Spotlight (as an object) visible in the render as a black rectangle.

zmicshop

This is such a dumb noobie question but I've been pulling out my hair for over a hour.

I have a rectangular spotlight, it works fine, it lights up the scene. But in the render it blocks the image as a small black rectangle. How do I make it invisible?

thank you

warlordnik

I just noticed the same on mine.  Never noticed spotlights do this before.  Did you find a solution?

warlordnik

zmicshop said:

This is such a dumb noobie question but I've been pulling out my hair for over a hour.

I have a rectangular spotlight, it works fine, it lights up the scene. But in the render it blocks the image as a small black rectangle. How do I make it invisible?

thank you

Actually, just found the solution of a DAZ enthusiast's website.  We just have to turn "Render Emitter" under the Lights tab to "off".  Weird how it's "on" by default.

JVRenderer

zmicshop said:

This is such a dumb noobie question but I've been pulling out my hair for over a hour.

I have a rectangular spotlight, it works fine, it lights up the scene. But in the render it blocks the image as a small black rectangle. How do I make it invisible?

thank you

It looks like you've changed your spotlight geometry to 'rectangle. Turn off  'render emitter' and the rectangle will be invisible in your render, but it will retain the lighting information. I use the rectangle lighting geometry to 'soften' the shadows cast by the spot light.

margrave

zmicshop said:

This is such a dumb noobie question but I've been pulling out my hair for over a hour.

I have a rectangular spotlight, it works fine, it lights up the scene. But in the render it blocks the image as a small black rectangle. How do I make it invisible?

thank you

As others said, turn off "Render Emitter" to get it to stop being directly visible. However, I do believe it will continue to block other lights and cast shadows in your scene. Iray tries to emulate real world light as close as possible; it's best to think of your lights as physically real lights on a film set and figure out a way to light your scenes so the lights don't get in the way.

Richard Haseltine

warlordnik said:

zmicshop said:

This is such a dumb noobie question but I've been pulling out my hair for over a hour.

I have a rectangular spotlight, it works fine, it lights up the scene. But in the render it blocks the image as a small black rectangle. How do I make it invisible?

thank you

Actually, just found the solution of a DAZ enthusiast's website.  We just have to turn "Render Emitter" under the Lights tab to "off".  Weird how it's "on" by default.

Why weird? That is how a ral light would be. Having invisible objects that produce light is actually weird (and don't forget that the light will be visible through other objects and in reflections whatever setting you use here).