Caustics

[cjwidd]

First attempt at modeling and rendering caustics. Ignoring composition for now (although I welcome your suggestions!), I'm curious for tips about improving the quality of the render, modeling the meniscus of the liquid, and perhaps even glass patterns / shapes, or other miscellaneous notes. Thank you!

[mattjgerard]

With glass and "whisky shots" like this are always hard to make look really good in a studio situation, as the reflections and refractions just can't get very interesting. Dropping it into a real environment will automatically take the realism up a couple notches.

As for the meniscus, it looks really good, if not a bit heavy handed. Looks to be a quite thick liquid, so if its the leftover honey from a cup of tea, it looks right (and thats how I take my tea:) . If its something less viscous like whisky or a single barrel bourbon, those would have less of a meniscus.

Otherwise looks good, the color of the liquid is great, and the  look of the glass is pretty spot on.

[DMerz III]

It looks like the caustics are there, but they're fighting with the bottom of the cup and the shadow that is casting. Perhaps change the angle of the light to cast the caustics off in front of the cup so we can see it a bit more!?

Colleague of mine who has been spotted on these forums  gave me the tip of using an image pin of a sun from a true HDR image. The brightness + relatively small size of the sun will pull out those caustics (although, you may want to do this as a separate pass and composite the two images together in post).

I have had some success using the Sun & Sky editor from KS6 (see an example below). Have not tried with KS7. (please ignore the low sample rate, this was a frame from a test animation I had done a while back). Just to illustrate the effect.

[cjwidd]

With glass and "whisky shots" like this are always hard to make look really good in a studio situation, as the reflections and refractions just can't get very interesting. Dropping it into a real environment will automatically take the realism up a couple notches.

As for the meniscus, it looks really good, if not a bit heavy handed. Looks to be a quite thick liquid, so if its the leftover honey from a cup of tea, it looks right (and thats how I take my tea:) . If its something less viscous like whisky or a single barrel bourbon, those would have less of a meniscus.

Otherwise looks good, the color of the liquid is great, and the  look of the glass is pretty spot on.

Really appreciate your detailed response and I'm glad you acknowledged the potential 'heavy-handedness' of the meniscus; this is something I debated quite a bit while modeling and felt the same way. I'll definitely be testing some renders with an interior HDRI.

[cjwidd]

It looks like the caustics are there, but they're fighting with the bottom of the cup and the shadow that is casting. Perhaps change the angle of the light to cast the caustics off in front of the cup so we can see it a bit more!?

Colleague of mine who has been spotted on these forums  gave me the tip of using an image pin of a sun from a true HDR image. The brightness + relatively small size of the sun will pull out those caustics (although, you may want to do this as a separate pass and composite the two images together in post).

I have had some success using the Sun & Sky editor from KS6 (see an example below). Have not tried with KS7. (please ignore the low sample rate, this was a frame from a test animation I had done a while back). Just to illustrate the effect.

I think I know exactly what you mean. With a directional light source, the caustics should be cast at an angle, revealing the color more, rather than it being hidden under the glass.

[DMerz III]

 :)Exactly, it's a composition thing, and totally up to you, but I personally would love to see that caustic effect extend beyond the shallow footprint of the glass so it really becomes apparent