Primary Visibility ( Objects only visible in reflections / refractions)

[maxwater]

Hi Everyone.

Is it possible to make objects visible in reflections / refractions , but NOT being visible itself ?
i mean for example a light-plane which should not be visible in the rendering but i need it in the reflections of a car.

greets,
max

[face]

No, it isn´t possible.

face

[TBFX]

Although object visibility control is not yet possible in Octane, you can create an octane emissive plane as a light and set it's opacity to zero. In Maya just create an octane light node and set it's geometry to type 'plane' then set it's opacity to zero.

This will show up in specular and reflections but the light will not be visible in the render, however it will cast light into the scene and also affect diffuse so still may not work for your needs.

T.

[maxwater]

Hi, thx for your answers.

thats strange , as soon as i create a light node and put its opacity to 0, it doesnt affect the scene at all. that means, it doesnt put any light into the scene nor it is visible in any reflections / refractions. ( it is a light node and its geometry: plane )

greets,
max

[TBFX]

Hmmm. That,s strange. Definitely works for me. It's late here now but I'll put a simple scene together tomorrow that works for me and post it for you. What version of Maya and plugin are you using?

T.

[maxwater]

only trying the demo version right now, for 2013

[TBFX]

Sorry, had a lazy Sunday and only just got to this. Here is a scene that should work. The scene is saved with the lights opacity set to zero so it should work out of the box so long as the commercial version of Octane for Maya plays nicely with the demo.

If you then move the opacity slider to any value greater than zero the light should reappear in the render.

Let me know how you get on.

T.

[maxwater]

Hi TBFX,


thanks alot ! i took your scene and just made the lightnode a little bit larger to see
more whats specularity and whats reflection. i added a screenshot to show how opacity 0 and opacity 0.5 of the octane-light behaves here.

greets,
max

[TBFX]

thanks alot ! i took your scene and just made the lightnode a little bit larger to see
more whats specularity and whats reflection. i added a screenshot to show how opacity 0 and opacity 0.5 of the octane-light behaves here.

Yes indeed, larger lights do seem to react differently. I'd obviously never tried hiding a large light.
I have now checked this out in both Maya plugin and standalone and the behaviour seems consistent. Not sure if this is a bug or not but if it is it's with the engine and not connected specifically with the Maya implementation.

T.