SilverwingVFX shows why Caustics are so hard to render with Path Tracers like Octane Render.

When it comes to fast rendering, Path Tracers excel. However, some things are seemingly difficult for these render engines to spit out. Caustics is one of those. Why are Caustics so hard to render, though? This new demonstration by SilverwingfVFX (Raphael Rau) attempts to answer that.

Uni-Directional Path Tracer, like Octane, has difficulties with features like Caustics. To answer why Rau looks at how light works in real-life and how Render Engines see and create Caustics.

Rau often takes specific rendering techniques and does a deep dive showing off things like working with nested dielectrics, ray switch nodes, and working with cryptomatte.