Point light creates spherical shadow when using Arnold renderer.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I ran into a problem that I couldn't solve when using Point Light with Arnold renderer. When I increase the radius in the Arnold Point light setting to create more softer shadows, there is a spherical shadow of the point light that is cast on the object that is near the Point light eg. like wall or ceiling object. I am using Maya 2018. How do I not have this spherical shadow to appear in my render? See the image below.

[Christoph_Schaedl]

Thats not a shadow. The pointlight does intersect with the object.

Its the inside of the pointlight sphere.

[Anonymous]

OK. How do I get it to not be there not effecting the surrounding object? Is there a way to hide the Point light radius in the scene?

[mspeer]

Hi!

Either you have a sphere light with radius/volume or not.

Arnold is a physically based renderer.

[Anonymous]

Could this be a bug in Maya 2019? The moment I increase the radius setting in the point light. That black spherical shadow which is coming from the invisible point light sphere radius block the light cast if the radius touch or go through a surface of an object.

[mspeer]

Hi!

This is not a bug, this is how it works.

There is no light created inside the sphere.

Again, this is a physically based renderer and the minimum distance for a sphere to be placed away from a wall is the radius of the sphere.

So move your light away from the wall or make the radius smaller.

If you want some other geometry (maybe a sphere cut in the middle) then create a Mesh Light.