Setting objects not to render
 

Is it possible to set an object so that it will not render in the scene at render time?

Yes you can do this all you have to do is open the Item Properties of the object you dont want to be renderd and then go over to, the render tab and then tick the tabs Unseen By Rays and Unseen by Camera. That should do it i hope this helped.

or you can set object dissolve to 100% :)

Thanks, i'll try both methods. I'll elaborate a little on why i asked this. I have a scene with some simple animation going on in it, but I also have a large complex object in the scene as well. I just need to be able to render the scene quickly to get a guage on how the animation looks. But at the moment I have to wait ages because of this complex object in the background.

So I suppose my question is really, not only do I not want it to appear in the scene, I don't want it to be considered by the renderer at all, so that i can quickly render the scene. Then when everything looks ok, re-enable it to have it render with everything else.

If either of the methods you guys suggested has this effect, then just disregard everything i just said! :D

Try the Scene Editor (CTRL+F1)

Well this is what came to my mind. Open the scene with the objects, and remove the background stuff you dont want. Save as foreground. Do the same for to get a background scene. Now render them seperately and then composite in Lightwave. Just a thought. :)