Ray Preview Basic Outputs ContextOutputs
A positive signal (1 or TRUE) will be output here if the ray hits the surface directly on its way from the camera. If the ray hits the object
surface after passing through a refraction or a transparent material, for example, 0 or FALSE will be output.
If the current ray is used to compute a shadow, a positive result of 1 or TRUE will be output, otherwise 0 or FALSE will be output.
If Global Illumination is enabled in the Render Settings menu, a positive result of 1 or TRUE will be output if the render sample is used for Global Illumination. This makes it possible to create completely new effects, e.g., a material that only generates light while Global Illumination is being calculated. For the subsequent normal rendering process, this luminance can then automatically remain turned off to display a normal shaded area.
If the material currently being calculated is visible in a reflection, a positive result will be output at these locations.
If the material lies behind a transparent object, a positive result will be output in these areas. For this, the transparent material must have a refraction index not equal to 1.0. Areas masked using the alpha properties of a given material are not included. These areas can be queried via the Camera output.
In areas in which the material appears in matte reflections, a positive result of 1 or TRUE will be output.
Ray Depth [-2147483648..2147483647]
Here the ray depth at the current sample point will be returned. As rays are traced throughout the scene, they will hit objects along their way. Depending on factors such as the material at the hit point, a new ray may be spawned at this position in order to trace a reflection or refraction. At each step of the way, the ray depth is incremented by one. This process ends when either no object is hit,or when the maximum ray depth as defined in the Render Settings is reached.
This value shows the current refraction index of the sample ray.