also how do i make the caustic less dramatic? it is too hard in my opinion!
Oh, i just notice that if the plane is reflective, it will not keep the photons.
it won’t? oh jeese that is bad! i’ll see if i can fix it!
well if i can’t have mirror on my ground plane then how do i get mirrors for the surface?
also how do i make the caustic less dramatic? it is too hard in my opinion!
Decrease the photon lamp’s energy. 
Of course it will still have bright spots, but that’s the whole point of caustics, rays get focused sometimes to a single spot.
do u need yafray to do caustics?
yes and that is why it is such a feat cause it is like terribly difficult to get things from blender to yafray! it turns out to be like the one guy said no mirrors aloud so i can’t have the mirrored materials like i wanted instead i’ll have to fake it! if someone knows how to have mirrors and caustics please let me know!
so recap - caustics are working, i am almost finished with a render and i’ll post it then - sorry about this being in the finsished projects when in reality it isn’t really finished! admin: you can move this! 
thanks for the help guys! 
edit: render taking too long - i’ll render while sleeping!
Hard to get from blender to yafray? You mean selecting yafray from a menu %|
To see if you are pointing at the apple, select the light and press ctrl+0, to make it the camera. Do the same to the camera when finished.
Mirrors and caustics, render the mirrored plane and the caustics seperately, them combine in the sequencer or gimp.
Ian
I like the caustics in the first post, sadly I still havn’t gotton 2.34 so I can’t really help you out here.
hahaha - i meant materials and such - they sometime don’t like to work…
Mirrors and caustics, render the mirrored plane and the caustics seperately, them combine in the sequencer or gimp.
don’t have gimp or photoshop - how do i use the sequencer to mix the images (what effect do i use) and when you say seperately do you mean place the apple on the mirror with just the sun lamp and then render then turn off the mirro and add the photon light and render?
m8, you haven’t gotten 2.34! get with it! lol! 
you’de have know doubt a wicked looking image!
this is a mistake render that actually turned out quite nice (a few probs) so i figured i’d post it here - what do you think?
the apple shadow is distorted do to the grounds surface - it wasn’t a mistake - oh and it is bw or cequa cause the colors were all messed up (i got a yafray error!)
Interesting. I kinda like it.
d_m
First, get gimp, its free and fantastic.
With the sequencer, try the add effect, the cross effects and any others you want. the time it takes to get the new image is minimal, so play around.
Gimp has better layering controls though, so its a good download.
Ian
thanks digital me! and thanks for the tip bulletdodga! i don’t use linux for blender (i have linux on dual boot but i don’t have a media player for avi and it is just alot of hassle - perhaps when i get my own pc!) so my question is - what’ a windows alernative? (and don’t you dare say photoshop cause i ain’t dishing the dough for something when so far Ulitmate FX has done a pretty good yet limited job of editing color palletes and cropping of which bitmap totally and royally stinks at!) i need basic filters, and painting effect (like painting but only with blur, noise, and color), plus some cool overlays or alpha overs would be nice!
how’s that and how’s this?
the first is standard yafray focal, second is blender sequenced focal correction (lot’s of fancy words for well better!) whatcha think?
i am heading to bed now but in the morning (no i am not making waffles!) i’ll work on getting both the reflections and the caustics to work better! till then later!
okay so this isn’t going so well! i have been shooting photons since 4:00 am and it is now 4:40! i am going to have to abort and try agian over night! this totally stinks! :x 
Prince,
Good job. It took me a while, between the time I read you and the time I tried the caustics.
In any case, you provided me w/ what I needed (screenshots) for materials.
With that I did a simple transparent marble http://hpks.com/artsy-funny/bille-sur-table.jpg
Thank you very much.
Arnaud
uh…you can get the gimp for windows… just go to the website and it’ll show you how to do it. you have to get gtk (also on the site) and install it first, then the gimp.