Enable or disable lights in the Light Editor

You can disable a light so that it does not affect your scene. Toggle to enable or disable a light, or select the light and toggle its Enable attribute in the Property Editor.

Disabled lights appear with a diagonal line pattern in the Light Editor.

Disable a light group to simultaneously disable all of its member lights. See Create and group lights in the Light Editor.

Tip: You can also isolate a light.

If you have partitioned your scene into layers using the render setup system, you can disable lights for individual layers by creating an override on the Enable attribute. See Render setup in Maya or Create light overrides in your render layer.

Relationship between the Light Editor and the Attribute Editor

Opening the Light Editor creates a connection between the editor and the Visibility attribute on the light shape nodes in your scene. This connection enables you to control the visibility of lights using the Light Editor's Enable and Isolate attributes; however, the Visibility toggle in the Attribute Editor also becomes unavailable. To enable or disable your lights, use the Light Editor instead.

Note: If you right-click on the Visibility attribute and select Break Connection, the icon for the corresponding light appears with a red border in the Light Editor to indicate that you can no longer use this icon to control the light. You can continue to control the visibility of the light via the Attribute Editor; or, close and re-open the Light Editor to use it again.