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How can a scene be setup to illustrate ideal refraction? The desired result is something like this (courtesy wikipedia):

enter image description here

In this cycles setup, a light projects nearly straight rays out (see Making a Laser in Cycles - Straight Beam of Light?). A plane is setup with a refraction shader. When the light passes through it, the outgoing rays are much more diffuse than the incoming rays.

Setup:

enter image description here

Plane refraction shader:

enter image description here

The result with the light rays::

enter image description here

How can the result be improved? Can the strength of the ray be increased after it hits the plane? Can the desired result be generated?

Sample Blend file -

Ed Tate
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    Hello :). I don't think that's possible, since light doesn't actually go through the glass in Cycles: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/68410/ and https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2558/ – jachym michal Sep 30 '20 at 13:05
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    You can't do that in blender. Caustics in cycles are quite limited, as is not a bidirectional path tracer. Try using LuxRender or other more advanced render engine. – susu Sep 30 '20 at 16:04

1 Answers1

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LuxRender shows refraction correctly.

  1. Install LuxRender (currently support 2.82 and 2.83)
  2. Setup a model with a refraction shader just like for Cycles
  3. Render!

enter image description here

Sample Blend file -

Ed Tate
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