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I plan to fake a shadow from a light using a mask (in the area light's material I mixed a black 0 strength emission shader with another one that actually casts light). However, the result is nothing. My mask texture is black and white. The shadow is a window frame as it seems. Is it possible to do this? if so, how? windowframe_mask light_mat

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  • $\begingroup$ you could texture a spot lamp with the lamps UV coordinates but the shadow cast will converge to the spot of the lamp. Remember that an area lamp is a diffuse source, sampled across its area. So it won't give you a sharp texture like you example. Best way to achieve the effect of a window frame is to build a Gobo or Cookie as described below. $\endgroup$
    – 3pointedit
    Nov 11, 2016 at 21:05

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I think textured area lights are not fully supported yet. So currently one of the workarounds is to add another mesh under the lamp and add a transparent material on it with transparency controlled by the mask image (as seen below).

enter image description here

Another way is to add Texture Coordinates node to your existing area lamp material and connect the Reflection output to the Image Texture Vector input, however, that looks kinda strange and not very correct.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer, will try that. I tried putting a small window frame in front of the light but it didn't work :D I try this plane stuff. $\endgroup$
    – agiro
    Nov 12, 2016 at 9:39

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