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Here is a render example of my problem. A plane with a glossy material will reflect the sun disc, but the sun itself doesn't appears in the sky. enter image description here

Any idea ? (i've used the "Sun Position" addon to help for positioning the sun, but even if i don't use it, the sun didn't shows itself)

I'm currently using Blender 2.7 on PC, i've try on a Mac, the problem is the same.

Regards, Arno

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you upload your .blend? There are many possible things which could cause this, and it's hard to do more than speculate without more info.. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3 ♦
    Mar 24, 2014 at 8:42
  • $\begingroup$ Hi Gandalf, Thank you for your concern :) Here it is : labellelumiere.fr/temp/Blender_Cycles_Sky.rar $\endgroup$
    – Arno
    Mar 24, 2014 at 10:50
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    $\begingroup$ your blend file works fine for me. $\endgroup$
    – Vader
    Mar 24, 2014 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ Oops, i guess i've send you the wrong file with a tweak, i've created a disc with emission to simulate the sun. Here is the right .blend file : labellelumiere.fr/temp/Cycles_Sun_problem.zip Sorry about that... $\endgroup$
    – Arno
    Mar 24, 2014 at 20:36

2 Answers 2

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Lamps in Blender Render
In Blender Render you can turn Halo on, and the light will be visible to the camera.

Lamps in Cycles Render
You can't see lamps if you are using Cycles Render. That's one of their defining qualities. Here is a quote from the Blender wiki:

"Next to lighting from the background and any object with an emission shader, lamps are another way to add light into the scene. The difference is that they are not directly visible in the rendered image, and can be more easily managed as objects of their own type."
(Source: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Lamps)

So, if you need a visible light source in Cycles, use either mesh lights (i.e. meshes with an emissive material) or for example an HDRI with a studio lighting setup.

New Experimental Cycles Volume Scatter Feature
The only other way you can see the light source in Cycles is with the new Volume Scatter: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Materials/Volume

Just to give credit where credit is due, all the information I've listed here I have gotten from the Blender Developers and members of BlenderArtists.org, which also is a great knowledge base for everything Blender-related. Here's the question I asked about lamps:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?331453-How-can-I-see-a-lamp-in-a-scene&p=2607054#post2607054

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  • $\begingroup$ Oops, i guess i've send you the wrong file with a tweak, i've created a disc with emission to simulate the sun. Here is the right .blend file : labellelumiere.fr/temp/Cycles_Sun_problem.zip Sorry about that... Arno $\endgroup$
    – Arno
    Mar 24, 2014 at 19:45
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much Thom for your investigations, i'll try to fake it with a disc mesh. Merci beaucoup ! $\endgroup$
    – Arno
    Mar 25, 2014 at 7:36
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Lamps are never visible to the camera directly.

You could try faking the sun with a mesh constrained a good distance behind the sun lamp, but other than that I'm not sure of the best way to handle this.

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