Blender Caustics Hack | Full Workflow Tutorial

This video covers how to generate a caustics rendering which can be used to composite over your Blender Cycles render to enhance the realism without the long render times that LuxCore can have. Works with animations and single frame renders.
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[@TheUninstaller2000]

i've been waiting for this for a along time

[@djtutorialscgi]

I wanted to make sure I had it down right before I produced the video. I hope it works out for you :)

[@TheUninstaller2000]

@@djtutorialscgi im sure it will but i will start with a glass scene i have.
Ive always wondered why Blender hasnt begged, borrowed or stolen Luxrenders caustics code for Cycles.

[@djtutorialscgi]

@@TheUninstaller2000 I’ve heard rumors that Blender devs “don’t like” LuxCore as an idea or something like that. Not sure exactly what the issue is but they would benefit by absorbing the engine and developing it into the Cycles engine.

[@MrJdeffp007]

This is a must / essential workflow, and its very needed by almost all artists workflow before a pipeline team. It does not just apply to caustics direct to camera as it also can be used with caustic bounce of gobos and shims

[@djtutorialscgi]

Indeed! I’m glad you see the benefit

[@Mranshumansinghr]

Thank you. This is great progress for Luxcore. Hopefully we can have Luxcore working with all cycles materials and wise versa. Similar to Corona and Vray in 3dsMax.

[@ostneek]

Thank you, Man! Your vids are great!

[@djtutorialscgi]

Thank you :). You’re great too :)

[@maxmaxed2887]

The amount of fanboys foaming over Cycles is staggering. When you tell them that Cycles is not capable of producing realistic refractive/reflective caustics, they go nuts.
Thank you for this workflow! I was struggling making LuxCore work for my projects since it's not really compatible with Cycles materials. Now it looks like there is a way to get the Caustics pass out

[@djtutorialscgi]

So glad you found this useful!

[@uxedmedia]

Nice one dude :)

[@djtutorialscgi]

Thanks buddy!

[@josephrussell1419]

This is exactly the technique I've been looking for, thank you! But I'm wondering, is it as straightforward to do it with Octane? I am trying it with LuxCore but looks like their development stalled awhile back and they are not keeping pace with Blender versions. Oh, and do you have any experience with the spectral Cycles branch or info on Cycles becoming spectral in the future?

[@djtutorialscgi]

I haven’t been doing anything recently on those render techniques. Octane is the most stable and has great results. I haven’t looked at the spectral branch but send a link and I’ll check it out.

[@miguelcurto3455]

I think you could simplify the process by: making a new Blender scene as linked copy, set render engine for Lux in copy and Cycles in main, set Lux for 100% Light Rays in Light Tracing and CPU only + Denoise (don't need caustics pass) with Halt conditions for Samples. If in Cycles scene compositor you add a new Render Layer can change the imput scene to Lux and it will render both scenes in a row and load the Lux one to Cycles scene compositor. This will also make it easer to export everything together ins same file if using Multi Layer EXR.

[@djtutorialscgi]

Thank you! Definitely different ways to approach this and that’s why I was more so trying to show the general process. Lots of options!