[Brian Jones]

not going to be able to tell anything from that picture, can you post the scene file?

[Brian Jones]

could you post the scene file?

[Brian Jones]

scale the scene and everything gets bigger, then you can do the reverse and scale back down again. Or you could scale only the object (then scale back again) or add a Plain effector as a deformer and scale up to work on it but turn off the effector (or trash it) when you are done modelling.
hmmm the Plain effector thing doesn’t seem to work, when you actually select the object the scale goes away and setting Deformed Editing in the Viewport/Display prefs doesn’t seem to keep the scaling (which i thought it would), so back to the first two suggestions…
Why the material doesn’t show on the part is because Basic/Use Color is set to Layer not Off (or Automatic)

[Brian Jones]

the way I read the help, the volume caustics are to make visible effects in the volumetric light after it passes through a transparent object.
Relating to your example of the foggy room, the volumetric light is a fake of that and while reflected light does affect the volume of the light cone as it passes back through it from a reflection, the ‘foggy volume’ does not reflect (does not continue reflected) in either standard or Physical – perhaps something to request long term –
I don’t see a way around that except fakes (unless I’ve missed something since it’s not something I’ve used).
Might be possible with other render engines.

[Brian Jones]

this is what I get in a simple test. The differences from yours are probably – I’m not using a visible light (which I figured would confuse/mask what I was trying to see), I’m not using any other light. I have the energy and photons settings up a fair amount (always go loud (lots of energy) at first to check out where it’s going, then increase photons to get smoothness, then decrease energy to the level you want – all assuming it’s not way too slow to do it that way), and I have no falloff in the light or caustics…

and I’m assuming you really want surface caustics rather than volume, since thats what should give you caustics off a reflective surface rather than through a transparent volume

[Brian Jones]

hmmm I wasn’t thinking, your objects are right in front of each other so the Object Buffer thing won’t work because the first object occludes the others buffers
(yes you have it basically right but you an add multiple object buffer layers in the multipass, one for each buffer)

So sorry, I can’t think of a good solution other than rendering the objects separately

[Brian Jones]

maybe something I don’t know but not directly, I think. Since Element 3D is a 3D plugin in a 2D compositing program that’s likely what makes it possible. However, it might be possible if you use Object Buffers and Multipass rendering to take your objects into AE and do blending in the rendered layers there.

[Brian Jones]

did you solve this? If you have xparticles you can use the xpsplinemesher on a mograph Tracer of the TP particles (just feed the tracer the TP group you want to mesh.

[Brian Jones]

it’s the speed of the original particles that makes it move. You might be able to use the Friction object to slow them down but it will still move for a bit

[Brian Jones]

1. Anything you change in settings will drop back of course (even clicking in the OM?) but I agree a times it seems too fast. The flip side is trying to convince it you want to return without having to move the camera.

2. Seems like a feature as it allows you to kill the window but continue the render, it takes a fair amount of resources, but how much that matters anymore wth modern hardware I don’t know