For making fog, it may happen that your light source that shines through glass, like the lantern, may stop working after adding the image plane of the fog. It was working even though I had the tree branch PNG alphas already in the scene. It was only when I added the fog that the light stopped shining through glass.
The only difference between the fog and the tree branch is the enabling of “emission” on the principled BSDF node of the fog to see it in the dark.
It took some time, but I found that I could get it working again by:
Selecting the fog image plane. Then go to the “Object Properties” tab (orange square symbol).
Scroll down to “Ray Visibility” and uncheck “Diffuse”, “Glossy”, and the “Transmission” boxes. Instantly, my lantern was shining the way I wanted.
Another tip I wish to add is if you don’t want an image plane (like fog) to cast a shadow, but want the branches to cast a shadow:
Select the object you wish to not have a shadow.
Then go to that object’s material properties.
Scroll down to “Settings” and there will be an option called “Shadow Mod.”
Click the box that says “Opaque” which is the default option. It will reveal a drop down menu with one of the options being “None.” Select “None” and your image plane will no longer have a shadow in your scene.
I apologize for this post being so long, but situations like this are so specific and can end up taking a lot of time just to find out that all it takes is to uncheck a few boxes. I hope this helps anyone with this problem or may come across this problem later. If you have questions, let me know and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.
