan Lee" I've always enjoyed his beautiful and detailed fantasy watercolours and sketches. He is best known as the celebrated illustrator of J. R. R. Tolkien's great fantasy novels and worked on the Lord of the Ring films. (more info at http://www.endicott-studio.com/galalan.html) And sneaking in a few more... Michael Parkes, Jeff Jones, Brain Froud, Gil Bruvel, Lela Dowling...

3 pts - Alvinylaya 2 pts - AgentSmith 1 pt - Pidjy