How do I create a per light RGBA AOV in Solaris and have it work with the Arnold Render Settings node?

[mnyman7ZYY6]

I have been trying to do this for a while now, and I cant figure it out.

Couldnt find anything about this in Solaris documentation or these forums. 

I want to be able to split out my lights into different render layers, RGBA_key, RGBA_rim, RGBA_sky etc and be able to input them into the AOVs of the Arnold Render Settings node.

The RGBA AOV works fine, but the second I put in any of those custom AOVs the node errors out.

[jwkimXJ5XR]

Does anyone know how to do this? Is it even possible? @Stephen.Blair 

[peterDTE7K]

1. add RGBA render var node with settings:

data type: color4f

source name: color

source type: raw

format: color4f

2. similarly add render var for each light but change:

source type: LPE

source name (example for key light): C.*<L.'key'>

on key light node you need to set AOV Light group to "key". repeat for every light

3. add Render Product node. change settings:

Ordered render vars - paste here all primitive paths of light render vars nodes separated by space. Example:

/Render/Products/Vars/RGBA /Render/Products/Vars/key /Render/Products/Vars/dome

or add all using /Render/Products/Vars/*

4. you need to use "render settings" node. "arnold render settings" node does not support light AOVs as far as I know.

paste primitive path of your render product node into "ordered products" of the "render settings". example - /Render/Products/renderproduct

[am_wilkins]

For clarification, after months and months the HtoA "Arnold Render Settings" node still doesn't support custom AOV such as lightgroups or anything else you might try make.

So in a production environment you basically have to ignore it and build everything from scratch which is quite frustrating.

[Stephen.Blair]

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@am_wilkins wrote:

For clarification, after months and months the HtoA "Arnold Render Settings" node still doesn't support custom AOV such as lightgroups or anything else you might try make.

So in a production environment you basically have to ignore it and build everything from scratch which is quite frustrating.

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Did you see the Arnold Render Settings improvements in the latest HtoA?

[am_wilkins]

Hey Stephen,

I hadn't seen this, looks amazing. 👏

So happy to hear of the improvements and very keen to try it out soon on our end.

Thanks for letting me know!

all the best,

amwilkins

[Stephen.Blair]

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@am_wilkins wrote:

Hey Stephen,

I hadn't seen this, looks amazing. 👏

So happy to hear of the improvements and very keen to try it out soon on our end.

Thanks for letting me know!

all the best,

amwilkins

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re: per light RGBA AOVs
wildcards like RGBA_* are not supported yet, so you do still have to create separate AOVs like RGBA_point2, RGBA_point1, RGBA_spot1, ...