Caustics problem

[scottn]

I have done a quick animation of a scene containing a dirty chrome teapot and some glass marbles. I have used an HDRI image and the image world plugin for reflections and refractions but not for lighting. The scene is lit with about 70 shadow mapped spotligthts and one area light. The area light is the only light with caustics enabled.

As the camera animates around the objects the caustics appear and dissapear (if you shuttle through the animation frame by frame you will see this)

The animation appears quite flashy - this was an effect I added in After Effects (as is the lens flare) so it wouldnt affect the LW3d side of things at all.

I know I could use cache caustics because my objects dont move around, but I dont want to.

The animation is a Quicktime mov. Its only about 900k big but I have zipped it. Before you hit play in Quicktime, turn on looping.

[wizlon]

I had a similar problem the only thing that fixed it was turning on cache. what are your objections to using a cached solution?

[scottn]

It jus pisses me off, because I think to myself "What if the objects did have to move! Then cache caustics would be useless." So I would like to get it right without using cache caustics.

The problem is not very noticeable in this instance, but what about the next time when I need the caustics to look good because they are the focal point of the animation.

I guess I'll worry about it next time. It still irritates me though.