topic Re: mesh light with image sequence flickering in Arnold General Rendering Forum

mesh light with image sequence flickering

bobtilton — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:05:33 GMT

I haven't found any of the usual fixes to help (higher camera and light samples, clamping) the flickering I am getting from a mesh light. It's basically a plane that, under the mesh light settings, has a jpg sequence mapped to the color. Wondering if it's the scale of the scene... I have to have an intensity of 100 and exposure of 15 to get the sort of lighting I'd like from the mesh light. Anything in here sound suspiciously like the issue? Any suggestions?

Re: mesh light with image sequence flickering

MartinBeh — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 07:58:28 GMT

Since you mention the scene - there is an Arnold setting (can't remember the name right now) which will clamp any light below a certain (very small) threshold. Maybe you are running into that?

PS: Found it - the parameter is called "low_light_threshold"

Re: mesh light with image sequence flickering

lee_griggs — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 12:16:00 GMT

Do you have any images to show?

How many samples?

Maybe the plane needs more subdivisions?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_user_guide_ac_lights_ac_mesh_lights_html

Re: mesh light with image sequence flickering

bobtilton — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 21:50:50 GMT

Thanks! I didn't try the fewer subdivisions approach, only because some other place mentioned that it was better to use fewer subdivisions 🤷‍♂️. But, the solution that seemed to work was, instead of changing the object to a mesh light in the attributes, to use the mesh light button in the shelf opened up a few more options, and suddenly the flickering was gone in the next render. Now, I did turn on the clamping in the render settings, so that may have done the trick 😬