Pool water

[Ealexander]

Hi,

After a million years rendering in the entertainment industry, I've been doing more architectural work lately and I have an upcoming project that has a pool in the back yard.  I'm wondering what the standard practice is for the water:

Do you make a cube of water to fill the volume and displace the top surface or do you just make a surface plane only and the bulk of the pool is empty.  I usually lean towards realistic scenarios working better, but I'm wondering what others have to say about this.  Thanks in advance for any guidance.

-Evan

[romullus]

Both methods will give the same output. You are free to choose whichever you like more. I think, plane would be more convenient :]

[sirio76]

I always prefer real volume for water, it's the best way to get the proper deep effect you find in pool or ocean water. Only issue to get nice water in Corona is that caustic effects are not practical to use at this time.

[Ealexander]

Thanks guys. I'll do some experiments.

[rojharris]

To get a really nice pool you need caustics and sadly corona can't do that yet. If you have VRay for C4d it can do stunning pool water. There's a tut somewhere, although it may be part of Stefan's course. Probably not helpful I know..

[burnin]

There's also a way to get pool caustics with Corona explained on the forums. Is in max section, but can be reproduced in C4D.

[maru]

There should be no difference between a box and a plane capping the hole in terms of realism. The plane may be more convenient, for example in case you would use displacement. A box would get displaced on all sides, while the plane will only get displaced on top of the pool.

As to caustics, here is a guide for 3ds Max. The same options should be available in C4D, you will just have to find them. :)
https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/12000043584