Yeah, both those things = true.... But hey, I just figured it out at 5am..... Turns out, you have to make sure that, under Visibility/Rendering/transparency is ON for the background you want to see, and OFF for the HDR image. I guess the portal lights show what they are 'transparent' to....My portal lights were seeing the HDR blown out image, and not seeing the background. Finally I figure this one out....now I get to go to sleep....
cheers! On Jul 6, 2013, at 4:49 AM, Cesar Saez <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Nancy, > Make sure you are using 'Portal Light (mia)' node (there are 2 portal_light > nodes) and 'visible in render' (just below 'Tint') is turned off. > > Cheers! > > > On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 4:17 AM, Nancy Jacobs <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hey, sorry to bother you guys again so soon, but wondering if anyone knows >> what would make portal lights NOT show the image behind them, in the >> background, wrapped in the environment sphere. >> >> This is an old problem I never could figure out, and it's driving me crazy... >> >> I have a room environment where I want to use portal lights, but when I turn >> on area light>visible in render, the portal light blocks the view outside. >> If I switch that off, I get error messages about how it is supposed to be on. >> >> A couple years ago Manny sent me a test file which has portal lights working >> as they are supposed to, and I even imported my double-sphere environment >> into it, and the lights work ok with it (they don't block the background >> image), with "area light>visible in render" switched on. Portal lights with >> these same settings block out the same environment background in my project. >> It's one of those visible hi res background spheres, plus a visible only to >> secondary rays HDR sphere to light the scene. IT works in the test scene, so >> why not the real scene? >> >> I swear I've checked everything. In the test file it seems you can check all >> sorts of visibility options on and off, and nothing matters except keeping >> the 'visible in render' parameter in the PORTAL LIGHT/Color section switched >> off, and it still reveals the background, as should be. >> >> Anyway, if anyone has encountered this very frustrating problem, please let >> me know what I could be missing. >> >> Any ideas? Possibilities? >> >> Thanks, >> Nancy >
