Rim Lighting - Arnold User Guide

Light
Specify the name of the light to be used here. Rim lighting is affected by the shadow of this light. The supported light types are: Distant, Point, Spot, and Photometric.
- The Mesh Light and Skydome Light are not supported since they can create blurred results.
- Multiple lights are not supported with Rim Lighting.
Color
The color of the rim light. Connect a ramp here to get a rim lighting effect.
Effect of ramp on Rim Light Color
If the Rim Light Color is, for example, a constant white color, we get the result as in the left image below. If a ramp is connected, this can be used for controlling the overall width of the ramp as in the right image.
Adding colored ramps to Rim Light Color can be useful for a wide variety of lighting scenarios. For example, lighting interior scenes, adding rim lighting to a planet, or lighting a character/sculpture.
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Color ramp > rim_light_color (point_light) | distant_light |
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Black and white ramp (white position animated). | without Rim Light Color (Distant Light) | with Rim Light Color |
Width
This option is implemented so that users do not need to connect a ramp node to use rim lighting.
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0 | 0.5 | 1 (default) |
Tint
Tints the color of the Rim Light using the Base Color of the surface.
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0 (default) | 0.5 | 1 |
Rim Light Color: white
Bedroom scene courtesy of David Vacek.