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Here's a simple scene - box that casts a shadow, one light source, floor, ambient world lighting and everything is in a sphere with principled volume.

I would like to make the selected box appear as if it wasn't interacting with the scene. Ideally just through a material modification - my best attempt in the screenshot does not interact with light, but colors are still affected by the volumetrics.

I have no idea if that's achievable with some smart node setup. If not - any method that doesn't doesn't require two separate expensive renders is good.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ you could use an Emission node but your cube won't have any more shade on its faces, or maybe a mix of Diffuse and Emission? Or you can use the Compositing but it looks like you don't want to? $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Oct 11, 2021 at 10:14
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, I was trying to avoid compositing since it adds manual overhead to the process. Also nodes should lowers the rendering time (since less calculations go into this part of the image). $\endgroup$
    – Marcin
    Oct 11, 2021 at 11:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Marcin I don't think you absolutely have to use compositing in this case if you do not want to, but your statement that it adds manual overhead to the process does not seem to be true. You can set compositing up so that it's performed after rendering automatically so no manual work after initial set up is needed. $\endgroup$
    – Martynas Žiemys
    Oct 11, 2021 at 12:13

2 Answers 2

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you can try this:

enter image description here

Turn off all ray visibility except camera. And don't use shader, just plugin the color directly in your surface.

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  • $\begingroup$ This significantly simplifies node setup for the material - thanks! However the object is still affected by volumetrics. In the end I needed to learn about layers and compositing. $\endgroup$
    – Marcin
    Oct 11, 2021 at 21:33
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Turns out this isn't doable with just materials. Even with @Chris's tip - it only makes it so that the object doesn't interact with different types of light, but its visibility is still affected by volumetrics.

To make an object appear in front of the volume, it requires a new layer and a composite setup. The object you want to be in front can be visible on both layers for easy positioning. The overlay layer can only contain the objects to be overlaid and light sources (which can be shared with /separate from the layer below as needed).

But all of that can be rendered with a single press of a button.

node setup for overlay

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