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I want to render an animation in separate layers, with Smoke (Volumetric) on one layer and the Scene (Mesh) on another. But I ran into a problem—when I enable Indirect Only for the smoke Collection (Domain), the Glossy/Reflection of the smoke gets cut off in the Render, even though it looks fine in the Viewport.

The image shows a simple scene without any extra Objects, Render Layers, or Compositing *The image below shows a simple scene without any extra Objects, Render Layers, or Compositing.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

  • Different Sample settings
  • Disabling Denoise
  • Disabling Motion Blur
  • Disabling Depth of Field in the Camera
  • Increasing all Max Bounces to 12 under Render > Light Paths
  • Render > Light Paths > Clamping > Indirect Light - testing different values
  • Enabling/disabling Render > Film > Transparent
  • Toggling Object Visibility for both the Mesh and the Domain
  • Testing different Domain (Gas) sizes, with and without intersecting the Mesh
  • Setting up the smoke Shader with both Principled Volume and Emission
  • Adjusting Clip Start/End for the Camera
  • Moving everything to a new Scene

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  • $\begingroup$ You could try going into the object property panel (the orange square with the 4 corner pieces), go to "Visibility" -> "Ray Visibility" -> and uncheck "Camera". This should render everything of the smoke but not the direct "image" of the smoke $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Commented Nov 4 at 20:43
  • $\begingroup$ @Marius i just tested this method, and you know what? it’s the same - the reflection is still cut off :( $\endgroup$
    – Evgeniy Pupkin
    Commented Nov 5 at 5:33
  • $\begingroup$ Hhhmm, Okay. Open the Shader Editor for your Smoke object. Get a light path node, a Transparency node and a mix shader node. Take the "is camera Ray" output from the light path node and plug it into the mix shaders Factor, than plug in the transparency and smoke material (I'm not sure on top of my head which one should be above and bellow, just try it out). Check and make sure that your transparent bounces are high enough and not limited by the overall bounce limit. Report back if this works, I'm rooting for you :D $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Commented Nov 5 at 8:19
  • $\begingroup$ @Marius could you please check it to make sure i didn’t do anything wrong? imgur.com/a/Pa55OFC $\endgroup$
    – Evgeniy Pupkin
    Commented Nov 5 at 14:20
  • $\begingroup$ Haha, Well it does not look wrong. btw. I admire your commitment but when something does not work with 20 bounces it will also not work with 128 bounces :D $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Commented Nov 5 at 17:33

1 Answer 1

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I have looked at your file and found a solution. In the Rendered Image You can see how it looks if you connect the "is camera Ray" directly to the factor of the mix node. this way you still get the shadow of the smoke on the floor. If you don't want the shadow, you can use a Math Node set to "Add" and connect it as you can see in the shader nodes. This will give you the current Viewport image you can see in the Screenshot (on the right). I hope this helps :D enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ this is it! you’re a lifesaver!!! i’ll have to mess with render layers to apply two different materials to the same object, but that’s a minor detail. THANKS A LOT!!! $\endgroup$
    – Evgeniy Pupkin
    Commented Nov 5 at 21:53
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    $\begingroup$ Happy I could help! $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Commented Nov 6 at 1:55

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