@sturkwurk

If a mat is not set to do anything in a render (Poser root with everything set to 0 or Cycles root with nothing plugged in) it will render blank/black. I call it the "black hole" and I actually use it in my eye shaders for the pupils. I don't want light hitting a pupil set up with diffuse and showing off geometry that really should not be there. I set them to this "black hole" setting and no matter what lighting they get, the pupils always come out nice and black like they should.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740