"invisible" key light still casts shadow in scene (iray)

ps2000

Hello,

I made a key light invisible in a scene by turning off the render emitter setting. It still emits light but is otherwise not visible. The problem is that it still casts a shadow.

Any method to avoid this?

Thanks 

GolaM

Turning off render emitter does just what it says: It does not render the emitter geometry anymore. (Which will affect glossy reflections!)
It still renders the light though.

If you want the light gone, just click the eye icon in the scene tab. That will make the whole object invisible. Therefore it will also not emit light anymore

ps2000

But I still want it to emit light. the light source should only be invisible and cast no shadow.

Thanks.

Fishtales

You can't turn shadows off in Iray. if it is casting light it will cause a shadow. You can turn off shadows light by light in 3Dlight though.

Chezjuan

Are you saying that you have a light source behind the key light (like the sun) and the key light itself is casting a shadow on the characters? Or are you saying that the light from the keylight is casting shadows? If the latter, Fishtales has your answer. If the former, maybe adjust the light behind the keylight.

Richard Haseltine

GolaM said:

Turning off render emitter does just what it says: It does not render the emitter geometry anymore. (Which will affect glossy reflections!)
It still renders the light though.

Render Emitter actually affects only the direct view - unless something has changed the emitter will still show in rflections or if viewed through another surface.

GolaM said:

If you want the light gone, just click the eye icon in the scene tab. That will make the whole object invisible. Therefore it will also not emit light anymore

One option is to use a prop (a plane primitive, for example, from Create>New Primitive), apply the Emissive shader preset to that (select the prop and its surface group), then in the Surfaces pane turn Cutout Opacity down to almost, but not quite zero.

ps2000

Chezjuan said:

Are you saying that you have a light source behind the key light (like the sun) and the key light itself is casting a shadow on the characters? Or are you saying that the light from the keylight is casting shadows? If the latter, Fishtales has your answer. If the former, maybe adjust the light behind the keylight.

The keylight itself throws the shadow. The light causing the shadow comes from the hdri-image I use to light the scene. The hdri image itself doesn't provide enough lighting in the right places for my taste. So I tried to improve the lighting by combining it with a 3-point lighting system. But the additional lights (key light, catch light) unfortunately throw shadows. Adjusting the hdri image is pretty cumbersome and changes the lighting which I don't want.  

Seems like I have to remove the shadow manually after rendering with gimp.