Urgent hellp needed! Self illuminating material not glowing and caustics not working

[R.Stewart]

Hello,

 

I'm pretty new to max and I have an assignment due very soon and my scene is just not working out how i planned. My self illuminating materials on my light fixtures and the windows of the cruise ship are not glowing. Also there should be caustic effects showing in the water and I don't see any.

 

I know there are many other issues that I will address after I figure out the issues I don't understand

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. I've attached an image but the zip folder is too large at 42 mb to attach.

 

Thank you, I look forward to hearing back from you.

[R.Stewart]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm using mental ray on 3ds max 2011 and just the default settings on the self illuminating material.

 

Also any criticism would be humbly welcomed.

 

Thank you

[CJI]

Are you using the A&D materials. Have you tried upping the intensity until the material shows.

 

Caustics arent generated automatically and require the use of Photons, real caustics are also quite time consuming to render. You would be better using a projected caustics map. Hard to notice the difference.