Note: A new render setup system is available in
Maya 2016 Extension 2 that provides a modern approach to creating render layers, collections and overrides. This new approach simplifies the management of complex scenes for rendering and is now the recommended workflow. See
Render setup in Maya for more information.
You may want to have a render layer that contains only reflections and refractions of an object, but have the object not be visible on that layer. The primary visibility attribute in the Render Stats allows an object to reflect and refract, but the object itself does not render.
To do so, both the visible objects and the hidden objects (the objects for which you wish to show reflection and refraction) must belong to the same layer.
To hide an object but show its reflections and refractions
- Select Window > Rendering Editors > Render Layer Editor.
- In the Render Layer editor window, select the layer on which you want to hide the object(s).
- Select the object. The Attribute Editor with the selected object’s attributes appears.
- Uncheck
Primary Visibility in the
Render Stats section of the object’s shape node. The
Primary Visibility attribute turns orange, indicating that visibility is overridden on this layer.
