Easiest way to light link

[gubar]

Hi,

Was hoping to get a little help please.

Suppose I have an object/asset which contains its own light, which I will only ever want to light that object (it should never affect any other object).

I could add an exclusion to every other object. Normally that's how I'd control light exclusions. But this case is different because only one object should ever be lit by this one light. Is there a more efficient way to control this exclusion? I would like to be able to use the asset containing the light in different shots and scenes and make the exclusion as easy as possible.

Thank you for any help,

g

[davpe]

Currently, the most straightforward, fastest and human error resistant method for this is to create a separate ROP for the light and objects you wish to be affected (and create a preset out of it if you need to use it repeatedly).

Alternatively, you can use Light linker. That's also really fast and easy, but drawback is it can't be shared between scenes, and if you bring in any new objects after you perform the light linking, it has to be reevaluated (which sucks). 

Light categories would be theoretically the best way, but right now, the implementation makes it useless (you have to manually add a Light selection parameter to every object in your scene to make it work).

Let's hope it will get better in the future versions. As far as I know, it's not updated in H16.