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• Garry Salisbury

  about 1 month ago

  Fast, subtly beautiful results. I am very happy with my purchase. It may be useful to have an automatic indicator in the interface that the photon solver is active in addition to the render properties->Light Paths-> Caustics check box. Not critical but may reduce unnecessary clicks in some situations.

  Regards

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Garry, thank you! What a nice review to find in my inbox. Happy that both the speed and the look work for you, that balance took the longest to get right.

  And yes, an indicator for the solver makes sense. I put it on the list for one of the next updates. Little quality of life touches like that are exactly what I want to add over time, so your timing is perfect.

  Thanks for the five stars, enjoy the tool!

  Henrik
• Stefan Eisenreich

  about 1 month ago

  The only option for caustics within Cycles! I'm so happy something like this finally exists.
  Simple to set up, fast to render, great looking physically-based and accurate caustics.

  The only thing that's not supported seem to be caustics within a volume (scattering), but I don't know if that would even be possible with photon mapping.

  I also hope the 5.3 build will work well with the new dispersion when it comes out, it will bring glass rendering to the next level.

  The only wish I have is to be able to push the parameters higher than the current maxima. There are some scenes where a higher photon count would be beneficial without having to render more samples.

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Thank you so much, Stefan! Reviews like this one are exactly why I built Caustica.

  Good news on all three points. Volumetric caustics are actively being worked on right now. And because of the high demand for the new dispersion feature, Caustica will be ported to Blender 5.3 in the near future, so glass rendering will indeed reach the next level.

  And regarding your wish, you can look forward to the first update, coming within the next two weeks: it raises the Photon Count limit from 100 to 1000, so 10x more photons for exactly those scenes you describe.

  Thanks again for the five stars, and feel free to reach out anytime!

  Henrik
• ivan

  about 1 month ago

  A very good build with caustics, probably even the fastest one I’ve ever seen in render engines. Now my renders will be able to shine from a side that was previously impossible to achieve due to the limitations of the Cycles engine

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Thank you Ivan, this really put a smile on my face today.

  Almost all of the work went into performance, so hearing that it's the first thing you picked up on means a lot to me. Caustics used to mean ticking a box and then leaving the room. Changing that was the entire reason I started this, and knowing it holds up on your end is the best feedback I could have hoped for.

  If anything ever gives you trouble, write me directly and I'll take care of it.

  Henrik
• Enrique Monzo

  about 1 month ago

  After testing Caustica I can only say: WOW!! As a professional who renders glass products, this is a total game changer. It is unbelievably easy to set up and the results are not just fast, but also shockingly beautiful. I wish that, some day in the future, this caustics implementation is natively integrated in Blender (I guess it should be then implemented for Intel, AMD, etc.). Thank you, Henrik!!

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Thank you so much, Enrique! Great to hear it's working so well for your glass product renders — caustics really shine in that kind of work. Native integration would be great to see one day; for now I'm focused on pushing this as far as possible, and support for more hardware is on my radar. Enjoy the tool, and feel free to reach out anytime!
• Lucian

  about 1 month ago

  Easy to set up, easy to use and fast. The long-requested feature vanilla Blender is missing, has finally been done in a physically accurate way. I had lots of fun testing it, 10/10.

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Thanks a lot, Lucian! Really happy to hear it was easy to set up and fun to use — that was the whole idea behind it. More updates are on the way, and if you ever have questions, just write me. Happy rendering!
• Jeremy

  about 1 month ago

  Wow this works, it is so simple to setup and so much fun to create, also so fast!

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  Henrik Soeltzer

  about 1 month ago

  Thank you for the great review, Jeremy — much appreciated! Ease of use, speed and simply having fun with light were the core goals behind Caustica, so it's great to hear exactly that reflected. And it keeps getting better: all future updates are included with your purchase, and if you ever have questions, you can reach me directly at any time. Happy rendering!

• Displaying ratings 11-16 of 16 in total