Material that emits light, but appears diffuse?

Question

How can I have an object that emits light (using an emission shader) onto other objects, but when rendered appears to be diffuse (or any other shader for that matter)?

In essence, I want one object to emit light that shows on other objects, but that only itself receives light from other objects (not itself). Is this possible?

I tried doing this using Max/Add Shader nodes, but this just mixed in the "pure white" emission shader look with the diffuse shader I was using.

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 20 '21 at 21:57

9

Use the Is Camera Ray output of the Light Path node to mix the shaders.

example node setup

edited Dec 20 '21 at 21:57

Timaroberts

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answered Jul 08 '13 at 20:49

Aldrik

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How did you get the Light Path node to only show the Is Camera Ray output? – gandalf3 Jul 08 '13 at 21:30
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@gandalf3, Toggle Hidden Node Sockets: Ctrl+H. – Aldrik Jul 08 '13 at 23:16
Ah, thanks.. learn something new every day ;) – gandalf3 Jul 09 '13 at 01:40

Material that emits light, but appears diffuse?

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