I have a Box and a Sphere inside the same Geometry node. They are connected with a Merge node.

Is there a way to render just the Sphere and not the Box if I have the Merge node's display flag selected? I don't want to make the Box inactive by activating its Bypass flag.

I know you can stop nodes being rendered that are at the Scene level above using Exclude Objects in the render operator, but what about connected nodes like this set up?

There may be better ways, depending on why you want to do this.

One way might be to use material nodes on each primitive, prior to the merge. Assign a shadow matte material to the box with transparency set to 100 and shadow set to 0. Assign a different material to the sphere. Both primitives will be active, but the box will render nothing.

Another approach would be to connect the box to a switch node, then a null on the switch's other input. That would let you switch between the box and a null going into your merge.

I tried using the shadow matte as suggested but it just cuts out whatever is behind it. Instead I opted for a Surface Shader with Opacity set to 0. I can't find a way to make the Ground Plane node not render though.

Have you tried separating the Render flag from the Display flag?
From what you describre, I would use the Render Flag on the sphere and the Display flag on the Merge SOP.

@bebe:

Thanks, I had forgotten about the Render flag. I am rather new to Houdini.