Dear Maverick users,

This post is about Trace Sets, the newest addition to Maverick’s scene illumination arsenal.

With Trace Sets you can control what objects and lights in the scene interact with each other. As simple and at the same time as profound as that.

In more practical terms, these are the type of things you can do with Trace Sets:

  • Exclude from a diamond the refractions of intersections of the metal body of the ring.
  • Remove an unwanted light reflection from the specular component of an object.
  • Make an object not catch illumination from a light source.
  • Make an object be invisible to another.

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Introduction video

Trace Sets are a fairly advanced subject. We have created this introduction video to go through the basics of the feature.

Basically, each object can be assigned to a trace set ID, and then each object/material has an include/exclude list where you can enter the other IDs the object/material interacts with.

 

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This animation above is taken directly from the video. As you can see, trace sets were used here to exclude the metal from the transmission of the diamonds. This may be a great time saver when you have to deal with imperfectly modeled geometries that intersect with each other.

Note: Trace sets are only available in Maverick Studio.

Practical example

We have also recorded a video making heavy use of Trace Sets to selectively control which objects catch illumination from which light.

Note however that Trace Sets must be handled with care, since they bend the Laws of Physics. When using Maverick users are encouraged to think as photographers and use visual trickery features as a last resort only.

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Thanks for watching!