Hiding a RectAreaLight While Maintaining Its Lighting Effect

Based on the available information about Three.js lights, I can provide some guidance on how to handle your RectAreaLight visibility issue.

The RectAreaLight in Three.js is designed to emit light from a rectangular area, simulating light sources like bright windows or strip lighting. While the light itself affects objects in the scene, you may want to hide its visual representation.

Here are some approaches you can try:

1. Use the visible property

You can set the visible property of the RectAreaLight to false while keeping its lighting effects:

JAVASCRIPTCopied
rectLight.visible = false;

This should hide the visual representation of the light while still allowing it to cast light on objects in the scene.

2. Adjust material properties

If you're using a RectAreaLightHelper to visualize the light, you can modify or remove the helper:

JAVASCRIPTCopied
// Remove the helper if you have one
scene.remove(rectAreaLightHelper);

3. Layer management

You could also place the light on a layer that isn't rendered by your camera:

JAVASCRIPTCopied
rectLight.layers.set(1);
camera.layers.enableAll();
camera.layers.disable(1);

This would keep the light in the scene for lighting calculations but prevent it from being rendered.

Remember that the RectAreaLight itself is not visible by default - it's typically the helper object that you see in the scene. If you're seeing a visible plane and you haven't explicitly added a helper, check if there's another object representing the light in your scene.