Mike wrote:
> 
> The only problem I've run into is trying to render caustics from a plane
> with a normal on it.  One thing that might be worth adding is a bounding
> option to specify an area on infinite objects (or finite objects for
> that matter) to shoot photons at.  That way instead of using the
> object's bounding box, use one the user specifies.

I agree.  I want to do this in such a way that it doesn't add too much
more to every object's struct (causing memory consumption to increase).

There is currently a workaround (but it's not very nice).  You take the
infinite object difference it and intersect it with a box that you want
to shoot photons at.  Put photon mapping on the intersection, then union
the two parts back together again.  Of course, if you do this with
complicated objects, rendering will be slower and memory usage will be
higher, so a better solution is something I'm looking into.

> I noticed that sometimes I would render once and then go to render again
> and no photon gathering was done. Then it would only do it again if I
> moved a light.  Are you caching the photon maps and reusing them?

no caching going on now (I want to do it eventually).  Maybe it's an
initialization problem (like the problem with stopping a radiosity render).
I've never experienced it, but I will be on the look out for it.

-Nathan

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