Caustics are the light effects and specular patterns that are cast on surfaces as a result of focused light reflecting off highly reflective surfaces or refracting through translucent surfaces.

The light patterns that occur on the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day, or the bright areas that occur in the shadow of a glass object as light shines through it are examples of caustics.

The Caustic feature in the mental ray^® for Maya^® renderer simulates caustic effects in your Maya scenes. Caustics are similar to Global Illumination in that they are an indirect illumination effect.

In this lesson you learn how to:

• Create the shadow effect that results from the refraction and concentration of light through a transparent object, using the Caustic feature provided in the mental ray for Maya renderer.
• Adjust refraction level limits in order to achieve desired refractive effects with transparent objects.
• Systematically perform test renders and adjust the render and caustic quality settings in order to achieve a high quality image.