Rendering Area Lighting - Light Only

[mjward1]

We're working on some exterior renderings and we'd like to add some interior lighting to the mix. Our building is highly developed with tons of lights, so our alternative solution is to set up some invisible area lights strategically placed throughout the building. This works because the renders are in the Shell/Core file, not the interiors file.

Only problem is for us to even see the interior area lights we need to shoot the lumins through the roof, close to a million. This is not a problem in rendering, it's just that the light sphere is actually visible to the camera. In max, this is a no brainer fix, however in Revit, it's not so clear.

So to paraphrase: how to make an area light "light" entirely invisible to the camera, no matter what power it is at.

[cliff collins]

Have you tried going to Model Categories under Light Fixtures and unchecking
Light Source? I don't know if that just turns off the "yellow symbol" for the light,
or if indeed it would not show in the rendering?

cheers.................

[SCShell]

Hey there,
Within the Rendering Dialog, there is a setting for Artificial Lights in which you can control each light fixture as well as create groups of fixtures. In your case, you may want to turn all of them off at once and then just turn on the one's which will affect the rendering, or create a group which affects that particular rendering.
Hope this helps
Steve

[Gadget Man]

If I understood mjward1 correctly, they don't want to turn OFF their lights but they are concerned that the yellow "balls" representing lights actually go through the roofs (and possibly walls) to the outside of the buildings, so the camera can actually see the light objects, rather than just the light cast by them.

From my little experience with the topic I would try to ignore the fact that they are actually visible to the camera and render anyway... See what happens. I tried this and in fact it rendered OK (the right light intensity) without these light objects being visible. Maybe I was just lucky, but I would give it a try anyway...