Is having the layer of gameobject controlling so much functionality a design flaw?

IMO the layer assignment of a gameobject is used for too many purposes in Unity: camera culling, light culling, physics, light flares, reflection probes. It ends up becoming a huge hassle trying to manage and keep track of all these in a scene.

I'm wondering if in hindsight Unity wished they would have implemented this differently?

For example, having to assign a particular layer to a collider just so it doesn't block a light flare seems goofy to me.
Seems a collider having have a checkbox to "block light flares" would make more sense.

Does anyone else find it a a hassle to keep track of layers used in a scene?

 

According to the following forum post: Yes
https://forum.unity.com/threads/separate-physics-and-rendering-layers.505580/

 

Agreed 100% - very annoying, especially with the light culling limit of 4.

 

I would like if you could have multiple layers on a gameobject, then we could have more a cascading functionally like css classes

 

thats why i dont use layers

 

Don't have a problem but I am pretty experienced in Unity and my stuff is well designed with Unity's layer limitations (and they are limitations) in mind. So I don't think it's ever been a show stopper, it just forces you to clearly think about it, and can be quite annoying mid-dev

Ideally each system would have it's own bitmask and the reserved ones would be taken off the table - if we can't use them... why the heck can we see them?

You cray, Unity!

 

You cant write a complex game without them, collision, lights, etc,etc everything uses them.