Knowing how to setup the scene is a very critical step to get good refractions and reflections, then after that caustics, so first you will learn how and why to setup the scene the way it is, and how to define the interior and exterior of your surfaces.
Understanding the creation of refractive materials for the water and the glass objects are the soul of a proper caustic effect, so you`ll learn it and assign them to their corresponding objects.
In real life they are the main actor behind all the lights we see and interact with. To be able to create caustics first of all, photons have to be shot into the scene. here you will learn how to shoot the photons into the scene and how to visualize them.
Now that the photons are in the scene, in this part other textures and materials will be assigned, then those photons will be used to create caustics either by using the Micropolygon, raytracing or the PBR engine. then optimization and improvements techniques will be discussed.
