Today, Chaos Czech brings a simple, yet powerful approach to caustics, building an essential element of realism into Corona Renderer 4 for 3ds Max. Now artists and designers can render lighting effects from surfaces like glass and water with even more accuracy, adding a new layer of photorealism to their stills and animations.

Caustics focus on the patterns of reflected and refracted light commonly found in examples like pool water, diamonds and wine glasses. While important, caustics have traditionally been costly to render, which has led many developers to ignore them for faster render speeds. Using a one-click solution, Chaos Czech have kickstarted a process that will mainstream caustics, making them as normal as global illumination is today to artists and designers.

“Photorealism is a potent tool, but also comes with an asterisk,” said Adam Hotový, Vice President at Chaos Czech. “With our caustics, users finally have the speed they need to fill an important gap in photorealism. And because it’s through Corona, accessing it is only a click away.”

Caustics will work alongside all Corona Renderer features, including LightMix, which will allow artists to adjust caustics, color and light intensity simultaneously. This breakthrough was made thanks to the help Chaos Research, a newly announced division of Chaos Group led by Chaos Czech co-founder Jaroslav Křivánek that is focused on re-inventing the ways computer graphics are created today.