Skydome light: How to disable visibility in alpha channel

[Anonymous]

Hi guys!

As the normal "primary visibility" setting is not available for Skydome lights (Arnold 5, Maya 2018) and the "Visibility - Camera 0" setting changes the look of my render, is there any other possibility to do that?
I don't mind it being in the RGB channels, just the Alpha channel should be clear of the Skydome light.

Addon question: Same as above but with black empty RGB also?

Thanks so much for any help!

[ashley.handscomb.retallack]

Adjusting the camera visibility should only affect how it displays in camera rays, are you getting other effects from disabling camera visibility? How is it changing the look of your render?

[Anonymous]

I just tested it in an empty scene and I noticed that some reflections are missing in combination with a shadowMatte ground plane.

Without ground plane there is no difference with setAttr "aiSkyDomeLightShape1.camera" 0;

The following 2 renders have the only difference of setting the camera visibility to 1 or 0.

[maxtarpini · Accepted solution]

The shadowmatted plane is blocking your indirect reflections (that looks like they are traced from camera rays) so simply disable 'Cast Shadows' under Arnold Visibility shape attributes for the obj you use as shadowmatte. Then you can set skydome Camera visibility to 0 to not have it in the alpha while keep having your indirect refl in the beauty or refl pass.

[Anonymous]

Good call, thanks! I set it up so I have one plane that catches the shadow and one plane that throws the shadow. That way it works!

I'm sure this could somehow be done with a rayswitch shader but for my purposes a second plane is okay.

Thanks again!

[anim8]

I have the same problem.

I selected both OBJECTS and deselected Cast Shadows in AE > ARNOLD.

I really need the ALPHA on this scene.

SkyDome Visibility On:

SkyDome Off:

[Anonymous]

You can off the camera setting in skydome

[Anonymous]

Visibilty> camera = 0

in skydome setting