Mesh light shadow problem

[litote]

I find that if I use an Arnold Mesh light, a Maya Directional light will cast shadows off the mesh item you used for the light. Is there any way to swiitch off the shadow?

[teddude75]

Hey, you just need to turn off cast shadows. It's under the shape node, Arnold tab, visibility, and uncheck cast shadows.

[litote]

@Edward Conry

I already tried that, it makes no difference (Maya 2017/Arnold 5). The only thing that worked was to turn off Casts shadows for the directional light. It does not work if you switch it off Casts shadows on the mesh itself.

[teddude75]

Ok I got it to work. Use your mesh with an aiStandard surface and the emission weight and color(not mesh light). Than you can turn off cast shadows. You can also use aov or render layers to add the mesh lights in comp. But that might get a little bit messy.

[teddude75]

@Greg Hughes

[litote]

@Edward Conry

Sorry, I don't follow what you mean.

- Use your mesh with an aiStandard surface and the emission weight and color (not mesh light)?

[teddude75]

There's the mesh light under the Arnold menu, there's changing the shape from mesh to mesh light, and then there's turning on emission on the shader. If you use the shader than uncheck cast shadows on the shape node that would get you what you want.

@Greg Hughes

[litote]

@Edward Conry

Thanks for your.. eh hem... illuminating answer.

I see what you mean now.

[joachimguerin]

Hi! I have exactly the same issue. I understand the workaround with an emission shader but it's not really optimised. Do you have some news about it?

Thanks!

[Stephen.Blair]

For the light sampling to work properly, a mesh light has to be visible to shadow rays (which means the mesh light will cast shadows).

If you make a mesh light invisible to all rays, you'll have no shadow but you'll see this warning in the Arnold log:

light_pTorus1Shape: for MIS to work properly, polymesh linked to mesh_light should at least be visible to shadow rays

[joachimguerin]

Thanks for your answer Stephen!

But I don't see this log when I disable cast shadow from the attribute editor of the shape: shape / Arnold / visibility / Cast Shadows. (echo all command enabled)

Did you do it in another way?

[Stephen.Blair]

You need to know the name of the mesh that is exported to Arnold. It will be something like "light_pTorus1Shape@mesh"
Export an ass file to check the name.
Then use an operator to set visibility on that mesh.

But that warning means that light sampling won't necessarily work properly after you do that.

[joachimguerin]

Thanks! I got it now, it works on my side. Indeed, hope to don't have too much side effects!

[toyyoda95]

Unchecking cast shadows does absolutely nothing for me. It's really annoying because I don't want a giant shadow beneath my soft diffuse light with no object in sight that might cast one.

[hanyilun2]

Apply a materail with 0 opacity on the light mesh