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Height to Caustics Aug. 22, 2026, 11:01 a.m.
Hi Andrey,
Hight to Caustics is a caustic pattern generator. It simulates refraction based on the water surface, which is an input layer for “height”.
1. Choose your favourite noise and plug it to “height” input. For a basic setting, I recommend a fractal noise layer with low roughness and amplitude (as caustics usually are under the gentle water surface).
2. Optionally, you may choose Signature for RGB. In RGB, you can add Dispersion. There are “Perturbation” and “Spectrum” for dispersion model. Perturbation is default and it is a fast approximation. Spectrum is more physically accurate and shows more interesting details, but expensive.
3. If you add “ground” input, then it generates patterns on the input ground. As it accumulates light particles on faces toward the light source, it may display basic shading for ground layer.
When you use ground, you have to properly set lower values than height input, which is your water surface. You may intentionally set some ground values higher than water surface to express exposed mounds or rocks.
Hight to Caustics is a caustic pattern generator. It simulates refraction based on the water surface, which is an input layer for “height”.
1. Choose your favourite noise and plug it to “height” input. For a basic setting, I recommend a fractal noise layer with low roughness and amplitude (as caustics usually are under the gentle water surface).
2. Optionally, you may choose Signature for RGB. In RGB, you can add Dispersion. There are “Perturbation” and “Spectrum” for dispersion model. Perturbation is default and it is a fast approximation. Spectrum is more physically accurate and shows more interesting details, but expensive.
3. If you add “ground” input, then it generates patterns on the input ground. As it accumulates light particles on faces toward the light source, it may display basic shading for ground layer.
When you use ground, you have to properly set lower values than height input, which is your water surface. You may intentionally set some ground values higher than water surface to express exposed mounds or rocks.