3D Kingdom -- Free ....

Basic Brazil Caustics
- for newbies -

by Kazenohito

NOTE: I wrote this assuming you know the basics of 3dsmax.
ANOTHER NOTE: I wrote this assuming you know nothing about Brazil.

1.Ok here we go. Start by making a sphere of any size.

2.In the front view port, move the sphere up on the Y axis until it reaches zero.

3.Now go to the bottom right corner and click on "zoom extents all".

4.Enter the lights section under create.

5.In the dropdown menu, select Brazil r/s.

6.There should only be one light there.

7.Were going to leave that alone for now..we won't use a light until later.

8.Push f10 or go to "rendering / render.."

9.Look for the dropdown menu that says "current renderers"

10.To the right of "production" click on "assign."

11.Select "Brazil r/s" and push "Ok"

12.Now if you scroll down you can see a whole new list of dropdown
menus. They all start with Brazil:

13.Scroll down to the second one that's open already, it should be called "Brazil: Image Sampling."

14.Click on "P3," This is the anti-aliasing you always hear about. It makes your image clearer and sharper.

15.Now go to the drop down that says "Brazil: CSG Server"

16.Click the checkbox next to "Enable."

17.This makes the ground plane that you always see in renders.

18.Now that we have the ground plane, we can add shadows to the render.

19.This is why I had you move the sphere up to zero. The ground plane is set to appear at zero. You can change this value by going back into CSG and changing the "Base Altitude" value.

20. Now lets go into the "Luma Server"

21.This is where all the lightning is managed.

22.Click on the check box next to "Sky Light."

23.Now render the Perspective view.

24.You should get something that looks like this.

25.Kind of boring huh...

26.Now its time for the Light. Go back into lights/brazil.

27.Make the light in any direction you want. I suggest you make it so the
light goes across the screen for what we are going to do...like this

28.Make sure you turn off skylight in the luma server.

29.Also make sure you turn on shadows in the lights options.

30.In the modification panel, select the light and go to the dropdown
menu called "photon maps."

31.Click on caustic and make sure "generate photons" is checked.

32.Now push f10 again and go to "Photon Map Server"

33.Click "caustic" and check "active".

34.Now lest go into the material editor (m).

35.select and empty slot and the go to the box that says "standard"

36.Change it to "Brazil Glass"

37.Now assign this material to the sphere.

38.Click on render, this might take a while to render because it has to do
a lot more math then before. It should look like this.

39.I hope this tutorial has helped you a lot or somewhat.

40.You should now know the basics of: Brazil, Luma server, CSG Server, Photon Maps Server, Brazil glass material, and Brazil lighting.

This tutorial was written by 3D Kingdom member Kazenohito
www.kazenohito3d.com