Create light overrides in your render layer

The Light Editor provides a convenient way for you to manage the lights in your scene. Use the Light Editor in conjunction with the Render Setup editor to easily create light overrides for your render layer.

Click on the status line, or double-click the Lights tab at the top of the Render Setup editor to open the Light Editor. All the lights in your scene are listed.

Display the Light Editor for each layer

Lights are automatically added to each render layer by default.

You can override this behavior by disabling Options > Include all lights in each render layer by default in the Render Setup editor.

To switch to the Light Editor for each layer, set the layer as visible. The Light Editor toolbar indicates the layer that you are currently in:

Create overrides for individual lights in your layer

  1. Open the Light Editor.

    You can click on the status line, or double-click the Lights tab on the scene layer or any of the render layers.

  2. Click the icon to switch to the layer for which you want to create a light override.
  3. In the Light Editor, select the light for which you want to create an override.
  4. In the Light Editor Property Editor, right-click the attribute and select Create Absolute Override for Visible Layer or Create Relative Override for Visible Layer to create an absolute or relative override.
    Note: You must not have any collections selected in the render layer; otherwise, the override is created for the collection and not for the light you selected.

    Overridden values are denoted in orange. As soon as an override is created, a Lights collection is created for your layer in the Render Setup editor, if it does not exist already. A collection containing the light you just modified is created within this Lights collection, as well as the corresponding override.

  5. Adjust the value of your override in the Light Editor or Render Setup Property Editor.

Note:

You cannot drag and drop the Lights collection in a render layer into another collection within the same layer.

You can only cut, copy and paste the Lights collection from one render layer to another. You cannot cut, copy and paste individual light overrides or individual light subcollections.

Create overrides for multiple lights in your layer

To override the same attribute on multiple lights, create a collection and add to it your lights, then create an override on the collection.

  1. In the Render Setup editor, click the icon to switch to the layer for which you want to create a light override.
  2. Right-click the layer and select Create Collection.
  3. Double-click the Lights tab at the top of the Render Setup editor to open the Light Editor.
  4. Select the lights for which you want to create the override, then select the collection and click Add in the Property Editor to add the lights to the collection.
  5. Select Lights from the Collection Filters drop-down list to ensure that the lights are not filtered out from the collection.
  6. With the collection still selected in the Render Setup editor, right-click the attribute that you want to override in the Light Editor Property Editor and select Create Absolute Override for Visible Layer or Create Relative Override for Visible Layer.

    Now when you set the value for one light, all other lights in the collection are also updated.

Color of attributes in the Light Editor

Overridden attributes appear in orange, and animated attributes appear in red.

Attributes without any overrides applied appear in white. Locked attributes also appear in white, but cannot be edited.

Disable lights or light overrides in a layer

To disable an override, click its button in the Render Setup editor.
To disable all lights in a layer, click on the Lights tab of the layer in the Render Setup editor.
Note: To add the Lights tab to a layer, drag and drop the Lights tab from the scene settings to your layer.

To disable a particular light or a subset of lights in a layer:

Parent topic: Render setup in Maya