@ledisnomad said: I don't render pool water very often, but every time I do, it takes me forever to figure out how to get the caustics to work. I go through all the settings, search for all the tutorials. I just started another project with a pool and I'm going to want a rendering with awesome pool water caustics. Here's what I'm doing: Creating a plane that is the surface of the water and making it a component. Applying a water material to the component and to both faces of the plane. Adding a displacement geometry modifier to the component - I use the same noise map from the water Bump channel for the displacement. In the water material Refraction Advanced Settings, uncheck "Affect Shadows". In the render settings Global Illumination Advanced Settings, turn on "Photon Mapped Caustics". What am I missing? You'll see in the image that the displacement is working at least. [attachment=0:2gykd0yy]<!-- ia0 -->pool.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2gykd0yy] I think you also need to be in CPU mode for the caustics to work.

https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=66243

Thank you all for your feedback. I'll need some time to digest and research each idea, but I'll be back with more questions. Thanks again!

I have Neat Image and find it great. I tried Topaz Bundle awhile back but it didn't seem as good as Neat Image.

You got all you need....a desire to improve and to keep trying for an image you have in mind. Keep on like that and you'll beat the machine into doing what you want.

@mitcorb said: @Gaieus: Is that a "Model This" challenge? Well, if you wish, I can give you the recipe

Thanks for the responses. I'll take a look at those, although I'll have to wait until I'm home... mrcad.com is blocked at work.

@ledisnomad said: Yup, that sounds about the same as me. I lose reflection layers, too. I seem to get the error rendering most often when I have Photoshop or another instance of SketchUp open. Really hmmmmmmm Thats prob the same with me too. I'll start testing with PS and other SU closed.

I just checked my scene settings and the entourage layer is on on both scenes I rendered. You're right, always good to ask the obvious.

hyper-threading if supported by the CPU is activated and controlled within the Bios.

I'm not an expert on this, but what machine are you running on? How many CPUs or cores and how much RAM would be the first relevant questions. I'm on a quad core machine with 6GB of RAM and I notice a significant slow down in performance when turn on shadows for example. So, it may just be that your model is taking a lot of processing power.

Yea, that was written "back in the days" - because you added all the extra awesomeness!

Not entirely sure I understand the post. So you just want to bring the linework into SU? Your info says you're using SU 7.1? If you're using any Pro version you can import the .dwg file directly. Otherwise, I believe up through 7.1 free version you can download the plugin from google. I can find a link if you need it. -brodie

I suppose you could use a dialog to set up a pattern like /^Glass-blue/ For material name that starts with 'Glass-blue'. Or /[Gg]lass/ for any material name containing the text 'Glass' or 'glass' etc etc... You can eval the pattern string in a gsub() on each materials name... Then you can iterate through the Model's Materials and find all of the ones with 'matching names' as an array. Then you can apply a Name+R+G+B+A[+texture+size] which is initially read from the first match in the array... and offered for 'adjustment' in a second dialog... On OK all of the matches are 'consolidated to 'Name' using the set R/G/B/A..values etc and the rest of the matching materials are replaced with 'Name' and then 'purged'...

Wow, Fredo, what a complete service!

i know this might sound silly, maybe it is, since im not having this new version of vray.. but have you tried to copy your scene to a new file then try to render again? goodluck,

I find this to happen when I build models based on imported DWG data. I suspect there are some microscopic precision errors that at times cause this very annoying issue to happen.

Any bugs and crashes using VfSu should be reproted to ASGVis to they can investigate the issue.

hello ledisnomad, try to change the following option: image sampler: adaptive DMC min 1, max 4, noise threshold 0.01 light cache: untick adaptive actually im using ver 1.05.30, hope it could work on your scene goodluck,